Adding value before making over payments

Kittenkirst

I’m so impressed by your OP figures Michael- definitely inspiring

How is your Oscar?

MichaelDH

Kittenkirst wrote: »

I’m so impressed by your OP figures Michael- definitely inspiring

How is your Oscar?

Hey Kittenkirst

Thank you. The free money from survey sites really helps. Have slacked off a bit last few weeks as have both been so busy at work. Determined to get the mortgage below £160k before we remortgage!

Oscar is good. He's almost 9 months old now so starting to lose his puppy looks bless him,

How are the kittens doing? x

MichaelDH

Well after a fantastic start in September we have been really naughty this month and only made our standard OP of £331.92 :mad:

I've been really busy with new role at work (a little stressful at the moment) and Drew has been busy studying for prince2 qualifications, plus we've been chipping away at the house to do list and making plans for extension project, so we just haven't had time for surveys this month.

We've signed up to Weight Watchers this month. First weigh in was last Thursday, I lost 6lbs and Drew lost 3lbs, so we are very pleased with that. Hopefully WW will help wipe out the monthly bill for takeaways and popping to local Tesco for chocolate and biscuits!

Will be making standard OP in November and hopefully a few extra small payments from cashback and surveys etc.

Hope everyone is winning in the quest to be mortgage free!

newgirly

A standard op is way better than no op

Well done losing weight, I've been doing WW since may and I find it hard sometimes, motivation goes up and down quite drastically! Best of luck

Kittenkirst

Hi Michael, nice to see you on my diary. How’s life treating you?

Did you say you were contemplating a new puppy?

MichaelDH

Kittenkirst wrote: »

Hi Michael, nice to see you on my diary. How’s life treating you?

Did you say you were contemplating a new puppy?

Hey Kittenkirst

Life is good. Settling in to my new role at work finally, has been hard going at times, and house finally getting there too!

Yes we've decided to get another puppy, we must be mad!

Just about to post full update x

Kittenkirst

LOoking forward to seeing your updated figures MichaelDH!

You must tell us all about new pup too! How has Oscar taken to the new addition?

Our kittens are well, cats, now! Its their 1st birthdays this week and theyve grown so much. Hugo has grown into the hunting cheeky cat who gallivants off during the day, Oscar will happily snuggle up all day with me and sleeps on the bottom of the bed :heartpuls

MichaelDH

Hey Kittenkirst

Not sure where my update went... sure I posted a long rambling update as I usually do lol

Belated happy birthday to Oscar and Hugo!

The new puppy is a Cockapoo. He's only 5 weeks old so can't come home for a few weeks yet. We are super excited though!

We are taking Oscar with us for a week in North Devon, then will have a few days at home to settle before little brother arrives. Will have to find a way of posting some pics! x

MichaelDH

Sorry, i'm rubbish at this! Never seem to get the time to write an update!

We had some amazing news at the end of last week. I booked an appointment with a local estate agent to value the house and just give us some general advice about adding value by extending. She valued the house at £295k! Amazing considering we purchased the house for £188k back in August 2016. Mortgage is around £160k so that gives us around £135k equity and LTV of 54%.

The only slight negative to come out of the appointment is that she doesn't think it's worth carrying out all of our plans as they wouldn't be cost effective, so taking this on board we've ditched plans to extend on the back of the house by 3.5m and instead just rebuild the garage, extend the kitchen in to the back of the garage (just over doubling the size) and adding a utility and downstairs loo and using the rest of the garage for storage (garage runs the entire depth of the house) as well as re-configuring the existing bathroom and separate loo upstairs in to one room and replacing suite, tiling and flooring etc.

We spent most of the weekend looking at kitchens and bathrooms. Gosh they are expensive! Designed a kitchen in Wren and it came in at £24k including all appliances and fitting, or £20k if we use our own fitters, which they could do for £18.5k if we signed up there and then. Lots of shopping around to do. Should hear back from Magnet tomorrow too. Do you guys have any recommendations?

OUNN

Just delurking very quickly,

We've done very similar to yourselves in completely gutting, extending and renovating our house. It's a task, but an enjoyable and rewarding one (as you found with the equity and LTV gain).

Like you, I was really shocked at kitchen prices. We had a couple of the sheds come in and measure up and design things - even had Howdens quote via builder (They only send the quote to the builder, including builders discount, to allow the builder to mark it up).
All of them were crazy.

In the end we went with DIY Kitchens. I can't recommend them enough (they're also had in reasonable regard on the in home forum here too ) - the design and measuring process is up to you. So you need to be careful - but find a fitter, and they're wonderful Kitchens. The carcasses match the doors as well, which was a big plus for me, I hate coloured doors and then a white carcass behind it!

They manufacture for a number of other companies too. We weren't sure about them to start with, but after visiting them up north, ordered the next day!

Compare the prices, you'll be amazed. And it's very MSE :beer:

We've just bought ourselves another basket case of a property, and I'm already looking forward to the kitchen part again

(I can recommend creating a basket, and leaving it for a couple of days. You sometimes get a 10% off email from them to compete the purchase):p

*A quick edit. We didn't buy our worktop from them, or all of the appliances. (Worktop was worktop express for walnut, appliances are various).

/Relurking