Fix Up, Look Sharp

GeorgianaCavendish

One thing I was really happy with this month was sending a couple of our old paint-encrusted interior doors to be dipped and stripped. They came back last week and look fantastic!
We will do some more work to them (oiling or varnishing - I haven't decided yet) before they are hung, but they look SO good with 70+ years of paint removed and the lovely wood grain exposed. 

astrocytic_kitten

Georgiana! I’ve been on an extremely long MSE break but just popped back to see how you’re doing and you’re storming ahead! Well done on everything, hopefully it won’t be long till you’re in your lovely new home and can breathe a big sigh of relief. I’ve only ever done work one by one and found that really stressful, project managing a full reno is basically an extra job so well done! I’d feel the same trepidation about the loan too, but I’m sure you’ll be brilliant with it. 

GeorgianaCavendish

Its so nice to hear from you @astrocytic_kitten ! I hope that you are doing well? 

You are completely right, it IS like a full time job    I am looking forward to completing this project in the next couple of months!  

LadyWithAPlan

I am really liking how you track your extra income savings nsds in such an organised way so will borrow  that  

this house project sounds fabulous but full on! 

Are you renting elsewhere as I gather you not moving in til next year? 

 

EssexHebridean

Loving your plans and it really sounds like you are on the final stretch with the project now - I bet you can't wait to move in?! I'm honestly in awe of the amount you have done though - this sort of thing is SO much not for me, it just really impresses me that others are willing to take on this sort of work! 

GeorgianaCavendish

Hi @LadyWithAPlan - thank you for commenting! I like tracking my extra income and the NSDs, it helps me feel in control when the big picture gets a bit overwhelming! 

We are staying with family at the moment who have a granny annex, so it is much cheaper for us than renting privately. I'm really grateful to them because it means we have been able to achieve a lot more with the house. 

GeorgianaCavendish

You are so right @EssexHebridean - I am longing to move in so much that it is almost painful! We've made a lot of progress in the last couple of months and everything is really starting to come together now. Fingers crossed! 

GeorgianaCavendish

November Round-Up

Renovation Budget Pots

Professional Jobs : £6,692.66
Float Costs : £329.36

Extra Income

Prolific Academic - £21.42
TopCashBack - £11.89
Storewards - £10.00
Train Refunds - £15.00
Bank Switch Incentive - £150.00
M&S Vouchers - £11.00 (credit card rewards)
Bank Interest - £3.28



MSE Challenges 

Emergency Fund - £7625/£10000 (reset the goal)
Christmas 2023 - £800/£800 (that's a wrap for 2023!) 
Mortgage Overpayments 2023 - £867.10/£1000 *done for this year, will explain more later*
NSD 2023 - 214

NSD 
18/15 in November 
Target for December = 18 

GeorgianaCavendish

Another month done! We're getting closer to the end of the project which is fantastic, I'm trying not to feel stressed about the dwindling renovations pot - obviously it goes down as we pay the invoices for completed work, but it is on my mind. 

So the completed jobs : 

  Plastering is finished! The new plasterer was SO good, excellent work, really efficient and kept us posted all the time. I wish we had found him at the beginning of the project but at least we did get it all completed in the end! 

 The kitchen is fitted! It makes SUCH a difference having one room that is almost complete (still got some tiling and painting to do, and the floor needs to be fitted) 

Jobs that have nearly completed (worthy of a mini-celebration) : 

 Tiling is nearly done - the bathroom is finished and the kitchen will be finished this weekend. Although it was a giant PITA, I'm so glad that we extended the bathroom that tiny bit to make use of the old wasted space in the corridor that was taken up by cupboards. We were able to use the space to create a shower cubicle and now that it has been tiled it looks SO good - like an intentional feature instead of making the best of the odd layout. We also have a few full boxes of tiles that can be returned for a refund, always good to have a tiny bit of money flowing inwards! 

 The second fix on the electrics is in progress and should be finished up either this week or early next week. We have lights! That also makes a huge difference to the house instead of looking at everything by torchlight or site lamps. It is just the electrics in the kitchen to go and wiring in our range cooker. 

 The plumbers are back and working on the central heating system this week. When I was there a couple of days ago they had installed about a third of the radiators and I think they'll be commissioning the system on Monday. 

Other jobs happening this month : 

🪚  Carpenter is coming to fit skirting boards, door architraves and our doors

🪚 After-builders cleaners are coming in to get rid of the bulk of the mess 

🪚 DIY : clearing out under floors and putting in new insulation 

🪚 DIY : painting!  

January jobs : 

🛠️ Carpet fitting 

🛠️ Locks replaced and window hinges adjusted 

🛠️ Loft insulation 



The Great British Insulation Scheme is still dragging on - I had an update a few days ago that claims are taking a further 3-6 months to process. We worked out that we can do the loft insulation ourselves a bit cheaper than quoted (because our labour is free) so we are going to crack on with that and hope that the scheme will cover cavity wall insulation instead. If it doesn't cover it, we won't have lost anything apart from a bit of time in chasing them up. 

We've ticked off a couple more items on the fixtures and fittings list : I found another chest of drawers on ebay, and a great Black Friday deal on the microwave we wanted. Apart from the curtains and blinds, I think we are pretty well sorted for fixtures and fittings so I would anticipate that the main expense left is going to be on paint. 


My other job for this month is to re-do our budget for January onwards. We've got some short-term expenses on 0% credit cards and I want to make sure that these are paid off according to plan. I also want to make sure that we are in the best position when we are ready to remortgage (our fix ends in April 2027) and I think the best way forward is to overpay the personal loan so that is gone and then focus on mortgage overpayments to bring down the LTV as much as possible. 

Then we've got other expenses like thinking about a new (well, second hand) car as ours is 20 years old. We're going to rush out and buy one, but thinking about the budget and where the money will come from and what we will do if we need to replace ours asap.

GeorgianaCavendish

I realised I didn't explain about the mortgage overpayments above. After I played around with the repayment calculators, I decided that for now I'll stop overpaying the mortgage and overpay the personal loan instead. The payment at the end of November was the first going to the personal loan instead of the mortgage.

I think I've known deep down that I should be doing this for a number of months (seems obvious in retrospect as the personal loan is on 6.7% and the mortgage is on 2.49%) but I found it hard to make the emotional decision to stop overpaying the mortgage.
Running a number of different scenarios through the overpayment calculator gave me the cold hard figures that I needed to see that overpaying the loan is part of the bigger plan to overpay the mortgage. AND that even if I overpaid the mortgage as much as budgets would allow, I wouldn't get to a significantly different LTV bracket and I would have the disadvantage of the personal loan still hanging over me when it came time to remortgage. 

Its those kind of decisions hampered by emotions that ended up costing me before, but at least I've caught this after just a few months and not years!