Tomorrow, the 21st May, is the 2 year anniversary of completion on the selling of my previous house & buying of the 1930's dump that I have renovated & extended over the period. It all took a lot longer & cost a lot more than it should have done. A combination of Brexit, Covid & the Ukraine war caused huge supply chain issues. I also felt my builder could have been a lot better organised & had a much closer eye on the ball. (But he is a really nice man & that's worth a lot in the building trade). The UK building trade doesn't have a very good reputation in comparison with Germany & Scandinavia for example. Eastern European trades are far better trained & valued & have an amazing work ethic.
I was lucky & had a good rental. But the cost of storage & rent was huge, so I moved into my house while the builders were still working in March 2022. It was all a bit of a nightmare looking back. I have always wanted to build my own house. This was the closest I am likely to come to doing it.
The first house my husband & I bought had had a sucession of army tenants & was also in a fairly dreadful state, but not as bad as this. I actually physically did quite a bit of the work on that. The third house we owned had to be completely reconfigured inside & we built a very big extension on that too, while still living there. I tiled a whole bathroom in that. That went well over time too, but fortunately the price was fixed. The next house we owned had a massive water escape from the loft while we were on holiday abroad & two thirds of the house with everything in it was destroyed. We managed to live in one third of the house though. It took months to even dry out before building could begin. Then the Insurers builders did a really bad job of renovation & it all had to be done again. So it took a year in all & cost a fortune. Fortunately not my fortune!
I have always been able to think 3 dimensionally & see the potential in houses. So when I came to do this project on my own I knew what I was doing & what it might be like. However it was worse than anticipated. I seemed to be continually fire fighting & problem solving. I'm reasonably good at research, sourcing fixtures & fittings etc & organisation. But I didn't anticipate having to be as hands on in the actual building process & virtually project manage. It's not part of my skill set.
I'm glad I did it & I love my house. I am quite proud of what I have achieved. It isn't something I would want to repeat though. Looking back it definitely took it's toll on me physically & emotionally. I doubt that I could repeat the process now. But who knows?
We don't know what we are capable of until we do it.
You should be very proud of all that you have achieved in this latest project as well as in the past. You are highly talented and organised and resourceful xxx
ReplyDelete