Well, off topic slightly.
There *may* be some good news for me yet.
As some of you who’ve been following my tales of woe may be aware, we bought a house 3 years ago as a do-er up-per but have had a catalogue of personal disasters that mean we haven’t been able to afford to do very much on it at all.
Well - my OH has a 5 year loan that ends in 2 months time. We had a discussion last week about this, as we could then be £200 a month better off. BUT he could also take out a new loan for 5 years and do Phase 1 of the house renovation. I can’t get loans now cos of BC and also because I haven’t been working (I was doing temp work up til diagnosis)
Phase 1 means taking the roof off - removing old beams and replacing with metal hidden beams, insulating the roof, replacing the roof, putting in 3 velux skylight windows, creating an en suite in the attic bedroom and turning it into a beautiful adult bedroom with wenge flooring, white gloss furniture and it’ll be a haven of tranquility.
We’re just waiting to see if his loan application will be successful and we’ve had 3 quotes for the work (OH doing all internal work as he’s a joiner by trade)
It’s not a cheap job and will mean we’ll be paying out roughly the same every month as we were, so we won’t feel any worse off.
It was a tough decision - we’re living off £60 a week, so having an additional £50 a week would be fab. However we can’t really delay as one more winter will probably kill our roof, and to repair it isn’t much of a difference in price due to costs of scaffolding etc.
Also, theres the worry if this cancer returns in the next 5 years.
BUT - we decided to go ahead with it all if he gets the loan, as I said to him, we could err on the side of caution, but I dont want to live my life as if this cancer could come back at any time, I’m annoyed that it’s ruined as much as it has, but to totally stop us from doing anything until we’re “sure” would be even more depressing.
I’m really really excited at the thought of getting this major piece of work completed! It’s the start we need, the rest of the house can then be done as and when we have the money as the re-roof and renovation of the attic bedroom is the most expensive part, the rest of the house can be done in smaller stages and can be done with saving up realistically (once I’m working again).
We always said we’d start at the top and work our way down the house (4 floors)