We’ve decided that we must be a lot more proactive with regards to the building work. We’ve actually never spoken direct to the builder to confirm the quote or discuss plans, instead we’ve passed on the very occasional message via his daughter – which has failed really to show out commitment. We’ve also only got quotes for part of the work – and we do need to get things like the guttering sorted at the back because we’ll flood again next time it rains hard.
There are lots of things we need to sort out before they do start – for instance what tiles we want, what sort of bathroom suite etc. Some of these are quite important – we’d feel a bit daft if they took our old bathroom suite out and we hadn’t sorted out a new one yet!!
So, we’ve decided to pull our finger out and get a plan in place! The builder has said he’ll start in October – however what we’ll do now is write a note confirming this and get a sequence of work, so we know what we need to prioritize. This means that we can plan – it also shows him that we are committed. We also need to liase with the carpenter who again, we’ve not actually spoken to for months now – hope he’s still got our windows somewhere!!
We’ll also get quotes for the work that we haven’t quotes for and get someone in, we’ll probably try to get another builder in to do this so we’ll have a fall back if things don’t go to plan with builder no1. I’d like to get the back wall done, for instance as the field is currently full of dried hay and we are very vulnerable to fire with no barrier between us and the field. I’d also like to get a quote for the painting of the house. It really needs to be done once a year and we’re getting close to three years now.
And lastly we will draw up a list of all the things we need to get – from tiles, to bathroom suites to electrical fittings. That might all come as a bit of a shock – but we really need to start getting things ordered
We’ve been a bit airy fairy up until now – we just need to ensure that our current state of thinking-about-being-proactive lasts!!