However, which means there are often a few surprises lurking beneath floors or in partitions – and these surprises might have an effect on your finances. Your builder should honour any snagging points and return to rectify them after the house has settled for a quantity of weeks or months at no additional price. Once your property is stripped back and ready to be remodelled or any extension built, your builder or contractor will move on to what’s generally recognized as first repair jobs. Secondly, your budget will be affected by any issues you encounter in the course of the renovation – all houses can have gremlins and surprises lurking, so you need to at all times anticipate your price range to be tested irrespective of how ready you are. As part of the planning phase, you must think about work you want to do yourself and what you’ll outsource to contractors and professionals.

Recessed lighting is the best invention in the history of humankind, and if I could, I would burn each current lamp on earth in an enormous pyre. I WON. And now I am a type of smarmy middle-aged dipshits sitting comfortably in my newer, roomier home, …