Finding the chase and cutting to it

I have rearranged my pre-planned publishing list to squeeze this in, because I think it’s pertinent to our time.

Which contradicts the subject of this post: procrastination.

There are all things we procrastinate about and research actually shows this isn’t necessarily a bad thing (unless you have a time limit on anything). Waiting to or delaying the start of a task gives your subconscious time to process things in the background and come up with better answers.

Over the past week, I have had a serious case on ennui about three things: sorting out my office, sorting out the next few years of my career, and the final pieces of decorating and gardening in our first phase owning our house.

The office problem.

Let’s be honest, when I’m working, I do not notice very much about my surroundings. I’m not inheriently a slob, honest, but my priority is the couple of screens I use to do the magic of my job.

August is when the general decay from the last big tidy has got to the point where serious action needs to be taken.

I even managed to find a lampshade and desk chair a few weeks ago that I thought my spur me on, but all I feel is more down about the state of the room rather than garning the task.

It’s slightly worse than that. Because I do video conferencing call, all the detritus has been put in bags and hidden from view.

I clean out the actual rubbish, and wash the dishes, but I need it tidy for a call on Wednesday. This is not one I want to do with a filter on the camera. Just at the moment though…

The career problem.

I have a great job but the big task I have been doing is coming to an end, just one little bit to finish and next week is the time to do that – I have a plan and it looks achievable and fun.

But after that, it’s back to the day job which isn’t really my kind of thing. It’s handle turning, which fills me with dread.

I am doing some things about this but like many, it feels like it’s falling flat. Maybe while I’m clearing my office, inspiration will hit on what to do next?

The final hurdle, or the last jobs in the house.

We all have these plans when we move into a house, and over the past 12 years, we have achieved them and more besides.

I love our home. It’s very much a joint venture, and it is a place I can chill or entertain or heal after a big or learn something new…

What “needs” doing?

1. Carpet in the spare room and a repaint.
2. Redoing main bathroom. We have a design in mind, and a scoped cost.
3. Kitchen – much more involved than the bathroom, let’s face it.
4. Garden, specifically the back garden. We have vague ideas but it is going to be a huge task.

On the list this year is the windows for the house. The windows originally fitted started falling apart 5 years ago, so we’ve been fixing issues and filling gaps. And saving. We have 26 windows, given a range of £500 to £5,000 is the range of prices for replacement windows in the UK (including fitting and taking away the old ones), you see why we wanted to have the cash before getting in some quotes.

Of course, like many in their homes, we had some ideas of what could make our nice house great and up to date. So that is being factored in too.

We’ve been able to go for triple glazing on the north side of the house, and the normal bedroom windows. Everything else is double glazed – important for the french doors in the kitchen and lounge.

It might mean we’re finally able to get that EPC A grade for the house.

You and your EPC!

Actually, we think this is really important. I don’t think it adds to the value of a house but if you have two lovely houses in a great area and one is has an EPC grade D and the other a B, choosing the B means you don’t have to do much to keep your costs down. For us, since we’ve made the investment, life becomes pretty cheap no matter the weather.

We last got the house assessed in 2022, which is a year examined in how do you get an a rated epc. Our house was one of 56,678 or 3.78% of the assessments that got a B.

Since then, alongside the planned windows, we’ve got a couple of batteries and, of course, our heat pump. We’ve finally got Cadent to check the removal of our meter and all is good as far as Ofgen are concerned.

We’re producing 18.8% of the CO₂ footprint the average home does in the UK in terms of energy usage. Because it’s a 244m² house, we’re unlikely to do much better than that, even with the new windows, but it should keep us current.

It’s all money 🙁

It is, but as someone who used to watch the House Doctor series, you should spend 1% of your home’s value on its up keep, excluding bills. A finger in the air makes ours about £9,000 per year! Our 26 windows at £2,000 a pop is £52,000(!) so we’ve saved that money over many years to incorporate some building work. It’s come in at much less than that, thankfully, even with the building work!

Same with the bathroom renovations and the kitchen, when we get round to it. Doing the windows should make those final two jobs much easier.

Fingers crossed.