The house and garden I was about to renovate may have been very modestly sized but my list of tasks wasn’t. There was a roof and guttering to repair, windows to replace, an electrical system and a heating system to upgrade, a kitchen and bathroom to replace and then the whole property to decorate and furnish.

For someone who has never worked in construction or in any trade to do with home maintenance, my dilemma revolved around the order in which this list of works should be tackled. To someone more experienced – or trained – than I was, the answer would have been glaringly obvious. The answer was not obvious to me, however, and it proved to be a source of anxiety.

I began writing – and re-writing – lists of what I thought the order of works should be but then something stirred in my memory from the episode of my disastrous Victorian house ‘renovation’. I’d made the mistake of running ahead and getting work done only to find weeks down the line that some completed works needed to be dismantled to allow other tasks to be carried out. Of course, asking for advice is a sensible thing to do, but the additional trap I’d fallen into with my Victorian house saga was to accept the advice of the first person I asked without seeking second (or third!) opinions.

The issues of costs and funding were adding pressure to my decision-making process. To delay commencing renovation works would be an expensive exercise. An empty house incurs regular and unavoidable bills. It seemed clear that the earlier I could move into the house and relinquish my existing home, the cheaper the exercise would be.

However, I remembered just how costly it can be to take the wrong course of action. I sat down and recalculated my budget sheet and factored in a way of taking a little more time. Paying out more for running costs in the short term would protect me from making rushed decisions and reduce the likelihood of making mistakes which could cost me dearly in the longer term.

I took a new sheet of paper and instead of writing a list of the order of works, I carried out research and wrote a list of local tradespeople to consult. I would need a professional and experienced person to advise me about the order in which the renovation should progress. I would listen to the ideas of several people and then consider their suggestions before making any firm decisions.

A Proverb recorded many centuries ago advises: “By consultation, plans will succeed” Those words are as true today as they were when they were first written down. I realised that a calmly paced, thorough consultation process with several contractors and tradespeople had to take place before any firm decisions could be made.

A.P. 1 March 2021

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