VERY SORRY
During this period of time, very few Lowrey articles were written !
HERE’S WHY
Now I am not trying to excuse myself in any way, but just give the members a reason why there has been a massive gap in the articles for this period of 2 years
Having a full-time business to run and a major change of my domestic circumstances grossly reduced the amount of time I could spend on this website. . . . . . . Let me explain further
My apologies
Firstly, I would like to apologise to all the paid members of this website at that time, as I was not available to add to the content on a regular basis. And to all those that continued to support the site throughout this time, THANK YOU !
Change of personal circumstances
Back in 2016, myself and my wife had decided to allow my mother to come and live with us in our home. She was quite happy to do this, sharing all the facilities, but it soon became quite apparent that inviting your mother to live with you would mean giving up a lot of freedom and the fact that two women sharing a marital home were not working quite as expected.
The agreement
We all agreed that my mother would be better to have her own space (this was currently our living room) to do what she wanted, and we converted it into a fully contained large room and just shared the facilities, such as the toilet and bathroom, instead of just having a bedroom upstairs. It was also becoming apparent that she was becoming more and more immobile, so we took on the responsibility of doing a weekly food shop as well.
My wife would continue to do all the domestic stuff as before: washing clothes and cooking the main meal of the day, with my mother having her own basic facilities such as a kettle and a fridge for snacks, breakfast, and teas.
No space to swing a cat
This left both myself and my wife with the dilemma of not having a living room anymore and, more importantly, where the hell was I going to put the newly acquired Lowrey Stardust, not a small item as you all can appreciate.
The solution
Well, obviously, we had to have a plan B before we entered into moving my mother downstairs and losing the largest room in the house. For my American friends, the houses here in the UK where I live are not large or have many rooms at our disposal, so a solution needed to be agreed upon before moving anything.
An extension to the house was going to need to be built. We had a good idea of what was needed and thought we would extend the house out by 3 metres all the way across the back. Not 2 stories, just the ground floor.
Bring in the builders
Good plans were prepared, and quotes from local builders were obtained. Now the building trade at that time was saturated, and finding someone to actually do the work at a reasonable price within a reasonable time frame was becoming a nightmare. We had quotes ranging from £85,000 up to £180,000 This blew me away, as I only had a disposable cash budget of up to £60,000. Also, these quotes were not for a fully finished and decorated extension… Oh no, this was basically just for the shell and roofing; all windows and interior plasterboard/plastering of walls and ceiling, electrics, flooring, etc. would be a cost on top of the quote received.
This left us with a serious amount of money short to complete the project. and not wanting to obtain a loan for many years, some serious decisions needed to be made.
Age is just a number
I was now 60 years old at this time in the dilemma, with 6 years to go before I will officially retire from work and get a state pension, and all this right at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The biggest decision of my life had to be made: would it be possible to do all the building work myself? And how much would it all cost? With all the covid-19 restrictions, would I even be able to complete it ?
Building experience
I must say at this stage I am not a builder; I have no building experience whatsoever and have never laid a single brick, constructed any roofing woodwork such as the rafters, etc., or done tiling of the roof, any electrical work, or internal construction such as flooring, wall boarding, and fully plastering—all of which needed to be done.
I’m a Total Building Trade Newbie !!!
