Where did Autumn go? 

All of a sudden winter’s arrived. We’re resisting turning the heating on for as long as we can – oil is expensive and not covered by the Government’s energy price cap – it’s made us realise just how draughty and cold this house gets! The wood burner’s making a difference in the lounge at least, but we do really need to sort out our draughty external doors before we rent this house out. Turns out putting draught excluder on the back door is one of those jobs we never got round to in the summer… 

This week has been pretty quiet generally as we’ve had a lot of other things to focus on and haven’t had time for major jobs. Our architect has got our first ‘pre-commencement condition’ officially signed off – most of our planning approvals have come with conditions we need to satisfy with the council before we’re able to start. Most of them are sign-offs on the materials we plan to use – although this first one is confirmation from our ecologist that we’ve completed all required ecological mitigations (mainly bat roosts and bird houses).  

The second one relates to the commissioning of an archaeological survey for the site, which we need to complete before we start any build work. The purpose of this is to record any features of historical interest significance so that the council can come back after the build and make sure we haven’t removed anything. This feels way more complicated than it needs to be – instead of just going ahead and getting the survey done, we’ve had to get the scope of work documented by the archaeologist and then signed off by Historic England, before the council approve it and then the work can start. Talk about jumping through hoops! 

We have managed to fit in a lunchtime appointment with a third holiday cottage company, to get their view on our plans and see how much rental income they think we could get through them. The commission rates and conditions (namely how many available weeks we give them to rent) are fairly similar across the different companies, so it’s coming down to who can maximise income through dynamic pricing algorithms and what sort of market each brand attracts. Right now though, it’s been great to get new ideas about how to furnish the properties for a holiday let – although the inventory list and weekly cleaning plan has left us something to think about – these properties will be better equipped than our own house is at this rate!