Are you sitting down….. The kitchen’s in, both bathrooms plumbed, the electrics are complete – and I have central heating! I’m really pleased with everything so far, the bathrooms look great and the kitchen really works well – though the builders thought my ‘fairy lights’ in the kitchen plinths were hilarious. I keep trying to explain that details like this sell houses but they’re only comment was something along the lines of ‘at least if I drop my sandwich on the floor, I can turn on these fairy lights and find it’. Luckily things are more or less finished inside from the builder’s perspective, with the team now working outside (and away from me) trying to organise the crazy slopes into a useable garden. This all means that the front door is almost impossible to get to for everyone who isn’t a mountain goat – we should have steps in place soon though – sorry postman!

Just painting, flooring and furnishing left to do inside. I’ve also organised a local firm to change the front door unit, fix a couple of windows and change the green cladding on the outside of the house. All being well I should have the house on the market by the beginning of September.

This month I’ve discovered that my enthusiasm for painting does have limits. Each wall and ceiling has needed filling, rubbing down and then 3 coats of white emulsion before I can begin to think about colours. I’m about two thirds of the way through the house now and am getting through about 15 litres of white paint a week.

People keep asking me if I am worried about the recent change in the housing market. Yes and no. Yes, because anyone looking to sell a house in the immediate future (as I am in Swansea) will no doubt find that they will have to wait longer and accept a lower offer for a sale. However, I’m also using this opportunity to create what I hope will be a healthy, diverse business by continuing with the rental properties which provide the ‘bread and butter’ money for the business, obtaining planning permissions to improve another property, and also by expanding my skills to give me an additional income and lower my renovation costs. I am doing a tiling course in September and hope to also get on to a plastering course by the end of the year.

Only time can tell whether I’ve picked a really bad time to turn this into a full-time business, or whether conditions like this will give the company firm foundations. I’m going to do my best to make sure it’s the latter!