Hey friends,

Welcome to Newsletter No. 10! Thank you for reading these past ten weeks. It's been great to hear how much some of you enjoy my ramblings or 'slice of life' as one of you put it and I'm really enjoying writing it.

One of the motivations for starting it was that I felt like I come across as rather a bore on my videos so it's been great to open up and talk about different topics besides DIY. I like the format as well because while I feel a video or blog post ought to be well thought out with a defined conclusion, an email suits this jumping between ideas and topics.

If it's the weirdest thing you get in your inbox each week then I see that as a victory. For all the talk in business of not trying to reinventing the wheel I do like to try new and different things. Of course, there's nothing here that's ground breaking but as they say there are no new messages, only new messengers. One thing's for sure though, you've definitely come to know me better from these emails, which is nice, and in turn, I get to see what things light you up.

Of the 1,850-ish initially on the list, 142 have unsubscribed (not too bad I thought) and there's been 42 new signups either from you guys sharing it (thank you) or from the website where I've added it as menu item under 'My Thoughts' - yeh, I never did come up with a good name. Open rate is running at around 61% so I'm probably filling up a few hundred people's spam folder.

So on those figures and the encouraging replies you guys send, I'll carry on. I'm still not ready to commit to weekly but that's my aim for the moment. The danger of committing 100% is either it gets boring as I run out of things to say or I resort to saying more outlandish things to keep it interesting so I'd rather avoid both those things and skip a week or two instead. The writing style has probably already suffered a bit though. The first few I put out were better written, punchier with a bit more wit, but that takes more time.

You're also probably starting to see how all the different topics and things I think about connect together which means I can weave more things together in future without having to explain each part first.

As for what I get out of it, mostly it's a mixture of connecting with my fellow man (and woman) and a therapeutic exercise of getting what's in my head out on paper. On top of that there's the odd affiliate link here and there and perhaps you might be more likely to watch a video I release if you know the background to it...

🤔 Floor-Plans & Stoicism

🎥 Oh look, a video! (see what I did there? 😉)

This was the first project in the studio/office. It's a simple re-vamp of my old school days desk and I break out the soldering iron to wire up the XLR cable. I also speak to camera which I certainly need a lot more practice with; I prefer writing!

This seems like a good time to talk about my new plans for the house. If you recall, my plan was to do the rear extension and then add a boot room (red arrow) and possibly use the side return (green arrow) to enter the house.

Here's my new plan. The rear extension stays the same but what has become apparent is the entrance to the house is too narrow and I imagine trying to get kid out the house in the morning will become rather trying. The side return is also too narrow for this.

So now I think we'll turn the current kitchen into the entrance hall with seating and storage for boots and coats either side. This will also move the front door to the middle of the house and make it look better proportioned.

The existing hall could then be incorporated into what is now the garage which I think could become a second living room/play room/teenage hangout/gym type room. It's a massive job and at least as big a project as the rear extension but I think it will be worth it.

A slightly different and easier option would be to replace the garage door with two that open outward and have a storage area at the front for car stuff, electric vehicle charger, a few gardening tools for the front etc and then have a stud wall inside of that. The side wall faces south so we probably don't need a window at the front:

The upstairs side extension will likely be the last one we do. Whether it's DIY-able I'm not sure. Perhaps the skills gained from the first two major projects will give me enough confidence, we'll see. It's definitely a 10 year project this house.

All in all I think this will make a great family home but is it the forever home? To answer that I first need to introduce a new topic...

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Stoicism is something I'm keen to learn more about. I have Derren Brown's audiobook Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine to listen to first before I can say anything conclusive but I first came across him in the area of stoicism in this video (1:48) where he said:

"An interesting thought experiment…is imagine that you woke up one day and everybody had disappeared from the world. So there were still buildings and cars and everything, but everyone had gone, there were no people, it’s just you. What changes in terms of the sort of things that you’d acquire for yourself? You wouldn’t bother having a great big house - bear in mind you could live in any house, you could just go and walk in and live wherever you like - you’d probably find somewhere that was just comfortable and practical. You obviously wouldn’t bother with fancy clothes, you wouldn’t bother with so many things…and when you really follow that thought through, it’s amazing how much we acquire and want only to impress other people, even if we don’t feel we're that sort of person…"

I don't feel I'm that sort of person but maybe I am, let's see. If I was the last person left on earth and say I chose to stay in our house because of familiarity or something, would I continue to refurb it? Honestly, I'm not sure I would, even with the added bonus of being able to walk into Homebase and grab supplies for nothing. Perhaps I'm doing it for Abi or my family but more likely I'm doing it to somehow impress others.

Oh no, I'm a terrible person! Or probably just normal. Perhaps being aware of it makes it a little less bad but now I sound like this lady:

The point Derren Brown makes in the video is to shift our desires to want the things we already have. I'll listen to the book and if it's interesting, do a book review here.

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Anyyyyway, now I've explained that I can make the point I wanted to make in the first place:

I think these floor-plans, together with the upstairs extension, will make a very good home. A good floor-plan with good use of space is often better than a larger house with a poor layout. However, we could theoretically move in future and go for a detached house with more land, larger rooms, maybe a pool. I'd like these things but I doubt my happiness level would increase at all, in accordance with stoicism. We humans often confuse wants and happiness together and think when I have X (job, promotion, gadget, larger house, girlfriend, a million pounds) then I'll be happy but that's largely not true once our basic needs are met.

I doubt we'll ever be able to afford to get a big detached house in this area but let's play it out for fun: If we sold our house (once it's done up), to get these things in a substantial home upgrade we'd likely need to spend another £500k (no doubt this gets nods from anyone in the SE or London, and a shocked face from elsewhere).

If we kept our 30 year original mortgage term that we're 2 years into, moved in 10 years' time, the overall cost of borrowing another £500k at an interest rate of 1.5% over the remaining 18 years would be £570k or £2,643 a month. If instead we invested that monthly amount and got a 5% inflation-adjusted return we'd have £916k. A 4% drawdown on that would be £37k a year.

Sooo if we could afford to upgrade but instead stayed in this house, we could spend that £37k on retiring earlier and/or spending half the year in a rented villa in Spain or wherever, both of which I think would make us happier and more fulfilled. For the latter we'd only be spending half the year in the current less nice (but perfectly good, great in-fact) house so that seems like a double win.

So yeh, that's how I'm thinking about things currently. In this country we can be a bit obsessed about having the best and biggest house we can afford (afford is a loose term here because with housing it usually means maxing out the amount we can borrow) but factor in some stoicism to learn to want the house we already have (or less house in the first instance) and discard trying to impress others and then stack on an understanding of investing and drawdowns, we can make wiser choices.

I'm being a bit hypocritical here because I do enjoy having a nice house and prize it over other things but knowing at what point your happiness level ceases to increase is worth some introspection.

I suppose there are other reasons we might move though such as to be closer to schools, Abi's future job, or because I get bored and want more DIY to do. We'll have to see about that but yeh, I don't see a reason to go bigger, this can be the forever home.

Why I think it's important to think about this stuff now is because it affects the the type of DIY I do. Pulling up the floorboards of the studio/office has been a right pain and I certainly wouldn't do it if I knew we would move in a few years.

This was a good example of weaving past topics together :)

👋

Right, I've just come in from a long day of stump grinding (sounds rude), so updates on that and other adventures next week.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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