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Brick slips. Wish I'd never seen the bloody things. They cost us thousands and thousands extra over render and I think the render would have looked better. Touch and go on some of the external blinds. They were quite expensive, and annoyingly they don't actually act that well to block out light due to various holes and gaps. They work brilliantly on our western elevation though, and actually make the house look better in my opinion (we don't bring them all the way up, just feather them open when they aren't being used to block the sun). I believe we overspent on the MVHR. We went for a Passivhaus Certified Brink unit. I suspect I could easily have saved £2-3k on a cheaper unit and ducting and had as good a result. I wish we'd spent the money installing something for sparkling water. My wife and I both love it, and always said we'd find a way to have it on tap in the new place, but between one thing and another it ended up looking like an extravagance that would require yet another tap (didn't find any all-in-ones we liked, so we have an ordinary mixer tap and a separate boiling water tap). Hard to justify the cost anyway when Sainsburys does 2L bottles for 13p, but I hate throwing out PET bottles so we end up doing without. We had my mother in law, a friend of ours and the kitchen supplier saying that once we had a steam oven we'd never be without it. I think we've used it less than once a month! We chose a shade of carpet for our snug/TV room which frankly looks ridiculous. We both hate it. Should have just concreted throughout and used a rug in there. Re: ice, I just keep three or four trays full in the freezer. If I know we have a big do coming up, I freeze some huge tupperware containers full of water a few days beforehand then smash it up the night we need it. I'm sure other things will come to mind... I have so many regrets it isn't even funny!

I could fill pages I suspect - but here are some highlights : gshp attached to boreholes. Yes its effecient - yes it can help with passive cooling - yes it also gives us our own spring water. But the whole setup was too expensive. some contractors that we paid a premium price so we could be sure of a good job - who turned out to be rubbish high end mhrv system - cheaper one would have been fine lime render system? A bit on the edge with that one - it works quite well and looks nice - but it took ages to put up and was expensive nhbc solo warranty - total hassle a load of expensive in-floor lighting that we tortured ourselves over but hardly ever use - however if doing it again I would redirect that money to other lighting rather than save it I think In fact - thinking about it there are more things that I wish I'd spent more on than less. However if I had - they would probably have ended up on the list above :). - reddal

Marriage license.....

If I need ice in quantity these days it comes from Aldi at £1 for 2kg. I haven't tried to calculate the cost of icemaking bags or the specific latent heat of freezing I am saving. One bag lasts a couple of months and the payback period for a Yankee fridge would be more than my lifetime. My ice hammer for construction cocktails is a rubber mallet. Ferdinand

Southern Sheeting Supplies in Sussex, and they discounted their online prices so worth enquiring.

Got a kiln? ;-)

It's diy possible if you are mad in the head. My whole house was £200. Took the two guys half a day and they cleaned up after themselves. Dead sore on the wrist and back and unless you have a really good mask you will be eating dust for two weeks. Mine was priced per meter. After I had it all spray painted all the positions my spark sent the guy round he measured up told me the price and I said sold. All done a few hrs later.

I found that it is very difficult to find a mosquito net for outward opening windows that remains in place also when the window is closed. Is there such a thing?

use an old sofa cushion under the ladder. £240 for a1.6m ladder it might be useful for actually tiling the roof but i don't think i would use it for repairs

Sorry to say but you have not yet learned to "work" the system regarding the electrics. You have sub standard, old, meter tails there, almost certainly cotton covered rubber. You are responsible for the tails on your side of the meter, the supply co are responsible for the tails between the fuse and the meter. And for their £200 they could not even be bothered to change them. What most electricians would have done is pulled the main fuse which just happened not to be sealed * changed the consumer unit. Fitted new tails between the meter and the consumer unit. Then phoned the electricity company to report a dangerous condition (the sub standard meter tails between the fuse and the meter). The electricity co would attend, replace the tails and re seal everything. Job done for £0 cost. *Amelie the seal fairy will visit the night before if you ask her nicely.

Here's another slant to this often talked about "forgot to put in a cable for......" Yes I will try to remember all the cables I need, but you also need to think about technology changing and a need for something new. So I am building my house in such a way that it should be possible to add new cables from just about anywhere to anywhere in the future. How am I achieving that? Well for a start there is a service void all around the house, so dropping cables down that should be possible. To enable that, when I fit the floor upstairs (chipboard and carpet) I will leave a small strip all around the perimiter of each room that is only screwed down. So to gain access fold back the carpet, unscrew an access strip, and you can drop a cable down into any segment of the service void (spare holes having been left at the top of each segment of service void). That coupled with posi joists throughout, should mean I can add new cables from anywhere to anywhere.