Tabby wrote:
The other first job is surely planning. If you can take the time to
work the plan out not just quickly, but after a fair bit of thought,
you can end up with a rather better result. Especially is this true in
the area of space, often some patch of space can be repurposed for a
significant improvement.

The other thing is to use this time for is budgeting. No point spending
lots of money on insulation if you run out of cash for the heating and have
to use electric fires until you can save up enough to have it done properly.
Worth including a certain percentage for contingency: things will go wrong
and cost more than you expected (see countless Grand Designs etc programmes
passim)..

Theo