DH has moved out

I'd make anyone who is thinking of getting renovations done read this thread, with particular attention to the mention of designers.

My kitchen is 2m x 2m and I had a quote of about £8K excluding appliances from a local design company (I'm nowhere near London) for a refit. I nearly went with this quote, then came across a local man with a van who cost about half that.

The 'consultants' were charging £5K for use of their services, before they bought any fittings or materials.

Are renovations the new Mumsnet chicken?
All the halo polishing about sleeping on a broken pallet with no windows before rebuilding a shack into a palace for comparative pennies.

You’ve BOTH been foolish @Passa - the first time your partner wobbled on the costs, you should have both hung back. But you BOTH went ahead. He is still an adult despite his toy throwing and head in the sand now, and did have control over what money he cashed out to pay for the over budget money.

You need to learn to communicate, compromise and be realistic. You’ve clearly been snowballed by designers who saw an easy mark but the first issue was buying a house at the top of your budget whilst also needing tens of thousands of refurbishing.

As to what happens now - you need to pull back any spend not committed. Get a valuation if selling is the only way forward. Look at renting it out if you are in negative equity. And take a very long look at how this man deals with issues you both have responsibility for. That won’t change.

If the money has already been spent, you need to increase YOUR income - work overtime, apply for promotions and higher paying jobs, so you are paying your share of the renovation costs.

Otherwise, pay someone like Wren to put in a budget kitchen, and get your furniture from Argos / Ikea. Roll up your sleeves and do some of the redecorating yourself.

I mean, I'm not going to, but the kitchen is from Howdens with an approved fitter (£9k plus £16k fitting with bathrooms/ceilings etc.), sourced all of the bathroom fittings myself online from various suppliers (£1.5k - we reused the old bath and showers), local tradesmen for decorators (£5k), electricians (£4k) etc. and sourcing and building furniture ourselves from Oak Furniture Land, IKEA, DUSK and Dunelm (£7k).

My builder BIL has just extended a 2-bed bungalow into a huge 5-bed, 4 bathroom house plus granny annexe, levelled half the garden and built a massive patio with swanky outdoor lighting and put an office in the garden, and the total cost to the customer was under £400k.

Admittedly, it isn't in London, but Tunbridge Wells, which is a pretty expensive area.

If you value your relationship I think you should make a plan for how to buy back those shares and get him back his savings.

If that means selling the house then so be it - and even if it takes 5-10 years and means you retraining so you can earn more, make the plan and show it to him.

I don't think he's blameless - but it does sound as though generally you have pushed until he gave in.

You sound very blasé about the money, which is probably the issue.

Oh it added up....

You budget, figure out what you can afford to do at once and stick to that. Hold off on some until you recoup. You sound like you just spent and spent with no regard and now your DH has had enough when it's resulted in him have to cash in investments which have since gone up in value and he feels he's lost out.

Like others have said, it feels like there is stuff you aren’t saying and your post is really unclear. At one point you say it’s ‘going to be’ 100k but in an update you said the money had been spent. Which is it? Has the money been spent or not?
If it has- OH needs to take some responsibility for agreeing to it and not saying that you didn’t need the new kitchen or the wardrobes or whatever right now. But from your post it’s difficult to see what your role was in this. He should not have called you names but have you nagged, pleaded or put a lot of pressure on him to agree to things? Or worse, have you spent money or run up debt without him agreeing?

If it hasn’t- then you can still pull this back, cancel jobs you have booked in, prioritise, don’t spend any more just now and concentrate on your marriage if you want to save it.

we budgeted £60k but it’s going to be closer to £100k+

I'd be looking at what the 40K overspend is on - is the money gone or can you claw some back?

If it was building works 10% - 6K would be a usual contingency and then some on top - but if it's just a new kitchen and decorating - it sounds like a huge overspend with little of lasting value to show for it.

That would have given me huge pause TBH.

I like to have DH and absolutely on the same page - he's always been the same despite being main wage earner since I had kids.

If you not completely sure about a huge cash outlay - then take the time to get sure - have as many conversations as you need to get sure ask as many questions as you need. As PP say people contanstly try and upsell or bounce you into expensive decisions.

This is not just a you issue - he should have screamed till you listened to what he was saying. Having said all this he need to calm down and you need to sit down and come up with a way forward together - either budgeting with what left and live there or doing it up and selling or selling at a loss.

well, that's a bit pointless since it's all done now!

But wait... fuck the house. What about your husband? Your marriage?

Do you love him? Do you want to live your whole life with him, like you planned? Does the thought of life without him break your heart?

Your post is all about the stupid house and it's irrelevant compared to the possibility of the complete breakdown of the relationship with the person that you made vows to. You talk about wardrobes and beds but not about what he's like, what you love about him, what you had planned for your future together.

So you emotionally manipulated and railroaded your husband into getting everything you wanted! Your posts are very YOU YOU YOU, You made him cash in his ISA's Share's and overspent your budget by 60%. You're financially irresponisble and with someone elses money/retirment fund. You sound very selfish, all you care about in this senario is the frigging house, your husband is stressed and in debt, What happens if he loses his job? You're both screwed with no way to pay for the house. Honestly some people baffle me with their stupidity. I'm definetly on your husbands side.

This post is spot on.....I really can't get my head around your op....no mention of children etc...do you work full time.....how long you have been married....as some others have mentioned....more worried about the house than your marriage...true fully it could be the end!!! You are both at fault really......sell up and live within you means...either together...with communication...or alone

How THE FUCK does it cost £100k to buy
A new kitchen
Wardrobes
Beds
Flooring
Paint?

Unless they were rebuilding your kitchen or you've replaced carpet with solid gold tiles, I'm utterly gobsmacked that you've spent so much.

And it's unlikely that you have recouped that much if you were to sell, in effect you're in negative equity.

I'd go mental if my dp agreed to spend that much on a kitchen, furniture, flooring and paint. I can understand why he's left tbh. You've got wildly different attitudes to money and spent WAAAAAAAAY beyond your means on unnecessary upgrades.

Your rather vague explanation of your DH's reaction and his feelings is very telling. As an outsider it very much seems that you manipulated him into his house purchase and also pushed for those excessive renovations. I am not surprised he is pissed off.

Gently op, you sound financially immature and gullible. The designers offered extras, it’s called upselling (similar to waiters offering you more wine in a restaurant). You were free to say yes or no. You were in charge of overseeing your budget. You should have calculated what the extras would do to your budget and calculated how an increase in expenditure would affect your monthly outgoings. Your clueslessness is on you not preparing and budgeting adequately. No one twisted your arm to buy new beds. If you can’t afford something you either skip it or look for a cheaper alternative. Given the work you got done I’m guessing you didn’t not choose cheaper options, because your budget is very high for what you got done. There was no need to have gone over budget.

Bed, wardrobe, paint, floor: you should save for this. NOT sell shares to fund this. These are not things that add value to a house, so all of that is lost money if you sell within a few years. They are also not necessities. They are wants. I get it that a house might need new paint but if you havn’t got the money, you wait and save till you can afford it. And then you prioritise in what order you will do those things and save up for them in turn.

what will happen now: one of you will have to buy out the other. If neither of you can afford that, it will have to be sold. The loss will be debt you’ll have to share and pay off in the coming time.

Do you miss him at all OP? You sound oddly emotionless.

Have you tried apologising? Suggested selling it and giving him back his funds?

But you didn’t need to. It might be you are totally incompatible with money and that’s a deal breaker for him.

We would have loved a new sofa for here when we moved as we had an extra lounge but I brought one off Facebook for £300 rather than the £10 K one we both liked. We would like a summer holiday abroad and had earmarked £15 K for it but there is work needed to do on the garden etc so we have decided to do that instead and plan 5 really nice family days out eg London instead.

It is want versus need versus priority and it is about discussing and agreeing together otherwise you aren’t a partnership.

Well then it was up to both of you to research this then surely?

Forget about “designers” for starters

It sounds like you've shown zero respect to your husband and what he wants, and more or less bullied him into spending money he didn't want to spend. That's why he's left. You can salvage this but only if you genuinely apologise

Counselling. Im guessing he feels bulldozed into the spending you wanted to do.
By the sound sof it you kept adding things etc. You both didn't have the funds for a full refurbishment but you went ahead anyway

Wow. Please share your trades and suppliers details. All that for £50k is miraculous.

£100k without any major structural changes is stupid. You could have done a load of the painting/flooring yourself and done it over time so you didn’t need to spend it all in one go!