How hard is it to live in s house and do it up ?

[Blessingsdragon1]

Nothing major structure wise but new kitchen bathrooms total redecoration - it looks a bargain but I have 3 teens and am wondering if it's too stressful ?

I should say we were very very lucky with our trades. Reliable and finished pretty much on time. Expensive though, I think you get what you pay for. Go via recommendations if you can and ask to see their work. A good builder won’t be available straight away.

And I spent so so much time planning and sourcing everything, the more time you put into planning exactly what you want and how it will work the smoother it will go.

And don’t forget to get everything approved and signed off by the council, I know several people who have been screwed by shit trades and are having to fork out again to get it done properly or it won’t get signed off.

I'll tell you in a few months. We're just about to embark on a remodel of our entire upstairs barr one room. 1 teenager and 3 primary ages DC.

We did it with 3 kids. Knocking down walls, putting in an en-suite, new windows and roof.
It was tough- we were weeing in buckets at one point! and all our work clothes and uniforms were covered in dust! I used to get a colleague to brush me down when i got to work each day!
We all survived and now have a giggle about it when we think of it. DO IT!

We did it recently. We just lived upstairs for 6 weeks, just brought up microwave and kettle . It was stressful but so worth it and we could afford to rent. We went to our local supermarket a good few mornings a week for 'breakfast'! We'd buy micro meals like large lasagnes etc and then used family's kitchens sometimes to cook dinners. We had to wash dishes in the bath! It was stressful and there was many tears from me through out it but we got through it and now have a lovely extension and kitchen

Project house here. Been slow going but we moved in with a 5 year old, 3 year old and a newborn then had our 4th 3 years later. I can barely remember parts of it. Has been very hard work though. And at times it's reduced me to tears. But I have a feeling it will be worth it. Overall, I would say do it.

Did it pre-children a decade ago. Awful experience, said never, ever, again.

Well here I am ten years later with builders tramping through. This time has been far less painful despite having two small children because we have forked out for an excellent builder who was highly recommended by a number of local friends, and who we had to wait for. Totally worth every penny. Low hassle, low stress, even relatively low dust because the builder is obsessive about tidiness from all his tradespeople.

It also helps that this is a large house so we can decamp to different areas as the builders work their way round.

Even the highly strung cat is relaxed about things this time around.

Fucking stressful. We spent 10 years doing up our old place.

If it’s an old house you can guarantee that nothing will straightforward. Move something, start drilling, remove some wallpaper and oh crikey more problems are uncovered. You’ll always have to budget 5% at least contingency for every job.

Unless you have the cash to pay people to do everything really quickly then prepare yourself for years of dust, direct, despair at constantly looking at things that “need doing” so you cannot relax. If you’re doing it yourself, and if you’re working then you basically get no respite from work.

But, if you do manage to get everything done you’ll feel really proud and never want to leave.

I had to leave when everything was finally nice. It still pains me!

1 problem or room at a time for us, we bought it as a 10 year project and we are now starting year 4

I know a lovely electrician and plumber and family are handy with DIY

Biggest thing for me was reducing clutter - getting one room done with all the storage it needs so everything has a place mean that the rest of the house looked instantly better (I also have an unused porch and a large shed which holds all DIY stuff out of the way)

We did the DCs rooms first as it gave them space and got rid of their stuff from communal areas - our bedroom will be last but I have heard others say do your room first so you have somewhere nice to retreat to

I have three carpet samples in the spare bedroom, a pot of sample paint in the kitchen. Am dithering over doing the hall stairs and landing in our new house. That is how traumatised I am over our six months of builder hell. We did go on to have plaster hacked off many rooms and dry lining, new floors, doing one room at a time seemed a doddle by comparison. Twenty years on I get palpitations thinking about simple decorating.