What have you ‘done’ to your house since you moved in?

[Theoldwoman]

DH thinks in the 15 years we have lived here, we haven’t done much. He works away so it’s me who organises tradies etc, we have an unwell DC who is in and out of hospital. And well life just gets in the way sometimes. Not to mention the cost of everything!

So far we have:

Completely renovated bathroom and laundry
completely painted throughout
New roof
Roller shutters on all windows
Added 3 security doors
Divided large lounge room into lounge room and study
Added 3 new built in robes to bedrooms
Add air conditioning in 3 bedrooms and replaced the one in the lounge room
Added ceiling fans throughout
Built an amazing garden and chicken coop
Added shelving to front cupboard

Thats all the main stuff. We still have heaps to do ( mainly renovation to the kitchen and new flooring throughout except bathroom and laundry)

im happy with what we have done so far. There’s always something to do!

Oh yes new front door - that was the first thing we did.

Oh and built in wardrobe and alcove shelving!

18 years

Replaced shower in En suite
Retiled bathroom and fitted shower
Replaced downstairs toilet and sink and wet walled the walls
Knocked through kitchen / diner and extended out into garden and replaced kitchen
Converted garage to playroom
Extended porch
Large new patio
Installed large shed
Flooring everywhere
Decorated a few times in living room / bedrooms (not ours)
Fitted wardrobes in one room

2 year here in April.

• rewired
• replastered & decorated the upstairs bedrooms
• made kitchen & dining room open plan

We need new windows so getting quotes for them in the next few weeks (dreading it) and we’re getting a new boiler fitted shortly under a grant from the Scottish government. We had some savings and I got an inheritance, the bulk of which went on the kitchen/dining room.

We're in our house nearly 20 years. For the first 14 we did nothing but some painting and a half-ass finishing of the basement. Then we did a complete renovation in one go.

New kitchen with extension
Removed second staircase and created downstairs loo and walk in pantry
Completely renovated two bathrooms
Put in third floor bathroom
Put in AC and took out radiators
Put in bookshelves in bedroom and second sitting room
New deck and patio and planted garden
Re-sided the shingles
Replaced the roof
Painted everywhere
Refinished the wood floors
New fire in sitting room - complete disaster so redoing that at the moment
New windows everywhere and custom fitted blinds
New closet systems in every room including new big fab downstairs coat closet
New bathroom in basement, new laundry room, tiled the basement properly

Haven't done anything much since then (except the fire we are doing now) I love my house

22 years.

New kitchen
Rendering repaired and exterior painted
Facias and soffits repaired, rotten roof joists repaired
New bathroom
New windows
New front door
New patio doors (the latter three all at different times)
New boiler
Hot water tank replaced
Two open fireplaces replaced by woodburner and gas fire
New patio

In our old house where we lived for almost 15 years, we fitted new kitchen and bathroom, got central heating and double glazing fitted, decorated each room at least once. Oh, and also had three kids!

So I think you've done lots.

30 years
2 new bathrooms
2 new kitchens
loft conversion
side return extension
double glazing
umpteen decorations
2 recarpettings
miscellaneous electricals

Been here 1.5 years:

• new bathroom
• new floors all upstairs
• Ripped up stairs carpet and painted them
• replaced all internal doors
• replaced all external fences
• replaced downstairs toilet and basin
• decorated throughout

The only room we haven’t touched is the kitchen which is awful but we have run out of money for now 😂

We e been in this one 15 years

New carpets throughout
Took a chimney breast out so we could fit Dts in the bedroom
Redecorated kids twice
Converted playroom
Redecorated our room
Quite a lot of garden work
Repainted hall / landing
Redid living room about five years ago

Now desperately need to do kitchen and bathroom

Oh and reroofed, trying to erase that part!

In 5 years we have knocked down the back of the house and built a kitchen extension, added solar power/home battery/car charger, changed the boiler, built a cupboard in the void over the stairs, put down a real wood floor downstairs, re-carpeted stairs, built a shed, put proper lift ladders in and painted the kid's bedrooms. We still need to redecorate some rooms/ fix-up the en-suite/ make the garden nice/deal with the driveway - possibly change the windows but that is at the back of the list.

2 years:

New flooring in living room.
Stripped wallpaper from 7 rooms and repainted walls.
New patio doors.
New patio in the garden to replace the manky decking.
New front door.
New back door.
New driveway (widened so can park two cars side by side.)
New boiler and two new radiators.
New fireplace in living room.

Think that's it and we want a bit of a break now but the bathrooms and kitchen need doing (but are functional so leaving it for now.) We did buy a doer upper but even so there's a constant list of stuff that needs doing!

Lived here 2.5 years.
plastered walls and ceiling throughout
new fences
landscaped garden
new flooring
decorated
new front door and windows
roof repairs
installed Ev charger
new stair bannister
installed shutters to all front windows
new loft hatch and ladder
New interior doors

I don’t think it’s very much at all if you’ve done nothing structural and 15 years later still have the kitchen from when you moved in. We’ve lived here 2.5 years and we’ve changed almost everything plus a side return extension to the kitchen and a loft conversion comprising of 2 beds, shower room and roof terrace. The only thing that remains from the previous owner is the front door but even that we had painted!

We’ve lived here 5 years in the summer. Old Edwardian terrace that needs pretty much everything doing.

• lots of roof repairs
• damp proof course
• new loft insulation
• all new windows upstairs (5 windows)
• replastered, new skirting and doors, new carpet, new radiators
• and decorated in the 2 children’s bedrooms. One room included a new ceiling.
• drive redone
• back garden has had crumbling wall taken down and fence put in place, new turf and flower beds, path to back gate redone
• dining room wooden floor sanded and revarnished.
• new carpet in living room
• new stairs and landing carpet
• each room has had a fresh coat of paint at some point.

So we’ve done a lot but still lots to do. New bathroom and kitchen desperately needed, new render at front, downstairs windows at the back, new back door. All the house bar the children’s rooms that have been done all need replastering, new radiators, skirting and internal doors as well. New patio in back garden to do too. New loft access needed. A long list!

18yrs

New kitchen & utility (back to bones)
New bathrooms (back to bones)
New flooring throughout (2 or 3 times in a couple of the rooms)
New windows
New front & back doors
Some replacement internal joinery
Every room decorated at least twice
Converted a derelict outbuilding
Shutters restored in some rooms

New Velux-old one was put in wrongly and leaked.
Re-plastered most rooms
New kitchen
New windows all round
New bathroom
Put down a patio on one half of the lawn and installed a hot tub
Put in a pond
Decorated every room
Re-jigged the bedroom, uncovered a window, put in new wardrobes
New boiler
New front and back doors x 2-we have a side entrance, a back door, obviously a front door.

Done loads!

And changed all the doors.

3.5 years in, and we've been a lot looking at this lift, but very bitty.

New windows to the front of the house, garage door added over a car port, drive extended, hedges taken out (needs lawn adding)
Hallway redecorated & ceiling plastered (new floor needed, need light shades)
Living room to kitchen door moved, living room plastered, painted (decorating not finished, skirting not in, needs new carpet & light shades)
Wall taken down between reception room & kitchen, walls built for W/C, new kitchen in, new floor down, new radiators (walls need painting, kitchen is functional but needs all sorts finishing)
Master bedroom ceiling plastered, decorated, new radiator and carpeted (needs bits repainting where new electrics went in)
Ceiling replastered in box room
New boiler

Jobs to be finished are in brackets, in short, there is not a room completely done in the house. The joys of having family very kindly doing the work for you, which I'm so grateful for! But I need to get a paintbrush out this weekend I think.

We have done loads
House is 150yo and when we bought it, it hadn't had anything done for 25yrs
We've been here 9yrs and so far we've
Rewired
New double glazed windows
New heating
New water mains
New kitchen
New bathrooms
Insulated floors and roof spaces and boarded loft.
New floors to half the rooms
Decorated 90% of rooms
Fixed 2 of the fireplaces
Fixed 2 doors
Built new garden room / studio
Added solar panels and battery
Loads of works to the garden - new greenhouse, fruitcages, planted 130 trees, built a climbing frame, we have a huge area and we've transformed it but it always needs more.

Still to do
New wooden floors to hall & dining room
New extension to replace crappy conservatory
More solar panels
More garden works

Houses are often ongoing projects and it can be hard to see just how much you do because it's always chipping away and more things appear over time.

Also here 15 years. Nothing had been touched for 40+ years before that. We've done:

New roof
Loft conversion (master bedroom and en suite)
Chimney breast knocked out
An internal wall moved to make bathroom bigger
Kitchen knocked through to dining room
New boiler and all new plumbing and electrics
New kitchen
New bathroom
Some windows replaced
All internal doors replaced
Every room replastered, decorated new flooring
Porch removed and whole exteriot repointed/rendered/painted
New drive

Still need to do the back garden.

My house is 200 years old this year (fairly young for the small town we're in). Listed and in a conservation area so requires quite a lot of difficult and expensive upkeep, particularly since it is five storeys high and rendered. Lived here 25 years.

When we moved in there was no central heating or water of any sort above the ground floor (there's also a basement level). We did the following (that I can remember):

1. put in central heating throughout
2. put in bathroom on fourth floor, including hot water tank in loft* and water heater (as mains flow not strong enough for water from ground-floor boiler to provide adequate showers)
3. moved kitchen to another room, including knocking through chimney breast to fit range cooker.
4. knocked down a poor quality 1950s extension housing original bathroom
5. dropped level of back yard a foot (discovering a well in the process); yard re-paved in old brick
6. designed huge solid back gate and had made by joiner (20 years on this now needs replacing and can't find anyone to do it)
7. re-did flooring throughout
8. painted whole house inside - most rooms several times
9. had outside of house repainted and woodwork restored every five years (at exorbitant cost for scaffolding)
10. had carpenters fit floor to ceiling shelving in two studies
11. *had entire stairways and hallways extensively restored after the tank in roof turned out to have been improperly installed, crashed through the ceiling when we were on holiday, and waterfalled water and plaster through four storeys.
12. had chimneys restored
13. installed liner for woodburning stove, had 50s fireplace removed and stove installed [slightly regretting this now]

Those are the main things I can remember - sure there were many more. This year I'm catching up again after a few years of neglect following DH's death in 2020. I had the outside repainted last summer, just had gate (temporarily) restored). Still need to find someone to strengthen basement stairs. I'm thinking of starting to slowly repaint woodwork which is chipped everywhere and will cost a fortune to have fully re-painted by professional.

What we didn't do was the main thing we planned to do when we moved in - knock through the cellar to the kitchen to make a large room, and the same with the two sitting rooms on the floor above. We got planning permission several times but each time let it lapse as it was actually very convenient to have the separate spaces, and the rooms were large enough for the three of us.

Oh - also several new boilers, extensive work on electrics, pantry built under stairs, a couple of original fire-places uncovered and restored . . .

13 year in:
New Kitchen
New Bathroom
Loft extension
build-in furniture in dining room and living room
re-roofed kitchen extension
build a roof over one of the garden patios (we have two, one at the back at the garden, the other one at the house)
new driveway
painted the house
painted all indoors
new fence

There are tons of other little bits and pieces though

Next week: re-rendering the whole house as it's breaking down and causing damp on one side

As soon as money is available: new downstairs toilet