If you moved into a do-er upper….

[dogsandbudgey]

How long did it take you to get things done? I’m in my house 5 years and I feel like I’m not making much progress due to cost, time, can’t be arsed picking and deciding colours etc. so far we have knocked wall down to open up the kitchen and completely gutted the kitchen, utility and downstairs toilet. ( not painted yet ) we’ve put new flooring down in hall, living room and kids bedroom and carpeted the two other rooms. Painted the whole house except our bedroom ( which remains undone and really old) and the kitchen. We need to do the bathroom and we would really need a new garden fence. Some days I feel it’s a marathon not a sprint and we have the rest of our daysbto get it how we want then other days I feel we should have bought a smaller turn key house.

i love the area we are in but it just seems to be so expensive to do stuff that I worry we will be doing stuff forever at the expense of doing family holidays

help 🤯 what’s the normal time frames

5 years for my first one. 15 years for my second one. 9 years and counting for the current one. The current one is unexpectedly the worst, my back isn't what it once was, and reliable tradesmen have vanished since Covid.

Been here nearly two years and all I've done so far is sort out the electrics and get new kitchen flooring. Had hoped to have a lot more done by now but I'm a procrastinator and very indecisive. Tackling my bedroom next!

We are four years into a house that needed everything doing. So far we have just completed the downstairs and the landing. Bedrooms next. That will take at least another year I think as we are trying to do as much as possible ourselves but both work full time and have young kids.

We've been in our house for 7years. We've totally rewired, and redecorated where the plaster was damaged in the rewire, loft conversion with new shower room, renovated main bathroom, fully redecorated all bedrooms, new carpets upstairs and on stairs, new front door, landscaped garden (slightly out of order really but the old garden was dangerous so it was done as a bit of a priority so we could use during lockdown).

Next year we want to redo kitchen / living area (maybe small extension to make space for dining area in the kitchen). Then we will be DONE 😆🥳

We've obviously had covid plus two DC whilst weve been doing it, so it hasn't felt too long as its been bits here and there. But im really looking forward to getting the last bit sorted.

I've said to DH that I would like a turnkey next, but I think that's highly unlikely as we live in London. We'll probably look for somewhere under max budget to leave money for renovations as soon as we move in, rather than drips and drabs as weve saved up, remortgaged, used bonuses etc. We had about £500 in the bank leftover after we bought this place as FTBs.

12 months from moving in, back in 2020, but that was quicker than we expected and partly a Covid thing as before everyone went renovation mad there was a small lull and our builder had a couple of jobs fall through. They say that the ‘building triangle’ consists of good, cheap, and fast, and that you can only have two of the elements together. We managed ‘good’ and ‘fast’ but we did almost nothing ourselves and had to throw money at the problem. We had also bought carpet with Tapi right after we moved in and so were terrified Tapi would go bust with £5k of carpet in the warehouse.

First one three years. Second one two years. This one we’ve been in 10 years and still not done. No money, no love for it anymore.

In 2 years we …. Had new boiler for hot water and heating , along with new radiators
A new kitchen diner , with oil aga removed , interior wall knocked down to open up
New doors and windows all round ,
Bathroom ripped out and completely renewed
Carpets and flooring replaced
Chimney breast taken and wall replastered
We did a lot of the painting , but had the experts in where necessary

We have been in ours just over 3 years.

We’ve done:
New doors and windows
Internal doors
Air source heat pump
New kitchen
New flooring throughout
Electrics
Decorated all of downstairs - upstairs still to do. Downstairs was all replastered though
Restored a fireplace
Had new alcove cupboards put in
Garden office installed
Huge new shed installed and a dodgy workshop removed
Had all the awful leylandii removed

It’s mostly finished, just garden and upstairs decorating to do. But as we are divorcing I’ll never get the joy of living in it. Never again, the next house needs to be done. I can’t stomach it again.

We're ten years in and the last major project to do is the hallway, but we still haven't finished the kitchen and the thing we did first needs work again... Definitely a marathon!

@FancyCatSlave oh no im
so sorry to hear that. Must be a nightmare especially after all the work of renovating. Xxx

7 years in.

Building two floor extensions on two sides of a house and reno on the inside and outside of the original house.

We're over budget, over time and, frankly, over it !

It's a large double fronted Georgian house. What we've done so far looks beautiful - like (at first glance) something out of Homes and Gardens. Wisteria which i planted gradually winding its way now across the lovely big renovated sash front windows and new but period style front door with lovely brass knob! Big fire place (built by DH) with reclaimed oak beam mantle and oak flooring and about 20 miles of architrave and coving filled and painted.

However - the bits we haven't done look like an abandoned ruin from the 70s 😫 Ceilings down and no electrics ect. We've knocked down walls and carried the rubble out by hand. We've built walls by hand and pushed barrow loads of bricks up from pavement level. I frozen my arse off in a digger three winters running doing the foundations. Places in the house where you still risk strangulation by dangling cables and gaping holes instead of doorways.

Its exhausting and i would NEVER EVER do it again.

It is, particularly as we have been having to finish it knowing the divorce is happening (we filed earlier this year and have to live in it until it is done and can be sold). It is absolutely breaking me.

It’s a beautiful thatched cottage with an orchard. I’ll be lucky to get a bog standard semi afterwards and I doubt we will get all the spent money back as market is on the floor. It’s very sad indeed.

Never

Sold it and said never again

Took 5 years for it to be "decent" enough to relist for a okayish price. Nowhere near what we ploughed into it but enough to draw a line, lesson learnt, and move on. There was still tonnes to do but that's how long for it to be presentable-ish, a slightly polished turd.

3 months. Literally gutted it like a builder would if they were selling on. I was 6 months pregnant at the time and I'd budgeted for it to the last penny. I was 40 and fit and healthy at the time. I'm disabled now and absolutely could not do it again. Pleased I did though as it's a bungalow and I basically future proofed for my now limited mobility, which I would never have known at the time (I'm 54)

@FancyCatSlave similar happened to a school friend of mine… bought land, spent years doing it up and it was spectacular, real show stopper only to find her husband enjoying it with another woman while she was ment to be at a work trip abroad. . I wish you all the best anyway for your next chapter xx

Awful to hear pp having to struggle through with divorce hanging over you 💐

Bad enough when you're working as a team!

Down the lane from us is a church which has been turned into a residential property (although the garden is still consecrated ground with graves in it!)(which relatives can have access to if wanted).

The owners recently gave up with it half finished. They just had enough after 10 years or reno. They spent 50k on a new oak staircase in there with a beautiful gallery landing last year 😳

Its gone to auction now.

@SkylarFalls oh no!!!! Was it a complete wreck when you bought it? That’s so annoying for you. I think out problem is we don’t have the funds to do it. We pushed so hard to get the house in the best area with good schools and because I don’t drive I wanted to be near to train networks. I love the house in many ways but it’s just taking so long

10 years and counting! Within sight of the finish line now though, another year and we'll be done I think.
We've replaced pretty much everything, windows, central heating, boiler, hot water tank, all flooring, doors internal and external, roof (that was ouchy!) kitchen, everywhere decorated at least once. Bathroom being done soon then the final thing is the patio which is crumbling. It's a big house so everything is expensive. Probably has cost us around £200k over 10 years at a guess. It feels so much better now that we're nearing the end, I've spent quite a lot of time hating the place.
We will definitely not do this again!

No, we had budgeted for it and thought it would take about a year, but the quotes we got when buying were a half, sometimes a third of what the real quotes ended up being, if we could find anyone even willing to come in and quote for the jobs at all!

We ended up having to throw money at whoever was willing to fit us in.

We’ve been here 10 months.

We’ve rewired, (paid) put in a second hand kitchen, (we did) painted (we did) and refloored the kitchen (paid). Had a bigger shower cubicle put in the bathroom, (paid) removed the bidet (paid) and put the washing machine and tumble drier in the space. Painted the bathroom having skimmed the ceiling (we did). Still need to put up new coving. (Which we will do).

we’re currently in the middle of decorating the sitting room, having knocked out the fireplace and re-plastered all the walls (we did). Need to put down laminate flooring in the sitting room, hall and bathroom. (We will do).

oh, we had solar panels fitted in January.

stripped the hall ready for decorating (we did) but the ceiling needs skimming (artex!) which my OH will do.

also stripped my mother in law’s bedroom and pulled up the carpets.

we have a quarter acre garden which we’re trying to keep on top of having had a 60-70ft conifer cut down and all the large trees reduced. (Paid). We cut down a smaller tree ourselves and made space for another car on the drive with slabs and weed control fabric. MIL ship lapped the existing shed as it was cheaper than buying a new one.

this is whilst both of us work full time. And we’re knackered and very poor….

21 years and need to wallpaper our bedroom to replace what's there. It's looking a bit tired but just can't be bothered.
Everything else is done

Almost 5 years. We’ve replumbed, rewired, replastered, replaced a chimney, replastered the outside, knocked down a back wall and some old sheds and added an extension of a downstairs loo, utility and pantry, took a couple of years out, and are now knocking down another wall and adding a new kitchen and entrance hall.

4 years. It was a listed building which meant a lot of expense and delay waiting for permissions etc.

Wow I really needed this thread tonight.

Last really big job starts on ours tomorrow. 8 years nearly since moved in. Still will be two rooms not touched but they can just wait.

Another one here saying never, ever, ever again. Has really come between me and DH. He’s left me
with the mental load for everything and I feel let down and missold a dream of doing this house as a partnership. Can’t wait for the builders to go away and try to live a life NOT in a renovation.

So sorry to hear that

Our relationship survived it but your sentence about being miss-sold the dream of doing it together really punched me in the guts! I can REALLY relate to that

On one of the other active threads today I said about how it was was bigger c0ckblocker in our relationship than either of DDs births or infancies!