At wits end with the house

[FoggertyMcFogface]

Please send help.

Been renovating an old house for over ten years now. Still a long way to go and not one area of the house is fully completed. DIY as and when time/budget allows.

Selling up is not an option.

The garden is also a disgrace. We never have people over.

In this instance I would totally complete ONE job at a time.
List the options and I’m sure MN can help you refocus.

Thanks @BreakingBroken it is hard to focus when there's so much to get done. I've fallen out of love with the place which is sad.

Break it down, which is the simplest to complete?

We've always had.doer uppers, mostly DIY.. just major stuff done by experts, double glazing, driveway. Its always taken longer than expected, because of time ,money and full time working. As long as the house was water and weather proof (did our own surveys) we concentrated on the rooms you can see, first. Living room/kitchen, I said I would live with the pink 60s bathroom rather than living in a building site for 4 months (like the kitchen) he's a perfectionist, bathroom was completely stripped out to lay porcelain tiles,we just had a look, you had to chuck water down it to flush from the water butts. He worked 6 days with an 80 mile round trip commute,it took 4 months, I wanted to kill him 🤣. I'm one of these rich boomers by the way,in my little 2 bedroom bungalow!
.

Different people approach their list differently. After basics (windows roof)
curb appeal, yup I’d place a clean view from the street as a top priority so that you feel good about the place.
bedroom so that you go to bed in a peaceful atmosphere.
1 bathroom
surely some rooms only need a paint job?

Oh dear 😂@Nannyfannybanny

@BreakingBroken
The major building works to the first floor have been done, so yes the bedrooms, bathroom and landing is mostly cosmetic stuff still to do. That's probably a good place to start.

Curb appeal is difficult as it's mostly major landscaping needed. Tried giving the front door a face lift but the door frame actually needs replacing.

How much was needing done? From the top down: roof, guttering, render/repointing, windows, ceilings, rewire, replumb, bathroom, plastering, kitchen, new floors..?

If you needed a rewire for example you would be daft to try replastering and decorating first, so those would be left til later. You do have to do jobs in order of priority, but often you'll start a job (a) and discover that before you can continue with it, you have to do job (b) and get that done first. This is never a nice discovery and often job (c) crops up as well and prolongs the agony. Job (a) looked so innocuous too...

My house is like the first list with all the rewiring and major stuff needing doing, so if you're not as bad as that, count yourself lucky. When you get to redecoration, it's almost fun as you can see progress and it looks exponentially better. Don't lose heart

Thanks @ShodAndShadySenators

Roof, okay but will need re tiling in another ten years or so.
Guttering, fair but leaky in heavy rain
No rewiring required
Windows don't fit the style or age of the house at all but are at least double glazed.
Installed central heating a few years ago.
Exterior has been repointed
Added a bathroom upstairs and reconfigured the rooms.
Moved staircase
Plastered upstairs but not downstairs
Temporary flooring downstairs

Could you focus on finishing one room? Which one would have the biggest impact on your life - maybe living room so you could have people over, or bedroom so you have a sanctuary?
Then I’d list out all the things that needed to be done in that room, order them based on dependencies and expected cost eg plastering £1500 then decorating £100 then flooring £500. I’d even just get that one room plastered and leave the rest til later, especially as you’ve said no rewiring is needed and it sounds like you’ve done the plumbing, which are the only things which are better done holistically.

The leaky guttering will make the house colder and damper than it would be and will damage any decoration you do inside. I would prioritise getting that sorted and then so one of the upstairs rooms really nicely so you have so where to hide from the mess. Maybe your bedroom.?

I'd say the kitchen/diner would be the one that would make the most impact @yonem. Only problem is the kitchen needs to be completely redone with a new extension, which we haven't even had plans drawn up for yet. I can't decorate the dining area as we need to install a new downstairs loo and it will make quite a bit of mess sorting out.
The lounge is just about there and the master bedroom just needs a bit of tweaking.

The bedroom isn't too bad @Geneticsbunny and a welcome retreat from the mess. Hadn't really given the guttering much thought - best get onto it!

If you are lucky it might just need cleaning out.

Erm - exH is in property maintenance, and I learned a lot whilst married to him.

Job number one. Get the building dry and prevent water ingress.

You've had the exterior repointed, but you haven't dealt with the gutters. If they leak in heavy rain, you need to get them sorted out as soon as possible. Dodgy gutters don't just make the walls wet (and spoil that new repointing), water gets behind the fascia boards and rots them from the inside out, and affects the inside lining of the roof as well. You then get black mould on your bedroom ceilings. Ask me how I know this.

Might I suggest that getting the gutters done before winter really needs to be your first priority, above all else. They might just need a thorough clean, and the joints sealed.

How extensive is the front landscaping? Can you get away with edging (trimming back) the lawn, fertilizing and watering. Then power washing any driveway brickwork?
Add some potted mums?

Fingers crossed! @Geneticsbunny

Oh dear @dodobookends guttering has just moved to the top of my to do list. 👍

We don't have a fenced in garden or driveway, I don't really want to give too much away as it's quite outing. @BreakingBroken

@FoggertyMcFogface of course exterior photo's might be outing but i'm sure there are thousands of home without fencing or driveways. what needs doing to the front yard, would mowing fertilizing seeding and watering make a difference in 14 days time? if no lawn, is there gravel that needs weeding through? do you need to pull up old shrubs?
i'm just looking for the cheaper of the refurb.

when overwhelmed i'm thinking of completing a few "easy fixes" just to lift your spirits a bit and bring back some joy to the project.
dh has a fencing project underway; he is enclosing the front porch. not an easy job for him as the cuts/holes need to be more precise than usual and some is drilling into concrete. what is making this project tolerable (onto day 4) is containing the mess, pick up wrapping, and a run to the cardboard recycle center, having a box to keep things in place and limiting "the spread".

A great deal of weeding would help I think @BreakingBroken and working out where to put up fences for some privacy. At the moment, all four sides of the house can be accessed by any visitors which is driving me potty.

Do you have to have an extension and the full works?

Ideally @Timeforabitofpeace There's only two rooms downstairs and they're very dark.

It does sound like you've done done some fairly major work already, but PPs are right about the guttering, it needs to be the priority job and done before winter and any heavy rain. If push comes to shove you could hire a scaffolding tower to be able to inspect the gutters (assuming you don't have a drone!) or get all new guttering and replace the lot.

We had our garden landscaped before other work on the house which seems daft, but it was because the garden flooded in winter which left standing water lapping against the house. Other than reasons like this, and fencing for security, I'd leave the garden for now as the house takes priority.

We also need an extension and similar structural work and have not even started on plans yet, I feel your pain. But at least you're making progress on other areas, so it's not that bad!

Was also going to say sort out the gutters!! I seem to permanently live in a building site! Laughable really because read on a post here yesterday that us boomer's were a rich greedy graspy lot who bought houses on one wage (i often had 3/4 Jobs. You cannot prioritise "curb appeal" when you have building work,it's not realistic, you do the garden, then building materials go in and out. Yes, I did originally say watertight and weather proof. A none outing picture would be helpful,it's probably not as bad as you think

Thanks for your help guys, it's been so busy here! Planning to get stuck in with decorating the upstairs when autumn arrives. I think having the whole top floor sorted will be a big relief.
We're also hiring a digger and putting in a new patio.

Make sure they don't foul up your damp course when laying the patio, and that it slopes away from the property. They might need to put in land drains and if so, now would be the time.

Also, if you are thinking of any garden buildings which would need an electricity supply, work out where the electric cables would need to go, just in case it is under where you are going to put the patio...

Also also - outside tap.

Will do @dodobookends. It's also a DIY project - think the plan is to leave a strip at the back gravelled, to let the house breathe. Drainage with need some serious thought.