How do busy parents make an older house feel settled?

[filigreet]

Last year DH and I bought our dream house after years of renting. It was an expensive property but we love it, the location, the schools, the local amenities, and our neighbours. But while I love my new house it is in need of a lot of updating and work to really be what I want it to be. However we both work full time, we have two primary school age children, we're both late 40's and exhausted by the end of the day and weekends are taken up with keeping the kids entertained or ferrying them to various classes and birthday parties.

It's beginning to dawn on me that we don't have the funds to get people in to do the work we need doing and we don't have the energy or skills to do it ourselves. I'm putting off buying bigger items like furniture until I know when we will be decorating or getting the needed work done but that we are no further on than we were months ago.

I often feel like I am just flying by the seat of my pants through life and never really getting it how I'd like it to be. Perhaps life is like that for everyone? I don't know but I do know some people seem to be able to make life and their home seem cosy and aesthetic and have this much more tranquil sort of life regardless of their circumstances.

I want to know how do I become one of these people!

We either take turns on weekends to do decorating, gardening etc whilst the other has our toddler. Or take annual leave whilst shes at nursery.

I think you're panicking at the sheer scale of it. Start small. Start with a single room. And you were right to wait -- you'll have gained valuable insights about how you use the house, which rooms you use when, daylight etc, and into what you need in general, by not doing it the second you moved in.

Make a list of what needs doing for a start. When you say 'updating', what exactly do you mean? New kitchen/bathrooms, rewire and replumb? or repaint and new floorcoverings throughout?

@LaterSunrise I think you are right, we need to break it down into to smaller tasks of groups of tasks. I think more needs doing than we initially realised and while we can live with some things longer term it all pretty much needs doing and maybe a partial refit in the kitchen. The bathrooms we will probably need to live with a bit longer but they do need doing as very dated and a bit grotty round the edges. I think the plumbing is ok but the house is was built in the early 70's and so probably needs new wiring.

I wouldn't do anything else before the rewire - they make such a mess of everything. You need to work out what needs doing, i.e. rewiring, then go from there.

Unfortunately it's not going to be cheap - can you find the funds from somewhere?

@Pootles34 We really maxed out on the house so probably need to save for expensive things. I suppose we should just bite the bullet on the rewire and find out what needs doing in that respect.

That sounds like a good place to start. And breathe -- this doesn't need to be all done in a day or a year. We lived in a falling-down fixer-upper for five years before we were able to do much to large parts of it, and it's still not finished (and we discovered something big and structural while doing the other work, alas...) A friend of mine bought a house we also looked at and her family has been living with holes in the walls and no central heating for years, because refits need a conservation architect!

Flip it around in your head. You're not just camping out in a house you're not properly inhabiting, you're taking it slowly.

We did similar a few years ago, and honestly it’s been a long haul getting the house to a state where we feel sorted and settled.

My tips:

• keep a running list on your phone of everything that needs doing, big or small. If you have an idea or notice an issue jot it down so you can get it out of your head right then and don’t feel so overwhelmed,
• sit down and work out what order things need to happen in logically - so if you need a rewire you’ll need to redecorate after that.
• agree a rough outline of what order to do the big jobs in (rewire, plumbing etc), and then which order to do the smaller jobs in (ie if every room needs redecorating, new curtains, new furniture, then which room are you going to start with? Which matters least? Just put the rooms in order)
• don’t be tempted to do it all at once - even with redecorating you’ll get better service if with each room the person you’ve hired knows there is a prospect of more work in future, rather than hiring them for one huge big job and then being stuck with them even if you’re not happy!
• make it a family project as much as possible - I don’t think you said how old the kids are, but even from 5/6 years old we got the kids to help clear everything out of the room we were about to redecorate, they now are a bit older and will do the first coat of paint with us (we get decorators to do the top coat and the edging around doors etc), they came with us to furniture shops and curtain shops etc (obv then you have to keep an eye on them but they were surprisingly happy to climb up and down on different sofas, they still ask to do day trips to Ikea to play and get daim cheesecake.
• set up a declutter station! Best single thing we did. With kids there’s constant outgrown clothes/toys etc, we have a big box in the cupboard under the stairs and chuck anything we no longer want in there, when it gets full we book an Anglo doorstep Collection then can just leave the stuff in bin bags in our porch and they take it away, amazing.

@LaterSunrise Yes you are right, I think I need to stop comparing my house to the "finished" houses of other people and just accept where we are at and start to move though what needs doing bit by bit even if it's going to take a few years! Ideally We'd have been here 10 years ago but that is life these days, its so expensive to buy around here and many other places that you are halfway through life before you even get a house! Anyway no point in wasting energy of what if's!

@KarcherK5 That's really useful information and it's reassuring to know that the process take a while for others! It's so easy to look at other people's homes and thing they just waved a magic wand and it was perfect but realistically it all takes time.

I hear you! We bought a money pit, but I'm trying not to go down the 'we should have done something else' route.

In a similar situation I found it helpful to make a comprehensive list of everything that needed doing, then I put how much time each job would take, broke down the bigger projects into steps, figured out the order things needed doing and a realistic timescale.

The order of things is important but there can be other factors. It’s best to paint last, after choosing furnishings (carpet, curtains before sofas, etc) because paint is the easiest thing to match. But if new furniture is 3 years away, painting sooner can make a bigger impact, etc.

The 5-30 minute jobs gave me something to do when I got the itch. And stopped me starting something that was more complicated.

I found even room by room overwhelming, so went corner by corner. Once you have one beautiful little corner you can nest in, you'll feel much more at peace in the space.

A house can still feel like home even if it's empty or outdated too. Small things that help - candles or diffusers. I think lemongrass essential oil makes every house smell like a spa so I even put it in the mop bucket! Kids artwork stuck everywhere until you have time to properly decorate. Don't put off big furniture if those are couches or bed, they make the room.

I’d probably stop entertaining the kids so much and prioritise making your home the lovely, relaxing family space you want it to be. If that means activities are scaled back for a while, or there is more solo parenting at weekends, it will be worth it in the long run.

We moved in March. We spent the summer throwing the kids in the garden or with one of us taking them out somewhere for the day.

We’ve been in our house for 10 years and still not finished it.

our previous house we were there for 14 years and never finished it. I think the biggest mistake we made there was leaving the living room until last. It makes a huge difference having an area to relax that is done and clean. And also a nicer background for Christmas photos etc and nicer for hosting visitors.

if you need to rewire then there’s no point in doing anything else until that happens. You just need to bite the bullet and get that done. Then just one room at a time so it doesn’t get overwhelming.

Most houses aren’t as “done” as you might think, a lot of people just make the areas that visitors see their priority.

I spent years thinking that one of the school mums was incredibly organised, and a domestic goddess, and her home was so beautiful and perfect and aesthetic.

Eventually she admitted that the kitchen, living room and downstairs loo were always kept nice, but she showed me the upstairs - massive holes in walls! Her wardrobe was a set of Amazon boxes on their sides stacked up against the wall like shelves! Her boy’s room was half old torn floral wallpaper and half a garish terrible mural of horses by the previous owner! They were just gradually working through the house but putting up a good show in the meantime. I found that very reassuring and now have the same approach, downstairs looks good but upstairs is usually chaos, especially since if we have people over I throw all the clutter up from the hallway onto the top landing :)

For context, DH and I moved into our current house when I was pregnant with DS who is now 25. We both worked full time and have only recently stopped working.

it was only when DS left for university that I was able to get the things done in the living room that needed doing (plastering the walls, putting up shelves, getting carpet put down etc).

I had another wall plastered at the same time. That wall is still just bare plaster!

Some things did get done (new bathroom, extension & new kitchen) but each one took about a year to organise and I didn’t have the mental capacity to do things too frequently.

The key thing is not to expect to get everything done at once or even in the same year. Pick one thing that matters the most right now, deal with it as best you can and move on to the next thing. It won’t be perfect but it will be good enough and you will feel less overwhelmed as things are getting done.

Just do a room at a time, with a few weeks break in between each one. One has DC the other paints/sands etc. Swap the following weekend.

Prioritise the rooms you spend most time in. The ones most likely to uplift you: kitchen and living areas then bedrooms, then bathrooms then hallways and landings, utility etc.

I thought you were going to say it was Victorian or something! 1970s isn't that bad. By all means get the wiring checked if you're worried, but I assume you are talking about an upgrade ie extra sockets rather than ripping out the lot. That can be messy but better to chase out plaster and make good before you do any decorating.

Best of luck!

Those people whose houses are very finished probably either bought it like that, paid for tradespeople to do everything, or were able to do the renovation in one go before they moved in. It takes a long time to renovate whilst you live there and do it yourselves. I'd prioritise the rewire first as it is so messy so pointless to decorate first.

Does it really need re-wiring ?
I recently moved from a 1960s house & the wiring was sound, just not enough sockets by modern standards. It's relatively easy to add more.

I was just about to say this. There’s no point in doing anything cosmetic until the rewire is done, it’s a massive job.

We rewired a 5 bed house just a few months ago as was unsafe. It was 12k. It makes a mess it really does. And unless you are a dab hand at filling holes and skimming, then the added cost of someone to make the walls smooth.

Have you had it tested for safety?

Other than that, one room at a time. You'll be amazed how quickly can rattle through a room decorating wise, if not too much prep.

I would start by making a list of each room and what needs doing in them and then prioritise them from top to bottom. Then you can add rough costs/ timescales whether you need tradespeople or doable yourself. We did room by room and used to do an hour or 2 each evening painting/ sanding etc whilst our daughter was In bed with the radio or a podcast instead of watching TV we quite enjoyed it in the end. If there’s rooms that are a while away from being started due to cost etc then have a think out side the box if there’s low cost things you can do now to make them better to live with in the mean time (eg new mirror in bathroom/ house plants). Enjoy the journey it’s so rewarding making a house into your own :)

I’d make a list and then run it through ChatGPT

Of the people I know who've renovated big, old houses...

1. The wife didn't work so did ALL the work (plastering, painting, tiling etc) while the kids were at school. The dad worked all the time on it at weekends. The dining table was a pingpong table for many years. It took years but was a massive project. Beautiful house.
2. Both worked long hours but both are total over achievers 😂Like a different species. This is why on Location Location they ask if couples are interested in a project. Of course, everyone thinks they'd like a project, but it means you can't do much else for 5-10 years, so most decide against.