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!

In in your position and it took a full year to finish a kitchen. I need new front door next and I've no idea how I'm going to afford it

I have found my people! We bought a house 13 years ago and have done everything that we thought we could manage ourselves. We’ve restored windows, stripped and oiled floorboards, ripped out bathrooms, stripped paint from bannisters, mended ceilings, and of course painted and decorated.
We have paid others to do anything bigger than we could manage (loft extension, bathroom refurb). We think we are 3 weekends away from being done (but you always think that).
It has taken a toll on social lives and weekends. We haven’t been at it solidly but as we’ve got the money together to do a project then that starts a cascade of other projects.
I don’t think I’d do it again. Now I’m
watching my energy levels - it’s very hard going in to work on Monday morning when you’ve been Diying all weekend. Hopefully we can finish off with Saturdays only.
Good luck OP!

I'm celebrating as we finally got our dishwasher plumbed in and also have a kitchen tap with (cold) running water at last!

We've been here two years next week and ripped out the old kitchen in Feb '25, so it's been a long time coming. I thought relocating the kitchen to a different room meant we could work on the new space whilst the old kitchen was still in situ, but it didn't work out like that as we had multiple things go wrong (boiler, tap and oven) at once.

We've been reasonably happy 'camping out' with just the basics, however recently adult DS's relationship broke down so he's temporarily moved in and it's like having a grumpy teen around the place again. On the flip side at least it's spurred us on to finish some stuff.

This is renovation number eight(?) for us and I'm really running out of enthusiasm. At our last place, in 2022, DH and I built huge oak-framed DG windows from scratch...don't think I could be arsed with that now!

we took out our kitchen in April 2024, didnt put a new one in until roughly the August. flooring came up in April 2024 - we still havent put flooring down the kitchen ! we then moved onto other rooms and currently doing the living room and dining room but like many others its taken a while and has been a balancing act of time and money with the normal difficulties of life

weekends are taken up with keeping the kids entertained or ferrying them to various classes and birthday parties.

How old are your kids? By junior age they should be able to occupy themselves at least a little bit.

I don't want to make myself sound old (I'm in my 30's) and I know it's a bit different now - but when I was a kid I would mostly just hang around in the house/ garden or go to local friends that I could walk to at the weekends whilst my parents cleaned/ did house related stuff.

You don't need to entertain them all the time surely... or if they are still in infants, you will be able to do more in only a couple of years time?