House renovations: things I'd never do again

[RoseRuby26]

We are just coming to the end of a 4 year house project. It was previously owned by an elderly couple and had some seriously dodgy DIY problems. We had a little bit of structural work and we used professionals for rewiring, plumbing and plastering but attempted to do lots of the cosmetic work ourselves to save money. It wasn't a massive project but I still feel like I've learned loads! Here is my 'I'd never do this again' list and I'd love to hear yours as we're buying another project 😣

Painting the pebble dash exterior - such a long long long awful job.

Painting bathroom tiles (see above).

Trying to fill and sand a million holes in interior walls. It's so worth just getting it plastered as the rooms we did this for look terrible after just a couple of years (this was advice we'd ignored - damn).

Install very cheap laminate flooring (false economy) and I would make sure the floor was level before installing on top.

Install doors. Very stressful. Worth hiring a professional.

Letting my garden get out of control. I don't enjoy it and it's my own fault. I'm planning on setting dates for gardening and sticking to it in the new house.

Of course, we saved lots of money by doing the above and some things came out well e.g. painting house. However, I'd rather have sacrificed in other areas / saved up for things like plastering and doors.

AIBU? Please share yours!

Paint exterior brickwork. It looks shit after every winter and needs re-doing every other year.

We've just bought a bit of a project. Some structural but lots cosmetic. I was planning to paint the brickwork so glad I read this thread. Was also toying with painting tiles to avoid replacing but there is a raised pattern so they may as well come off because it will be preferable long term. Not a floor upstairs is level. Flooring has been fun...

How did you paint the bathroom tiles ? Did you get a good end look ? Do you need to use a primer, what colour to what colour ? We have pink !

Paint exterior brickwork. It looks shit after every winter and needs re-doing every other year.

Oh I so agree! Thankfully this house is brick, last house somebody decided to paint the brick. Dirt and dust lands on every edge of the brick and it just looks so bad so quickly. You also need scaffolding to do the top

Great thread! We're getting ready to complete on a doer-upper so I'll be following with interest- especially as we have very little money, even less time and next to no skills or abilities!

The mistake we made was to not plan properly. We didn’t move in for five months and there’s things still not finished over four years later.

We thought we were saving money doing it ourselves but really we should have gutted the whole house in one go, had the walls plastered and flooring laid OR focused on getting the kitchen and bathroom done and lived with the rest and done one room at a time.

''Trying to fill and sand a million holes in interior walls. It's so worth just getting it plastered as the rooms we did this for look terrible after just a couple of years (this was advice we'd ignored - damn).''

Oh dear god, that was us! What a pain in the arse that was in a Victorian house that needed a full modernisation. We did a lot ourselves as we did not have the money, took almost 5 years lots of filth, dust, toxic paint (copulas amount of Nitromorse).

Wish we had done the work whilst we lived elsewhere, living with a filthy stair-carpet for 5 years was the final thing we replaced, then as soon as it was all finished (heating, plumbing, windows, bathroom, kitchen, garden, floors, decorating on and on) we had to move due to work. Good job it sold before it even went on the open market.

Never again

We’ve done it twice, and the second time have done it mostly right. As in, I would use the same methods again. One thing I’m really glad we did was borrow money. Yes, really! I’m not usually one for buying things I can’t afford or racking up debts, but by borrowing approx 10k (on top of our savings), it just meant that I could get it all done in one go as we would easily have spent that same money in dribs and drabs over the next couple of years at the same rate we would be paying it back anyway, but instead would be living in a half-finished mess. We did loads of decorating ourselves, and prioritised paying out for things we had no skills in, such as plumbing. Go to Screwfix and NOT the rip off Homebase, or B&Q. Look for everything on eBay before buying, you’d be amazed at what people don’t need or have ordered two of, have leftover etc. Start from the top/edges of the house and work your way out. It’s so tempting when you move into a dump to do something to make it inviting, especially if like me you have moments of feeling disheartened and asking yourself what the bloody hell you were thinking moving into a doer upper! It’s tempting to make the living room beautiful just to give yourself some motivation, but don’t. Stick to it, the correct order of things, don’t be tempted to do the living room first if it’s downstairs, or do what my friend did after I told her I’d done the same on our first house and regretted it - which is lovingly sand/paint/restore the front door only for it to get bashed and scratched to shit by builders (and us) traipsing in and out and it looking crap after a few months. Pay for some people to come and rip everything out, if that’s what you need, and save your own energy for painting and decorating. The energy and man hours for ripping out could equal a couple of rooms being nicely decorated, but you’ll pay significantly less for someone to rip out and chuck away carpets and rank old laminate than you will for a professional decorator. As an example, we paid £600 for a group of young blokes to rip out x3 stories of gross and dirty flooring, fitted wardrobes that were falling to bits, half of a delapidated kitchen plus its flooring and many white goods, a garden shed, one whole bathroom suite and loads other odds and sods. I told them to remove absolutely EVERYTHING in sight and they did basically. That would have taken us god knows how long and we would have been totally exhausted, plus would have had to have put all that flea bitten shit in our car and taken it to the dump/or paid to hire a van on top. A painter wanted £1,000 per room! Which took us less than 48hrs per room including woodwork etc and in the time it would have taken us to do £600 worth of clearing we probably did 3-4 rooms, which the painter wanted £4K for! So the clearing is the thing worth paying for over painting, IMO. Don’t put hallway flooring in or paint your main hallway until the very last minute possible, no matter how careful you will be, as the dust and general mess will create wear and tear regardless. We did our first house all mixed up and I learned from those mistakes this time. The final thing we did in our current house was the front door, and as much as I was desperate to give it a make over from the day we got the keys, as it was so bloody ugly, but it was supremely satisfying seeing it done right at the very end when everything else was completed.

Couple of things I just thought of.

I wished I had paid more for bathroom fittings and fixtures, they started to look tired after a couple of years.

As we had a old Victorian metal fireplace with tile inserts, I wish we had had it stripped back professionally rather than us re spraying it. We did a good job but all the work and cost of materials would of worked out the same. Same with the doors, should of just got them dipped rather than stripping them ourselves.

Wish I had stripped more floorboards in the house, pain in the neck to do, but planned arse backwards so should have done all the rooms at once having to clean up only once.

Oh and whoever said stippling was a good idea on walls (it was a few years ago) what a bloody mess and took ages to re sand the wall so it could just be painted, never ever texture a wall.

Always expect to pay more than you think and try and have a pot for emergency's.

Sorry that was more than a couple..

The best things I’ve done are strip and black old cast iron fireplaces- a messy job but look stunning when finished, pay extra £1000 to get rid of an old chimney breast & install skylights in the kitchen, and install a log burner.
The mistakes were not hiring a portaloo for the crew while they were building an extension and not replacing the old & inefficient boiler when I first moved in. It died on Xmas eve in the middle of a cold snap and we spent the week between Xmas & new year sleeping in the sitting room near the log burner.
Which was a great buy. Each time there is bad weather & the power goes, my elderly neighbours come & chat until their house is warm again.

I wouldn't paint patio paving,, looked rubbish after one year but wouldn't come off properly.

Not having the house re-wired when we had the opportunity. We spend a bloody fortune on light bulbs.

Also not leaving any free wall space in the kitchen for shelves but that's a tiny thing that actually only occurred to me last night (three years on).

I think I should have made all the decisions like flooring, paint, tiles etc before I started. As by the end I was so exhausted we just basically picked the first flooring in the shop and my whole house was one colour as I couldn't think anymore. I'm now going found repainting it

I agree with having a better plan. We've ruined the hall painting by decorating upstairs after.

Tile painting went ok for the poster asking. You can tell it's painted tile but it gives a better look overall. I used zinser 123 primer and a waterproof paint by Tikkurila called feelings extra durable paint. If I had my time again I'd just rip out and refit but that's easy to say now...we didn't have any money when we did it.

Another regret...we chose really plain white pvc windows. It's not a period house but even so, I'd choose something a little more interesting with some ledding or sections.

Good things: total rewire before we moved in. We've got loads of plug sockets and I chose nice fittings. Love my Log burner! Quite like that we've got lamp shades in some rooms as they're easier to change than a light fitting as styles change. We bought quality oak bedroom furniture that has lasted really well despite me overloading drawers. We saved money using vinyl flooring instead of tiles and I'm happy with it.

oh no - just read advice about not painting the exterior of a house. Ours is a large detached painted white all over (brick and pebble dash). Looks good still after 3 years but will be a hideous job to redo...

All in one go or don't do it.

All the money up front or don't do it.

Don't over-invest in a house you won't stay in.

Everything will take much, much longer than you expect.

Anything that can go wrong, will. This one might just apply to me personally.

Sanding original Victorian floorboards back to then wax. The outcome was BEAUTIFUL but I would happily pay someone to do it if I could have afforded it.