To just be fed up with my house

[beeefcake]

Have lived in our house for a year and a half. Was old and neglected when we bought it and everything the previous owner did was (badly done) DIY.

Beyond redecorating a few rooms and buying new furniture it feels like we have done bugger all and I'm starting to regret buying it as I didn't realise how much work needs doing. Literally every single thing you can think of needs work done. Even the rooms we have finished none of the doors work and paint is chipped from all the skirting boards.

All the windows (original sash) need replacing and are covered in years of paint and caulk so look a state. The bathroom window has mould round it, the outside is a complete bomb site. We are having the kitchen refitted next month after months of scrimping and saving and even that will be more work than anticipated because the floor is uneven and needs new concrete.

I honestly feel in such despair and fed up of living in a shitty house I just want to admit defeat and move out, but we would be leaving work half done and I think we would struggle to sell it.

Please tell me it gets better/is worth it in the end. I can't even be bothered to do housework in the nicer rooms now because it feels so pointless.

Can I ask - will a survey tell you problems like if rewiring is needed, boiler, plumbing needing replacing? Or do you only find this out in moving in?

If you can afford it, I would get in a builder of the property renovation ilk and ask him to give a quote for fixing absolutely everything.

But unless you have tons of spare cash, ask him to phase the work in a logical order and do each phase as you can afford it. eg 1) fix leaks, cracks, roof/gutters, window frames, insulation, heating; 2) fix doors so they shut, fill cracks, skirting boards, lay or renovate floors; 3) decorate.

Don't be tempted to decorate before the prep in 1) and 2) are done as it will just look crappy.

There is nothing more demoralising than feeling you have to do it all yourself, in my experience, unless you actually love DIY and you defo sound like you don't.

I know how you feel. I moved 6 months ago, but what helped was sorting the living room first so I had somewhere nice to sit in the evenings. I managed to paint the entire property before I moved in, everything is white. I love colour but this was the most practical to get everything looking fresh and clean. I painted over the wallpaper everywhere as it was to big a job for me to tackle being on my own and replaced all the carpets with laminate. I hate my old kitchen, no matter how much I clean it always seems dirty. It lacks work space, although is a good size, the bad news is I cannot afford to replace it so it will remain the same for however long I am here. Again the bathroom is a reasonable size but is very dated, I have painted the tiles etc so it feels like mine now but I would love to completely redo.
I have managed to replace the windows so it keeps the heat better and generally makes the house look more attractive. I have a freezing conservatory that I use for storage and I would love to transform it. The front garden has been laid with large pebbles and I cannot control the weeds so it looks a sight. I know I am lucky to have a house deep down, but it is rubbish when you do not have the money to do it up the way you would like. I wanted space and I have it but do not have a home that I can afford to do up the way I would really like.

I could have written this! We moved into our house 20 years ago and since then we have slowly been redecorating all the rooms.
But now the stuff we did at the beginning is starting to look old!
We got a cheap off cut for the living room and never had it fitted properly, so now it's bunching up all the time and has stains that can't be cleaned.
The sofa is sagging on one side (almost 18 years old).
The conservatory is unusable due to a leaking roof
Everything is looking old, but DH says there is nothing wrong!
His parents still have 1970s decoration.
I want to scream!

This is the curse of an old house. I deal with it by having 2 lists (which will always be works in progress).

List 1 is the major stuff like new windows, new boilers, new kitchen, which are prioritised by urgency and done by professionals as affordable.

List 2 is cosmetic stuff (paintwork etc) which I can do myself, and small repairs (change lights, change taps, dripping sink , dripping gutters) which a handyman can fix cheaply. I do these ASAP because otherwise the place starts to feel horrible, as yours currently does.

Although PPs are right about not doing cosmetic stuff until the big stuff is sorted...some of my big stuff isn't being sorted anytime soon, so I just paint the chipped woodwork and spackle the pitted walls because it makes the place feel liveable until it can all be made good (years).

Stop trying to save and do it up - finance it. Borrow further on your mortgage, do 0% finance, get a loan (only if all affordable) work out what's the priority (sounds like Windows and doors) and do all that first. Get the place feeling warm and weatherproof then the rest is just kind of decoration that can be done over time if needed.

We are nearly done with our house, rewired, new boiler, all plumbing and heating, new windows, new front door, flooring, plastering, carpet, knocked walls down. 2 bathrooms. Excavated garden, fencing, drive. It’s been more than a bit expensive and at times horribly stressful. Still have bits to do and am on the final push to get it finished.

It’s been depressing at times, workmen beyond flakey but looking at old photos remind me of how far we have come. I am never buying a house that needs so much doing again. It’s fairly modern, 1960 but nothing was done to it post 1975.

Make lists, find a good carpenter to box in, create shelves etc

Our house was redecorated and had a new kitchen & bathroom the year before we moved in, 5 years ago, however houses do take maintenance so my tips would be:

Clean windows, including joints, hinges etc every year
Clear gutters every year
Always get your boiler serviced
Bleed radiators when needed
If redecorating, in highly used areas (hallways etc) use Dulux easycare
Either fix yourself or get a handy person to do leaks/door handles/floors/lights etc - save up a load of small jobs and get someone in once a year for a day or two (or take time off yourself)
Live in a house for the minimum of 6 months before you decide to do anything major requiring planning permission/building control (the amount of applications I deal with which I see again a year later because the owners changed their minds. A waste of time & money)
If it’s too much, or won’t suit your life, don’t buy it.

After five years we need new tiling in the bathroom, new bathroom flooring, we’ve had two leaks in the last few weeks which means I’ve got to take time off to paint.... but the handy man is coming to fix the door/window seals/tiling/gutter the same day.

It’s constant.

This rings a lot of bells with me. We are 12 years in a (literally!) 1900 house.
Every job has 6 hidden jobs behind it and it's like the Forth River Bridge, once you finish something some of the first things need re-doing.
The most money I've spent was on damp proof, new kitchen and new bathroom. The front living room had a wall of crazy paving (yes really!) and we had that removed, the room re-plastered and new floor put down.
I'd suggest what another poster said - paint every room you use regularly in white emulsion - it looks loads better, you can put up photos and pictures etc. Cheap lighting from Ikea and some cosy throws also really help. Once you get a nice bedroom and living area you are half way there.

do you have the money to pay a carpenter to come in and fix the doors? you are opening and closing doors daily so it (as well as everything else) but the fact you use them is a constant reminder of things being shit and I think getting the cash to pay a carpenter to fix that one small thing soonish will be a relief. even if the rest of the house needs fixing having those doors repaired will be positive.

then follow the advice above :)

When I say "finished" I mean the following:

Hideous laminate has been ripped up and the floorboards (which we were lucky to find) have been sanded and revarnished.

Ceilings been re-plastered

Walls been plastered where needed and repainted

And that's pretty much it to be honest!!!

Aren't having carpet anywhere except the stairs which has been done.

Once the kitchen is sorted I'm not starting anything else until every other little detail is resolved. The sight of the skirting board in the dining room honestly makes me want to vomit.

I know it sounds mental looking at the kitchen with a lot of other issues but it is honestly in dire, dire need. It doesn't just look absolutely hideous (3 different patterns of vinyl- the stuff that comes in a roll) but it's falling to bits.

Just looking outside now and sections of white guttering have been painted black to match the rest.....

Can you share a picture of the skirting board?!

I've yet to see one that could make me vomit, and I'm starting to wonder if you might be a bit of a perfectionist? And if the gutters are bothering you that is quick and cheap to change.

We're hoping to finish doing up our house over the next 3 years. We've been here 30 years :-)

There's been nice discoveries along the way - painted-up window frames revealed fold-away wooden shutters just needing a re-paint, removed a brick infill to reveal another "room" under the cellar steps, old receipts etc revealing the layout of the house at various dates in its history, 1950s flat panelling removed from doors to reveal Victorian moulded doors underneath, etc

But we've enjoyed the process, and have never been uncomfortable even if rooms have looked shabby. The real pleasure I feel every time I move through one of the finished rooms is more than enough to compensate for the bits that still need doing.

Abs agree with @BettyBooJustDoinTheDoo
If possible do room by room. Obviously it's different with windows and such. We are doing by floors. Done downstairs and it feels amazing!
You will get there x

You can't guarantee things will be better with a new build to be honest. My managers brand new house has developed cracks in the walls where the house has settled and some of the doors don't fit properly. Some friends bought a house that is only about 5 years old and thought it would be perfect... But both toilets leak, and so does the roof over the bay window... And that destroyed their TV which was under there.

Owning a house is shit. But it's not as shit as renting where you can't even fix the crap yourself and have to wait for the landlord to be bothered.

You have my sympathy. We have to replace the upstairs beams and floors in my house... Before April when our new baby is due... with a 2yo to look after. Eugh.

This is my life too op. I hate our house but we have to finish it before we can leave as there's no way it would sell. We also have uneven concrete in our living room but have hidden it with a rug and chaise sofa as it would all of needed to come out otherwise. We did the kitchen over a year ago but still have to do the pantry but we can't do the pantry until we hang the doors that are stored in there but my partner is shit at them and has done two wrong so far. He refuses to pay anyone to do it. We need to do the doors, new front door, pantry, hall stairs and landing, new bathroom and then we can leave!

Currently saving up in the hope we can just get it all done after xmas but who are we kidding!?

This kind of threads make me nervous as we're in the process of buying our first house and I'm already nervous about stuff going wrong/breaking and I feel like I don't know anything about how to maintain a house. I feel like everyone goes on about owning but no-one talks much about the maintaining aspect! I especially sympathise with anyone who has damp/mould issues as I've had that in pretty much every rental and it's horrible.

If you're going to get the windows replaced - and it sounds like you need to - get that done as early as possible because it means a bunch of redecorating.
Seconding a PP who said 'get finance' - if you can, that'll give you the ability to get some really serious work done by professionals (windows/doors/plasterwork/roof if needed), and it'll be a lot easier from there.

I feel for you. We're in a similar position. Been in our house just over 2 years. It was very much to the owners taste - definitely not our decoration choice!! Within a few months I had a meltdown and we went out and bought magnolia paint to cover the hideous flower wallpaper that was on every wall in the living room!

We've had the windows replaced, had to repair a leaky roof, replastered our bedroom (lived in the spare room for 4months, it took ages!) but we're in our room now.

Just remortgaged to give us the funds to get a new kitchen. But we've decided to include the living room in our plans. So will have open plan kitchen diner into the living room. It makes sense to get it all done in one go. First job is new boiler next week - currently in the kitchen now going in the loft.

I have a love hate relationship with our house. There's been many tears and regret at buying it. It didn't seem like it needed that much work but it really does. Love it for the potential it has but we need cash to do it and it's frustrating it's taking so long. But the end is in sight. By spring it'll be much better. (then we will do the hall, stairs and landing....!) it is never ending!!

Yes I have hung loads of pictures etc up on my white walls in an attempt to cover up the pattern showing through the wallpaper underneath. At the same time I have done all the paintwork, sanded, undercoated and painted. It makes a huge difference. The utility attached to my kitchen has no heating and is single block built, it also has no door separating it from the kitchen. It is freezing in there but there is no point heating the kitchen as it all goes through to the utility.

I know the feeling OP. I love my house but find it so difficult to keep clean. The kitchen is very dated and tired and has permanent stains, bits of MDF peeling off the cupboards etc, which mean it will never look "nice" even when technically clean and tidy. I do find that quite soul-destroying!

I agree with the PP who said to tackle one room at a time and do it fully. We've taken a scatter gun approach in our house and as such, no room feels "finished" and exactly how I'd want it.

The walls are dirty and have quite a lot of rawl plugs in them from where the previous owner removed pictures/other stuff. We did manage to paint a couple of rooms ourselves but we're not very good at it, so even those don't look 100% - there's bits of paint where there shouldn't be and in one room I've noticed the paint is already flaking off the dado rail.

We've pretty much run out of budget for renovations now too so it'll be a while before we can make any more improvements...