To be fed up of renovations, in general

[victoriashleigh]

To be very clear — I’m not asking whether people should have the right to renovate, I’m completely aware they do. And anyone who has seen me comment about my neighbours renovating their entire house since a week after lockdown began will also probably know we still took them a welcoming gift, I’m not unreasonable at all.

I’m asking whether anyone else feels like they live on a literal building site due to the amount of people doing it and do you feel like it’s a bit shit, honestly? We’ve lived in our home 1 year and 1 month and it’s been pretty much nonstop renovations the entire time. Every single house around us in a 10 house radius seems to have had/is having major work done (I’m talking cement mixers, cranes, three storey scaffolding, builders 6 days a week, multiple skips per household) in the last year. I really dislike the noise, the dirt, the parking disruption which I find makes people crazy!

Today at 8am on the dot another house is having scaffolding erected. I thought I might take some comfort that this means it will be quiet for the next 10 years. Except I got talking to woman opposite us and she said she feels my pain; her neighbours in 2015 completely renovated their house, it went on for almost a year but looked great when it was finished, she was very happy for them etc. They moved out less than three years later and the new couple came and gutted it completely. They filled skip after skip after skip of what I now guess to be almost brand new stuff (they were halfway through when we moved in so this part is definitely true).

Just wondering if it’s reasonable to expect houses to be completely renovated every three/five years and is it the culture we live in now? Are materials cheaper now or do people just want a project? I can understand people wanting their perfect house but our neighbours plainly told us a month after moving in that they aren’t planning to live here long. I have a feeling the next people will just bin it all and start again.

Anyway, I guess this is more ‘is this culture around renovating as a project massively wasteful and disruptive to those to who want live somewhere long term’ as opposed to ‘I don’t like noise!!1!’

YANBU about the horrible wastefulness. I sympathise with having to put up with the noise and mess.

The thing is, it is usually cheaper to extend than move house. Are these renovations mainly extensions ?

We had a two storey extension done 7 years ago and certainly haven't done anything since apart from paint the kitchen !

However when my neighbour across the road divorced and sold the house I watched the new people move in and almost straightaway they gutted out what had been a brand new kitchen about 18 months to 2 years before ! All going in the skip, it was painful to watch. Presumably they didn't like it.

I don't understand it either.

It seems like a big mixture of things from what I’ve picked up from conversations and have seen being delivered. New kitchens and bathrooms, new flooring and tiles, knocking through walls, single and two storey extensions, quite a few loft conversions, landscaping, new windows, new roofing! In fairness, a lot of these people aren’t planning to move soon. There’s a lot of families with small children, older couples, some nice couples without kids. It’s more the handful who are definitely going to sell once it’s all finished. The 2019 renovation couple mentioned to the lady over the road they wish they’d bought a house with a drive and bigger garden so if they move soon... imagine having three renovations in 10 years! All speculation of course, maybe the new people will love it as it is!

It's certainly good for kitchen and bathroom companies. People do them up before selling and then the new owners rip them out and do them up when they move in

At least it's not as bad as the areas in London where they scoop out the basements and the owners move out leaving the neighbour to suffer

It is certainly must be good for kitchen/bathroom/flooring etc. companies. And local tradesmen I presume. That’s one positive outcome I guess!