AIBU - house renovation has broken us

[TwinkleToesForever]

I feel a bit ridiculous. Long story short, we were planning a kitchen extension. Problems with the house has led to us spending way over budget and doing a far more extensive project (about 30% over budget so far but more to come I expect) DP and I have been broken by the disruption it’s bought to our lives. Both have busy, demanding jobs, WFH . 3 kids 10-14. Demanding Puppy. Car has recently been stolen too. Completely overwhelmed with all the decisions and constant banging and the dust, oh the dust. They brought the steel through the house today and took the staircase with it. The builders say they will make good but it’s just shock of it all. Everyone we speak to minimises and “oh it will be lovely once it’s done” etc. I realise this is a total FWP but my god, I am a broken woman. AIBU Am I a total wimp and or is this renovation business actually stressful? DP and I full of regret that we started the bloody thing. And also the area since the car was nicked. Please tell me we’ve done the right thing and it will be ok.

The renovation I could live with, the area not so much.

Watch out for that dust - if there is any way to get it under control, do it.

I got a chest infection that wiped me out after having a second bathroom installed. I prayed for death.

@Nsky

Had full house renovation, 1 bed terrace, 15 weeks friends of work chums , washing machine, 2 large bits of furniture left, front door, car and cat left ! Nightmare, so worth it now, oh and garden make over 7 weeks following year

I think maybe this poster lost the plot completely during their refurb, and is not yet fully recovered

It'll be ok.

I'm in a farmhouse I'm currently working through, just a room per year complete rip out, insulate and put back together.

It's not viable for most people but if you can do everything at once and not be in the middle of it, it must be glorious.

Ripping out living room including ceiling which was all lathe and plaster nearly brought me to tears.
The fucking dust was biblical, it can be cleared over time though.
But yes it's stressful if you're in the middle of it.

The static option is also solid.

Buy one for a good price and you'll likely get your money back after the work is done

I'd definitely do this but ours is a slower project due to time, work and money

I did a loft conversion (well not personally but you know what I mean!) and when water started pouring into DS1s bedroom I packed up him and his baby brother, told xdh I was off until it was finished, hopped on a plane and stayed with family in France for a few weeks.

OP, the steel and the stairs rang so true! Xdh had friends in the fire service and a dozen of them turned up to manoeuvre the steel and i was convinced the stairs were going to collapse!

It’s the weeks where nothing happen that’s the killer for me. After 2 weeks of nothing some doors turned up yesterday….I’m hopeful.

Having to leave the window open for the cat as no where to put a cat flap is growing increasingly untenable.

Also…looking at pricey decisions we made where I’m now thinking…a quooker….wtf were we thinking?

This thread has brought back memories! House renovation was how so many of my boomer generation got on the housing ladder. We were born not that many years after end of WWII, so not a lot of money around and a lot of properties neglected for a long long time, so not wildly expensive.

I bought a terraced back to back, ripped it to pieces and put it back together. I had to do a lot of the work myself, starting out with a budget of £600. I was often there till midnight, combining it with with and studying for professional exams. It was challenging, ( I remember washing up in the bathroom for 18 months), but it was what you did to get on the ladder, so in that sense it felt normal.

I've obviously been a sucker for punishment, having renovated and extended our current home over the last two decades. It's hard at times, but so satisfying when you've finished, so hang in there OP!

Definitely character forming though! 😄

Totally agree with the PP who said control that dust! Seal off the affected areas with plastic over the doors and ensure that stays there.

Yanbu, we are having the whole of our upstairs ripped out currently, we are sleeping on a mattress in the front room, the only clean room is the kitchen & DS room. I'm beyond stressed! & oh god the mess! I know you hate it but it will be worth it though! Picture your lovely house at Xmas! That's keeping me going 😂

We are 18 months into ours. I am basically a shell of a woman 🤣 I had DC3 6 months into it, and we all lived in 1 room for 9 months.

We only have 1 plug in the kitchen, no bannisters on the stairs, no floor coverings. Shortly we will have no kitchen. We spent 2 months last winter with no windows.

But, things are looking up….!

One of the (multiple!) worst bits for me, is the SHEER nosiness of EVERY SINGLE PERSON who walks or drives down the road rubber necking in. We have people standing openly gawping in, clearly discussing this and that (don’t know they can be seen until I wave out at them).

We know that half the town are discussing it (it’s commented on daily). We feel a lot of pressure but we are so tired at this stage we just want tot tell everyone to fuck off.

Am I a total wimp and or is this renovation business actually stressful?

It is actually stressful. I have never in 30 years in construction, had a project go smoothly from start to finish. Part of the problem with home renovations is, people choose the wrong builder (often because they are available now) rather than doing the research and waiting for the one who can’t do it for 3 months. 14 weeks for a kitchen extension seems like quite a long time, is there a reason it was programmed so long? Even then, the impact inside should be minimal for at least half the project. When costs go awry, again this is down to people taking the builder’s quote as the final price, without looking at what is missing or what the risks are. I would always add at least 10% contingency to the price for those smaller jobs.

Trying to do anything at the moment is expensive and time consuming. Buying anything to do with construction, costs have risen, anywhere from 10 to 40%. The steel prices rise daily and are double what they were a year ago.

There is little you can do at this point except take a deep breath, accept this is your life for a couple of months more and work out your daily routine to avoid what you can. Talk with your builder regularly and keep as involved as you can. Taking out an entire staircase seems extreme. When you are getting price increases, make sure you aren’t paying for these.

I blame DIY SOS
Sure, but anyone with a passing knowledge of Grand Designs would know projects always go late, and always go over budget, usually because people think they can do my job with no training or experience.

This is why my extension builder deserved an award. He basically moved most of my old kitchen into what was once the original kitchen area when we took down the crappy old sixties extension that housed it, built the new extension, fitted the new kitchen and then we moved into it. He then took out the temporary kitchen and fitted the downstairs loo and utility room in the temp kitchen space. I was the envy of all our friends who were on similar projects. I had most of my cupboards and all appliances bar the dishwasher in my little temporary kitchen. Others were washing dishes in the bathroom and managing with a microwave.
When the loft extension was done years before I remember the huge amounts of dust but the also wonderful builder sealed off my toddlers room every day and I used to pop him in there when I got him back from nursery and do the daily wash down and hoover of surfaces. I kept the bucket, cloths, detergent all together in a cupboard and we had an old Hoover which I used to get up as much of the dust as possible first, then wash down. I got pretty quick at it.
Yes, it’s hard graft, but if the builders are good you feel like you’re making progress and cleaning up is something you can control and do. Friends of ours didn’t ever want to do renovations and liked moving house a lot. They got into some appalling situations with chains breaking down etc I suppose I’ve always thought that I can clean up the dust and mess but I can’t kick someone else’s solicitors into gear so we’d rather do renovations than sell and move. Not far off 30 years in the same house - but maybe ready for a change when DS2 has left school.

@BarkingUpTheWrongRoseBush

It’s the weeks where nothing happen that’s the killer for me. After 2 weeks of nothing some doors turned up yesterday….I’m hopeful.

Having to leave the window open for the cat as no where to put a cat flap is growing increasingly untenable.

Also…looking at pricey decisions we made where I’m now thinking…a quooker….wtf were we thinking?

I’m thinking of a Qettle as they seem the same but cheaper?

I’m thinking of a Qettle as they seem the same but cheaper

I read something (maybe on here) the other day that said that a Quooker is the only one that delivers boiling water, the others boil water but the water has cooled a few degrees by the time it is delivered. I don’t know how true that is or whether that matters to you but just thought I’d pass on what I read.

@Luckystar1

I’m thinking of a Qettle as they seem the same but cheaper

I read something (maybe on here) the other day that said that a Quooker is the only one that delivers boiling water, the others boil water but the water has cooled a few degrees by the time it is delivered. I don’t know how true that is or whether that matters to you but just thought I’d pass on what I read.

Thanks for that, the video on the qettle website says boiling.

But tbh, as long as it makes my tea I don’t mind. I mean often the kettle has clicked off while I’m doing something else and it’s not boiling water going into my mug.

@Luckystar1

We are 18 months into ours. I am basically a shell of a woman 🤣 I had DC3 6 months into it, and we all lived in 1 room for 9 months.

We only have 1 plug in the kitchen, no bannisters on the stairs, no floor coverings. Shortly we will have no kitchen. We spent 2 months last winter with no windows.

But, things are looking up….!

One of the (multiple!) worst bits for me, is the SHEER nosiness of EVERY SINGLE PERSON who walks or drives down the road rubber necking in. We have people standing openly gawping in, clearly discussing this and that (don’t know they can be seen until I wave out at them).

We know that half the town are discussing it (it’s commented on daily). We feel a lot of pressure but we are so tired at this stage we just want tot tell everyone to fuck off.

They want to see the end result.

It's interesting when you don't have to live with it how housing can be transformed.

There are some houses that I've seen in the last 3 years that have been sold, done up, family moved in and more work done on them. Some of the houses are completely soulless while others brilliant even though they have all had a good deal of money spent on them.

Oh yes, we have a couple of older guys in particular who always have a nose and chinwag with the builders, I try and time going out to miss them or I’ll be there for hours discussing the pros and cons of what we’re doing. They’re probably just lonely, and tbh I love a good nose myself!
I always invite friends round to the back to have a look, 100% jump at the chance.

I satisfy my nosiness with looking at others on Instagram 😂

@LivingInABuildingSite We went with Qooker as that seemed to most consistently get a vote that you get a decent cup of tea out of it. I'm waiting to see.

We may still end up with a kettle for tea so the water is freshly drawn and boiled for that first important cup of tea of the day. But I'll have to put it in a cupboard so DH gets those clear kitchen surfaces he's spent the last 2 years dreaming about while we've been using the original kitchen with a washing machine and dryer crammed in - the fridge freezer crammed in and room to swing half a cat.

I love having a nose at other people's building works.

TBH we've had a relatively easy time of it. But we've both had a worse things happen at sea attitude to it - nothing major has gone wrong - we had a healthy contingency and a bit of dust and mud never harmed anyone.

We couldn’t afford to move out when we did ours about 4 years ago, the builder said we should have moved out. We ended up spending 6 days in a travelodge near the motorway and living off co-op meal deals, McDonald’s and Wetherspoons. The poor dog had to stay at home with the cat on the building site.

We had to move out because once they started cutting in to the brick the brick dust in the air wasn’t good for DC2, he had an air purifyer in his room for a good few months after too.

We put a small shopping container on the drive so we could move lots of furniture and stuff into that but it was easily accessible (rather than dragging it to a storage unit far away).

Ours took about 6 months and there was literally only one room in the whole house that wasn’t worked on and we spent Christmas with a water pipe sticking up through the kitchen floor.

Worth it now though but was bloody hard going at the time. 2 small DC, pregnant with number3, dog, cat, fish (the fish went and stayed with a friend for a few months).

Our house is a million times better now though - but now needs repainting after years of children’s hands and I can’t face us doing ourselves again !!

Even doing the loft was enough for me. I'm not doing the kitchen until I can afford to move out during it. Which is probably going to be never as I live somewhere quite expensive too. Probably do it when I retire and don't need it anymore.

BoredZelda, I don't know if it is as straightforward as that my DH designed our extension, is used to project managing multi-million building projects in his work practice. As an Architect he was able to find amazing builders that his workplace had used, he is adept in managing building projects but it was still incredibly stressful as he was working on our own project in the evening or at lunchtime, doing this as his job in the day. Admittedly he wanted to do this as he knows what he is looking for and has incredibly high standards. That said, our income was much lower 6 years ago as I was on leave and we couldn't afford to move out why it was being built so I would imagine that makes a difference. On the other hand my brother is having a renovation done that he said is one of the most stressful things they have done in their lives and they have moved out and are renting another house so it is not like they are stressed from cramped living.

It's extremely stressful. I'm an architect and am used to seeing the stress and trying to minimise it for my clients. I know exactly what's going on, all the options and ramifications, yet when we did our own house I was more stressed than when I ran multi billion pound projects.
You can't escape it which doesn't help.

Why don't you advertise on your local FB page?

Wanted - very short term let - we need x, y, z. Budget up to £x.

This will give you some control of the situation and it may come to sth?