To be upset regarding new home.

[2023NewStart1]

We’re in the process of moving into new home and I am shocked at the state of the walls. Not sure if we’ve been lucky before (3rd home move in 20 years) or if this is normal so posting here. The house looked beautiful and we thought it was ready to move in as it was exceptionally immaculate but now that the owners furniture and belongings have gone we realised how much it’s going to cost to paint. Every single room including the bathrooms has hundreds of nails dug into the walls! Even the decorator was shocked and said they seemed to have loved their pictures, we hung up a few pictures over the years and never nailed them in but used command picture strips. Only thing that was nailed in was a heavy mirror.

my mum was really shocked too, every single room needs to be painted and it’s going to cost a lot as we don’t know the names of paints used and trying to match up is going to be a nightmare. Mum very helpfully told me I should complain to the estate agent! I’m obviously not going to as the sale has happened and EA won’t really care.

any advice on what we can do or just anyone to sympathise? I haven’t told anyone in RL as it seems like a non problem but it’s really upsetting me as me we can’t move furniture in till decorating has been done. Every single room needs decorating now. It’s going to delay our move as all decorators are busy during this time

Of course if you overpaid for the house because you thought there'd be no decorating then that would explain your disappointment.

Just put the furniture in the middle of the room and get painting. As long as it doesn't need plastering it's an easy enough job. I've always redecorated a new home, I love a fresh start.

OP… If you enter need a rewire or new central heating you’ll definitely have to rent somewhere else for 6 months while that happens!!

(PS. If they do need doing, do them now. Your nail holes will make you joyful by comparison .)

Ask the paint shop if they have any grips they can sell you

You did view the property beforehand I assume? Or are you saying they suddenly went round hammering nails into the walls before moving out?

Your walls may need replastering or at the very least the holes filling before painting. Honestly it's not that bad, as at least it's not structural problems. Just move in as normal but do one room at a time. 12 years later, we have still not decorated every room in our house! Turn it into a positive, you'll probably go for new colour schemes!

I would take holes in plastered walls over stripping wallpaper any day.

Aw bless you OP, moving is stressful and you sound overwhelmed. Honestly, just take it room by room and you'll be fine.

I've definitely been there. After finally getting the keys for my new flat, I discovered that the washing machine included in the purchase didn't work! I mean, it took two days to replace, a total non-issue really, but in that moment it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I was so angry!

We’ve just decorated and put all our pictures up with picture hooks that are nailed in. Command strips would hold some of our heavy pictures and it wouldn’t occur to me to think of the next owners tbh.

I think you’re being wildly dramatic tbh. You don’t ‘need’ to redecorate before you move in you want to. And painting can be done room by room, so do the room that’ll have the heaviest furniture first.

it’s been a year in our new house and we’ve done one room - the kitchen. Hopefully now DH has a new job we’ll be able to afford to actually do the other rooms now.

Oh, and we have found taking off wallpaper that practically all the walls need replastering as it’s so old it’s peeling off in chunks. So I’m sorry I have limited sympathy.

I agree with this pp who say normal.

Tbh even if you knew the paint colour it probably wouldn't match as the formula might be slightly different (I've had two tins made at the same time be slightly different), and the old paint has probably faded.

Just enjoy choosing a new colour scheme.

Fwiw, I loathe command strips. I've had at least four pictures come off the wall using those (some failed immediately but two failed after over a year). And we used more strips than supposedly required. I'd only use them for cheap posters or something.

If your mum was shocked it must be bad

Seriously though, I doubt it is hundreds in one wall.

Surely you would want to pick your own colours and decor, otherwise it’s like living in someone else’s house!

When we moved about 10 years ago, there was a clause in the contract that stated that where anything was fixed to the wall and removed by us (the seller) it had to be repaired and holes filled and painted.
A bit of a nuisance because we had some ornate curtain rails that we wanted to to take, so we had to remove them early, fill and paint the holes knowing that most likely the buyer would be drilling new ones in the same place.

Little nails are nothing to complain about. Pull them out. Fill them in with polyfilla, then sand and paint. Painting walls is easy with a roller once you get the hang of it takes no time at all.

Problem comes when you have massive holes and craters in the plasterboard. I have tried to repair these with filler, but really at some point you need to realise its not worth it and you need to go for a replaster.

Nearly everyone who moves into a new place redecorates anyway, so unless you expected everything to be absolutely pristine and to your tastes when you moved in, YABU.

YABU. You could have checked.

And if you have valuable or old original paintings, they generally need screwing in (my insurance company requires this on a couple of mine).

You'd hate my house. I've completely embraced the dark academia style of living 😁

This.
We had to live in mess until we could afford to redecorate!

WHAT?? 😂😂 it’s very very normal to redecorate when you move in somewhere. It would never ever occur to me that I had to try find paint to match what was already on the walls. Weird!

I'd never heard of command strips at all until I read this! And I don't think I'd trust them, especially for some of my bigger pictures.

It could be far worse, OP, my house was entirely decorated in Anaglypta, which had then been painted numerous times. That required a lot more than filler and paint.

I've yet to see a house that doesn't look shabby once the furniture's gone, save for very new ones. The horrors found on moving in would merit a thread of its own imo.

We specified that our vendors would need to make good when they removed the hundreds of screws which attached their pictures to the walls.

This.

Filler and paint isn't that expensive. You don't have to pay someone to do it. You can also move in and paint as you wish surely. Houses always look nice with stuff in them and then when they're empty you can see all the flaws.

It's totally normal. Just fill the holes and paint room by room. It'll be nicer when you've made it your own anyway.