To buy a house that I can't afford to change the decor of?

[Itisallabitvague]

Think footballers wives....very marble and shiny. Great area, gorgeous outside spaces, amazing garden. We can't afford to buy it and change the decor for about 4 years.

I am being unreasonable - just buy it and change it when you can afford it.

I am not being unreasonable - interior is so important, keep looking.

I bet there are some cheap fixes to tone it down a bit until you can do it properly.

Think fake excessive rectangular built in fire place along the length of the living room. Marble floored hallway and kitchen.

That will be very expensive to change. How long do you anticipate having to put up with it?

The appearance of a house is meaningless. Is it functional and in good repair? Is it a good location? Will your children get a good education?

people rush to replace perfectly functional things in homes just because they don’t love the look. It is incredibly expensive and also not great from an environmental perspective.

it will feel like your home when it is filled with your things.

I’d love marble floors in kitchen and hallway! So durable and easy to clean. What colour is it?

This could be a great challenge, personalising it on a shoestring.

I reckon you'll probably get used to the marble really quickly. Good, strong natural material. Some antique rugs to maybe add warmth or contrast especially in the entrance and you probably won't think about it day to day. That would save a fortune. We've got a marble hallway that came with the house (no bling though!) and it's not what I'd choose but it's a nice clean blank canvas.

But it 100%. If you don’t have it you definitely won’t be able to change the decor in the future.

*buy it

She said 4 years before they can afford to change it

Someone once gave me advice when moving into our first house.
Apart from a slap of paint or put up pictures etc. live in it for a
few months before doing any big changes.
See what you like. When your furniture is in everything will look
different.

If you can live with it and there's nothing needing doing right now due to safety/structural.issues I'd probably buy.

We had the same situation we walked away but that was because the house was priced in the top bracket for the street due to the interior
the kitchen was handmade rose wood units with a pinky marble quartz top she beamed and says she’d be gutted to leave it and it cost 23k ( going back a good few years ) to me it was firewood
the bathroom was champagne with beige porcelain tile and an infrared sauna that looked like a garden shed in the corner

i could of lived with that no problem but I would of being paying twice as paid extra for house because of it then paying again to replace it

Just your stuff in it might tone it down a bit versus the footballers wives vibe. Buy it! Four years is nothing and will let you get to grips with what you want to do to it

Again, thanks all! Some great advice. Thinking of how lucky we are that we can afford the house at all. To the poster asking about the area and schools, yes both are great and I agree, it means so much. To the poster about the marble, it's an off white and pretty neutral, a rug would definitely make a difference!

Yes! I bought an ugly house that needed ALL the work, knowing it would be 3-5 years before we could afford to get it done. It was built in the early 90’s but the style was definitely 80s 😂. Yours doesn’t sound half as bad, just not to your taste.

To be honest, when we moved in I was overwhelmed and wondered WTH we had just done. And I didn’t really have a plan for how we would afford the Reno within 3-5 years. We had bought at the very top end of our budget. This budget was meant to be for a house that didn’t need work. We extended the mortgage to afford it, and got the work done 3.5 years after buying. The common advice is to live in a place for 12 months before making any major changes, so you have lived through all the seasons.

So, I say yes, go for it.

Go for it OP, it sounds like a great house. You can put some second hand rugs on the marble floors, but be sure use that underlay that grips! I do hate a marble floor, especially a white one with dazzling light reflecting from the inevitable skylights - but you will be able to change all that in time.

Painting is not as hard as we think it is. My DH & I just patched and painted walls in an investment property. It was easier than we thought. Yesterday, I patched and painted a wall in the downstairs toilet. I’m now seriously considering painting the inside of our house myself. I’m going to start with my study and see how it goes. For just one bedroom, I think it’s definitely worth doing!

Could you use a different strategy between mortgage and deposit perhaps ? Few different options available to you?

If you love everything about the house that you can’t change - location, size, schools - and can live for now with what you can change, go for it! We bought our house nine years ago and it needed a lot of work - every window needed replacing, every room back to brick, rewiring, extension, garden, everything! It had barely changed from when it was built in the Edwardian period, but to be honest, that’s what attracted us. It’s taken seven years to restore, and we put up with the most awful falling down old kitchen, windows which didn’t close, a bees’ nest in the chimney, woodchip wallpaper, I could go on! I’d have given my eye teeth for an interior which was liveable and useable, albeit not to my taste. We couldn’t afford to do it all up at once either, but aside from the major house-wide works such as the rewire and extension, just did a room at a time as and when we could. Taking the time actually helped, as it gave us the space to plan the decor, get things we wanted in the sales and store them ready for each room, source antiques, furniture, period fittings etc. Enjoy your new house 👌

we are in a privileged position that we've worked hard to be in.

Really unnecessary addendum.

I concur, definitely go for it,

I have a house with these light brown toned SUPER GLOSSY ceramic tiles in the kitchen diner extension.
I wouldn't have chosen them but they already look different with my style of furniture in, and softened with rugs. And I can appreciate they are good quality and were probably expensive.

Maybe one day I'll change them but doesn't feel right when they are fully functional, and I can't afford it anyway.

You might be able to sell things like the fireplace or the marble to help fund a refit? Do as much of the work yourselves as you can, etc.

When I think how many of us couldn't even afford furniture when we bought our first property. Once paid all the fees and extra, there was nothing left. That's how a lot of us put their first step on the property ladder.

My first flat didn't even have a bathroom 😂

I wouldn't live in a rather nice detached house today if I had been fussy back then.

OP, it's up to you. You can go old school and do one room at at time, and still prioritise having a life on the side. I would!

I wouldn’t. I mean, we bought this house when it was a former student hoise, and very bashed about, and lived in it for a while before stripping it back to its (lovely) bones, but we got a beautiful house more cheaply because it was so wrecked, and in a garden of waist-high weeds — I wouldn’t pay top dollar for a Wag Palace whose horrible marble fixtures and fittings I’m paying for, then pay more money to have them ripped out and replaced.

It sounds like the really important things are all right….. I’d go for it! You can join Facebook groups to see how to do diy on a tight budget. People do all sorts like paint tiles, put wrap over kitchen cabinets etc.