DH has moved out

[Passa]

We purchase our house earlier this year. We’ve spent more than we would have liked but we can afford the monthly payments.
However, we underestimated the refurbishment cost, we budgeted £60k but it’s going to be closer to £100k+ : new kitchen, new wardrobes, new beds, new flooring and paint. The house is very dated and needs updating but DH has become increasingly bitter at the cost and placed the blame s on me. He’s had to sell his ISA and employee shares to fund this, and has regularly resorted to calling me names. He stayed in thr spare room for weeks but finally moved out back to his parents.
i don’t know what happens after this - will the house be sold off? We are sitting on a very significant loss if we sell it now.

tbf the DH is a grown ass man who has the ability to say no. They're both responsible for this mess - they both bought a house at the top of their budget that needed significant renovation and £££. They both decided to employ designers etc. and let the costs get out of hand, instead of doing one room at a time, as and when finds permitted.
The DH chose to sell his ISA and employee shares to fund the work and now he's resorted to calling his wife names and has run back to his mummy and daddy.

Why did you get designers in?? Noone gets designers in unless they are absolutely loaded.
You should have done the work yourself, slowly and cheaply over years. Getting trades in to do the bits you can't. Like electrics.

He has discovers levels of shallowness, stupidity and entitlement in his wife that he so hoped were not there.

All these people saying they can’t see how OP spent £100k on those renovations clearly haven’t tried to get any work done in London recently. Costs have risen so much post brexit and covid (more than doubled in that time in many cases!). Not the point of the thread but I do sympathise with you OP and see how this could have happened.

They both decided to employ designers etc. and let the costs get out of hand, instead of doing one room at a time, as and when finds permitted. The DH chose to sell his ISA and employee shares to fund the work

You should be a novelist, you have a real gift for writing fiction.

It does sound to me like you got carried away and went to get everything done at once, beyond your current means. Architects draw things up and explain the cost to be approved surely, don't just add on costs then present with a bill at the end?

If you want things done all at once and fast then it costs a great deal, my sister in law sunk 50k on a kitchen bevause she wanted it done yesterday and I must couldn't believe spending that on a small kitchen!

I think if you want to save the marriage its time to sit down and basically apologise for letting it all get carried away. You say he said yes then no then yes, which sounds like he was being pulled in directions- ie you wanted something, he didn't, then you showed him via whatever method either emotionally or verbally that you weren't happy and he relented.

I may be wrong but that's just the vibe I get from your op and subsequent replies, happy to be corrected. But you need to basically apologise for that and try and work out a way to recoup some money for his shares or simply be genuinely contrite enough he can come home and then you can start building up his shares again.

Does the £100k include structural work? Or just the cost of the materials, fitting and painting? If the latter I do feel that something has gone wrong somewhere. We are about 30 minutes north of london and we are mid renovations- half garage conversion into an office and utility, internal wall removal and steels fitted, new wooden bespoke painted kitchen, quartz workstops, knock through back wall and bifolds fitted, flooring throughout, downstairs loo refit, painting etc - has cost £90k

I know you said you have spent all the money but has the works actually taken place? Is there a cooling off period?

It sounds like you have both been unwise here. And both poor at properly communicating. Surely you must have realised that there was a problem when your H said he’d have to sell his shares etc? And surely he should said how uncomfortable he was feeling about it all? And shouldn’t you have been concerned when he kept changing his mind about carrying on with the renovations? And shouldn’t he have sat down with you and had a proper conversation? And how on earth didn’t either of you recognise that your spending was out of control?

What do you want to happen now? You don’t seem to be heartbroken that he’s moved out, more concerned snout losing money in a house sale.

If you care about your marriage then right now, that’s where you should be focusing your energy. Can you spend some time talking together, on neutral territory? You need to be honest with each other and really hear what you’re both saying. You need to acknowledge each other’s pain / anger etc if you’re going to find a way forward together.

And obviously, don’t spend anything else on the house!

Took us years to do every project. We spent then saved for the next phase. So yes you were both being unreasonable IMO

If you are buying a house that is at the top end of your budget, then it should have been ready to go with very minimal cosmetic work requred but if you were up for a reno job then you should have deducted the 60K needed for the renevation from your budget and buy a house based on that. Hard to see how anyone would fail to feel horrible about losing their life savings in addition to an expensive budget all in a few months. What was the deposit contribution from both of you?

I agree with this. We have a massive job on here and are holed up in a caravan until we have the money for the next phase.

Stuff like this needs a lot of considered thinking about, not spending and hoping for the best.

Wardrobes, bed and paint, I wouldn't consider if I was already in over my head.

OP who has made the decision to spend on stuff other than actual structural stuff because if he was involved then he is to blame too. If you have been a Pollyanna and insisted it's all done so it looks like a hotel and bugger the expense, this is your chickens coming home to roost. The devil is in the detail.

I don't want to be that person but when I bought my three-bed house, I spent about £16K in total doing it up, and that also included a new kitchen (that cost £9K, it's a small kitchen though), new flooring, and paint etc. I did that myself (I've got fairly good at putting in laminate flooring although I hate it). So £100K on what you've described IS a lot, unless it's super high-end or your house is absolutely massive.

You've avoided questions on how that £100K breaks down, which does lead me to think your OH is frustrated because you've spent more than you can afford when you actually could have done it on a much more sensible budget. Is that the case?

They were in a care home, so the house was very dated and dirty.

Dated and dirty doesn't need designers and £100k plus spent on it.

In my experience of renovating/doing up houses my advice is to live in the house as it is (unless it is dangerous or completely run down and not fit for habitation) for a minimum of six months before starting any work that way you will see what the urgent priorities are and how best to change the house for your benefit.

Dirt can be cleaned.

I do think it depends to some extent on the type of renovation project - e.g dated and not very trendy or uninhabitable. We had an uninhabitable renovation (no working boiler / electrics / floorboards wrecked with damp etc). Living in it wasn’t an option as it just wasn’t fit for human habitation! If OP’s is similar I can see why she’s gone ahead, but given we’ve been talking about beds / wardrobes, I suspect not!

I am a writer actually 😂

But what have I said that's untrue? Are you suggesting that the DH has no responsibility for this mess? That he didn't willingly agree to buy a house they couldn't really afford to buy and renovate? That he wasn't involved in employing or in any of the discussions with the designers? If the DH hasn't, at any point in the last few months, sat down and looked at costs vs budget and said, hang on, we can't afford this so the new wardrobes will have to wait a bit, then he's every bit as much to blame as OP.

I wish people posting “I spent this amount and got all of this work done” would post when this was and where you are located. If it was 5+ years ago and you’re not in London (OP is), your costs are basically irrelevant here. It’s a known thing that building, decorating, or any trade costs especially in London have risen to ridiculous prices.

We did this, yes the house was very dated but functional once we have deep cleaned it,

we had to strip all rooms inc the lat plaster and did it over 5 years

OP said

I got carried away with the house and when designers came to visit they added extra I didn’t know we needed and it slowly went out of control.

it doesn’t look like joint decisions to me.

Fair point. I did my work over the last 3 years and am based 20 miles from London, in a fairly expensive part of the country.

Sort of agree - personally I'd paint it all white and rip out any minging carpets but unless it's structurally unsafe, most work can be done gradually if you're planning on living there and it's not a doer upper for a quick resale.

how on earth do you misjudge renovation costs by 70% on what feel like decorative/cosmetic things easy to price?

I could understand if you unknowingly bought a back to brick but paint, flooring, tiling, wardrobes, beds and kitchen?

Jeez - if you've just been refusing to cut your cloth accordingly id be frustrated too.

Edit: A designer??????

what the fuck, no wonder he's done one. you've gone beserk with a pantone book and spent six figures!

Yeah the whole 'things she didn't know needed doing' - they're always going to find something else that "needs doing."

It's not surprising that he has got overwhelmed and pissed off with it all. He has sunk all his savings and safety net into a house he didn't really want and presumably would have settled for less.

Now being the main breadwinner he has to deal with the stress of the stretching mortgage payments and trying to rebuild savings/ deal with any unexpected costs life throws at you. You should've stuck with a house that you could have equally contributed to. Not maxxed yourselves out against the higher wage.

It's done now.
So what is your plan to recover your savings situation?
Study and qualify to improve salary?
Get a better paying job?
Work more hours?
Cut costs somehow?

Ripping our minging carpets - I know that so well😀Have done it a fair few times! @AnonymousBleep .