New day new idea :-)

[mamatomany]

So today I have been to view a Victorian semi with 4 storey's, including a basement to lock the old witch MIL in which would give her a front door of her own, a huge bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and lounge.
We wouldn't have to add to our mortgage but and of course there's a but, it would need gutting.

So in order to make it into a family home in what order would you do everything ?
I would have a month at most to rip out everything, where to start ?
The roof is good, the pointing has been done recently and the windows look ok so I could do those one at a time.

Yikes, a month!! If it were me, I'd put in bathroom (s) and kitchen, and make sure all ceilings were ok i.e get them skimmed if needed. Then paint it all white.

You can then move in and it will be clean and fresh. Walls are relatively easy to change the colour of at a later date. But it's frustrating to do ceilings once all the furniture is in. Get any structural work done before you move and as much wiring plumbing as possible, to avoid the dreaded DUST.
Delay moving in by every single day you can, cos once in, you have to work round stuff and people.

I have never done this, so am only saying what I would do...hopefully someone who has, can add more.

Pannacotta did this, I believe. I think she rewired and installed central heating, and then had the replastering done before moving in. You could do the kitchen and bathroom, but I think the risk is you're in too much of a rush to make the right decisions for the house. You'd be surprised at how much of a difference really scrubbing an old kitchen / bathroom clean has.

I was thinking along the lines of an industrial cleaning company in after the carpets had been ripped up, the walls stripped and plastering where required.
Then at least one bathroom done perfectly (there's three), the children's bedrooms done and one living room.
I am hoping the electrics and central heating are ok, that'll need checking out.
It's quite a project but it could make us enough money to buy the forever house in 5 years time so I'm very keen.

I think if you want to make money out of it then you should plan what the house needs really carefully rather than rush through it. There's no point sticking in new kitchen or bathroom and getting the layout wrong or having to later upgrade the plumbing because you didn't realise at the time that the pipework was loopy. Replaster where necessary if you want but it sounds as if you are setting slightly false deadlines when you don't think you need to pull up all the floors for new wiring and pipework.

Before you do anything else sort out the electrics and the boiler/heating.

I'm planning a full structural survey for this one before i'd go ahead, it's a huge house and new central heating could blow the entire budget, i'm assuming all will be well.

check that the windows are all okay, we had to pull out from a huge house when the survery said that every single window needed to be replaced budget on £1k per window. Also get a roofer to check the roof, surveyors don't really look at roofs and that can be an expensive omission. Good luck.

What's actually wrong with it? If the roof, the windows, the central heating and electrics are okay, then it sounds in reasonably good nick. Is it just a case of redecorating?

I guess it is just redecoration on a grand scale, I wish there were pictures I could show you but the EA has wisely just taken one of the front.
It stinks of ciggies, when I think of the effort I've seen people on here go to before viewings, this one hadn't even done their washing up and dinner was very much in evidence.
Seriously though every carpet was thread bare and rank, the period fireplaces painted lilac, ceilings lowered, knives and guns lined up in one room.
Phil and Kirsty would have passed out.

Lala and Noddy might have professional views on this - but are you sure that it will be a money maker? I've heard that you don't necessarily make money on dated houses that need updating/

I'd convert it into three flats when the time came to sell, pretty much every other house in the area has been done that way and i'd be looking 15 years into the future, the current owners are going to make £300k just by living in it though

This is a bit of a change from extending your current home!

a month is awfully short... is there room for a caravan in the garden just in case?

Actually yes there is room for a caravan !
Good idea

I just cannot see an extension solving many/any of our space issues and we'd be back to square one in 2 years time.
We'd be compromising on area but at least we'd have more bedrooms than we'd know what to do with.

In general if owners haven't spent money on the interior they haven't looked after the structure of the house and thats really expensive - look at the roofs, window frames and sills, central heating and wiring.

I agree with Fiddle, have a look at the fusebox, the pipework where it comes up for radiators, the radiators themselves (if the pipes or rads have got several layers of paint then it means they are old and inefficient and the whole system will need renewing, if the fusebox is the old type then you're probably looking at a rewire).

People don't usually spend money on the invisible stuff and then not bother with the finish - unless they are builders who always seem to live in a half-done state (except jeanjeanie's husband, I'm sure ).

I can guarantee from the sound of it that it will take more than a month to put it right before you move in [ speaking from the point of view of a mum who still has builders in several months on].Unless you are prepared to pay a fortune for a very large team of builders to strip and redo in a very short time don't buy.If you are prepared to live through chaos do!.You will probably need to redo everything from ground-level upwards.This isn't a cynical viewpoint but realistic!.

Assuming that the big stuff is okay - electrics, plumbing, roof, windows, then the rest of it is just cosmetic. Like lalalonglegs points out though, it's really unlikely these people have taken proper care of the place if they haven't even bothered to decorate it.

A lot of these old properties are just not economically feasible as development projects, which is why they've been left as family homes - we live in a whole street of them and it's lovely (if crumbling!). The money invariably only gets released by spending 20 odd years living in them and meanwhile your savings get spent on roofs, sash windows, bloody extortionate gas bills and questionable plumbing... Such are the joys of Victorian houses!

In terms of the gutting though, I'd check what's salvageable first. So go round and check if there's hot water coming out the pipes in the bathrooms (always a good sign!). Ask them to put the heating on and check the radiators too. Note any damp marks or staining as that usually means you need to go fix the problem - don't assume the worst though, as sometimes it can be something simple. Get one room liveable first - you'll be amazed by what a bit of paint and some cleaning will do! And YES YES YES to the industrial cleaners. They are ace!

I'm going to get an electrical report and a plumber around to look at it before I pay out for a full survey but it's very exciting, loads of potential, just hope the old bag likes it and can see beyond the end of her nose (her flat bit is in the worse state).

Well every window needs replacing lol it's not going to be just decorative.
So we've put in an offer 20% below asking and we'll wait and see, i'm not prepared to go any higher so fingers crossed.

Does every window really need replacing, or does every window need a joiner to repair it? We had a joiner repair each of the windows in our house, and it saved a fortune.

Good point, some of them are metal frames and look awful though, i'd like them all to be uniform, i'll get some quotes and see what they come back with if my offer is accepted, am very excited the children were choosing bedrooms and rushing around in so much space rather than tripping over each other.