Should we buy this house?

[Falcon1]

It's a beautiful Victoria property in the perfect location. I never thought we'd be able to afford something like this. High ceilings, great proportions, period details, lovely street.

However, it needs A LOT of work. Windows would need replacing, every room decorated (it's not been touched for decades), proper loft extension doing (they've got an existing loft room but it's not been done to building regs and is a death trap!) and ground floor extension to create a kitchen/family room. We would have about £150k upfront to do some of the work. The rest would have to be done gradually.

Also, and this is a biggy, it has a north-facing garden and the whole back of the house is quite gloomy. We reckon we could counter this downstairs with an extension that uses lots of glass. But would it always feel a bit cold? And I guess the back bedrooms would always be quite dark? The garden I'm less fussed about as it is long and does get some sun at the back (been there on a sunny day), but is sunlight in the part of the house we will use the most too much of a compromise?

I'm not too scared of the amount of work, but just don't want to pour time and money into a house that will never be right because of the positioning.

Views very much appreciated!

If doing lots of glass that can work in a north facing - however think I would look at cost of underfloor heating as could be and feel colder.....also finishes like wood type floors much warmer than tiles or slate -

Cheapest loft conversion here 40k + (edge of west london) most seem to cost 50k

we've been quoted 50-100k for a 4*6m extension not incl boiler or cost of flooring or kitchen

so yes you could easily do that budget on your extension alone...
however you could do it over a time and do the loft later if you don't need the room (convention is to do loft first as easier to scaffold but not essential)

You don;t have to get fancy windows - for replacement would find a local glazier and get them round to quote if you must fix them straight away

sounds lovely though

Thanks Wonkylegs. Is your kitchen and playroom north facing?

Thanks very much for the breakdown OhTheRoses - really helpful. You seem to know your stuff!

Do get quotes for the windows first. My quotes aren't top end but I've refurbed two London properties in the last four years.

South facing is overrated.
We had a house that had south facing bay windows, 4 of them, left and right, ground and first floor. One sunny days the house was an oven and unless we pulled all the curtains at 11am, it was too hot to sleep.
Our current house is dark but at least we don't get boiled in it!

Our garden is North facing but our kitchen is sunny. In fact, it's lovely in deep summer. Friends always say how lovely and cool it is. It's the garden that is too shady.
I'd prefer S/SW facing garden but the house really isn't too gloomy.

I'd be put of by he aspect unless you can make the most of the south facing spaces at the front of the house.

However, I think that 150k is plenty to sort out a house of that size. I managed to achieve that on a slightly bigger house and half your budget (full rewire, new pipes and central heating, partial loft conversion, 3 bathrooms, kitchen etc but no extension). That was 4 years ago in outer London. The trick is to shop around for local, individual trades people. A main contractor will add a lot to the price.

When it comes to windows, they can be expensive but there are companies in London that will replace your bay with a new timber frame with argon filled double glazing for about 3k depending on the exact size. PVC is a lot cheaper.

The front of my Edwardian house faces north. We are directly opposite a huge church too and it's a narrow road with neither church or house having much land in front so with the church looming it's very gloomy. The people we bought the house off had done a lot of work to reorientate the living space in the house (inc relocating the kitchen) so the most used living areas and master bedroom face south. I am fairly sure they won't have added what they spent to the value of the house but as they lived here for nearly thirty years they probably didn't feel they'd done too badly.

Are there any options to reconfigure things a bit to achieve something similar?

I wouldn't. The romance of the wreck would soon be replaced with the stress of the never ending money pit. And cold/ dark house, but then I really feel the cold, how about you?

Just on the windows cost we recently replaced two big bays plus three other sash windows with new wood double glazed ones from a good local company (outskirts of London) for 16k. Whoever said over twenty each went with a very fancy company!
Also, you can get pvc sashes made to look like wood for about two thirds of the cost.

Our house is in a huge plot and has windows on the North, east & west aspects so we get a bit from most directions only don't have anything that is South facing as that's the side we are attached to the neighbours.
However the kitchen is north & east facing, with big trees outside lining our drive which limit the light, the playroom is east facing but the sun room / conservatory is on it's only window / door making it essentially an internal room with only secondary light from the other room.

For me from what you have described the hardest to put right would be the loft conversion. Partially completed work is often harder to sort out than if nothing had been done at all. You often have to strip things back to basics and start again, rectifying any damages caused by poor workmanship. As long as you assume you are starting from scratch you should be ok.

A year or so ago I had a client that had bought a house that had had the refurbishment work started by the previous owner it was a complete nightmare to sort out. We ended up stripping most of it back to bare bones and starting again but they had also caused lots of problems which wouldn't have been there if they hadn't partially started the work (eg. poorly fitted insulation was letting water in and damp was damaging the walls from the inside, expensive but badly installed fancy heating system was actually dangerous and a fire risk, and loads of other problems) we turned it around but it was hard work & cost more than they thought it would when they bought the place.

Don't forget to factor in a contingency fund when working out your budget. We didn't use ours which meant I've had more money for the garden & the office extension but it gave us a safety net.

We have a north facing back and before it was really dark due to a conservatory.
We got help from an architect who proposed square off the back and 5m wide floor to ceiling doors with a 1.8m side (east) window from worktop to ceiling. He was still worried about light, but I can tell you it's bright in there in the day time!
If we had been north facing itd basically be a greenhouse, so in a way it's good as we can enjoy the garden from inside.
My point is basically a good architect will see constraints as a challenge not a reason to give up, and exceed your expectation (and cost a lot!)

You cannot fit PVC sashes in a period property. It will wipe 000s off the value. Be very careful too about the authenticity of some double glazed units. We had six sash panels in square bays, so 12 windows per bay with sills and abutting wood panels replaced. Windows that took 50m of curtain fabric. There was also an additional sash upstairs above the front door, so two more. V v important to get a quote, especially if there is any stained glass involved.

Perfect, in keeping windows are crucial to the value of these sorts of properties. You would be better to refurbish the originals and have curtains interlined than govfor any sort of bastardising of the originals.

OhTheRoses, sounds like you live somewhere very expensive. I think that in a lot of outer London suburbs, where family houses cost 400-800k PVC windows wouldn't wipe out any value - they might even be preferable to original single glazed windows as people are concerned with costs and practicality. Also, I'm not really sure who can afford to spend 25k on a bay window + a few k on curtains? Surely only multimillionaires so I wouldn't worry the OP too much about such costs. Unless, the house is in Richmond or another very expensive area and she intends to have a bespoke kitchen, big slabs of marble in the bathrooms, silk curtains etc in which case I agree - her big budget won't be big enough.

OhtheRoses
Although I personally think it's criminal to put PVC in period houses and wouldn't do it myself it doesn't always wipe 1000's off the value, it very much depends on context. Posh conservation area yes it's likely to have an effect, round here outside the conservation area you'll not make a difference to value unless you choose particularly poor style of frame. I think it's a crying shame and personally don't like it but I can understand why people do it.

JoJo the OP is outskirts of London. Possibly a location that will be tomorrow's Wandsworth or Chiswick. Both of which were regarded as "out there" 30/40 years ago, just as Fulham/Islington were 50 years ago.

But yes, point taken.

I'm thinking smart, uniform London terraces. It makes a huge difference here.

This is all really helpful, thank you!

Our old house was north south and we had whole wall of glass in dining room and it was still dark and gloomy and chilly and hated it so never used that room

I think I would get it cos love Victorian houses, slightly biased cos grew up in one

I wouldn't bother with bifold doors cos very expensive and would you actually open them very often facing north?

Go for glass wall but IMHO go for some way of getting light inside

Do you have any sightline to west? From the north side iyswim but not able to put in Windows due to neighbours

If so, LIGHT TUNNELS are absolutely brilliant, get the biggest possible

Op, I think oh the roses is on a different echelon of budget to me. I did massive bay windows in hackney, wanted a very pared back look ( luckily!) , and did blinds for whole front for a few hundred.

Individual trades men can be a pain to coordinate, but bring thousands off the price, project managing is ok to do yourself. I am not very worldly or organised, and did it with baby brain.
And don't be put of by not being an "expert", each trades person you speak to will tell you there way is the only way to do it, and each one will tell you a different way, so you learn there I'd not a right or wrong, but lots of options. My stress levels went right down when I realised that.

Ooh, and I meant to say , if the house has the right "feel", then go for it, you will find your way.

It will save you a lot of money if you have the original Windows refurbished rather than replaced and if later on you still find it cold you could put in good secondary glazing which will not compromise the look of the house. If the back is north facing might you get sun from the east in the morning and west in the afternoon?

We had some of our Georgian (1850's) sash windows refurbished by Ventrolla. They did a great job. They previously rattled like crazy and were very drafty. They remained single glazed but definitely worth considering rather than replacing if at all possible. In your extension you could consider French doors as apparently these are a cheaper option than bifold and could work well in a more traditional home. You can still have large windows on either side to let lots of lights in. Just another idea.

We've just had an entire bay sash and box replaced and double glazed in a conservation area. The bay was 3mx2.5m so big and cost £6800. (In London).