Is it do-able / overly expensive to change an ugly exterior?

[Junglefowl]

We'd have found a house which is offputting on both the inside outside in terms of nasty 70s cladding and bad decoration inside. We are still keen on it in terms of size and room proportions and location so wondering whether it can be transformed ?

Does anyone have experience as I felt if the cladding can be replaced for smooth wall it would look fine?
But have no idea of permissions needed or cost.

Thanks so much

You quite often find there is just block work rather than brick under cladding. Might be worth a look round the neighbouring streets to see if anyone else has changed the exterior of a similar house. Have a look at the planning applications on the council website too. There are companies that specialise in altering the frontages of houses - have a dig around online for before and after photos.

Thanks so much . This is brilliant to have advice and I'm sharing it with DH too. Much appreciated

No advice, but was asking myself the same question today! We've seen a house which needs a lot of work and the exterior is v ugly - pebble dash and horrible old double glazing. Pretty sure it's on brick because of the age of the property and the rear elevation, though.

Debating whether we have the knowledge and commitment to take it on! But it's less money and more room than anything else we could get in the area. Tricky.

Yes ours is cheap for the size too but the agent said once improved it would be worth a great deal more (mind you it's in her advantage to say this) Tricky one.

I did follow wowfudge's kind advice and looked online too. This is quite useful
www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/interiors/renovating/7886038/How-to-give-your-house-a-facelift.html

If you can afford to remove ugly cladding, then render and paint, you could at the same time, improve insulation. Nicer to live in, and increases value of property.. If local council allows you to, of course...

There's a 70s estate I used to drive past every day and someone relatively recently refurbished the exterior of a house when they bought it by changing the windows to dark grey, I presume, aluminium framed windows from the look, in a different design from the original. They removed a small cantilevered bay window and replaced with a flat one, took off the cladding and rendered the outside in grey. The house looks completely different. In its own way it will look dated in future, but render can be painted and windows changed.

Good ideas here, too: www.backtofrontexteriordesign.com/projects/finished-projects/

I was going to recommend back to front exteriors too ! Very inspirational !

That's amazing! In our case we'd want a 70s house with fancy stone cladding I don't like to look pretty and with plain walls

We looked at a property in an estate built in the 60's and quite a few had removed the cladding. Not seen that often though, not sure why.