Project house - would it be liveable in?

[jellyspoons]

We're looking at a house to buy that has a big garden and if we extended could have everything we'd want for a forever home.

It's owned by an elderly lady and needs full work inside to modernise it. We would want to expand to do a 4th bedroom plus extra living space. It's an ex 1960s council house I believe.

Have attached floorplan and satellite views and a few pics.

Obviously taking this on would be a huge undertaking, but what do people think? Would it be possible to live in one bit and redo it bit by bit?? How much would it cost as a ballpark figure - we live in South east England. Was thinking of building above garage and link room, and / or extending out the back of kitchen.

Thanks guys for any input. I'd always sworn never to take on a project house but things like this don't come up often round here.

here's the satellite view of the garden. Apparently a previous sale fell through due to a discrepancy in the garden boundary.

Depends if you are the type of person that can put up with the grinding day to day issues of living in a building site. Do you have children ? As for cost depends what sort of finish but 2k a sq m wouldn't be far away.

Define "liveable"!! Honestly, it depends entirely on how good you are at roughing it. Make no mistake, living amidst building work is tougher than you might imagine. It's noisy. It's unbelievably dusty. It's cramped. It's cold. You may not have electricity, heating, washing or cooking facilities for some months. But is it doable? Yes, absolutely.

I am currently living through a renovation that has trashed every room in my house apart from a bedroom and a bathroom and I've lived in the place throughout. But it's not easy - it's tiring and there have been moments when I've been cold, miserable and have wondered why on earth I started the whole thing. There have been times I've cried and times I've had to give myself a stern talking to. But it's doable. Most sane people and those with more money move out during the worst parts, as being present throughout a knock-through is hard work.

There are some jobs that are easy to do in stages - cosmetic work and minor things like skimming a ceilling, for instance, can be done room by room. However, major building work that involves knocking about walls is often easier and cheaper to do in one fell swoop if you can manage it. Budget-wise, for a 2 storey extension to second fix, I'm guessing you're not looking at much in the way of change from £90k, and that would not be with high-end fixtures and fittings. However, I may be overestimating! What do others think?

Yeh I think with young kids we may do better to move out during big building works. Just got to factor in the cost of renting as well then.

We love camping and generally are happy to rough it so can cope with some! But crying and finding it that hard doesn't appeal.

Based on 2k per square metre it works out as around 90k so both of you agree!

How many months would a building project that size be likely to take?

In fact we could actually camp in the local campsite if the building work was in the summer months???, maybe I'm crazy!

Some people buy a static caravan to live in on site then sell on afterwards. Looks like you have plenty of room. It will be an adventure for young kids (pretty miserable for you!)

We were in a similar position. 1930s house, structurally sound but 40+ year decor.

Issues to consider:

1. We're not in the SE but an expensive part of the country (Cheshire). I would say the £2k per square metre is probably realistic for a plastered shell (including plumbing, electrics, Windows etc). Kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, decoration and furnishings for the additional space will all be on top of that. We added a bedroom/ ensuite/ added some downstairs living space and reconfigured main bathroom and an existing bedroom) and easily spent £40-50k on top of build cost. That's with middle of the range stuff and spending so much time researching fixtures/fittings for deals / bargains that it was like a 2nd job and doing all of the decoration ourselves. We still have to sort the garden and drive.

1. Don't under estimate living in it until it's done. Firstly whilst you save / get planning permission / get builders lined up (if like us you rip up 40yr old carpet as your child is crawling but dont replace knowing you're starting work soon but turns into a year long wait for builder!) and then whilst the works are underway- not inviting people for play dates / family gatherings / dinner as it's just a state.

1. With children (3 in my case) - it's tough. We put lots of belongings in storage but it's beyond tedious being 4 people to a bedroom, being confined to one living space, not being able to find anything as it's all been stored / moved. The grime is punishing too.

1. We had amazing builders and it was still stressful. Even with me being super organised and 'on it', there were decisions I hadn't thought about and needed to be made there and then. I was on hand most days but you need to commit time to it so depending where you are in your life with children/ work, think about when you want to start the work and be very very careful choosing builders.

But, we now have a (nearly) perfect house (for us) but there were times it was almost too much.

Hmm all interesting food for thought! We've got a viewing tomorrow so will have a look for ourselves. I think I could cope with most things for 4 months. 6 is pushing it and 12 months I'd go mad. Might need to have informal chat to a planner /architect /builder to work out how massive a project it would be. Static caravan in garden is a good idea, prob more sensible than renting elsewhere for 6 months I guess as hard to time the renting at right time

How did the viewing go OP?

Looked like the photos... Rooms smaller in real life. They obviously have a good fish eye lens!
There's just electric heaters and it would need rewiring as well as new central heating. Lots of walls to knock through. Garden is a very good size. There's a small ish electricity sub station at the bottom of the garden.

Having chatted to our mortgage people we have enough money for this with rebuild costed at 150k,and it would really be the only way we could afford a 4 bed large house and garden in this area. But there is the reality of a big rebuild that's as you say not much fun.
The mortgage people wouldn't let us have mortgage without planning permission accepted and signed off if plans were big enough we'd have to move out of the property

Both me and DH in two minds!

Can I ask some advice - we're thinking of doing a second viewing with a planner / builder / architect type person so we can have someone that could look at it and tell us what it could become. It's all just so abstract at the moment to have a clue whether it's worth doing!

I need to choose the right kind of person to go round the property with when we don't really have concrete ideas yet.

What profession should i be googling? how do i choose a good one? Is this second-viewing-with-a-planner idea a good idea? cheers