Buying an amazing project house.. excited but scared.

[DavetheCat2001]

We are in the process of purchasing a 4 bed Edwardian house a few roads away from where we are currently living.

The house is enormous, with potential to extend out the back to put in an amazing open plan kitchen, and up into the loft and put in a further 2 bedrooms and ensuite.

As it stands currently it needs a load of work doing to it, but it's the only way we could ever have a house like that in our area.

We're stretching ourselves massively and taking out a non- high st mortgage in order to borrow what we need, and will be interest only for at least the first couple of years, but we can do it.. there isn't much left over for renovation though.

I'm not currently working although looking with a couple of potential jobs coming up 🤞🏻. So reliant on OH's salary alone at the moment, which is ok.. not amazing but reasonable for London.

OH is pretty handy and can put in bathrooms, build stuff and turn his hand to most things ( his dad practically built his childhood home so he learnt a lot from him). He has done loads to our current property, and is really excited about getting stuck in with this old pile.

Kitchen ext will onviously have to wait and be saved up for, but OH is confident he can do a lot of stuff himself.

I'm under no illusion that this is going to be a ling term project, and will be messy and stressful along the way, but even a few improvements will make it better.

Has anyone else done something like this on a minimal initial budget, and with doing a lot of the work themselves?

We have 2 DC (5 and 8) soobviously that brings extra challenges. We did up our current maisonette and lived in a building site, but it was only us.. no kids!

Long term the house will be a proper family home with space for the kids to grow. We ate currently cramped where we are, so it's def time to move.

Anyone got any words of widom/caution/comfort?

We have renovated every bit of our house so far (still more to do) with kids and have done the majority by ourselves. Until we had major building work done recently the only thing ga we've had trades people in to do is plastering.

We've lifted floors, replaced joists, done electrics and plumbing, cleaned stonework, laid floor, built stud wall, taken walls out, tiledetc etc. My DH is an engineer so handy and all electrical work has been signed off by a qualified electrician.

It has been stressful, hard work, inconvenient and exhausting but we have such a sense of achievement at having done it ourselves and like you we couldn't have afforded to buy where we live without doing it this way. It's been worth it. We're so close to the end now. One more room and the garden to do.

Oh. I should have added a good luck to you!

Thank you @CarlGrimesMissingEye !

Sounds pretty much the sorts of things we will be doing! Sounds like no regrets from your side then?

There was a lot of interest in the house.. we were the 10th of 10 viewings on the first day it went on the market 😳. We were up against another couple who really wanted it too, but managed to piss off the vendor (an old boy with no onward purchase) by putting in a silly offer and then upping it bit by bit a number of times.

I just went in with a sensible figure, asked the EA if the thought he would take it, they said yes.. offered and he went with us! Other buyers came back and said they would up on us by 15k but ge wasn't interested! A lesson learnt there I think!

Haven't had the survey yet, which will no doubt throw up a liad of stuff, but we aren't fazed unless its subsiding ( was underpinned 20 yrs ago) or the roof is about to fall in!

Not exactly the same but we bought a house which needed a lot of renovation when kids were 2 and 3 - it was unmortgagable so bought in cash.

Kids have always found it fun though there were times when we had to put them in nursery as the house was in so much chaos (I was part-time). Once we had to go to a hotel for a couple of days as builder said one floor might collapse on the first floor as they did some work but kids thought that was great too. It was embarrassing to be met at school by Headmaster saying heard your first floor was at risk of collapse as the kids thought it super exciting

There's quite a lot of work you can do yourself - we did painting, digging up concrete in garden, laying a lawn and flowers, knocking down a non-supporting wall, redesigning kitchen and some installation. We got help in for rebuilding chimney, electrics, tiling.

It is quite stressful - whilst electrics done we had no electricity so no hot water and no heating. Kitchen took a long time so a lot of takeaways and microwave meals, great at first but then you have enough. Lots of dust everywhere and need to hoover and clean everyday. Takes a lot of time and isn't cheap.

Nice thing is you have things exactly as you want them. Tbh I wouldn't do it again but its nice to have done it once. Hope it goes well.

Our survey came back recommending a structural survey due to movement at some point. We didn't do that until A couple of years ago (been in 6 years now). Turned out the extension put on in the 70's hadn't been properly pinned into the original house.

So we fixed that

But no. No regrets. We didn't have the money to just get other people to do it.

YouTube videos have been our friend!

It does sound exciting. Depends what you mean by a lot of work, are you talking about completely gutting it? Currently renovating our hs with 2 small DC & the amount of dust should not be underestimated. Currently staying with fam while it gets down. We have builders in so I appreciate the value if you can do things yourself. I see a few Ig accounts who are doing a lot of the work themselves & the results are v good but I dont assume they have kids in toe doing a big reno like yours. That said maybe if you phase things/ rooms it would work? Good luck!

We stayed at home all the time with 2 and 3 year old and its possible doing room by room (apart from 2 nights when issue of ceiling). I won't say its sensible or recommend it but we survived However, there's often more work than you first anticipate - double what you can see roughly. A full survey will help with this.

Thanks everyone.

Definitely getting a full structural survey done.

The house is big enough that we can move from room to room, it isn't totally derelict thankfully.

I know it's going to be challenging, and I know myself well and I'm sure it will be stressful, but as someone said above, you can do things the way you want them and know the work being done is sound.

Have you contacted Kevin at Grand Designs, set a totally unrealistic budget and will you have a baby about a year into the build?

I hope it all goes really well.

This sounds so thrilling. I fantasised about doing something similar when a very run-down beautiful big old house came up near us recently. In reality we couldn't possibly do it for a number of reasons but I really wish you luck. If you update I will be keen to hear more!

I will update..thank you

As soon as it's ours I will post some pics up of it as it is and keep the thread updated as we progress if anyone is interested.

@SingaSong12

God no more babies for me! I'm nearly 46..I've well and truly shut up shop!

Here is a floorpan of the house..

I think it depends on how motivated your dh will be in coming home after work every night and also giving up his weekends ? When we found our house I had reservations on the volume of work required. He promised me it would get some asap. We are talking about internal walls coming down, ceilings,re-wire , plumbing, the lot ! We are currently doing the main bathroom , so walls, ceiling etc. It isn't being done every eve/weekend so so far we haven't had a bathroom for over a year . Thank goodness for en-suite bedrooms. The question to ask yourself is whether you think your dh is prepared to fully commit to the renovation in the time you hope it will take ?

We're doing a lesser project, I would advise making sure you have some funds available when you get the keys in case of immediate issues (in our case, we found there was no working toilet on moving in - luckily a DIY repair but could have been worse!).
We knew we need to have the roof replaced pretty much straight away, so had funds held back for that. We moved into the only dry bedroom, but we're prepared to sleep downstairs if needed. We made that room as homely as possible so we had a cosy place to sleep.
We had the roof replaced, then sorted out the master bedroom, it's been lovely having one finished room to retreat to so I'm glad we spent the time making that room really nice.
We then had to replace the boiler as it packed up (it was ancient but functional so we'd hoped it would limp on for a year or two, but it wasn't to be!). The loft insulation was half-rotten from the water getting in and covered in pigeon crap, and we need to keep going up there for wiring etc are we do each room, so we got a company in to strip it all out in hazmat suits (due to the danger from the pigeon crap), spray disinfectant, and then come back a week later and reinsulate. Well worth the £500, we noticed a difference in heat retention immediately and its much safer to go up there.
We're now saving up for windows as current ones are badly fitted and draughty, then we can start on the bathroom. I'd definitely focus on getting the place dry, warm and damp-free before doing too much decorative stuff, it would be a shame if a newly decorated room was ruined by a leak or damp.
Try and finish jobs before starting a new one, having lots of half-finished stuff gets you down after a while.

OH is definitely motivated..he's been waiting for a project like this to come along for years!

They don't come up often in our area, and if they do are normally snapped up by developers. Also the prices in the last few years have been so ridiculous, with asking prices of project houses nearing the 1m mark. It's only because the market has cooled that we can even think about doing this.

Oh, and take lots of before and after photos - they are really good motivation!

We bought a fixer upper and I would never do it again!
However this is due to our DD... we found out a month after moving in she has asthma (after a bad viral wheeze) and they advised not doing any of the work with her in the house, which made it almost impossible.
Just sold it and the relieve is immense, going to stick to Just redecorating in future.

Wow, that floorplan is fantastic! What are you going to do with all of those reception rooms? Is it really worth extending when there's that many already?

Be prepared to get really down, especially if you are doing lots yourselves. It's so, so tiring, even when you're not working- the reality of every room having floorboards up, radiators off the wall, pipework everywhere, supplies wherever you turn and plaster dust that keeps on appearing no matter how much you clean is so draining. You can never switch off. We don't live in the property we're renovating, which brings its own issues, but you can never just switch off- even if it's just thinking of researching how to do something or how much to budget for a particular job, there's always SOMETHING, and you feel guilty if you're not doing.

I know!! Reception room-city!!!

The front two we are planning to make into one really big one with wooden doors/shutters you can close off between the two so you could have a 'grown up' space in the main part and a children's play room type affair in the second.

Third recep room is going to become the 'music' room..so all OH's boy toys..guitars/DJ stuff/record decks and all our vinyl (we have LOADS) will be shelved in there.

Fourth recep will become part of the kitchen/diner when we get around to that.

There is so much space, you are right..we really don't need to extend into the loft at all, and probably won't as we don't need 6 bedrooms! I'd like to board it out and use it for storage.

Tips are - you'll be tired! And it will cost more than you ever imagined.

Also - Edwardian house so period features which cost more to repair/ replace. You might need to lime plaster to avoid introducing damp etc.

Exciting though!!

How exciting! We built a modest bungalow 36 years ago and since then have nearly trebled the floor space. We’ve stayed in it all the time. Funniest memory is getting up to go to the loo in the night - where the outside wall was a sheet of blue polythene, the light was a bicycle torch and the flush a bucket of water😂😂. Best advice - keep thinking of the end result - do what you can afford and always keep a contingency amount over and above any quotes as everything works out more expensive.

We project managed ourselves and used sub-contractors for each element as this was a lot cheaper than using one company to do the lot. It meant having to wait sometimes. The other point is to make sure that everybody who does work for you provides you with evidence of their insurance. If they can’t provide it, walk away. Employ experts for bits you can’t do e.g electrics and plumbing and any joinery. Use products in keeping with the house. Good luck!

Thanks for all the tips and advice!

Hoping we get the house as I have already invested a lot of my mental capacity thinking about it! 🤞🏻

If we get it and can manage the work, it could be a wonderful family home. Something we never dreamed we could have.

Main things I would say to sort:
Make sure it is structurally sound
Sort out any roof issues
Address any damp issues
Electrics
Plumbing
Heating

The rest is just cosmetic.

An old house always costs more than a new one. Every job will cost more and take longer than you expect. Things will be stressful.

Only do it if you really love the house.