Buying regret and renovation woes

[Shopgirl1]

We bought our house 9 months ago paying top of our budget.
The house is in a great location for access to our work, children’s school, city centre, amenities etc.
It’s very old though and needs a lot of work - it was vacant for a year before we bought it and rented for years before that.
It needs new floors, new plumbing, heating and wiring, fireplaces ropes out, bathroom redone new front door, insulation upgrading, new gate, windows, decor, and and and. The kitchen is in an extension that needs knocking and our plan is to build a two story side extension instead.
We knew all this moving in. If it was in better condition we could not have afforded it in this area.
We put all our money into the house, have been saving to rebuild savings a bit since, we could probably do half the work early next year (half of refurbing, not extension) but would have no savings left again which terrifies me.
How on earth do people finance these kind of things? I hate the house currently, we’ve had lots of experiences due to its condition since moving in - mice, cluster flies, bathroom leak, wasps nest...
Just looking for advice from anyone else who took on a big project - will we ever get there?!

Thanks for all the tips, will just have to keep on saving and going bit by bit I guess and hopefully it will all be worth it in the end.

We are in the middle of the same bought early this year and so far all we have done is some wallpaper stripping. And some odd jobs. I hate so much about the house currently. The other day I shut the curtains and part of the pelmet fell off and bashed me on the head it's fighting back now. But... The school area is great ( we have 2 preschoolers) the garden is amazing. And the house when done, all be it slowly will be lovely and we will only look back and remember the horror which was the project house. Incidentally an identical done up house has just sold in a week across the road and it was on at £100k more than our budget to buy. It will be ok and this phase will pass.

We are coming to the end of our renovation / rebuild, having lived in a static caravan on site with 2 kids for just over a year.

It has been the most stressful period of my life ever. We would have divorced many many times, except neither of us could face the extra stress (nor did we have the money, or indeed the brain space to contemplate the logistics of it).

My husband (self employed) has not worked for the last 6m as he's had to be on site for the builders, and now is doing the decorating etc to enable us to move back in again. He will probably spend the next 3-4m doing stuff on the house before he is able to get back to his own work (and then he has to find clients again, so probably there's 12m of his lost earnings).

It has cost us more money than we thought (about £150k), as once we started, we found things that had to be fixed, and the problem with large scale things, once you start you can't stop.

Our greatest success is that we are both still alive, the kids are still alive (!), one sat the 11+ (and we are now waiting for results....) and we are still married. We will still be doing work to the house and garden for the next 5 years, as and when we can do it.

Was it worth it? We will never be on speaking terms with the builders again (no great loss to my mind). We will have spent a lot of money. We bought the worst house on the nicest street, in the nicest area we could afford. It is a great area, great schools and there is a lovely community there. We will end up with a lovely house, exactly (mostly) how we wanted it, and it will work perfectly for what we need it for.

But yes, sometimes I drive past 80's / 90's little box houses (no offence to anyone who lives in one of these intended....), and think, I could be living there, with nothing more to do to the house or garden, no mortgage, and the biggest thing I have to do to the house right now is wonder whether to cut the lawn / get a new sofa / change the handles on my chest of drawers....

It will be worth it yes. But do get the potential changes to it valued by an estate agent before you start / once you finish, so you have a way out, if you need it.

@throwa I have those thoughts about the 70s house we saw with the huge square rooms.... I would only have had to remaster, decorate and decide which room was my craft room..
But the garden was so miniscule!
Our house may one day be perfection. And it's supposed to be our forever house but quite where the next 30k is coming from I don't know.

We didn't buy a house that needed doing up at the top of our budget and have just walked away from one when someone put in a higher offer.

Plus we did most of the work ourselves.

I did, but it took ten years to finish it because of money.

We are living through this now.
Bought practically at the top of our budget - had about £10k spare to rewire and put in a new boiler resited to a different room. Few new rads.
Moved in 3 months ago and have stripped all anaglytpa wallpaper, re-lined and painted living room, repaired plaster and redecorated DD's room, built shelves for living room (DH installing)...hoping to start painting kitchen at the weekend so I can install shelving.
Windows being painted soon by a decorator and we're having the living room fireplace prepared for a burner in future (removing builders opening etc).
Apart from that, we have no cash fund and only have £200-300 a month towards the house. Hence we buy a bunch of materials and then get through them before doing the next job. It's tough.
I would love to have £50k and just get it all done. Do some structural work. Change the kitchen rather than just facelift the hideous ancient old cupboards. And so on...
But limited budget forces us to be much more creative. And take our time. Now that we have rugs down (on the bare unfinished floorboards) and the heating is working well, it's Ok...
I've only got £5k aside as an emergency fund and while I'm sometimes tempted to spend it I resist...

By the time mine is done the children will have left home and we will be downsizing. But we did get the living room done and the rest habitable. The big disruptive stuff keeps getting put off. So bathroom, loft extension and rear extension. I'm tempted to put in a garden office room just to have a nice new space!

Oh and also I think it helps that our standards aren't that high (!) not in terms of decor or workmanship - pretty perfectionist on that - but more that we can live without a kitchen diner, or dated bathroom, or whatever.
I just feel very grateful we managed to buy a house a) at all and b) in a lovely area

The plasterers are downstairs doing the kitchen, bits of hall and bedroom. Laundry pile is sky high as no machine for ten days now. All washing up is in the en suite. Kitchen goes in this weekend, worktop next Friday. I can see light at the end of the tunnel after having a decent sleep. Two and a half years have been very hard though. Both bathrooms will need to be done next spring when I have more cash. I think even seeing one or two rooms looking finished helps though.

Reading this thread just reinforces I'd never do even a minor Reno again.

It's just not cost effective as it affects your whole life. I'd rather just work and buy it ready done.

Lots buy period properties without realising how uncomfortable they are to live in for 40+ weeks of the year

The problem I have with ready done Biwurlu is that the houses that are finished are never to my taste and so I would just have to rip out brand new kitchens and bathrooms to put my own choices in.

We didn't even move to this shak for schools or work, just fancied it on site. Slightly gone off it now as I've a hankering for somewhere even more rural. Which will no doubt need an overhaul arrgghh!

Fair enough, I'm pretty basic so if it's got an innofensive clean suite I'm happy.

At least just changing a bathroom or kitchen isn't the same as a roof that's falling in, chimney that's leaning over, a bay window that's rotten and sliding down. I wouldn't buy anything that's not in a great condition and just cosmetic things after two houses that needed doing up

That's very true Biwurlu. Every single thing here needed doing apart from the roof. I won't do this again, that's for sure.

I’m feeling a bit better about the work needed on our house after reading all your stories. I’m lucky i love the area, it suits us for work and school, there is a park nearby, cafes and shops and we are 25 minute walk from the city centre and all that has to offer. One room at a time is going to have to be my new motto!