Has anyone just bought a big wreck of a house? Support thread?

[ProgrammableMagneticStorm]

We've just bought a 400 year old house and I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Yes it's the filth that I find troublesome. I don't mind the disruption so much as the trying to keep the bits you have done clean whilst doing the rest of it that's stressful...

I wish we could move out and get It all done in one go but can't afford it.

Oh the dust... the DUST!!!

We've just had some walls knocked down and damp proofing and plastering done... the house looked like a CDC lab but the dust got everywhere and is still settling.

We bought a 1800s farm house about 18 months ago. It needed gutting, nothing could be kept (there was faeces everywhere). Rewiring, new windows, rebuilt chimney, boiler, floors...

We have a makeshift kitchen until the extension is complete (probably another year).

It's been both satisfying and soul destroying so far.

AGreatUsername, we have dealt with steels and building regs/structural survey in our old house (and FIL is a carpenter/joiner who has done building work). This is a small chimney breast but the stack goes all the way up through the house so I want to be cautious.

I’m tempted to insist on doing it all by the book as I know how much work it is to prove everything when you sell. This is supposed to be a long-term house at least until the kids are grown, but you never know!

Photo of the chimney as it was before we moved the boiler. The wood panelling is still there. Everything in this house was wood effect!

Our house is only 100 years old but has been sorely neglected. So far, we've replaced the roof, all upstairs ceilings, several floorboards which were rotten as well as the joists, replaced a dangerous RSJ, had 6 dangerous trees removed, rewired, put in a new heating system. We are three weeks into doing the upstairs bathroom. Once we had stripped it back to brick and removed the floor, we found untold issues and.... A room we didn't know about!

Over summer, we are having the shitty conservatory pulled down and made into a garden room extension and adding a downstairs utility/shower room extension. I'm dreading it. It's filthy, desperate work. When done, we will sell it and leave the country.

Good luck everyone! Not quite as old as some of these (just over 100 years), bought ours in 2013, did the bare minimum as we always intended to do a major refurb. When we moved in we did essential electrical work for safety (had no lighting circuit downstairs for a few months the first winter), repaired a few leaks, replaced heating system.

Finally, after years of working out what to do, trying to get planning permission etc etc we are moving out for the rebuild this spring!!

It's going to cost about 3 times what we originally envisaged. Very seriously considered selling up and buying something already done. By the time it is finished our children will almost be grown up and we won't really need the space any more, hopefully it will be lovely though!

@ShowOfHands tell us more about this room you didn’t know about?! Sounds intriguing.

It’s the mess I struggle to cope with too. Our current house was a project, but mostly decorative as opposed to structural. We knocked through some rooms though, and as we are in South Wales all the walls are full of black mortar....oh my god it was everywhere. For a year. Ruined all my floors and blinds even though we had plastic sheets taped over the door. We had to sand all the floors after and bin the blinds. I hate mess.

We moved into a Georgian manor house at the beginning of December. It was done up very nicely in the 60s and has been ignored (other than badly painting in gaudy colours) since then! So far we've painted 4 bathrooms and the library and stripped paint off the sandstone floor in the hallway (it took hours and hours!) We've got a builder coming tomorrow to start knocking down the shower room which comes off the dining room which will give us a huge utility room! And new windows are going in in April! I've also cleaned up the greenhouse! Quite pleased with what we've achieved so far!

Francie your first house is very excited. Congratulations to you!
Thank you!! I'm excited and nervous in equal measures, haha

Ooh us! We bought what appeared to be a reasonable nick 1930s house but my goodness how much botched DIY and neglect can one previous owner manage? It needs rewiring (severed mains cables sticking out of the wall of larder), fit filters to well water system, treat knotweed, replace 3 bathrooms, extend, new kitchen, remove asbestos ceilings. The gardens are dull but OK for now, I just planted my first fruit tree and an asparagus bed this weekend and to do something positive feels so hopeful. One day this will be our dream house...

Can I tag along please, We are only a 50s build but it was last touched in about 1953. Moved out of our beautiful Victorian place with 2 preschoolers last spring. Have been living in the place since. Within the first month we have removed condemned gas fires and asbestos storage heaters. Installed central heating ( and beautiful custom curved radiators in the bays) slowly now stripping wallpaper/ decorating. And lots of external landscaping, we have knocked down the garage and are ready to for builders to start in 2 weeks for a 2 story wrap around extension. Because the build will touch most the house we haven't done anything to make it nice and living in a hole is draining, I am knackered.

@Speminalium what fruit did you go for I have space for 1 more , already have apple X2 and pear x2 and fig. But can't decide on the last one. We are south facing.

Can I join in too? We moved into our 400 year old , crumbling house 3 years ago, with the intention of doing it up as quickly as possible. It's just about liveable, very pretty from the outside. We spent vast amounts having it repointed, so it's slowly drying out and warming up, in the meantime DDs #1 & #2 have gone to university, spare cash is going on supporting them and to add to the woes, DH has just had 6 months off work with depression, so things are very tight. And still the house is crumbling

Perfect thread! 1 year in the house, and despite going in full steam ahead none of the real work started until October last year but we're now in the middle of the extension and having all the casements put back to timber from UPVC. I'm blogging/instragramming it and I'm so glad as it's easy to forget how far you've come when it feels like all you've done so far is make it look worse! Ours is large Edwardian semi, all original features still in, and large garden. The only thing it didn't need, surprisingly, was rewiring and is in good structural condition.

Evening everyone.

We're starting with new wiring and plumbing, and I guess new floors and plaster, and new kitchens/baths.

Ideally we'll not do any structural work, but my husband and I are currently arguing over the attic, which he wants to convert to living space. I'm worried it's already too big and we're going to go broke trying to bring it to a reasonable standard.

Many arguments to come I'm sure!

I've spent all day looking at Pinterest.

I've just signed up to a plumbing forum - pretty exciting!

I feel your pain, we bought a 1930’s semi last June that was pretty structurally sound, but hadn’t been touched by the previous owners who were very old for about 30+ years. Everything internal needs decorating or replacing, structurally the only work that needs doing is knocking the kitchen through to the dining room (which we are getting done next month), but every single room is decorated like something from the 80s, I’m talking polystyrene ceiling tiles everywhere, so can’t just be painted and new carpets as needs replastering and wood has about 20 coats of paint on, plus there are hideous lime green tiled fireplaces in every room that need removing.

We have done pretty much everything so far ourselves to save money, but as we both work full time (my fiancee has two jobs so only has one day off a week) and I’m also studying for my masters we’ve only managed to decorate two rooms in 8 months. I didn’t realise it would take so long to get things done, or cost so much, one job turns into ten as everything is so old. It would be easier to rip everything out and start again, but I don’t want to lose the original doors and woodwork, so we spend days upon days stripping paint, sanding, filling etc. I keep telling myself it’s an investment and will be worth it when it’s all done, but the slow progress and money do get me down at times. We spent all our savings buying it so do things as and when we can afford (kitchen diner is financed by a loan), which means it takes even longer, feels like it will never end.

Tricky to to choose a last one, I'd probably go Victoria plum for crumbles jam and eating off the tree. We already have an orchard of apples, pears, plums etc , but no quince tree for jelly, which is what we planted. Next is a fruit cage and a few more interesting things like Cobnuts, damsons and a green gage.

We did. And I can't lie, I cried almost every day for two years! But now we have a wonderful home,
Much envied by others, tho I have to remind them it was hell doing it.
You will get out the other end x

Moved into our edwardian terrace 3 weeks ago. Three days or so before the move we still had no floors, the place still looked like a building site, we'd had no sleep for 2 months whilst working on it in the evenings and then getting up for work in the morning, 3 young kids... My mother in law and other members of family packed for us on the day we had to be out of the rental, as we tried to get everything move-ready. There were definitely moments over the last 18 months, when we'd basically depreciated the value of the house, and there was just bare brick and holes in the floor everywhere and I thought wtf have we actually done. We were still pissing in a bucket in the garden about a week before move-in while the bathrooms were being plumbed.

Now we're in... Couldn't be happier. Still loads to do, we have no doors other than the bathroom and kitchen, but the rest is little things like window dressings, skirting, coving and architraves, random bits of plastering, cleaning the fireplaces and adding mantelpieces.

Also... We are POOR for the moment. Towards the end of the build it was like "oh only 1k? That's fine" £300 here... £700 there...lost all concept of money when paying tradespeople.

We were lucky we weren't living there during the build. I think that would be next level awfulness so hats off to those who have done that too.

I am so exhausted from work and kids and the house and life, but I am reading all of your posts and taking inspiration and hope!

I am very taken with the garden chat (we were lucky to get 1.5 acres but still be in town) and we have a small apple orchard and espalier pears. I have grand plans for a big veg plot, a wildlife pond, and restoring the orchard, but I also want to employ a friend who is a garden designer to help us plot it all out. It’s a long, hilly site so needs good planning!

Yesterday, I put up bird boxes in preparation for the leylandii massacre that is happening next week! 🤦‍♀️

We did. And I can't lie, I cried almost every day for two years!

Really?

We have (most of) a roof! Tiles should be going on next week, and then work begins inside (am dreading that, as we've been largely unaffected so far, except for the temporary kitchen (old kitchen ripped out and moving rooms!)

I don't mind building work, but we have no children and we both work full time. We're also tackling individual projects as opposed to the whole house in one go (extension/kitchen-utility reno, then loft conversion, then patio, then working our way through the other rooms for decoration).

Ooh this is excellent timing! We bought a 500-odd year old cottage 5 years ago (easy to keep track as I was pregnant with youngest) and like a PP thought (so so naively) that it was mainly cosmetic work.

Turns out the previous owners were cheap and cut corners on everything. The major cost was getting the septic tank replaced, which had been put in the wrong way round. With pipes that sloped down to the house rather than the tank. It meant digging up the garden and thousands of pounds we weren’t expecting. But we no longer have to literally wade through sewage if its rained so that’s a plus.

We now have a list that we have decided to focus on rather than just bumbling along with the house as it is.

@Moreisnnogedag we have a septic tank issue as well - has to be replaced.

The old owner of our house was basically destitute towards the end, it has leaded glass windows that have buckled so severely that there are triangles of glass poking inward. Having examined them very closely for about a half-hour (that's life with no wifi or TV for you I guess), I decided that we'd replace them with sash windows because they're frankly not as pretty as I thought.

We have so many competing financial requirements that my head is spinning.

Oh, and we can't get broadband any faster than 3MPS. Joy.