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.

Or maybe £2.5k. i forget.

@RestorationInsanity that’s what I thought about chemically stripping the doors. They are all old style cottage doors so multiple planks with braces and I think the only holding them together are good thoughts and paint. I might see how dreadful sanding is otherwise I’ll just build new ones.

@MurrayTheMonk we bought a new boiler and had it moved upstairs and it worked about the same from memory as it was on the same wall.

@dotty2 that’s really reassuring about the sanding. I’m resigned to it being messy as it’s a floating wooden floor and it’s poorly sealed downstairs (as in I can peek through the boards and see what the kids are doing in the living room ). Did they use a massive drum sander? The floors are so higgedly-piggedly that a previous guy said they wouldn’t be able to do that hence high cost. Don’t suppose you’re north wales way and could recommend?

Ugh it's a fairly new boiler as well...
still that will have to be next years project. Want to get the existing two floors of house done this year. Cellar can wait as it would cost me my sanity I think.
Just got home from a horrible day at work and I'm faded with having to walk the dogs in the wet, sort kids tea out and then getting on with the glossing. I don't feel inspired! They never show this side of it on Instagram

Oh I forgot about woodburners! The house has some beautiful fireplaces but open fires so we would hope to find something that could fit in the space. Has anyone in a listed house not been allowed to do this??

@Kilbranan I'm not familiar with the listed regulation aspect but have a look at hobbit stoves if you need something petite to fit in an open fire.

Thanks restoration they look great, have you got one?

We haven't as we have a standard wood burner in our lounge and can use smokeless fuel in the open fire in our dining room but we did look at them for a house we nearly bought that had a converted barn type garage at the end of the garden which would have suited the Hobbit perfectly! They seem to get excellent reviews.

We bought ours 13 years ago. DH had fallen in love with it. The day we moved in I saw the real scale of what we had taken on. The previous owners had dressed it up and our surveyor wrote us an essay on the unique historical features rather than pointing out the issues that needed sorting. It is also Grade 2 listed so everything costs an arm and a leg. I swore I would be out of there within 5 years. Still working on it......

Haven't read the whole thread but re: the specific question on open fires - we installed a wood burner with permission. The key thing was not doing anything to alter the structure of the fireplace which meant we had to find something quite small to fit the space. We ended up with an Aga woodburner as they seem to chuck out the most heat for the smallest size.

Has anyone had any experience with a wall bowing out? Our soon to be house is a solid stone construction with no cavity but the surveyor reckons the old timers used to Chuck rubbish in the middle as they were built, therefore when the mortar decays the two “skins” are pushed apart. I’ve just had to shell out another £150 on a specialist to have a look and tell me a figure to repair it, but the ballpark was £2k-20k so not helpful at all. The report won’t be done for 10 working days after they visit on Friday so I’ve got forever to wait to see if we’re potentially buying something we can’t afford to fix. EA is pretty convinced vendor won’t lower the price either. I’m dead worried.

I think we’ll need chemical anchors, like an iron bar surrounded by resin to anchor the two halves of wall together. Has anyone had any experience of it? We may well end up approaching exchange before the report comes back and don’t really want to delay as we have a couple of school places lined up dependent on taking them up before mid April 😭😭

We have just had an offer accepted on a 1930s semi which hasnt been lived in for a year. It needs a new kitchen, and probably rewiring. Bathroom is fairly new but really not our taste, and the vendor has put cheap laminate throughout which will need to go. Plus a very old boiler in an outside utility shed..... on the plus side, it does have a new roof. Looking forward to planning it all now. When should we book a survey?

Hello! We moved into an Edwardian semi last summer that has been neglected for over 50 years, carved up (badly) into 2 flats and at one time was a HMO!

When we moved in there was no heating or water upstairs, the front reception room had been locked for years and used as a dumping ground. The boiler was sub-standard and no way powerful enough to heat the whole house, only the downstairs (just about). There is a slow leak coming through the dining room ceiling which needs sorting too.

The roof was leaking, there were (are) wasps nests in the loft..that's all I can think of for now.

In the 8 months we have been here we have:

Had the roof repaired
Had new drainpipes fitted
Had a new boiler, and also relocated it to the old outside toilet
Had the water re-connected upstairs, and heating.
Had the plug sockets all re-wired (awful awful job..living here with that going on)
Had the old lead pipes replaced with UPVC

Also had the two front reception rooms knocked through and a door fitted. Had the floorboards up, treated them for extensive woodworm (actually done that through the whole ground floor), had insulation put down and the boards sanded and varnished.

The smaller room is now a playroom...a friend who is a carpenter is making us a new sash window for that room and two others initially as they are so rotten and leaky. The larger reception room is finished too save for a few bits of snagging. Same carpenter friend built us some lovely alcove cupboards which I LOVE.

Will try and post a few pics of the finished rooms if anyone is interested.

Tons and tons still to do..OH and I are basically doing much of it ourselves as we have spent the little money we had left over after the sale of our old place, so it's on go-slow as OH whilst very handy and good at most building work, also works full time, as do I..along with 2 children of 9 and 6, we're in it for the long haul.

Latest project is OH took a wall down where a rubbish downstairs bathroom had been put in when it was rented out. The dining room is now back to it's original size and thankfully the ceiling coving has been saved. OH is in the process of putting up plasterboard and removing old pipework, and at some point we'll get it skimmed.

Here are the two front reception rooms

Before 😬

@Davethecat2001 I remember you getting the keys and panicking you have done an amazing job it will be a fantastic house when its finished

Thank you @isseywith4vampirecats..I still feel utterly overwhelmed but I insisted to OH that we get at least one room habitable, so at least we can now close the door on the rest of it in the evening!

How are you getting on?

We bought an arts and crafts house in 2015.

We rewired and put in new lighting
New heating system
New roof
Extended kitchen and rebuilt conservatory taking out a wall
New flooring
New alarm system and external lighting
New patio at rear
Landscaped front
Rebuilt garage block to incorporate flat/office above
Installed three bathrooms
Replaced kitchen
Created boot room come utility out of side entrance and utility.

Rented a flat for 6 months
Huge project but the third one so all tickety boo.

We’ve just moved in!

Anyone else got a gutter running through the loft space? Bit weird but I think not unusual as my dad has one in his similar vintage house (ours in 1840, think his is a little older). Cleared it out of lots of gunk & leaves, can see that it could cause issues if not kept on top of....

@DavetheCat2001 not as well as you finally got the bedroom decorated and OH is putting the wardrobe together at the moment, hall is painted just waiting for carpet to come and fitters to put it down, the kitchen once the winter set in we have a massive internal leak on one window coming from the wall above so got to wait till weather improves so my son can fix it and I can finally order my kitchen, mainly what we have left to do is clear the hoard that's accumulated in the back bedroom, get new plugs in there and decorate, new kitchen from walls upwards, new plugs in front room, taking an old gas fire out, removing fireplace and bricking up the chimney will give us another foot of floor space, and then decorating and we will be done hurray, about another year I reckon

Thanks rita that’s good to know

What a great idea for a thread! Another Victorian Vicarage here....was meant to be a two year project but five years down the line I know were in for the long haul!! To be fair we’ve sorted out the main interior - moved & replaced kitchen, replaced all bathrooms and added in a couple more, new heating & hot water system, new electrics (the fuse board was 1956😱), replaced the drains, knocked out walls & put in rsjs, new ceilings, re-plastered...you get the gist...🙈!!! I’m now trying to concentrate on the outbuildings, gardens & small holding but with bugger all budget left it’s slow going as it’s down to me...
Think everyone on here deserves a pat on the back - saving period properties is a service to history ..... well, that’s what I tell myself when I need to feel more positive😆

How much damage do you think woodworm could do if untreated for more than a year? House we are looking at has old report showing ‘moderate infestation’ of woodworm in roof timbers and I’m wondering how likely it is that they will have caused structural damage?
Also showed wet rot in the back of the house, again no treatment as yet so likely to have got a lot worse
Obv we would have to get more surveys done if we were going to proceed but wondering what else we would find!

well ours is a bit more done bedroom is now finished with wardrobe, new lampshade and looking lovely, hall and stairs painted and new carpet going down on Thursday so 3 rooms down 3 to go

pics of the bedroom finally finished and new stair carpet went down today 3 rooms down 3 to go

One week today until we get the keys 🥳🥳

I’ve already arranged a plumber to come out the same afternoon to change a leaking radiator and re-pressurise the boiler and a roofer to come at the same time and give us a firm quote for getting that work done the week after.

Now I have a real planning dilemma. We were planning to sort from the top down, so roof, followed by our floor (bedroom, dressing room and en-suite) then down to the kids rooms etc. However, one outer wall needs bow ties. They can’t tell us how urgent this is, but within a year it’ll need doing. In order to allow access for this we need to rip the conservatory down, replace the dining room door with a UPVC back door, divert plumbing from the conservatory back to the kitchen and replace the entire main bathroom at the same time as they’ll have to rip the floors up and suite out.

I just don’t know which way round is most sensible!