Talk to me about taking on a project (please!)

[Lemonylemony]

Can anyone who has been through it talk to me about the experience, things you’d wish you’d known? How did you approach it, what would you do differently etc? I’ve lurked on the extensions thread a lot but I’m talking whole house “modernisation project”.

Place we’re looking at is a 30s 3 bed terrace, doesn’t look like has had much done for a while. It seems decent structurally as much as you can tell from photos/walk past, obviously we’d get a full survey done before going ahead. And I guess we might need new electrics and things. Roof looks fine from the outside and obvs if we did loft conversation eventually it would be replaced anyway.

The downstairs is already knocked through lounge/diner 8.1x3.7m open plan to kitchen 2.5x2.2m with doors out to the garden. Eventually we’d probably want to add an extension out back and turn current kitchen area into downstairs loo accessed from the hallway and utility accessed from the extension, so not sure how much we should do immediately, but the carpet would need to go, so what to do with the floor? Kitchen is currently functional but not pretty, not enough space for all appliances (dishwasher, tumble dryer have nowhere to go). Ceiling in front room area is also some kind of textured/patterned thing (artex?) - some googling leads to scary worries it could contain asbestos! Can you plaster over that stuff? What would you do to the downstairs immediately to make it feel more liveable?

Upstairs is 3 bedrooms - 2 are both 3.7x3.5m and third 2.5mx1.9m. Bathroom is 1.8mx1.9m. Bedrooms just need new carpets/decorating, bathroom is liveable with but eventually would want new bathroom/to look at possibility of extending bathroom into the second bedroom a little to allow for a separate shower cubicle. Or look at whether a nice shower room could go in a loft conversion.

Attached a few photos from screenshots. I think this is all mainly cosmetic issues; DP said “ugh that needs gutting”. So I thought I’d ask on here to get some other peoples opinions!

What should we be aware/wary of? How would you tackle a project like this? What order, what stages did you do? Any good websites/books/resources you can recommend?

The reason we’re considering this property is location & garden make it worth it. It’s 75-100k cheaper than “done” properties we’ve been looking at. But with a better garden (well, more space/potential!) Everything else can be changed right ?

Well viewing went well, it has good bones, nice space, no obvious damp. Yes needs new electrics, the works - it wouldn’t be a move in job! Worse in reality than the photos seemed to me. But we can afford to stay where we are whilst we do it. The agent agreed it’s overpriced, which was refreshing! She said before lockdown there were multiple offers, the highest 6% under, all rejected, and she’s been feeding back to the owner that it’s overpriced but she’s not budging.

I’m really really tempted. Everything we’re seeing towards the top of our budget needs some work anyway, why not go the whole hog. My top price would be way less than what the vendor wants, but seems like she’s repeatedly been told that already, and if she doesn’t sell it soon then the market will be falling anyway, it’s not going to get any better. Maybe she’ll come to her senses this offer around!

DP is not as excited about a project, though, and we both need to be on board. Some homework is in order tonight.

For those that have bought a project and done it up before moving in, or whilst living on site, what insurance did you have? Is renovation/site insurance instead of or in addition to normal building insurance?

Free labour from family and mates rates from my dh's old employees... he used to run a construction company
He reckoned it would cost more like 70k without help and close to 100k if it was done by a building contractor
Prices are crazy for wages and materials these days
Make sure you dont overpay for the house

@Lemonylemony

Renovation/extension/building work is an additional risk to building, hence it has to be covered by another ''specialized'' insurance. It can be for 3, 6 or 12 months I think. You can negotiate discount if you take it together with regular buildings and contents insurance.

70K-100k for renovation project seem like near London prices?..

Yeah we are London and thinking it’s £70k min. We’d have to take some kind of loan for over half of that. No mates rates for us.

Not sure the numbers stack up on this sadly. We could afford it but the house wouldn’t be worth what we’d spent on it by the end, especially in a falling market.

Our london 30s semi was in a very similar state. We lived in it 😩 for a year saving and getting plans done. In that time we Tore up the carpets and had bare floorboards/rugs. We stripped wallpaper and planned on skimming walls but in the end most of the plasterboards needed replaced. We had kitchen diner extension, new downstairs loo, new flooring upstairs and downstairs, plastering, decorating, new bathroom, windows restored and patio plus fencing for about £120k. We got the house at a pretty good price so the work was worth it in our case