Anyone living with a house and waiting to do it up? Want to share the frustrations?

[GolightlyMrsGolightly]

Most of the upstairs just needs a good redecorate but as we are putting in new stairs to the attic and New bathrooms and changing doors we can’t start any redecorating Till then. So stuck with orange dado borders, weird foamy wallpaper and crap doors that don’t shut.

The hot water crlinder isn’t big enough to allow a bath.

The conservatory downstairs is so loud when it rains you can hear it upstairs, our fridge isn’t in the kitchen,.".

Oh no! Been there done that, so I can empathise entirely. When in similar position I concentrated myself on working out how I'd like the finished design for each room to be. So I collated fabric samples cut images out of magazines etc.

Now all these things are available online this is much easier.

I've just recently had drawings done for my new kitchen ( name check to Karen at OnePlan for those ) and they are printed and stuck to the wall to keep me motivated.

Patience is overrated, so try and keep positive and know that you will get there eventually!

Me! We're living with the many horrible decorating choice remnants of the previous owner and finances mean we're going verrrrry slowly on doing it up. I've got a sort of slubby green colour kitchen with black worktops and a bathroom straight out of Ideal Home 1987. It's really depressing but I have to remember it'll be worth the wait when it's all done.

We've got beige tiles in the bathrooms that I just find depressing and the flush on both toilets has broken so the cisterns are all in pieces and you have to use a coathanger to make the flush work.

The shower is a MIRA first generation and spits luke warm water at your occassionaly when it feels like it....

Yes! We are in a 1960’s semi. Lovely huge garden, but my word does the house need TLC. Fortunately in the process of drawing plans for it all.
Our kitchen is dark wood with floor tiles that are like ice when wet. The sink is plastic brown, the ceiling has faux beams within which sits the single light source, a horrid fluorescent tube that only lights half the room.
Only a few sockets in the kitchen so have to choose between toaster/kettle/all other appliances for the free socket on the worktop.
Had to beg a tradesman to install our cheapo cooker and promise not to sue him if it all went wrong due to the electrics.
Only have (not kidding) 8 single sockets in the whole house, and we still have the original fuse box (with two switches).
1970s plastic chandeliers in the living room that are falling apart (but can’t change them as it trips the electrics - see fuse box above)
The electric fire is unusable as someone decided to paint the logs with glitter
The bath sits about 2 inches below the tiles and rocks when your in it so it’s only toddler friendly.
Downstairs shower room is an old avocado suite, the door won’t open fully due to a towel rail (which is no where near the radiator he noisy boiler is in the box room and takes up any usable space.
...need I go on

Needless to say, I can’t wait to rip it all up and start again. I dread the cost though. We had a good budget (or so I thought), but I’m getting more concerned that’s it’s going to cost the earth to get right.

Oh this was me. Moved just before lockdown, the old owners stripped all the carpets etc, and then everything closed down. We had floorboards for months.

So sympathetic, I've done up one disaster of a house and now I'm doing up a 1980's delight with stalactite artex you could scalp yourself on, everything stinks of the previous owners fags and all the DIY is terrible DIY.
I have to save for a year to finish it. Every door frame and skirting board is dark brown and I have to paint them all white and all of the stair spinles and they all have to be stripped first arghhhhh, 10 door frames at least.
I'm too old for this.

Yep can empathise I managed to decorate bedrooms in lock down so that was a big help we have a nice relaxing bedrooms each- also managed to do the living room but the rest of the house is a complete shit hole / I don't even bother cleaning it it's so awful - although we are lucky that we do have builders in right now so some light is at the end of the tunnel!!!

We are just buying a project house and dreading living with it till its done. We have hardly any money left for work after buying so it is going to be a 3-5 year project.

I may soon be joining you in your plight as the 1950s ex LA semi I've bought is taking longer to renovate than planned...and I need to move in in 5 weeks
Currently there are no doors, no skirting, no bathroom, no kitchen, no wall coverings, no ceiling coverings, manky carpets... Aargh!!

We have lovely green carpet in our bathroom and on all of the stairs. Waiting for the sale of the flat we used to live in to finally complete (been going on since January....) to have the funds for some of the more serious work. Until then i look at this carpet every single day and fantasise about ripping it out with my bare hands. One day. One day.

Me too.

Our bathroom had mint green textured wallpaper and a peach suite with corner bath. DD's bedroom had textured wallpaper on the ceiling, adhered with pva glue and painted over with gloss paint.

We've done those rooms and replaced the whole roof which was leaky and dangerous. We still need to rip down the ancient rotten conservatory and put in a garden room and downstairs bathroom. Big jobs and need to be done before removing acres of textured spongy, damp wallpaper and filthy carpets. We've found all sorts of dodgy crap including a secret room, a mains wire just cut and left live, a bathroom wall made from a sponge type material and holes literally papered over.

We are in this position, bought a neglected 1930s semi 18 months ago...had been rented for years and was in a bad way with regards to heating, plumbing, wiring, floors, walls, door, bathrooms, kitchen...it’s an endless list really.
We started work this time last year taking up floors, installing new ones, walls had to be taken back to plaster and redone, plumbing, wiring, bathroom and toilet downstairs done, as is fireplace. We are hoping to put in new floors upstairs before Christmas and a new front door after that, then do up bedrooms, but the kitchen is awful, in a damp extension that needs knocking and we want to build a two storey extension...will be at least 3 years time before we have the money. Keep thinking half my house is missing!

I've been living in a 150 year old farmhouse that had been unlived in since 1988 when we moved in...I have concrete floors downstairs, floorboards upstairs, bare walls throughout and no central heating. We've been here two years so far! We were waiting for our previous house to finally sell (which it did 10 days ago) to free up some capital to do this place up.

It's weird how it becomes normal though...am looking forward to making a start soon 😄

We are nearly six years in to a house like this. Done new roof, repointed, new windows and doors, stiffened up staircase, replastered various walls and ceilings, built storage under staircase, replaced ballustrade in stairs (still needs painting), done bootroom, new kitchen, front room redecorated. Acquired some furniture. Stripped wallpaper. Painted hallway. Knocked down an internal wall. Taken down single garage and built double car port. Took out outdoor loo and put in washing machine in its place. Painted pebbledash. Done some electrics and lighting. Took down front wall and built new one. Replaced double gates.

Still got to do window sills, wetroom (half way through currently), floor covering, decorate, more storage and curtains (current ones have holes in). Got some pictures up, but need more. Very fed up of it now. My husband has borne the brunt of the work and is even more fed up than me.

Yes it’s weird that it becomes normal. We’ve a bathroom light that just comes on randomly...I now ignore it.

And a lot of flies...

Agree amazing what becomes normal - we have bare floor boards, unvarnished, mismatching and with holes in them and wonky nails - will be amazing to get them done, but just don’t even notice them really anymore.

Can’t get used to awful kitchen though...can’t wait to knock it - in about 3 years....

Can I join in too? I am, big time 😁 We moved into a victorian farmhouse in Nov 2018 after relocating across country. The previous owner put a new roof on it and it has new (horrible) windows so it's water tight at least but everything needs doing, it had been empty since 1988!

I'm living with bare wood/concrete floors, bare plastered walls, exposed brick, no heating except rayburn and fire. All of our money was also tied up in another house until last month so we've had zero spare cash. Add to this we've also got to add an extension on for my in laws to live in, and this is more of a priority than the house so it'll be this way for a fair bit longer yet. Unfortunately it will need to be gutted room by room and replastered so there's no point even slapping some paint up or anything. Sounds weird but am used to it now and it's my first ever home so 🤷‍♀️

It'll be gorgeous...one day.

Victorian villa here that had been woefully neglected by the previous occupants. We are slowly chip chip chipping away and mending and fixing and improving but I am still sitting on the plans for an extension that would double the floor space of both floors. I have had this designed from about the week after we moved in 2017!

Late 1920's semi here that we moved into 11 years ago. We didn't do much to it because we were always just about to start the extension, then had children so got put on hold.

We were due to start this year then Lockdown happened... so maybe next year!

I don't think I will miss my sunshine yellow bathroom suite with dark green walls and no shower (we did at least get rid of the stained green carpet in there).

I can't wait to have a kitchen, instead of a wall of cupboards in the dining room, a sink and no room for an oven. (I do have a hob and 2 microwave ovens though).

I tend to forget how bad it is until other people see it for the first time!

Oh hell yes. 1960s ex-council end-of-terrace here that definitely needs some work. Moved here at the beginning of 2019, was planning lots of renovation, but I fell pregnant unexpectedly and all of my savings went on paying the mortgage during maternity leave (my company's maternity pay package was very poor). We also spent a fair bit of money updating all the electrics.

• Fascias, soffits and guttering need replacing, expensive boring job (currently trying to sort!)

• Conservatory is old and in poor condition, joinery is rotting and polycarbonate roof is leaking - whole thing either needs complete refurbishment or tearing down and replacing, but it has thermoplastic floor tiles which the surveyor said likely contain asbestos, so that's another costly job.

• All windows need replacing plus front and back doors. Currently have secondary glazing which is OK but isn't great for insulating, really could use double glazing.

• Need a bannister/balustrade installed as the staircase is totally open which is dangerous, especially as my son gets older. For some reason the old owners decided to chop off the newel post and saw off the bannister

• Needs redecorating throughout. Bedrooms are fine but definitely need new flooring elsewhere. And replace foamy wallpaper in hall and kitchen. Some of the skirting boards in the kitchen are coming away from the wall.

• There's frigging Artex everywhere, I'm not fussed by it but my husband hates it with a passion. Mainly the kitchen which has this weird wave design, it's the first thing you notice when you walk in there. Why people in the 70's used to think ceilings needed patterns I don't know.

• Bathroom needs re-tiling, we have a new bath but it needs a better bath panel and has to be a custom size because nothing in this house is standard size! Toilet needs updating, it's very dated, was black but the old owners painted it white with emulsion, which of course flakes off!

• Need new garden fences front and back.

That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure there's more! Seeing it all in a list is quite unnerving

Me too. We've had the roof replaced, loft de-pigeoned and insulation all replaced (it was a health hazard), new boiler, windows, fencing, decorated two rooms (fully stripped back to bare plaster, lots of filling, new radiators etc)... We've been here three years and it feels like the slowest reno ever
We stole a bit of bedroom pre-covid to make an upstairs shower room but it's all stalled. We have the suite and tiles, just waiting for tradesmen now, hopefully we can get it finished by January.
We've now got penetrating damp due to decayed mortar, been quoted £7,300 for repointing the whole house (Edwardian, so lime mortar). So that's where the "kitchen fund" is going instead.

We bought a lovely Edwardian house last year that needs everything doing to it.

Utterly neglected for over 40 years, we are VERY slowly trying to put the big things right before any of tge 'nice' bits can be done.

Having 3 new radiators put on today which I am v excited about (sad).

OH and I doing much of the work ourselves as have no money for reno, so having to save up month by month to do bits.

Have bare floorboards throughout, expised internal brick walls, horrible textured wallpaper and s shitty lean-to with a crappy old kitchen in it.

The house will be stunning.. in about 10 years!

Love it though.. massive rooms and a big garden

I'm 3 years in and still got the 90s brown kitchen and floral bathroom suite! Been working steadily on things the whole time. What we've done is looking great.

My advice is to take photos (say every month - put it in your calendar) so you can see how much you've done, otherwise its easy to always focus on how much there still is to do.

Here too.

We bought early last year with intention of having some work done on it before we moved in. Covid put an end to that plan, and we ended up just being relieved to get into it at all. It is 1950s end of terrace with an "interesting" extension to the side so we don't have access to the back garden unless through the house.

It is livable in, luckily has new windows and gas from previous owners, but every room needs to be updated.

I'd love to have 1 room "done" so I wouldn't have to sit mentally adding to The List.

PP is dead right though, you do become blind to a lot of it, until a visitor comes in and you see it through their eyes. Luckily Covid put an end to visits too, eh?