Temporary fixes to make new house more liveable

[salema]

We’ve had an offer accepted on a 1950s bungalow, owned by an elderly couple who have lived there for 30 years. Carpets are stained and tired, same with curtains, and lighting, bathrooms, kitchen are all ancient.

Long term, our plan is to make major changes (if we get planning permission), extension, rooms upstairs, layout changes. However we can’t afford that for 12-18 months.

Question is, how to make the house nicer to live in in the meantime? I think I’ll need a new lounge and bedroom carpets as a minimum as have 2 toddlers who spend their lives crawling on the floor and current carpet is bad. Not just stained but badly fitted with ridges in the middle of the lounge.

What about bathroom? Bath and loo stained, cracked, pretty awful looking... but don’t want to replace with new for such a short time. Kitchen - wondered about painting it just to freshen it up a bit? Curtains - can they be dyed?

Thanks for any advice. I’ve always bought new builds before so never purchased a carpet or kitchen!

Do carpet last, dont get a temporary one. Its expensive and loads of hassle! Plus it will get wrecked when you do any work to the house. So make do with what you have.

Maybe just borrow/hire a carpet cleaner, or put a big cheap rug over the top if it's stained. But you can live with the badly fitted bit. Or get it re-stretched if it's dangerous.

A new, cheap loo would not be too expensive and quite easy to fit. Is the bath standalone or fitted? Kitchen I'd just makedo. Painting old kitchens does work, but you need to prep it really well. Just give it a really good scrub, and mend anything that's broken.

Yes to carpet as you have young kids.
No to doing the bathroom: will be too expensive do just wait it out.
Kitchen cupboards can be painted and new handles fitted. It doesn't take long. White may just show up how stained/ old the walls and bench top are so choose a colour like seafoam or navy instead.
Do bedroom curtains new, don't bother dying them, the linings will be stained and will look old anyway so it'll be a waste of time. Lounge curtains - buy secondhand on eBay or generic IKEA ones that can be resold.

Actually,consider large rug instead of carpet as pp suggested. Changed my mind!

You might be able to get a carpet fitter to straighten out the carpets then get them professional cleaned. They might still be hideous but at least they will be reasonably hygienic. Or just pull tight and nail down at the edges.

I wouldn't do anything to fixtures unless they don't work. Clean it up, 18 months will go quickly. Maybe paint a couple of rooms white if the decor is too bad to live with.

Thanks for the comments. Large rugs seem really expensive compared to carpet but I suppose we can choose one that we actually like so it will go in the refurbished version of the house as well! My worry is that it’ll be a bit stinky as well but I guess I’ll find out when we move in. But getting a temporary carpet does seem terribly wasteful financially and environmentally. Hmm. I didn’t know carpets could be restretched so thank you for that!

I’m quite looking forward to painting the kitchen as will probably choose a more outlandish colour than when paying £££ for it.

There’s one toilet that’s just going to have to be replaced. Also carpet in the bathroom with dodgy stains all round the toilet bowl. At least Lino is cheap!

Before you move in could you possibly hire a professional cleaning company (some that normally does builders cleans type cleans) to come round and give everything a very deep clean. You might be surprised by how things come out and at the very least you'd be able to see what needs doing most urgently.

For example we had to keep our old bath for 3 years until we could afford to replace it. Not only was it horrible before we moved in but when the builders had been doing our loft conversion they'd dropped plaster and all sorts into it. It took a lot of scrubbing but it did eventually come clean, you might be surprised.

Also for big rugs maybe have a look at George at Asda, they do some really big sizes and even those are pretty reasonable.

Good luck, 18 months will wizz by!

Stained bathroom may be cleanable. Is it a plastic bath or ceramic? Plastic harder to clean I think. Ceramic, masses of cillit bang and bleach may work wonders
Cracked loo I would replace. If loo isn't cracked, you could clean and replace the loo seat.

I think deep cleaning will go a long way.
Then a good coat of paint to lighten and brighten.

Curtains. Wash first then see if they are worth doing anything with. You can pick up curtains very cheaply on ebay and in charity shops. Not fancy, but clean and basic. Dye isn't that cheap, £9 for one pot, it may be cheaper to buy some cheap curtains.

My kicthen looked awful when we moved in. But the cupboards were solid and we couldn't afford a new kitchen. We took down the frilly knicker blinds. Repainted the walls in a light bright colour that actually matched the tiles. removed a silly fussy shelf in an odd place, Painted the kitchen cupboards pale cream, replaced the handles (although this can be expensive for just 18 months)
The room is unrecognisable.

This is us 10 years ago. For us personally, the extension was going to be further away than 12-18 months (anticipated 3 years but was actually 6 years). Just a word of warning, good builders are massively in demand at the moment, you've got to get drawings / go through the planning process etc so consider if its longer than 12-18 months (say 2 yrs) whether you'd make the same decisions.

Anyhoo, we lifted the carpets and replaced with really cheap new carpet- can't remember how much we paid but it was less than £1k for the whole house (2 reception rooms, stairs & landing, 3 bedrooms). Lino for bathroom to replace the carpet, scrubbed tiles in bathroom. Replaced kitchen worktops with laminate worktops (ours were tiled (!) and the grout in between was black - with dirt!) and painted the kitchen cabinets.

Are you handy with a sewing machine? I made a couple of sets of curtains and a few roman blinds for the children's rooms. It wasn't ideal but at least it was liveable.

If you are 100% that you will have that house I would recommend starting planning permission now, I started about 2months ago and I haven’t moved in the property yet, exchange is very close now and planning is going in this week but the process has been 3 months so it definitely saves time, I don’t recommend this if there is a chance of anything falling through or if your worries about losing the cost of the architect and planning if not make it cheap paint everything white and get to ikea :)

Sounds like cleaning my student house.

Hire a carpet cleaner and do every room.
Emulsion is cheap so wash down all the walls & ceilings and paint with commercial white Matt.
Refit the bumpy carpet
You can get heavy-duty paint-on acid gel from the DIY shop that will clean most things off toilets and bathrooms.
Wash all the curtains, if any are too bad, look in charity shops & curtain exchanges for replacements.
Carpet in loo might be beyond saving so maybe vinyl flooring. It would be more hygienic.
Don't worry about lighting for now. Buy cheap table lamps from wilko or Argos to brighten rooms up.

But most importantly, get one room to the point you can relax in it. Then close the door on the rest when it gets too much or you're having a down day.

Personally I'd remove the carpets. Cheap and new/properly fitted will be much nicer than what's there and you do have to live in that house for 18 months until work is done. I'd also get professional cleaners in for a deep clean and maybe get the whole place painted a neutral colour so that it's a clean blank canvas. Maybe the deep clean will sort out the stained bathroom.

I would pull up the carpets. You can pass on the new carpets when you lift them, so it needn’t be wasteful. Or if it’s floorboards you could paint the floor?

For curtains just go and get a load of cheap Ikea ones. Paint everything white. The bathroom can probably be cleaned. Join one of the mad cleaning groups on FB and people will tell you how. Join DIY on a budget for tips on cheap ways to make it nicer.

we did live in a cottage for 2 years which had a cold tiled/concrete floor. We decided to put down cheap carpet. It was surprisingly cheap,a nd having clean warm carpet on the floor was so much better for quality if life. I had a toddler at the time too.

So I would be tempted to chuck out carpets and buy cheap to replace. Depends on size of house, and you may not need ot do it all, eg clean bedroom, but replace lounge.
What is under the stair carpet, can you just rip up and have wooden stairs for example.
An off cut off lino for the loo should be very cheap.

I would change the carpets and the loos. If you think you will change the layout of the rooms, don't overspend on the carpets as they will need to be changed down the line.

This is all brilliant; I’m cheered by the fact that others have done this too - the estate agent seemed pretty aghast that we were actually going to move in! There were other offers from property developers who were trying to do all sorts with the plot. I quite fancy the idea of living there for a bit and seeing what works and doesn’t, where the sun is and all of that sort of thing.

I totally take the point that it could all be delayed a lot longer than we’re planning for with getting drawings and approval and builders etc. Makes sense for the house to be comfortable in the meantime. It’s a relocation for us and I want all the family to be happy in their new home and not regretting the move from our current warm and clean 8 year old house!

and I second the idea of getting one room clean and tidy, so you can go in and shut the door and not worry about what the kids are picking up off the floor.

You may need ot fatcor this in to moving, eg have a week where you go in and rip out carpets and blitz before you move in, as you have little kids

We are living with the awfullness till we get the work done - an extension and moving stairs. Cleaned everything really well and are just putting up with the decor.

I took down the curtains downstairs because they were awful but we aren't overlooked so that was OK.

Got a man in to clean the carpets and they came up fine.

We are slowly getting the bits done that we can do - so a new front door, decorating the front room as that won't be touched in the building work. It's lovely to have one room done.

We are living with the kitchen - just cleaned it.

It's surprising what you get used to.

I've lived in other houses where I've ripped up the carpet and lived with borrowed rugs and floorboards till I could afford carpets...but that was FTB territory.

A coca cola down a stained loo apparently works wonders.

I’ve got chipboard flooring down and big rugs been like that for a couple of years now. No point spending money on carpets as the whole lot will be coming up and new floors in . We had no carpet with children, kids don’t mind , we had no plaster either 🙂

My first thought is to get professional cleaners in. To clean everything.

Flooring I would go for cheap lino. If you buy expensive carpets, it will get ruined if you need to plaster the walls or ceiling. You could get a rug that you can reuse. You can get onto your local facebook for second hand selling and buying. And Ikea.

Cheap laminate with rugs. Easier to clean with toddlers.

The DM seems keen to point out that Catherine 'clutched a tissue' throughout the wierd photocall. I think they're trying to signal that the sunbeams really were not shining bright that day.

Also, he wore the same outfit in Rome, at airport and at photocall. Maybe like me he struggles to fine well-fitting trousers for his massive arse? Also, he CAN wear a face mask correctly when on his own in a car, but not when he actually needs to.

Ha. Totally wrong thread, obviously.

I still maintain it would be madness for you to buy a temporary carpet.

Id be tempted by replacing carpets with lino then adding a rug or 2 for coziness in the short term.

IKEA has some too.

However cheap rugs are buggers for getting kinks and rucked corners. We've been in rented for 6 months after relocation and our rug will not settle down at all (carpet underneath rather threadbare).

Issue with old knackered carpets is that the gripper bar spikes keep trying to come through which is less than ideal with young kids!

Replacing the toilet isn't too expensive, presumably could be reused if appropriate.

Maybe carpet kids' rooms cheaply. Won't necessarily last well due to child emissions!