Renovating grumble

[Loubielou94]

Me and my boyfriend bought a house in January 2020, we hadn't planned on a full renovation but it has slowly snowballed into one. Upstairs is 90% complete but then covid came along and messed everything up. We weren't able to do any work on it for 8 weeks and it has had a massive impact on our finances.
Now we are working on the downstairs, on an extension that a builder friend of ours has been helping us do but he is now booked up with other work for the next 4 weeks so we have a half finished extension. It's 10 months since we got the place and I worry that we are going to fall out of love with the place because of the time and effort that this is taking and the delays have been so frustrating.

Any comforting words may help, especially from those who have renovated a property or is in the middle of one!

I'm permanently in the middle of one , have been most of my adult life , ten months is nothing our house is liveable but in need of a complete modernisation , so far have done all electric , new heating few walls knocked out and we arebuilding 2 extensions and a large porch , I do most of the work myself so it takes a long time. , also work full time
I've been building the small extension and due to to shear amount of rain last winter, coronavirus and huge amount of work I underestimated in the roof I've been on it a year and it's still not finished.

I'm estimating it will be about ten years before its all done , then we are selling it and semi retiring .
On the plus side we have completely finished my daughters room and her bathroom .

The good thing about taking along time is you have time to change/ alter things as you go along.

You sound like you are both up for it so my advice would be to try and learn to do as much as you both can .
Not only will in save you money but it means you don't have wait around for other people and it's easier to get exactly what you want , they way you want it rather than having to try to explain it to others ( who just want to do what's easier for them ) 🤔

That's mostly the reason I do everything myself. Plus I do enjoy it 😎
We also have this Victorian garage shed thingy to do as well.

Put some pictures on to show some progress 👍

I really feel for you having to live in it. I'm renovating a 3 bed semi but fortunately I rent so have had 2 months to get it done to a liveable standard. I couldn't imagine living in it - the dust! I also work almost full time and it's been a big stress, mostly to project manage other trades once I'd done all I could do. In fact other trades have been the most stressful part with plumbers bailing, not getting straight answers, not getting exactly what I want etc.

Have you got mood boards etc so you can see what you're aiming for? I've also taken loads of photos and the odd video so I can see the progress as it's so easy to forget how far you've come

My last house, I moved in and wrote an A4 sheet, 2 columns of things do do and crossed them off as I went. Didn't cross most of it off till the year I sold it.