Have a house you can't afford to renovate?

[Fishtankerous]

Anyone else?

My house needs so much doing to it that I am feeling completely overwhelmed.

We bought it as a fixer upper a few years ago, but you know how it goes - savings got decimated by issues that were worse than originally thought. Yeah yeah, naive first time buyers we were.

Currently the pressing issue is a rotten leaking old conservatory that likely won't survive another winter, annoyingly a toilet is attached to it which is actually part of the house so just demolishing it isn't straightforward and we've already got a quote for 9k to get rid of it, that's not even replacing it.

We don't even have 9k so fuck knows what we'll do. We could borrow against mortgage or get a loan but we're scraping by as it is, especially with the recent rise in energy costs etc and the general cost of living going up but our wages remaining stagnant.

(Ironically the state of the conservatory isn't helping us to save on energy bills because its causing the rest of the house to lose a LOT of heat - because it doesn't have external entry doors as the damn thing predates building regs!)

That's not to mention all the other issues in the house that we're ignoring because we're having to work on order of importance (i.e. If somethings gonna collapse soon that's gonna have to come first!)

Sorry to have a moan, I know things could be a lot worse especially with what's going on in the world. It's important to have some perspective I realise.

But after another quote for works for 10-15k today I'm just more and more annoyed, and needing some stories from others in a similar position!

What needs doing in your home that you can't do yet?

You learn to do a bit more yourself and buy a lot of silicone sealant!

Is there any part of the conservatory you can get rid of yourself? How is it accessed internally and what would be useful afterwards? I.e could you pay now for glazed patio doors assuming it will be removed? Will this work for levels once you have a step?

Do you have pictures for practical suggestions?

I feel you!

We definitely have a fixer-upper. Things are getting done slowly, as and when we have the time and money to start a new project.

My main tip, if you and your OH are even vaguely handy, is to do as much of it yourself as possible. You can learn SO MUCH from the internet and YouTube, and the satisfaction of having done it yourself, (together with the fact it cost a fraction of the price) more than makes up for any imperfections in the finished job.

I can now tile, plaster, level and lay floors and do simple plumbing (showers, toilets, sinks etc) and electrics on top of decorating-type stuff. We've only had workmen in twice, once to remove a load-bearing wall, and once to do a bit more complicated plumbing.

Not going to lie, the conservatory sounds like a job for the pros though. Keep the faith, save money where you can by doing it yourself, and enjoy the bits of your home that you've got how you like. You'll get there, and you'll have a beautiful unique home to boot.

My main tip, if you and your OH are even vaguely handy, is to do as much of it yourself as possible. You can learn SO MUCH from the internet and YouTube, and the satisfaction of having done it yourself, (together with the fact it cost a fraction of the price) more than makes up for any imperfections in the finished job.

Unfortunately, I'm in the unenviable position of having bought a fixer-upper where, the more we dig, the more we discover of the 'imperfections' of the previous owners' DIY...

Joining in fixer upper moan thread. We have a 1950s ex council, bought as first time buyers because this was all our measly budget could get us - it (was a 2 bed now is a) 3 bed semi with a big garden for 127k. But it was just left to rot for years by private landlord. We've had to bodge so much of it ourselves, and still have soooo much to do on it! We need it repointing which is the big rub, every winter we're on leaking damage control!

If your budget doesn't met what is necessary long term, accept the quick fix options aren't a waste of effort.

We moved into untouched since the 70s. We have done most rooms twice in the nine years we've been here. Initially just to make it liveable we painted over wallpaper (taking it off leads to replastering generally!) Or we try and remove leaving the backing of the paper and then wallpaper over it (with rolls from the bargain bin).

Psychologically clean and fresh is easier to live in even if it's not a perfect finish. Still have few rooms to do but they involve wiring, replastering, replacing woodwork etc so won't be done until gutted properly. However they are presentable and will do another year or two til we are ready

Yes OP!

I had twins three years ago and it was 2 months after we moved into our house. It's a fixer upper and we knew we had a lot of work to do on it.

I was very ill and needed additional operations after having twins for the first year, then I returned to work and it was lockdown and three years later all we've done is paint two rooms!

We need an extra bedroom and got a quote for converting the garage which will be completely outdated now and no doubt the price has risen.

I feel extreme "house-barrassment" and shame so hardly have people round but I just want to dive into it all.

No time and no money - every month it's the same! Especially now our energy bill has doubled.

Yes! We have a big Edwardian house that was in a terrible state when we bought it - leaking roof, gas leak, dangerous electrics, no water supply upstairs, woodworm throughout and many MANY hideous botch jobs, ranging from the just bizarre, to the downright dangerous.

2.5 years on and we have been slowly working through the house room by room. All the saving's we had have been spent, and we recently re- mortgaged and that money has also practically gone now too.

However, OH is handy and I am decent at decorating, so a lot we are doing ourselves.

We will have to wait and save for the big ticket items like a new bathroom and kitchen and make do with what we have, but we're planning on being here for a long while and we love the house, so feel it's worth all the hard work and lost weekends!

Same here. It is a slog but we are slowly getting there.
Conservatories can be a nightmare. We need a new roof on ours as it’s leaking too. Quotes 3 years ago to put a solid lightweight roof were £6900, three this year averaged at £10500! Sealant is your friend.

Same! Still love the house, but realising now that we were a little naive in our original renovations budget. On the plus side, the damp means the mouldy wallpaper comes off more easily.

We're doing structural and building work first, and just this week took out a loan to sort that side out. Once the water ingress is sorted (gutters, collapsing porch) the walls will dry out and that will be the damp and mould problem solved at least. It is a beautiful property but I am wearing 3 jumpers right now lol.

Joining in

Our house is structurally OK but could probably have done with being totally gutted back to bare floors/ walls, and some rewiring. Instead we have literally papered over the cracks. I enjoy the pretty parts, like picking colours, not a fan of the messy bits. All I want is for one room to be "done"

Could you put new exterior doors between the conservatory and the rest of the house and just ignore it for a bit? At least that would keep the heat in?

Our conservatory needs demolishing. Water pours in when it rains and it's unusable due to the temperature at any other point in time. We just use it as a dumping ground for the kids' toys. I figured, for the price of a skip and a favour from a mate who's an electrician, we could get rid of it ourselves, but the patio door into the house will need replacing. I've just been quoted £2.6k to do a bog standard uPVC replacement.

We also want to do a loft conversion. Heaven knows how much that'll cost. Might be cheaper just to move.

Yes I'll join
Ours is turning into a complete demolition and timber frame re build
To the tune of about 500k on top of what we've already spent on the house

Now I just wish we'd bought a standard new build but we got carried away

I have been in this position, naive first time buyers who thought it just needed updated decor and a new bathroom. It didn’t my advice would be, if you can afford to borrow the money get the worst of it done, and get professionals in. Sadly our fixer upper was even worse because the previous owner thought he could do DIY but he really couldn’t, so we had to undo a lot, plenty of workmen have come to me and said “I now need to XXX as well, I can’t understand why the previous owner did this!” We borrowed to get the work done which would make the house safe (electrics mainly) then saved up and took it room by room. 7 years later and I am sat in my new build home, thankfully because the house had been gutted we had no trouble attracting buyers!

We've had a few like this 🙄

The first was a six bed Victorian, 3500 sq ft, detached on the south coast that had previously been converted into four flats. We had a very small budget to renovate and did anything we could ourselves. Fortunately DH had been taught to plaster by a relative, so whilst his job was office-based, he could save us loads of £££ by plastering at the weekend! Absolutely everything needed doing - there was no GCH, a huge partition dividing the hallway, roof full of holes, several kitchens/kitchenettes (none of which were terribly savoury when you have a young DS, although we camped out using an upstairs one for a while till we could afford to do the main ground floor kitchen!), and a hideous bathroom with electric meter we had to frequently top up whilst bathing, lol! The whole lot took us ten years but only cost a little in excess of £100k due to savings on labour.

Another was a Georgian thatched house in rural Wiltshire. A five bed, three storey house where the PO had stripped every internal wall back to bare stone, repointed the lot and intended leaving it exposed. It was like living in a cave! Even though we were experienced at restoring old places by now, we naively believed we could do the lot for around £80k....not helped by our architect who reckoned we could build an extension for £20k (this was 2011 😂). We lived with draughty, single glazed windows for years and eventually got them replaced with timber DG sashes after borrowing some money from my parents. Even then when we sold we'd not got round to finishing the attic bedrooms as our cash supplies had run out.

We actually sold another (large, period) house because we couldn't afford to do the work required. It didn't need as much doing as others we've tackled, but at the time our business wasn't working out and we had to make the difficult decision whether to struggle on with the house or give up. The fact that we gave up on what was potentially our dream home is a major regret ☹️ We sold at a loss, even though we'd begun the process of stripping it out and replastering etc.

The house we currently own is another project 🙄 Fortunately it's considerably smaller (although we plan on building an extension and are adding a large garden room this year 😉) - but that doesn't necessarily equate to cheaper, because it's 400 years old (not listed) and was the victim of several PO's appalling DIY. We've had to virtually rebuild everything and keep uncovering more botches!

We started out with a fairly healthy budget but - as always, even doing much of the work ourselves - it's taking longer and costing more than predicted. Four years in we've almost completed the main house but our original savings for the work are long gone. The half acre garden eats up cash too as the POs obviously never bought a single plant/did any landscaping! We don't have a mortgage so can't remortgage (and wouldn't want to borrow anyway), so just save up for whatever needs doing next 😎

Been there! But over time you do do it, I had maybe 4 years when it was completed then h left me and house is now sold but it's great when you have renovated whilst it lasted

Me too, patched it over the years but will need everything soon. Full rewire, full replacement heating and boiler, some floors are rotten, new windows, roof, kitchen, bathrooms, then all redecorated of course. Can’t bear to think about the cost and disruption.

I think if you can bear to live with it as is (assuming just cosmetic and no urgent heating/electrics/water ingress issues) it’s better than patching up temporarily. Reason being that psychologically it’s quite difficult to return to your work 1-2 years later and rip it out, not because of the cost so much but the time and energy invested. It can quite quickly spark a lot of resentment in a relationship too. DH complains that the renovation is all we ever talk about and I resent taking on extra hours and putting every spare penny towards it. On the other hand I don’t regret buying the best plot on the best street, because we will have no urgency to move.
I can’t imagine doing big work like extensions etc in the current climate. Considered that at one stage but priced up how much extra interest we would pay over the life of the mortgage if we borrowed more - it was in the multiple tens of thousands and totalled at least 1/3 of the extension cost ON TOP! We are doing all we can to avoid costly debt on our renovation and just move 0% credit cards and pay off little when we can, but it has involved a ton of compromises and living in an unpleasant and freezing cold home environment which I’m not sure I would do again if I knew then what I know now. Not sure what we could have done differently though tbh! We are much more competent DIYers 3 years on than we were before, but still very slow!

Yep we do. We have a 1960's semi, riddled with all kinds of unpleasant surprises, as the previous owners had botched pretty much everything they'd done to it. We call it the 'money pit' 😄

I'll join… we did the basics when we moved in over 20 years ago, which included living upstairs with all the downstairs floors dug up.
We had to walk on plank walkways and hug the wall when going up the stairs, because they weren't attached to the floor. We had just a kitchen sink on a frame, a kettle and a microwave. It was fairly gruelling but we got through it, and it was a big day when we were able to move downstairs, get a kitchen installed and so on.

Now the side conservatory needs a new roof, several windows we thought would do need to be replaced, and we had a leak in the roof, which means bedroom walls need to be stripped and replastered.
All this before we get the back porch we've always needed to conserve heat in the kitchen.

Not much that we can do ourselves, with our minimal DIY skills. 🙁

1920’s semi,survey came back as everything satisfactory!
Big holes in the external brick work,
Whole house needs repointing,
Damp/mould in every room,
Big cracks in the walls and ceilings,
Ceilings are all wallpapered!
Boiler is leaking,
Paint doesn’t dry on the walls!

We are also skint as all our money went into buying the house that wasn’t supposed to be a fixer upper!

I have a victorian fixer upper.

I'm ten years in and so far I've replaced an extension, rewired, all new exterior doors and windows, new kitchen, new boiler. New roof next month. I bought the house at a big discount because I knew there was a lot to do, but I hadn't guessed the sheer stupidity of the previous owners. Using decorators caulk to repoint foundations was the worst. It all had to be scraped out by hand.

It has been hard work but it is now beautiful, warm, secure, a good place to live. I've learned lots of skills, and the house has doubled in value so it has been worth it. My ds loves it.

Joining the crappy house club! We bought our fixer upper 4 years ago- was abandoned and empty for years before us. In that time we have done lots and it’s wonderful to see progress but I feel your pain.. we have a terrible roof and boiler and can’t replace boiler until roof is done!! (Chimney/exit issues) so waiting waiting… just had baby aswell so that makes it hard and mini heaters have been very very handy!! Roof booked for may at last but still might get picked back.
For the conservatory can you repair it any way. I would do my best to repair it for now - sealant sealant sealant and if it’s wood, sand/fill/repair.. big job but give it your best go! Don’t lost faith.. my dad always says to me ‘you can’t eat an elephant in one go… only mouthful by mouthful’ 😀 x

@Fedupbuyer

1920’s semi,survey came back as everything satisfactory! Big holes in the external brick work, Whole house needs repointing, Damp/mould in every room, Big cracks in the walls and ceilings, Ceilings are all wallpapered! Boiler is leaking, Paint doesn’t dry on the walls!

Fair enough with most of your list but - wallpapered ceilings? That’s probably the one thing our previous owners did that we have kept! It’s textured angalypta but not too offensive painted and hides a multitude of sins. Replastering ceiling is a pain…