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?

Our house was the ugliest house on the street too - spent £350 having the street-facing brown varnished wood windows repainted white and it’s made the world of difference. We will need to replace them but the bay windows are at least a grand each. This year we will need to hire or buy a scaffolding tower to recoat the window paint.

That's cheap! Our paint job will be around 4k for the whole house. But it's really needed because some if the wood has already started to rot.

@rbe78 thank you I’ll have a look.

So it was our fist night actually staying in our new house,transpires the living room light doesn’t work an neither does our bedroom!( I tried changing the bulb)
Heating sounds like a tank when it’s turned on.
When do you stop though?
Do you forever put all your spare cash into the house or just live with it?.

^^

For some reason DH loved this house and viewed it several times with rose-coloured goggles; I hated it and only viewed it once whereupon I pointed out the damp, the mould, the bubbling paint, the stupid layouts, the completely impractical kitchen, the lack of storage... but he persuaded me we would "make it a home" where our young DC would grow up happily.

The day we moved in, I spotted even more issues than in my original viewing but it was obviously too late.

We spent almost our entire "making it a home" budget in the first month, on replacing the decayed wall-ties and repointing the entire decayed pointing. Then we spent the rest of our renovation budget on the mouldy, leaking en-suite bathroom.

We've been here for over 6 years, our young DC are now teenagers, the damp, the mould, the bubbling paint, the stupid layouts, the completely impractical kitchen, the lack of storage are still in place. I hate having people over because I'm so embarrassed. DH has been whining for 6 years that we no longer have regular dinner parties and DC rarely have play dates like we used to in our old house. The only relief is that he stopped whining about parties and play dates during COVID.

My long-term plan is to wait until the DC leave home and then sell this moneypit to WeBuyAnyHouse.Com.

@Summersdreaming

I might start a thread in property- the skint renovation club!

Do it anyway! A thread for ideas and ways to renovate on a budget and advice for doing things yourself would be great.

I'm about to complete on a house that's probably going to use all our savings in the first few months just fixing the boring stuff (roof, windows, outside walls, wiring) and then we'll need to save again to do any of the things that will actually make it nicer - new bathroom, kitchen, flooring, decorating.

I literally don't know where to start with mine. I'm afraid to do anything because it will inevitably open another can of worms, and everything costs SO MUCH, even if you can actually get someone to do it.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

I literally don't know where to start with mine. I'm afraid to do anything because it will inevitably open another can of worms, and everything costs SO MUCH, even if you can actually get someone to do it.

Yes to the can of worms! We started with dd's bedroom, at a glance it was fine, just needed a lick of paint and carpeting- it's currently back to brick on two walls, needs a new radiator, skirting, carpet, then the door will need trimming to close over the carpet. That was just from starting to strip the walls 🙈

In lockdown 1 our toilet started leaking. That turned into a full refit, stripped down to brick, lead pipes being removed, everything replaced. It's gorgeous now but it was an awful few weeks watching the cost spiral. Bathroom 2 is being done (finally, after 2 years recovering from bathroom 1) in June, and hopefully this one will be more straightforward. It's in the loft conversion so much newer than the 1930's bathroom.
Today we're painting the skirting in the living room. Neither of us has much DIY experience, but we figured decorating will do the least damage if we mess up. Excited to finally be painting, we've spend all those time dealing with practical issues.
I'm up for a skint reno thread

Thanks to everyone who has replied and made me feel a bit better!
Obviously we feel grateful to be on the housing ladder (albeit on a rotten rung!) but it's just a bit rubbish sometimes.

Had a quote for a replacement conservatory.... They came round, said we're looking at around 10-15k...... Few days later we get emailed the actual quote: 28-35k!
For a small, basic conservatory. No heated floor or other fancy things.

There's another bloke who spent over an hour here quoting 29k and giving us the hard sell. It took all my restraint not to physically push him out of the front door.
He said that we shouldn't demolish it anyway because it'd mean we will have an outside toilet and those bring the house value down (?????) I mean I planned to live here not to sell but who am I to argue about a bloody toilet 🤣 Obviously he wants our business, but it did make me chuckle. Piss off mate with your pushy hard sell bullshit.
He actually said "it's an investment that will add 50k to the value of your house"
What, a little uvpc and glass conservatory? I.e. A temporary structure? Yeah right mate!

Unfortunately, the existing conservatory is beyond repair and the demolition is beyond our expertise - the flooring contains asbestos - and we've been using sealant to patch things up for the past 3 years. It's now so rotted it's just beyond patching up.
Honestly I was expecting storm Eunice to destroy some of it (absolutely shocked it's still standing tbh).
It's also hard to describe how it's built with the toilet attached to it, the asbestos flooring goes through into there too. Nowadays, such a build wouldn't be approved, but like I say, this predates building regs.

I've not even mentioned my list of other things wrong with the house. I'm also embarrassed to have people over!

A lot of this we will try to do ourselves but obviously, not all of it is doable and our budget is...... Tiny.

Similarly to a lot of you that have posted here, our previous owners did a LOT of bodging which has made things harder for us!

• needs new flooring everywhere, especially the bathroom where the previous owners put crappy laminate down with gaps between - not suitable for bathrooms where water gets on the floor! A floorboard underneath has been water damaged because of this.

• new internal doors throughout house to replace ugly cheap mdf things that I'm pretty sure were from when the house was a new council house in the 1960s

• need a new front door because current one has a crack on it (cosmetic damage only but still will need sorting in future)

• textured wallpaper in hall, very ugly, peeling off in places

• Artex ceilings, tbh I'm thinking of just leaving them as they are and just never looking up

• All windows are secondary glazed, would like double glazing but tbh as long as they're not broken I'm not prioritising this

• Bathroom needs re-tiling as a minimum. Would be great to have a full bathroom refurb but feel it's a pipe dream

• Current boiler/central heating is so noisy when it's on, probably will end up needing a new boiler

• Kitchen needs finishing, a "friend" started it off for us when we moved in and didn't bother finishing it then radio silence. It's usable though so this job has also gone on the back burner.

• Definitely need loft insulation

• Have damp/mould issues in some parts of house, had a damp specialist round who said it's a condensation issue and suggested a drimaster. Something to add to the list

Oh and forgot to mention our back gate keeps falling off and we keep bodging the repair because we can't afford a new one.

Oh god, I hear you. We bought a 'nice, solid' 30s build last year, survey came back with no major issues etc, just thought we needed to do a bit of cosmetic work...it's a money pit [sob]

DH is a big one for budgets and spreadsheets - trouble is he just plucked his budget figures out of thin air (we've never owned or renovated a house before so were basically clueless) and of course they bear absolutely no resemblance to any quote we've had! So our big plans for eg: wetroom / walk-in pantry / utility have been downsized to 'maybe we could have a downstairs loo and a cupboard to put the washer-dryer in??'

Plus it's on a really odd-shaped plot so doing anything to the garden is a nightmare, and the previous owners bodged everything themselves rather than get actual qualified trades in...basically it's going to eat every spare penny we have.

But as a FTB at the grand old age of 48, I still feel lucky to have it at all!

Artex ceilings, tbh I'm thinking of just leaving them as they are and just never looking up

This made me laugh. Don't Look Up!

That was me, until recently. I bought a small terrace house that had very little done to it in recent decades as it was the only house I could afford in the area I wanted to stay in. I don’t think any other buyer would have moved in without doing work first but I had no choice! With some help from my parents (lone parent) I did lots of diy things like painting over wallpaper, painting floor boards, etc to make it liveable. I focused on anything that could be improved with a coat of paint, a good scrub, etc. But the house really needed to be gutted with everything done and I had to wait for about 8 years for that!

@Fishtankerous I think it would be a bad idea to get a new conservatory - they are too cold in winter and too hot in summer - and there are proposals to ban them under new building regulations as they are not fit for purpose in terms of climate change adaptation.

I’m not quite in the club yet as still failed to have an offer accepted but hope to join soon!

Are you in a position to remortgage? You may have already looked into this so apologies if you have. When we were in a similar position we remortgaged and borrowed an extra £15k for windows/other improvements and because we went on to a much better deal, it didn't cost us any more than we were paying.

we will see if we can borrow more when we remortgage in 2024 - will need a proper chunk of money to replace all the windows and hopefully do a garage conversion too.
I agree about the conservatory - we have quite a decently built one, but terrible old roof on it. I feel it would be throwing good money after bad to just reroof it, unless it could be done cheaply (under £5k). As it stands the minimum it’ll cost is £10k so we are kind of stuck with it as is for now. I can’t see materials and labour costs dropping any time soon.
If we were in a position to replace it I’d be getting a proper insulated extension with roof lights.

@backintothefire The kitchen ceiling artex is especially horrendous, like a shell design they did with one of those artex combs..... Really "eye catching".... Just don't look up, don't look up..... 🤣

@Notcontent Yeah, leaning towards the demolish option, hoping to get some better quotes for that but don't hold out much hope. The cost of everything has gone up, of course. But I ain't paying 30k for a temporary structure 😅

@hellcatspangle It does look like we will have to remortgage or get a further advance.

So today we stripped the woodchip wallpaper off our bedroom, fingers crossed only the chimney will need skimming!! I suspect there is a fireplace behind the plaster but I can't afford to find out..

We are lucky there is a stunning original range downstairs which is crumbling but I love it.

This thread is making me feel better about my house!
We've been here years so done wlit ofvthe boring stuff when we moved in but now the roof needs work and I'm guessing that will not be cheap!

I have a money pit, I can't afford to do everything to it, one of the previous owners had an interesting approach to renovation, everything was done quickly and on a budget and it wasn't done properly with strange layouts and bodged work and the cost to fix it is far too much, which I didn't realise when I moved in. I've been here years now and there is still more to do. I'm trying to do some of the smaller projects as I cannot start the big ones like the ancient kitchen.

Dehumidifers can help make your house less damp, it's helped with the condensation from drying washing etc, I have an old house and it's helped make it feel like a newer and drier one and has made me feel better about the house.

@PoisoningPigeons Do you know what the cause of your damp is? There's a great poster on here called PigletJohn who is an expert on damp and other issues. He helped with mine and I managed to at least partially fix them (no more damp smell in the rooms) and it's helped me work out what the root cause was.

@Fishtankerous

Thanks to everyone who has replied and made me feel a bit better! Obviously we feel grateful to be on the housing ladder (albeit on a rotten rung!) but it's just a bit rubbish sometimes.

Had a quote for a replacement conservatory.... They came round, said we're looking at around 10-15k...... Few days later we get emailed the actual quote: 28-35k!
For a small, basic conservatory. No heated floor or other fancy things.

There's another bloke who spent over an hour here quoting 29k and giving us the hard sell. It took all my restraint not to physically push him out of the front door.
He said that we shouldn't demolish it anyway because it'd mean we will have an outside toilet and those bring the house value down (?????) I mean I planned to live here not to sell but who am I to argue about a bloody toilet 🤣 Obviously he wants our business, but it did make me chuckle. Piss off mate with your pushy hard sell bullshit.
He actually said "it's an investment that will add 50k to the value of your house"
What, a little uvpc and glass conservatory? I.e. A temporary structure? Yeah right mate!

Unfortunately, the existing conservatory is beyond repair and the demolition is beyond our expertise - the flooring contains asbestos - and we've been using sealant to patch things up for the past 3 years. It's now so rotted it's just beyond patching up.
Honestly I was expecting storm Eunice to destroy some of it (absolutely shocked it's still standing tbh).
It's also hard to describe how it's built with the toilet attached to it, the asbestos flooring goes through into there too. Nowadays, such a build wouldn't be approved, but like I say, this predates building regs.

I've not even mentioned my list of other things wrong with the house. I'm also embarrassed to have people over!

A lot of this we will try to do ourselves but obviously, not all of it is doable and our budget is...... Tiny.

Similarly to a lot of you that have posted here, our previous owners did a LOT of bodging which has made things harder for us!

• needs new flooring everywhere, especially the bathroom where the previous owners put crappy laminate down with gaps between - not suitable for bathrooms where water gets on the floor! A floorboard underneath has been water damaged because of this.

• new internal doors throughout house to replace ugly cheap mdf things that I'm pretty sure were from when the house was a new council house in the 1960s

• need a new front door because current one has a crack on it (cosmetic damage only but still will need sorting in future)

• textured wallpaper in hall, very ugly, peeling off in places

• Artex ceilings, tbh I'm thinking of just leaving them as they are and just never looking up

• All windows are secondary glazed, would like double glazing but tbh as long as they're not broken I'm not prioritising this

• Bathroom needs re-tiling as a minimum. Would be great to have a full bathroom refurb but feel it's a pipe dream

• Current boiler/central heating is so noisy when it's on, probably will end up needing a new boiler

• Kitchen needs finishing, a "friend" started it off for us when we moved in and didn't bother finishing it then radio silence. It's usable though so this job has also gone on the back burner.

• Definitely need loft insulation

• Have damp/mould issues in some parts of house, had a damp specialist round who said it's a condensation issue and suggested a drimaster. Something to add to the list

From your list could you pull the bathroom floor up and replace with cheap lino? New lino that fits will look so much nicer. Dp replaced some sections of floorboard in his last house himself just from watching YouTube, there will be videos on fitting lino too.

The hall - can you strip the walls, line and paint them yourself?

Little wins but things you probably notice everyday.

It does make me chuckle that so many of us complain about previous owners’ bodged DIY and then due to costs do the same thing ourselves… must be a long-standing trend over many generations of owners !!

O wise penny-pinching renovators, has anyone found a cost effective way to replace fences? We’ve had rotten wood ones come down in the storms and DIY online fence providers are coming up at a minimum of £750 including delivery for the most basic 5 panel fence - it’s approx 9.4m (although I am insisting this time that we have gravel boards and the posts are actually concreted into the ground).

We have an edwardian terrace. It is in a massive state. So far we have spent about 20k. That has fixed the roof, basic sort out of the garden, front garden tarmac, new upstairs windows, damp work, and replastered, new ceilings and decorated the 2 kids bedrooms. Not even touched the sides. Needs a new kitchen and bathroom, full rewire, every room plastering, new ceilings in several rooms, outside drainage work, back garden finishing and repaving, chimney fixing, new downstairs radiators, downstairs windows, repointing, some new render, probably more to add. We need at least another 50k to get it to an average standard and we will never make back what we have spent when we sell on.

I have a btl that I bought with money I inherited and because interest rates so bad wanted to invest money into property in order to give to youngest son in a few years. House was a tip when we got it. Had limited funds to renovate. Had new boiler and radiators. Got rid of about 5 layers of old wallpaper in most rooms ourselves. Some wall came off with paper so bought plaster and filled holes. Spent hours sanding to smooth walls. Filling and sanding again. Had electrician in to rewire and add additional sockets. Planning on doing most of rest ourselves now, slowly. We have painted both bedrooms white, put up blinds, bought and installed new laminate and now DH still has to do skirting boards and doors in bedrooms. We have painted lounge with wallpaper on feature wall. Again lounge needs new laminate, skirting and doors but saving for those. We measured carefully and bought pre used kitchen on eBay which was bargain probably because we had to remove it ourselves. It was bargain it has granite black worktops, integrated double Neff oven (cleaned professionally) Integrated Bosch dishwasher and under counter fridge and 5 ring hob with granite splashback with cooker hood. It is only 4 years old and we can still buy new units the same for bargain price of £500, as no one else bid on it and it had to be removed that weekend. Now we have to remove old kitchen from house and pay to get it taken away. The thing is we can't let it out partly renovated, but we have to pay full council tax and utilities even though empty. If it is not sorted in 6 months council tax doubles. We will most likely go without holiday to try to have it finished in the 6 months period. Still needs kitchen f floor tiling, kitchen fitting, wall tiling between base and wall units in kitchen. Then stairs painting and new carpets. Ceilings skimmed over in lounge, kitchen and bedrooms. Then ceilings will need sealing then two coats of paint Hall needs new laminate and painting. Large utility room in hall needs downstairs toilet and was basin fitted. Will need plumber for that. Will need gas fitter for hob but most likely will do the rest ourselves. Shower room could do with a face lift but could let put as it is as fully functional. DH planning on sorting out kitchen over Easter plus taking an additional 5 days off of work. Son will help. It is hard work but DH and I can now do many jobs ourselves, tiling, sanding, filling and painting. Getting walls really smooth before painting and using decorators caulk makes a huge difference and gives a more professional finish. We had no skills before, accountant and foster carer, so have learned from YouTube and internet. We are much more clued up now though. You can do far more than you think you can do.

Also garden is overgrown mess but we have told FS he must break back of that. He is going to hire an industrial brush cutter to cut down brambles grown up over head high.