How do you prioritise all the things that need doing?

[Littlemiss74]

Every day it feels like I see something else that needs doing in the house or garden & it’s overwhelming me knowing what to do first. I’ll look at one thing & think that needs doing but then there’ll be a load of other things linked to it. Our front door needs replacing so I was looking at the outside of the house & noticed the state of the gutters & moss is falling from the roof so that all needs looking at. Several rooms urgently need decorating, the utility room lino floor is ripped & tatty, the garage doors to the garden have rusty bolt and hinges making it hard for me to open, some windows need replacing & the stairs/landing carpet has seen better days! I could go on.. and I also want to do the garden as we’ve had new patio but have no plants or furniture. Obviously some things are more important than others but money is also a factor as we don’t have funds for big things like windows. Can anyone relate or tell me how you go about it? I just don’t know where to begin & also fitting it in around work/family. Posted in home dec too

I feel your pain!

We prioritised the most urgent, then figured out what we could afford from that first and ran through the list.

In the 3 years we've been here we've done:

Garden (fencing/decking/shed/lawn/patio)

Kitchen

Drive

Bathrooms

Conservatory roof (ironically now the frame has started to leak 😳)

Carpeted

Next in need is the hall, removal of the fireplace, making good and decorating.

After we need to paint the garage door, replace the conservatory, re roof the flat roof on the garage and put more insulation in the loft oh and put drainage in the drive.

Feels like it's never ending!

I wish I knew

I feel this too, moved in July last year but still so much to do in this house which has been neglected and nothing touched since it was built 20 years ago, we managed to trim the trees and hedges thta had overgrown, fixed the showers and taps which weren't working but stil got blockage of sink in two bathroom that needs doing. We painted the kitchen and one lounge ourselves which took us several weeks 🙄 in between busy work etc, we have upgraded the home alarm system now. We also put water softener as it is extreme hard water and that may have caused the plumbing issues
We prioritised security and showers as needed the peace of mind and shower much needed, water softener also needed immediately
We also have issues with leaking gutters but instead of replacing we have done some repair work, this we are ebot happy with the result but with limited funds that is what we decided to do, may be every year we can replace some gutters slowly
Think what is immediately necessary for you, and then tackle that first
We need to replace the whole kitchen floor as huge cracks in floor but decided to leave it for five years and do the whole kitchen as the floor is secure at present, planning to order some hard wearing kitchen mats instead to cover up
This weekend we are painting the hallway... Still there re millions of things to do... Rooms need decorating wardrobes need shelves etc... It is overwhelming at times but I try not to get streesed too much, and think I am lucky to have been able to move here
It is work in progress don't lose heart

Priority goes to making the house watertight first. So is the roof/flashings/guttering ok? Then leaks around windows & doors. Get the garage door functioning. After that I'd look inwards. Decorating can be done very cheaply yourself if you pick a cheap paint & roll your sleeves up. Gardening on the weekends.

Of course I understand the wish to get the garden nice because it's getting warmer and that's fun, then have a nice room to retreat to & bugger the gutters & moss, who cares?

Whenever someone who doesn’t own a house yet and is bemoaning the fact that ‘a mortgage would be cheaper than rent’ I always think ‘Ha! You’ll see…’

Anyway. Make a list of everything. Then the conventional advice is to start by making sure everything is watertight. So that would be roof, roofline, windows.

You mention the roof & gutters need looking at. Get someone in to quote. Ditto the windows.

Then save up if you can’t afford it yet, but make it a priority.

Decorating, flooring, plants and furniture are way down the list of must-do - although it’s tempting as they feel like a satisfying way to spend money.

Get a handyman in for the garage hinges if you can’t DIY it. A list of smaller jobs like that for someone to work through would be money well spent.

Last house I turned the list of things from the survey into a prioritised spreadsheet : so do now (roof, gutters type stuff), do at some point in next 3-5 years, do at some point in the future.

Then planned saving up for it according to what needed doing first. We also used to go round every room each January and make a snag list of things that needed sorting - that meant we could pay for half a day from the handyman and make the most of the time.

Thank you all, some great advice here. I have a joint condition which can make doing some practical things difficult but I like to give things a go & am pleased when i manage to do something. DH is not the best(as he admits himself)at DIY and I think it’s partly why I feel overwhelmed as its all the researching of reputable tradespeople, getting quotes etc for the things he’s not confident to do.
We’ve had people out to do things in the past and they’ve not done a good job & then I feel fed up as it feels like we’ve wasted our money. Does anyone have any tips for selecting tradespeople as you can be online for hours searching through local companies, fb etc. How many quotes would be good to get? I’m so bad at making decisions on these things!

Makes sense to ensure the exterior of the house is in order first, I think I’ll start with the roof & gutters.

For those who’ve done alot in a fairly short space of time, would you mind sharing how you pay for it? Do you save for one thing at a time or several things at once? Or did you take extra money on the mortgage when you bought with a plan for what needed doing? Or something else?. We don’t have alot of spare income so painting & decorating isn’t an issue but some of the bigger things like replacing windows I can’t see how we will have that money unless take a loan or remortgage..

We have learnt lessons with tradesmen an now go with personal recommendation from friends and neighbours (sometimes even they turn out to be not so good) always get at least three people to get quotes if not more and get a feel for them when they come around
We never took any money our of equity, just using small savings and things will have to wait
Obviously roof etc need to be sorted ASAP if not it Could lead to bigger issues... But that should be accounted in when purchasing the house as it should show up in level 2 survey... Windows have u considered buying second hand ones...

Always ask tradesmen if you can go and see previous work and talk to the home owners

Money wise when we moved both of us were earning well and borrowed well below our means, so we had quite a surplus luckily. Four redundancies later that's not the case anymore but we can still put some aside for work on the house.

When we bought we took a bigger mortgage than we technically needed to have some money to cover the immediate work we needed done, now that has gone we try to put aside money each month so that when we do get round to tackling things it's there.

Once the immediate priority of watertight was achieved we just went based on what would make us happiest. We got the loft boarded so we could have somewhere to put things like outgrown baby clothes, Christmas decorations etc so that we could actually unpack everything rather than have a room that inevitably was filled with boxes. We had the garden done earlier than what many people would do because it makes me very happy to look out at it and it's safe for DS to play in. The single glazing in the kitchen made it so cold I avoided cooking, so that got bumped up higher in the priority list then I anticipated. The bathroom that we thought we'd want to do first was actually functional enough, even if not to our tastes and with an annoyingly small bath, so we left that until things actually started breaking.

If there really is a huge list, I would write it down room by room (with 'front garden' and 'back garden' as rooms too). Then get the highlighters out and mark everything that comes under safety, security, and urgent repair to the fabric of the building using different colours for each category. Start on the 'safety' stuff. It doesn't need to be complete before you start the next thing on the list, but does need to be 'in motion' ie you have called the electrician to deal with the dodgy cable, and they are coming on Thursday. Then move on to security, then urgent repairs. These sorts of jobs often continue to rumble along in the background, but they always need to be top priority when the next stage in their progress crops up eg garage door person has found it is beyond repair and has offered several options that you need to look at and pick from before they can get it ordered and fitted.
After that, I like to go through the list again and complete any easy wins. These are jobs that take less than an hour each to fully complete eg clearing the gutters (provided you already have the ladders) or sticking edging back on a worktop. Sometimes, like cleaning gutters, they feel like a huge job because "urgh, I've got to dig out the ladders and that's such a PITA", but when you take a moment to add up the time, you realise that although it is hassle, it isn't actually that time consuming. Picking off a good selection of easy wins shrinks the list considerably and everything starts to feel less overwhelming.
Then I move on to getting everything from one room done. I pick rooms in order of how much use they get and finish everything on that list before moving on to another room. Things like painting come under this phase for me.

Review the list periodically (monthly?), either just to rewrite it to enjoy how much it has shrunk, or to check nothing needs to be added or has moved into the safety/urgent repairs categories.