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How much work were you prepared to do in your new house?

30 replies

MulberryDerry · 23/03/2023 22:46

Just looking for stories and inspiration.
We are looking for a house to buy. I think I'd be ready to decorate our new home (sand the floors, repaint everything, change wallpaper). I might even enjoy it. Making it feel homely. My husband doesn't want to do anything, he wants the house to be in the immaculate condition and it is rare. So we don't seem to like the same properties. I love original features, he is attracted if not to new builds to modern style for sure.
We are not made of money so my approach might be in fact ridiculous. Ahh. It's never ideal. But how much work is really too much?

OP posts:
MulberryDerry · 24/03/2023 10:09

Oh we have somewhere to live now and while the work is being done. So luckily this is not a problem.

The current owners are very happy in the house but haven't been bothered with maintenance. They have it decorated it beautifully and it has a def character that is probably tricking me a bit. Once it is all gone it will be quite bare.

It is Victorian. So beautiful fireplaces and original wood throughout. But plaster is falling off in some places

OP posts:
MathsNervous · 24/03/2023 10:21

Since we bought our property 12 years ago we have:
Completely floored the attic, bought a new roof, fitted solar panels, new fitted bathroom, new fitted kitchen, new carpets for all bedrooms, hallway stairs and landing, new lino for kitchen.

Decorated halls stairs and landing. Decorated all bedrooms and living room.

New garden fencing in front and back garden.

Ripped out oil fired heating system, got gas piped to property and new GCH installed.

This has all taken place over several years, due to time and money.

Kazzyhoward · 24/03/2023 10:39

It's completely unrealistic never to want to do anything to a house. You'd end up having to move every few years into new builds or newly renovated ones which cost a fortune.

Sounds like your OH is just lazy really.

Neither me or DH were particularly "DIY" kinds of people when we bought our first house. It was "moveinable" in that there was nothing instrinsically wrong with it. Decorating was bland but OK (painted woodchip and basketweave everywhere), carpets were slightly worn but OK, kitchen and bathroom was OK, boiler worked, etc. All very safe and boring really. We could have lived in it without doing anything for a few years easily had we wanted to.

But we didn't. We started off small & simple, doing simple jobs like decorating. Hardest thing is to get painted woodchip of the walls. Everything else is simple, we learned doing it together and reading one of the home DIY manuals we bought from cheap book shop (long before the internet, it's much easier now with youtube!).

As the years pass, you realise that you can do more and more, especially when you watch "tradesmen" do it and can see how simple most things really are (and how much of a bodge up mess a "professional" tradesmen can make of a simple job!).

I'd draw the line at removing walls, re-plastering, plasterboarding, etc., but I'm sure that a half competent DIY-er could do all that too!

EstherHazy · 24/03/2023 11:50

It's a really tricky one - I am FTB and LOVED all the older style properties I saw but I've ended up going for a 10yo new build because any costs wouldn't escalate out of control like they can on older properties.

I will be taking down two areas of wallpaper and repainting those rooms. I will be doing a lot of work in the garden over time (it's a patio and a patch of grass at the moment), and I hope to freshen the bathroom up when funds allow (it's not got a proper shower over the bath but it's been done in a silly way where just installing one isn't ideal as there's a wall mirror across it)

I think doing things up to your own tastes is ideal, and having those beautiful fireplaces is worth so much! - but the practicalities around uncertainty of costs was the thing that made me, in my circumstances as a FTB, opt for the house that needed the least doing to it.

Also in consideration was I don't have a lot of help, and while I can certainly manage a paint brush anything more physical / specialist would be paying trades rather than managing to do it myself like lots of people do.

Fifthtimelucky · 24/03/2023 13:25

Surely it depends on the circumstances.

When my husband and I bought our first house it was in a real state. It needed damp treatment and the kitchen had to be ripped out (that was a condition of the mortgage, not just because we didn't like it) and we did the same with the bathroom as soon as we could afford it. It took us a few years to get it as we wanted it because there was so much to do.

When we bought our second (current) house, we had a toddler and I was pregnant. We needed a house that we could just move straight into. I did a bit of painting, but that was it for the first few years.

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