Don’t know where to start - decorating/sorting new house

[Tryingtoread]

I would love a steer on this, feeling very overwhelmed! We have just got the keys to our new house. There is quite a lot of work to do - nothing structural thank goodness! But lots of decorating and bits. DP and I are both overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.
The issues/things we want to change are:

1. All the door handles are different and need replacing.
2. Need blinds/curtains. There are some left by the last people but they’re horrible.
3. Light switches and plug sockets all need changing.
4. Lots of painting and decorating - the hallway is especially bad - it looks like the last people have painted over wallpaper multiple times and you can see the seams of it where it’s starting to lift from the wall.
5. Kitchen - currently 2 mismatched types of cabinets that are totally different on either side of the kitchen (in different colours!)
6. Kitchen worktops - don’t match/dated and would like to replace or at least cover with some of that sticky contact paper?
7. There’s an ancient looking gas fire in the lounge in a brick fireplace. Not sure what to do with this - definitely don’t want the gas fire so will have to either remove completely or replace?
8. Bathrooms - chipped tiles in one, stained laminate that we’d like to replace. Otherwise the bath toilet etc are all fine in themselves.
9. Garden - old fences and rubbish left by last people. Two wooden plank things in the shapes of boats have also been left - I’m not sure what these could be for? Grass needs cutting, some overgrown plants but not awful. All the decking needs repainting but that will have to be a spring/summer job now. There’s a pond full of algae with no apparent signs of life - we have a toddler so I’m leaning towards draining this - but then what do we do with it?
10. Front garden - big patch of grass missing, gutters look like they need cleaning (grass growing out of the second floor ones!)

Where on earth do we start? Do we go room by room? If so which room do we start with? We are on a budget/will have to do things bit by bit. This isn’t a forever home, we’re planning to be here a few years but want to make it nice without spending £££££.

I sound like I’m being hugely whingy - the house itself is brilliant and there are lots of positives. It’s just a little scary and I’m feeling worried that we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. There are new carpets throughout, nothing structural which are both huge bonuses!

Any advice hugely appreciated! If anyone has any good ideas about tackling any of these issues cheaply that would also be fantastic!

Ooh, exciting! I would start by clearing the rubbish in the garden and if you get a couple of dry days, cut the grass. Get someone in to sort the gutters.

For inside pick either living room or bedroom and focus on that so you have one nice space to escape to. Just live with the rest - the next priority will find you! That said, If you're going to get someone in to decorate you probably want to do a few rooms at a time as it'll be more cost effective.

For curtains/blinds - if you can't wait until you get to do each room, then I'd get cheap wood (white or wood colour) Venetians from IKEA or blinds2go that you can cut to size and will give you a nice clean finish that will likely go with whatever you do with the rest of the room.

If it was me-
First and foremost, get rid of gas fire, if it's really old, it's probably not great safetywise and they create damp. You need a qualified person for that, of course. You could retain the supply (capped off) to the fireplace while you
decide what fire you want, or just have the supply removed back to the
main pipe if you decide not to replace it. We had ours removed. I'd have loved a flame gas fire, but couldn't justify it in eco terms or if we went gasless ( as we would if we went to a heat pump).😕

Beyond that, I'd do whichever annoyed me most as it currently is. It's
not like say, rewiring and plastering, where rewiring has to come first.

When you do decorate, decorate before changing switches- well, alongside it. (Take appropriate safety precautions with the switches if you ease them forward a little to paint or paper a little under the edges.)
Likewise handles. Get them off, paint or paper or whatever behind them nice and flat, then put the new ones on.
If you want painted walls, the gold standard is get all the paper off, scrub the paste off, then paint. (If you don't get the paste off, it will harbour damp and may even make the paint peel off.) I tend to prefer to do woodwork last, other people do it first.

I would divide it down into cosmetic ie it works but looks awful and the needs sorting out. Gutters first as that can cause water ingress. Garden too, get some of it cleared before winter as you can't do outside work in the snow and rain but you can do inside. Get gas engineer out to the gas fire and see what options you have. We have a gas fire which only goes on during power cuts as we lose heating or at Christmas because it looks pretty.

After that I would do the lounge because that is where you sit in the evenings and the kitchen next. The bedroom is where you mostly have your eyes closed. Have a look at DIY kitchens if you are looking to replace. Lots of positive videos on youtube about them by renovators, come ready assembled too, compare favourably with all the major brands in terms of quality but just massively cheaper.

If you are not getting walls skimmed then once the wallpaper is removed and the paste use Zinsser Gardz to seal everything before painting. Charlottedecorator on insta has just done a great video on Gardz and peel stop etc by Zinsser. If you haven't already got one get a wet and dry shop vac from Screwfix, their own brand Titan is superb and start from £50. We have used it for 2 house renovations. Brilliant thing. You do not want to use a normal hoover for picking up wallpaper bits. Get good quality dust sheets too.

Best of luck to you, if you haven't done a renovation before be prepared for the mental weight of making a lot of decisions about really boring stuff like door handles etc. It will take up your time too just sourcing things. We are coming to the end of ours, I am sad in a way as I like the researching.

Seconding the need to get gutters done as a top priority, blocked gutters can cause horrible problems and it's a really easy job to do/get done.

I kept the pond with my toddler (x2). They were never left out alone in the garden anyway. It was a lot of fun watching frogspawn and frogs and catching tadpoles with them.

First thing is the pond, because that's a danger and you don't want it anyway. After that, I'd do the gutters, because that can damage your property.

Once you've dealt with those, I personally prefer to do the kids rooms first - they are normally an easy win re. deciding decor, and if you get some decent storage that will help tidy the rest of the house!

This is me currently! I'm doing lots of that stuff.
Best advice I can give is to start at the top and work your way down. For example we aren't having the carpet in the hallway or the decorating in there until the bathroom update is finished due to the risk of damage. We stripped the wallpaper in all 3 bedrooms, had skirtings removed and door architraves. Had the sockets and light switches changed and added new points. Just be aware that if you're planning to paint that the walls might not be in good enough condition. We found lots of big cracks under the wallpaper. If your wallpapering then it might not matter. Our ceilings were wallpapered too which when stripped shows the need to skim. Then the builder skimmed, put on new woodwork, painted, carpets going down next week once all the snagging bits are done. We will have 3 fully complete bedrooms then. That process has taken 3 weeks.
Then the bathroom fitter is coming to replace tiles and put a new shower in. Then decorator will come back to do landing and stairs (no hallway) before carpet fitters return.
We will then have the downstairs done in the same way. Garden and outdoors are set for next spring.
The total cost for all the work we have done which includes bathroom and living room (including removal of York stone fireplace and reboarding to make chimney breast) as well as 3 bedrooms, stairs and landing to all be done is around 10k. 3k of that is materials. The rest labour.
We have 10k left for kitchen, patio and drive. People say it won't be enough, but it will for us. 4k all in for diy kitchen plus fitting (small kitchen, no new appliances). 6k for patio and drive. Already been quoted.
It is possible not to spend a small fortune. We are NW England BTW.

When you do decorate, decorate before changing switches- well, alongside it

Im not sure I agree with this. It may be a simple case of changing the switches and socket covers, or it may need more intrusive work, it all depends on the age and if the original work meets current standards. If cables need replacing and re chasing it must be done before decorating.

Sort the gas fire out, replace or cap off and get rid. Again, I’d do this, or at least get advice before decorating that room.

Curtains and blinds can get done fairly soon, will have an impact on the feel of the place even if you’re going to re dec the room- they can come back off temporarily when you need to do that.

The cosmetic stuff (bathroom tiles, door handles) can wait, although I’d probably do the handles as and when each room gets decorated. Kitchen will take ££ to replace, so if poss live with it for now.

Agree to sort the gutters asap, high priority. Personally I’d leave the garden to start with (although fill the pond is wise as you have a toddler) or treat it as a low priority and do it as and when.

Good luck op, have fun!

IKEA sell paper pleated blinds for £5. I’ve had them up for a year and they still look so good! They come in black or white.

Same here. Except we have £0 to spend lol. I'm very good at living with things.

We were going to spend money from our sale on getting the bath replaced with a walk in shower. But then we saw the state of the patio doors. They're not secure at all, don't even have a key. So that's our no.1 priority.

Seems our sellers painted round furniture so we've got a couple of unfinished walls. I can live with it until spring when I'll probably paper those walls.

Owners had neglected any maintenance so gutters need doing as well as a myriad of minor bits that are broken/fallen off/bodged etc.

But it's a very old house so we knew it would be high maintenance. I can put up with cosmetic stuff but security and maintenance are a must

We had this!

For me it’s:

1. Living room
2. bedroom
3. bathroom

Theybare where you primarily spend your time. If those rooms are nice and homely then everything else seems manageable. If you have a period you can’t do much for whatever reason, you can still chill out in your living, have a nice bath/shower and sleep in a nice bedroom.

I’ve always done those 3 first and nothing feels as urgent or overwhelming once they’re done.

@SuddenlyOld no key for the doors! Just wow.

1. Stick on cheap blinds for now https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/schottis-block-out-pleated-blind-dark-grey-90369507/
2. Cover the pond with something, hire a junk collection company to clear the rubbish, leave rest of garden until spring
3. Get rid of gas fire - you'll need a suitable gas safe person to cap it off. Get a gas safety certificate done while you have them in unless the seller did one recently.

4.. Gutters. Clear, fix any issues with them, check drains are running freely etc.

1. Do you want to move or add any plugs. Now is the moment. You will never have too many plugs. So think about all the things you may need power for. Where will the TV go, internet hub, side tables, phone charging, home working set up. Night lights for toddler. Wall lights. Switches at bottom and top of stairs. Extractor fans in bathroom and kitchens. Ring /Nest video door. External light over front door. Security light in garden. Think about that and then get an electrician in to fit power points for them even if you don't install the actual things now. Best to create all the mess at the beginning and then you are free to decorate.
2. I'd ignore the kitchen and live with it until you can do a proper new job on it. Leave hallway until you've done all the messy decorating in other rooms as you'll have to keep carrying things back and forth. I'd probably do bedrooms first and bathroom in order to complete upstairs first.

Yep and our movers couldn't fit something in so the guy just lifted the door out. So shocked how easy it was. We've replaced the locks but will replace the doors too asap

Cleared the gutters which will solve the small patch of damp inside the room with the outside wall.

Two broken sockets already replaced.

Much of this stuff is simple easy and cheap.

Do the jobs that have the most impact on your life. Maintenance jobs need to be done first or they cause problems later on!
Then living room - get this looking nice, it's a refuge after a day of hard work.
I go downstairs first, all the public rooms get done first.

I've got so much to do with our new home but this time around I wanted the bedrooms done so it was somewhere restful to go. So I did those first. Just stripping wallpaper, paint, carpets and drapes. I ripped out all the old carpets and junk from the garden.

In your position I'd get a skip. Get the gas fire out because it might be leaking. Throw all the stuff out from the garden and any carpets or drapes you want gone. Strip the walls as they might be ok to just paint.

IKEA do amazing black out drapes quite cheaply.

Happy new home!