I'm so sick of our "do-er upper" house. I can't see a way forward.

[AbsolutelyCrushed]

We moved from a one-bed flat to a two-bed house during lockdown. It's got a converted basement and attic, too. It's within walking distance to town. Big garden. We had plans.

The sale took forever; we missed the stamp duty holiday and I was 38 weeks pregnant when we moved in. DH ripped out all the carpets as he hated them and didn't know how clean they were; so the flooring has always been partially wood, with lots of chipboard inserts.

He half-stripped the stairs and never finished it.

Ripped up the garden; which is now 100ft of soil. He's done bit projects - removing loads of bamboo, laying cement to move a shed, selling four other sheds on the marketplace; but it's still a lot of soil, it needs a lot of love.

The cost of getting downstairs looked at to turn it into my study rocketed; as did having a dormer fitted upstairs to make it our room, so we're in a room that's too small, with clothes everywhere as they don't all fit in the drawers. We need a new kitchen, but can't agree or sign off on the design. It's all so fucking expensive now.

The worst bit about it for me is that it's cold. There are no radiators in the open plan kitchen/living room, just a log burner. We've now had plumbers around for three days straight, and they've just left as they can't find a way to run pipe to the radiators they've fitted to the walls. There's cement under two layers of floorboard, apparently, and no way through it. Our only option would be to run it from the closest radiator, but that would have to go through a door and be visible along a long wall.

I know worse things are happening in the world, and we have somewhere to call "home", and we're all alright. And some of it might be trauma from other areas of life, which I'm struggling with right now. But man, I cannot see how we get this looking anywhere near where we need it to be. Doing anything costs a fortune and then 90% of the time it doesn't come off, for whatever reason.

I wish he'd left everything alone so we could sell it.

(To head off any comments about why I haven't - A combination of a baby, a full-time job, a side business and a physical disability).

This sounds like lack of planning to me. Primarily from your husbands perspective. He needs to finish one job then move to the next.

the radiators can easily be removed. I’m astounded any one qualified would fit them before they even knew how the pipes would go. But you can have external and then box in. Or leave, we have some external radiator pipes along the hallway, looks fine as actually just under the rads.

basically sorry the rads. Then address one room at a time. Make a plan. Do not move to another room until,you complete the first room.

My family feel a bit like you do - My fixer upper has 3 rooms which are out of action due to lack of time and finances making it take much longer than I wanted to get them sorted - and that's only the start of the works needed.

It's unfortunate, but building supplies are really insanely expensive right now (if you can get hold of them at all), so unless you have an unlimited amount of money to burn it will just take longer to fix things up. Think of the lovely house you'll have at the end of it...

My plan would be:

radiators. Focus on this.
carpets or flooring. It’s unpleasant to live as you are.
dormer window. So you have a bedroom.
study
garden
kitchen

do every stage only as you can afford it. Stop absolutely everything else.

Sympathies, OP, living in a project is tough.

Sort the radiators first, then any mess that is made won’t damage finished areas.

Garden, when spring comes just throw down a whole load of grass seed, it’s really cheap, easy to do and grows fast. You can sort out nice design and proper plants down the line, at least you’ll have green where the soil used to be.

Can you carpet even one room, so it looks nicer and more finished? That will raise your spirits.

It will come good, it’s ‘just’ time and money.

This sounds like a nightmare sorry OP.

I too have lived in a doer upper with babe and it is a long slog. We are 2 years in now.

Focus on the heat. You need heat. You can get electric radiators for walls also. Although I don’t see how they can’t get them in. Can’t they chase the concrete? or just have pipes.

Kitchen I sympathise. Decision fatigue it real.

The small bedroom I would just live with for now. Make it as nice as you can through decoration. Do a clothes cull and sell on vinted for now.

And yes think of the house at the end. And forget the garden! Focus on the house.

I’m the same OP. It’s being stuck the fuck back on rightmove in the new year as life is too short. Good luck!!!

We're doing up a property and you've got to sit down together with a pen and paoer and plan it put according to budget, priorities, what will be quickest, greatest benefit etc etc.

It all depends on how much money you have doesn't it?

Get the heating sorted out first. Exposed radiator pipes are not the end of the world if that's what it takes. Or bite the bullet and move out for a few weeks while the floors are dug up, piped for underfloor and screeded.

Otherwise raise the floor levels a little with a retro fit low profile wet underfloor system. www.nu-heat.co.uk/underfloor-heating/renovations/lopro10/

I would really try and avoid electric heating of you can unless you have a lot of solar.

Then get a simple kitchen fitted - use a local one man band type kitchen guy who might not cost the earth. Or buy a secondhand kitchen and retro fit.

If your husband cant be arsed won't do it, pay someone to finish stripping woodwork and paint it.

Get it decorated and get flooring down.

Seed the grass in March.

Sell and move.

"The worst bit about it for me is that it's cold. There are no radiators in the open plan kitchen/living room, just a log burner. We've now had plumbers around for three days straight, and they've just left as they can't find a way to run pipe to the radiators they've fitted to the walls. There's cement under two layers of floorboard, apparently, and no way through it. Our only option would be to run it from the closest radiator, but that would have to go through a door and be visible along a long wall."

Take up the floorboards, lay low profile underfloor, screed and then put flooring on top.

Solidarity in terms of the DH - mine is the same, rips out the old and then just sort of stops… He has got a bit better as we are on our third doer upper now (don’t ask) and I just need to firmly tell him to not remove something if we don’t have a solution - he generally listens!

In this house he did rip out the bathroom suite though and then it took us 6 weeks to find a plumber, let alone get the work done so we didn’t even have a toilet for 3 months.

It does get better. You will see progress. I agree with PPs, get a cheap floor down if you can and then you can replace it later.

Can you get an oil fired rad in to heat the place? Yes they are expensive to run but you’re presumably not spending any money on heating at the mo?

"The cost of getting downstairs looked at to turn it into my study rocketed; as did having a dormer fitted upstairs to make it our room, so we're in a room that's too small, with clothes everywhere as they don't all fit in the drawers. We need a new kitchen, but can't agree or sign off on the design. It's all so fucking expensive now."

Get rid of stuff and put some stuff jn storage. Have the barest minimum of what you need in a small wardrobe to max space in your room. Or build some cupboard on a landing if there is space.

Really, you both need a head wobble.

Can you not run the radiator pipes through the wall rather than the door, run neatly around the wall near ground level and do a box skirting to cover. Or cut the floor boards along the wall and take out a channel in the concrete to run the pipes in. You might need a builder rather than a plumber to sort out the pipe runs, if the people you've got can't cope.

Is this the first doer-upper you have tried?

I'm on my fourth and I find it much easier to do one room at a time, preferably your bedroom first. Then your sitting room, then kitchen, then bathroom. I usually don't touch the garden apart from a quick strim until year 2 or 3. It cuts down on mud too.

Get one room done, so you can retreat to it and close the door when it all gets too much.

Have a rethink, now and work out what you need to feel more comfortable. If your sitting room is the priority, then focus on that and forget everything else. Radiators can be moved. Talk to the plumber about where the pipes can go or box the pipes in along the wall behind a large 'skirting board'. Don't leave it to your partner who doesn't seem very sensible. I think you will have to be project manager.

Only when you are happy with your sitting room, do you move on to the next part of the project.

Don't lose heart. It does get easier but houses take a time. I'm a single mum doing up a 4 bed victorian house and I'm on year 12. It should finally be finished next year I think. It's a labour of love but it's lovely to see a warm comfie family home emerge from the damp neglected mess I started with.

Get a calor gas heater for the short term.

Do one room at a time. If it was me I'd want my bedroom first.

I have visible piping OP it's not my choice but once painted the colour of the wall you don't notice it.

I agree with putting things in storage, even if you just put clothes in vacuum bags.

Get some temporary heating if you are cold, nothing more demoralising than being cold all the time. We did an extension January to March, with the back wall of the house taken out while putting in beams to support the new structure just covered in boards for most of the time and no central heating, that had to be disconnected to take out the wall. It was freezing and I was working from home at the time so no escape, so relieved when it was finished.

Is this the first doer-upper you have tried?

Yeah. Not DH's first; but he didn't live in the last one while it was being done, or have a family then. He rented somewhere and went round to do it after work. And it was a one-bed flat, so on a different scale...

I didn't think I'd like a doer-upper; but there were no "completed" houses available, and DH likes to think he'll add value by improving things... The location is ideal, it couldn't be better. DH has always been quite methodical before and I thought he'd be able to manage this - but like others have said, building costs have gone up crazily. We stress-tested our plans with a 25% increase as advised but costs have gone up so much more than that.

Thank you all; there are some great suggestions here. I'm going to re-read and then make a plan.

A side business alongside a full time job, a baby and a renovation seems way too much. You need to drop something. How much money does your business actually bring in per hour worked? Would you be better off spending that time painting / decluttering to improve the house in the short term?

I agree exposed pipes are not the end of the world. Radiator pipes are quite slim and you can box them in or paint them or just hide them with furniture. Get a few more people in to have a look and give you options. Get the heating sorted. Lay some cheap carpets. Declutter. Go to IKEA and get some cheap furniture to help your storage problems. Make it livable for now and then it's slow and steady til you can afford the rest.

I lived in an old, cold house for fifteen winters (Yes, I am aware that sounds like something from a Norse saga 😂). When I finally had the money for central heating, I couldn't have cared less about aesthetics. The pipework is visible, and I don't care a bit. Get it boxed in if it bothers you. Being warm makes all the difference; I bloody love the sound of the boiler coming on

I'm not too worried about exposed pipes; but we'd lose the only door downstairs, that runs to what I currently use as my office. I'm not sure how I'd keep the toddler in the other room while I work if that's gone... the plumbers said they could cut a square out of the door but they're quite thick wooden doors.

A side business alongside a full-time job, a baby, and a renovation seems way too much. You need to drop something. How much money does your business actually bring in per hour worked?

You're not wrong. The business will earn more than my FT job this year but isn't stable enough that I can leave just yet. That would be my intention, but there's a lot to think about - stabilizing the quieter Winter months, and lack of maternity pay if we had another child. I was self-employed when we had our first and went back to work after six weeks, which was tough. I got offered the FT job with one of my clients in the Summer and it seemed like a good idea; but the promised flexibility never arrives, etc.

To be honest if I had to lose one from that list, it'd be the renovation, but we couldn't afford to take a hit because it looks worse now, and any new mortgage rate would be insane, so I'm a bit stuck with it 🫣 I do feel like I'm burning out. I'm really struggling today.

I don't get the problem with visible radiator pipes. Got them all over my house because I've got concrete floors. Much better than being cold!

Having a doer upper means you get to choose a lot of things. But not everything, you still have to work with the house you have and nothing will be perfect. Maybe if you let go of that you can move forwards and get it done?

@AbsolutelyCrushed is there any chance you could put underfloor heating in that area instead? Or they could put a hole through the wall instead of the door?

We're mid renovation also, it's miserable. For us, what worked was focusing on carpeting or flooring the rooms that were not needing any structural changes. So our bedroom, my sons bedroom, our new not yet born baby's bedroom and the playroom (which is doubling as a lounge right now) all finished and skimmed and painted with new light fittings. We also got a bathroom completed that is really nice, and that massively helps us feel better about it. The rest is rubbish and we have to wait for the builders to come back in a few weeks to restart.

Can you prioritise the dormer? If you have a great room to retreat to, you'll probably feel miles better about the rest of the house while it gets done.

Putting a hole in the door will look shonky AF, and if I were buying your place it would make me think that lots of things would have been bodged.

Keep the faith, @AbsolutelyCrushed , break it down to bite-sized chunks and you’ll get there.

Agree with @A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 - a low-profile under floor heating could be the answer. Maybe you can sell the radiators you can't use? Sometimes you have to take a hit on the costs to get things done.

Also agree with having a proper plan so you don't lurch into a new job when the current one gets too difficult. It's very easy to do.

It always gets much worse before it gets better but you will get there and have a lovely house.

Yep, been there. Took us 5 years to do ours and it wasn’t always fun but the satisfaction at the end was worth it.
you need to prioritise and focus your resources on - security (locking doors), preventing any further damage (eg roof leaks), warmth. There need to be compromises sometimes, concrete flooring means running heating pipes on walls. It’s not the end of the world and heating is more important.

Just seen your earlier update. Don’t let the plumbers cut a hole in the wooden door! Is there no alternative there? If that was the case I would look at electric wall mounted radiators.