New home and struggling, help needed.

[Cholcis]

So myself, DH and 6 year old have just moved into a 3 bed terraced house. The previous owner left it a complete mess which meant I spent the first weekend in cleaning. We’ve had the roof done, electrics sorted and some basic plumbing issues temporarily sorted but the bathroom needs replacing, kitchen needs replacing and there’s a lot of cosmetic stuff that need doing (skirting, carpets, a room repainted). Every little thing I see and I hate. All I do is look at other peoples houses and compare to them. We bought the house for £165000 (35,000 deposit) to get out of renting our measly 2 bed flat (695 per month) for a mortgage of £595 per month. Obviously it was a no brainer with the added bedroom and garden but how do people get over the cosmetic stuff they can’t afford? DH doesn’t see anything wrong with the place but to me it’s dated. I want nothing more than to put in a new bathroom but we’ve got £18,000 in savings and we’re living off one salary (DH unemployed and looking for work). I know we could easily do the bathroom with that but then I don’t want to be left without enough for unexpected repairs. Has anyone got any advice? It’s driving me crazy. I’m crying all the time and obsessing over every little detail.

Honestly you’ll learn to live with it

I think you just have unrealistic expectations when you first buy a home you want it to be done yesterday

Unfortunately DH sucks at basic diy. And I’m such a perfectionist that I’d want to do it myself to make sure it’s done at least properly, though even I suck too.

You can do it! I'm in the same city as you

Never painted anything before and I did my whole giant hallway by myself

Oh love, this is the reality of home ownership, but you do have a choice whether you frame this as never getting to perfect or as the start of a lovely long relationship with your own creativity.

I am 60 but live in London and have never been able to afford anyone's idea of a dream home. I've never had a new bathroom or kitchen, I'm currently living with disgusting old laminate flooring and there is damp bubbling through the walls. But I have learned to love slowly doing up my homes on a tiny budget and I actually prefer them this way. Homes are never finished; they should evolve with your family.

If you do the painting yourself, it's cheap to redo a room in a colour you like. Cover your stained carpet with cheap rugs (I use outdoor rugs inside: they're cheap and easy to clean and come in beautiful designs these days). Or pull up the carpet and stain or paint the floor. Repaint your kitchen units, change the handles. Make your own cushions and curtains. Take down a nasty shower screen and replace it with a beautiful shower curtain (or make your own, adding a waterproof liner) - so much easier to keep clean. Paint ugly furniture.

There's an instagrammer called Medina Grillo who has fantastic ideas on how to do up a rental - cheap and temporary also works for homeowners on a budget.

Honestly, you will learn to love the process.

hi from somewhere in Preston!

looks lovely!! How did you get the skirting so neat?

With £12k ish left you’ve got more than enough for any sort of emergency like that. If it makes you feel better we’ve got 68p in savings and if our boiler goes that will be going on a credit card…! 🙈 (But - to be honest we’re not worried as we’re mortgage free, just have to muddle through, we’re fairly low income and just manage day to day). What I’m trying to say is £12k left after doing the bathroom if it really bothers you is more than enough of a buffer.

Thank you. Definitely needed to hear this. I know over time we will get things done when they NEED doing. My daughter is happy and that’s what should matter.

So have you done much to your home? What have you done so far?

@buffyslayer That looks amazing.

I don’t want to do it if it doesn’t need doing. I’d rather use the money to make memories, I.e. go on holiday, and to not worry about using too much hot water or buying better food. DH is totally against spending money on something that isn’t broken.

In our house DH hates any kind of DIY, luckily he has other redeeming qualities and takes on the lions share of cooking and long drawn out board games with DD that make me want to tear my hair out so we play to our strengths and I deal with the decorating.

I have fuck all idea what I'm doing, use youtube and wiki-how to figure my way through it and for the things that really scare me I hire someone to do it.

Things I have learnt over the years

• wallpapering gives a better and quicker nice finish. I always find paint needs another coat or I see brush marks or it doesn't end up the same colour on the wall as I was expecting.
• satin not gloss for woodwork, gloss goes yellow in the room I started in before I've managed to finish the last room. Then I have to start again
• it's definitely worth taking the time to sand and clean stuff before you decorate over it. Even though that's the really boring time consuming bit
• if you want to decorate and have kids in the house you either need to take a day off work while they're at school or be willing to do it late evening and in to the night. Primary school aged kids cannot actually be helpful when it comes to decorating.
• you have to find a way to see past the bit of paint that dripped slightly or the minuscule uneven bit in the top left corner.

@Cholcis it's just taking your time, using small brushes - I got a great triangle shaped one and tape as needed

This year I googled and managed to sand and repaint all my windowsills as they looked really bad (cracking and peeling)

We did this and still managed to make a mess 😅 we’re video gamers not painters!

Yes this is the reality of owning a property,it needs regular maintenance and upkeep. I've been made homeless several times through no fault of my own, and even the emergency accommodation, which was being demolished, I made neat tidy,cleared the garden. I was depressed enough, and I am really fussy. It cost a lot of money to use tradesmen,so you either suck it up,or learn to do it yourself! It gives you satisfaction. We used books, but there's YouTube, local authority classes at college,my late father did a bricklayers course. We wanted all the big expensive stuff done before we retired. Our last house was 1930s, kitchen was 1950s, they are actually popular now. Last decoration was 1972s, orange/brown op art vinyl wallpaper. Only one owner from new. We took up the carpets,hired a sander did the floorboards. Bedroom ones used floorboard paint,cheap off cut off vinyl sheeting for the bathroom floor. We kept the built in wardrobes,DH put wooden beading on the doors,new handles. The internal doors were original panelled,bakelite handles,we paid and had them dipped and stripped. It took us 12 years. I had 2 kids still at home, worked ft nights nursing,5 nights a week. 2 dogs a cat.

As for making memories on holidays, our kids can't remember most of the places they visited and what they did. Mind you, non was an African safari.

Look for bargains, we found a plain white bathroom suite for half price, then just needed to pay a local plumber to fit it. Always get 3 quotes for any work, we got massively fleeced once by not doing so. The only kitchen we ever had that I hated was one that we had done almost as soon as we moved in. Within a year I knew that pretty much everything was in the wrong place, it drove me nuts. Try to use what you have for a year, by then you will know exactly what you really need. As far as the bathroom is concerned, work out how much time you spend in there to give you a sensible idea of what to spend. I think I spend 10 minutes in mine, twice a day so for 23 hours and 40 minutes, its just an empty room. Basic white suite and very modestly priced wall tiles, nice coat of paint and blinds, big shiny towel radiator and it looks grand. Also before you lay expensive floor tiles check if there are any water pipes or electrics under the floor that will need access to do the kitchen, if so go for cheap vinyl flooring until the kitchen is finished

Congrats on buying your house!

We have a baby and a toddler and work full time and bought a house in a not nice condition also. Some quick wins we did were to look for room sized carpet remnants, either locally, or online at places like designer-carpet.co.uk/remnants We managed to get three in the same colour to do our bedrooms and it really didn't cost much. A local fitter cost about £200. The carpet can be as cheap as £150 per room. A couple of hundred for a decent underlay makes it feel really luxurious.

Repaint the rooms. If you use something like Lick paint, the same paint can go on the walls and the woodwork to minimise cutting in. Ours isn't perfect but it makes a huge difference having it freshly painted. We painted after the children went to bed - took a couple of long evenings per room with a big long armed roller but the difference it made is huge. Caulking is so easy and quick - you could do those skirting boards in an hour or two. It's boring but we tried to make it fun with beer, wine and takeaway as a treat.

Have you got pictures, paintings and mirrors up yet? That made a big difference. As did nice bath mats for the disgusting bathrooms (tk maxx), nice towels (tk maxx), lots of plants, and some stone and wood big chopping boards (£20 each from tk maxx) to put over the grotty countertops. If we weren't planning to replace the kitchen, I would have bought new handles. Ours were revolting and rusting, and a shiny chipped silver colour. Otherwise we just bought stuff we will reuse.

Also replacing the light fittings for new pendants and dimmer switches (cost about £60 per fitting with an electrician) made each room feel so much nicer.

We weren't as sensible as you and eventually spent all of our savings and took on a lot of debt to get an extension, new kitchen and bathroom. It's not done yet, but having no buffer is scary. So I think you're being really sensible

We’ve a;always bought houses that need work, no one has ever walked in just after we moved in and said how beautiful it is - they all say that it has potential.

Currently on house number 5. A lot of the work was done before we moved in this time but for 6 months after bee moved in we had a builder coming in and we haven’t finished yet. The kitchen still needs work but I cam see how it will be when it is finished .

The utility room still has units from the 70s . The main bathroom had a relatively cheap tart up job but has worked very well and we’ll leave it now for years. A new shower room isn’t finished needed more prep work on the walls for painting, pipes boxing in , extractor fan installing and light changing amd another bit of electrics sorting but we will do it in time

Tell us more about your bathroom. You can buy a tool to rake out the grout. Maybe buy one and keep in the bathroom and every so often rake a bit of grout out on the sink splash back and just be careful not to get it wet then once done put some new grout in . Do it bit by bit, over time the bits add up.

I keep a bit of white paint in a pot with a lid and every so often paint something one side of a door, bit of skirting board.

Bathroom works fine it’s just dated, tiles need regrouting throughout and the vanity is old but everything works. I have a grout scrub but I’ve not had time to do it. The thought of replacing the grout myself terrifies me.

How did you manage to get such a low mortgage rate? Looking at similar costs and mortgage costs work out considerably higher then 595 per month even if stretch term to 35 years?

Have you tried HG Mould Spray on your grout? It freshens up even the mankiest grout

Firstly, congratulations on your house. You may not like it now but surely it screams potential at you and you can make it a home.

Secondly, no one is born with a paint brush in their hand and the ability to cut in an incredibly neat line. It is a learned skill and like with anything DIY it will save you hundreds if not thousands in labour if you learn to do things yourself.

Youtube is an incredible resource for learning how to do things. As you are looking at decoration at this stage then I can recommend Charlotte a professional decorator on Insta who shows you how to do things. I am now 50 and have been decorating since I was 15 years old. Dh and I have decorated, plumbed in bathrooms, tiled, installed flooring, put up walls, gutted gardens and I draw the line at plastering because I have a plasterer who is pristine at the end of the day, ie no splats on him or my floor or ceiling and the walls are like glass. Costs roughly £250 a day for a sparky or plasterer plus materials. We are in Yorkshire.

https://www.instagram.com/charlottedecorator/

The best advice I can give you is start small and I don't mean one room I mean one section of skirting board. Choose skirting that will be hidden behind furniture and start there. Use water based paint and it will dry fast allowing you to get 2 coats on easily. I have literally done one wall at a time in my bedroom due to how much furniture I have to move, so pull bed and bedside cabinets off the wall, paint, second coat, when dry push everything back. Then tackle the next wall when I have time.

Personally I would allocate maybe one Saturday a month to tackling stuff like DIY. Regrouting is easy if you know how to do it, I removed the mortar from my patio, you need the right equipment and tools and as I said Youtube is incredible for this, watching people renovate houses or professionals who share their knowledge.

The mould remover @Svalberg recommended is the absolute best thing out there. You can always post on here and ask for advice on what product works best for whatever job you are doing. I honestly wished I lived closer to you, I think skill sharing is something we have lost with people moving all over and away from family who are possibly able to teach stuff.

Take your time and enjoy the time with your child - you'll get there in the end, everything takes time.

I think with social media these days, everyone wants everything NOW....

You are very lucky that you've managed to buy, you have stability now you don't rent. Save up and do it bit by bit. Best of luck!

Agree with the recommendation of HG mould spray, it is spray and leave so try that first. Also agree with @KlendreaNubris .

However if you don’t want to try yourself there are options other than a full refit. If the tiles are solid it is possible to have them tiled over or hack them off yourself with a bolster chisel and get someone to do the new tiling. It won’t take ages to get and different vanity unit fitted. Look on FB marketplace to see if there is one there and you then need a good handyman.

New tiles, vanity unit , blind, paint if it isn’t fully tiled and possibly flooring could make it look very different for not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

A 6 year old is old enough to get involved. We last moved with a 4 year old, and the excitement of ripping out the disgusting old carpets, rolling them up, manhandling them down the stairs and dragging them out still comes up in conversation years later.

No one starts off good at DIY. There are videos for everything on YouTube. Do small jobs at a time. Tape off edges, put some music on, get snacks, everyone paint. So what if it isn’t a professional finish. We all painted together, and got all painty and wrote on the walls under the paint, and it was really fun, and helped the house feel like ours.

in the garden, we all cleared, DC painted the fence with water and chalked the ground, we strimmed, then played with water pistols and had a tiny barbecue. Your child just wants to spend time with you, it doesn’t matter what you are doing. And any tiny thing you can do to the house is a step in the right direction.

We got lucky back in jan when they dropped but it took ages for exchange and completion