Beautiful property how much to modernise ?

[CurtainGreen1981]

So DH and I considering this house only just onto the market today. I said to DH it needs at least £200k spending on it, new kitchen , all bathroom, not sure what to do about windows etc.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/154193579

Thought welcome.

Don't buy the first house if you don't like the period style. It's ridiculously wasteful to rip out perfectly decent fixtures and fittings just because you don't like what they look like.

You could tone it down a lot with more neutral furniture, carpets and curtains for a much smaller amount - £10-20k over time, pulling figures out of the air. Even changing or painting the bath panel would make a big difference.

I'm not sure the kitchen needs extending either. You could knock through into the lounge to make a kitchen/diner/lounge then repurpose the dining room as a second living room.

This.

We have recently done a complete update of a house near Cardiff with a much more sympathetic style than the second house, and no extension and I would say £150-200k is about right. The cost of labour is high now. Those huge rooms all need decorating, new fireplace in back room, hall way flooring to replace the old carpet and bathrooms and kitchen. New curtains or shutters will be thousands alone.

If you want an extension like the one in photo that could be £150k on its own.

Me neither, it’s awful in that period house.

There is a difference between what needs spending on it and what you want to spend on it. You wanting a bigger kitchen extension and new bathroom is a want to spend, not a need to spend. You can obviously try offering £100K less but it’s a beautiful house that looks completely liveable just dated and you’ve stated it’s in a desirable area so you risk just pissing the vendors off to the point they won’t even engage with you.

Don’t buy the first house to just rip out the banister, windows and fireplaces. You can modernise in a sympathetic way but if you just want modern, but a new house or ones that’s already been ruined. Although as you’re not even on the market yet working how much you’re going to low ball a beautiful house in a desirable street seems a little redundant.

We did a full renovation of a similar sized Edwardian house in 2020 for about. £110k. That included replumb and rewire, kitchen, bathrooms, floor to ceiling decoration, carpets, radiators throughout, some structural changes

Everything has gone up in price now though. And that was a fairly sympathetic and conservative renovation in that we used things like DIY kitchens to keep costs down.

How many people are going to be living in this house that you are considering extending? It's very big already. I would redo wallpaper and flooring, update the bathrooms and knock the kitchen through to the one currently labelled lounge. I wouldn't modernise anything. If you want modern, just buy somewhere more modern, it will save you a lot of work and effort in the long run.

Also, I didn't realise that Rotten Row is a real place, so that has pleased me greatly!

It’s a beautiful house & does not need 200k spent on it but you could spend that of course. I don’t mind the extension on the 2nd one but the actual interiors are not to my taste.

The first one is much nicer than the second one. I agree a new kitchen might be good but I hate the shiny modern white kitchen in the second one. There is so much scope with the first to do a sympathetic renovation but over time.

As the detached house is less money than the semi I would worry about the business of the road and location of the first if I was making an investment. But I would prefer to live with the decoration of the first while we decided what to do, than the style of the second. I think it just needs a knock through from kitchen to lounge and swapping the loo to the utility area, then a kitchen and bathroom in time and decoration to your taste. Lovely house but the location can still make it or not.

I wouldn't buy either of those houses.
The first is beautiful but I wouldn't pay that sort of money for a property on a fairly unattractive and busy road. I also think it's over priced. The last one to sell on that road, with the same footprint but much less dated and with a swimming pool and sold for 1425k.
The second one is pretty ugly and very over priced compared to previous sales. Also, if you look at the road, the houses opposite are unattractive. Again, I wouldn't want to spend this sort of money and live on this road.

I know it's awful and you see it all the time, these beautiful old houses being modernized within an inch of it's life, just buy a new build if you want ultra modern interiors, old and new interiors can be married very well if it's done properly but most people get it very wrong.

Agreed. You can see it’s going to be freezing by the massive radiators. Will cost a fortune to heat adequately.
I think the OP may well get to 200k over the years. All new double glazing, rewire, kitchen and bathrooms, redecorate. That alone will be knocking on the door of 150k best case.

Thanks it was particularly busy when we drove past house one, but roadworks on the road. It's a full thoroughfare with two schools on the road, so super busy. It's still desirable but very busy.

It's an expensive location in the West Midlands. I'm not looking to low ball also saw the house with the swimming pool that had previously been sold.

Will speak to DH, he's deffo holding a similar opinion to all of you, maybe I just need to look at something a bit different not so period and more modern/done up.

I'm not sure how to up the energy rating. Would seek to keep the windows. They sell quick so people either can afford it or have solutions.

I'm re-thinking we are not quite ready for market yet anyway.

You can secondary glaze the windows. Add thermal curtains and blinds.

Ripping out the windiest would be criminal and devalue it to be honest.

CurtainGreen1981 · Yesterday 23:42 Both are G on energy

Erm, you do realise that that is the Council Tax banding, don't you? Both houses have a current EPC of E, with scope to go to a C.

That second house has been completely ruined. Why buy a period property and completely destroy its character? There's such a thing as ‘sympathetic restoration' and many, many people achieve it without ripping out perfectly sound windows and installing featureless modern kitchens. It makes me so sad. Period properties are disappearing at a frightening rate under a tide of Hinch-style grey facelessness.

The house OP linked could be decorated more sympathetically and would be beautiful, yes, a better kitchen/bathroom and you need a structural survey, of course. But 200K?

Decorating a larger house adds up. To me I would be redoing the kitchen and bathrooms and heavily redecorating everything else, s yeah a 200k ballpark isn’t far off.

Can’t tell from pictures whether anything costly will need doing: roof, damp, wiring, heating etc. would want the conservatory taken down and a new kitchen. You say you’d want an extension, so that’d be expensive.

don’t like what the owners have done inside the second house!

That’s hideous, identikit blandness. Much prefer the other one.

🙈

I did grow up in a period property. So I know the issues, my parents really struggled to keep it warm but we did then used to have gas fires in the bedrooms!! We also didn't get central heating until much later, I think my Grandfather gave some money to put another window over the old windows: maybe that was old double glazing?!

I guess I'm just thinking about the house I grew up in, a large three storey detached house not dissimilar to the original one. But I guess nowadays it's a bigger more expensive responsibility. I think people are being a bit harsh re: the second house. A lot of people love that mix of old and new.

The second one is horrible. Over modernised and the extension doesn’t suit the house. Yuk!

The first house could be lovely. I hope it doesn’t get ruined by someone.