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.

You could massively update that kitchen by changing the flooring, worktop and painting it. It wouldn’t be in a hurry to replace a good quality solid wood kitchen and I wouldn’t change the bathroom suite just for the sake of it but I’d 100% change the tiles.

It’s a beautiful house.

It looks like you could move into the first with some basic cosmetic updates. The kitchen and bathroom are dated but appear to be perfectly liveable with (and I'm the person who spent £150k on a renovation last year!). £200k off for work don't need to do seems like a joke, unless it turned out there were major structural problems from the survey.

What sort of lifestyle do you have and how old are your children? We viewed a few houses like the second which were, to be honest, soul-less boxes that felt draughty. The big open plan kitchen/living/dining works quite well with small children as you can easily supervise or if you host a lot of get together. But less useful once you get to the stage of children wanting to spend time doing their own thing or watching different things.

It's really hard to find houses with character in good condition that haven't had a soul-less kitchen/diner/living room extension done - if you don't like this one then leave it for someone who will love it!

I think people are being a bit harsh re: the second house. A lot of people love that mix of old and new.

You clearly do so buy a house that someone has already modernised. There are enough older houses that people have completely ripped any original features out of. You don’t need to add the list of beautiful houses that have been stripped bare and made to be an Instagram duplicate. The second house isn’t a mix of new and old, it can be done really well, but this house is just modern shoved in with no thought or consideration of the property.

I think we need to be mindful it's someone's house.

Kids are 13 and 10 so plenty of time to use the garden and tennis court!

We are early to mid 40s. I don't see us moving after this move.

I'm probably in dream land at the moment as by time our house gets finished I'm sure the first one will be gone.

I think we need to be mindful it's someone's house.
Maybe they should have been mindful before they Hinched the life out of it.

I wouldn't change anything but it is up to you of course. First time I have seen our bath on a house for sale picture! It must have been installed in 1990 when our our house was built. It still like that bath and its wooden surround to this day - I will never modernise it.

It’s not listed as in need of modernisation, so assume it’s purely decor needing updating rather than structural or services. When they say that you don’t get back what you spend on decor, this is the other side of that. They’re not going to pay you to update the decor. It’s about whether you want to spend the money on it, rather than it necessarily being overpriced for the area (haven’t looked).

I think the problem you have with the first house is that the kitchen is far too small for the size of house. You could do it up on the current layout for about £150k but the moment you do any building work you’re look at double that at least and I couldn’t have a kitchen like that in a house that big

Apart from personal preference about decor what is it you think it needs? Looks perfect to me.

Thats real shame they have done that to that house but I suppose some people will like it.

I think they have totally destroyed anything lovely in that house ! Why not buy a more modern building if that is what you like ?

Dorridge is a nice affluent area just outside of Solihull.

If you’re going for a full refurbishment then expect to have a budget of £200k. This property hasn’t clearly been touched in at least 30 years so needs total refurbishment. Best to get the roof replaced too along with a full re-wire and re-plumb whilst the property is all ripped out.

One thing to add, I’d definitely look at re-configuring downstairs. For the size of the property, the kitchen is tiny. I’d demolish the conservatory- you don’t need it with all the living space. Knock through the existing lounge/diner to make one large lounge. Have an open plan kitchen with bi-fold doors and an island in the middle and where the existing breakfast room is convert that into a utility area/ downstairs WC.

I guess that's it then, and the kitchen is small. I suppose I have a much smaller house but a large open plan. I grew up in a house like this one on sale but in the North East so much much cheaper!! This is good schools and a good area for the kids and for our work getting to Birmingham and London.

I would update the decor deffo.

Is that right though? You don't make money back on decoration?

@good96 we'd need an office and a bathroom on top floor too.

I much prefer the retain all the period loveliness in the original link (those stained glass windows in particular are divine) than the soulless second link. That makes me sad.

I much prefer the first one - why buy a beautifully kept period house and remove all the period character? If you like modern, buy a modern house

The house isn’t to my tastes but what character was removed? The house still has the sash windows, fireplaces in most rooms and coving in most of them. It’s just been decorated to a style you don’t like and it has a modern extension.
But ultimately people are allowed to buy whatever home they want and do whatever they want to it.
Period properties have a much better floor to ceiling ration and room size than many modern development, that’s why many people buy them.

If you like the second one, the semi, and wish for decor and modernisation like it please, please, please don’t buy the first, get a more modern property to start with. So many of us would bite your hand off for the first one if we could afford it and it can with some paint tins and curtains. Honestly don’t be part of this cycle of gutting the few feature period properties left!

Beautiful property, doesn’t need much doing to it (that isn’t cosmetic/decor) on the face of things, although that quickly adds up if you’re doing kitchen and bathrooms…
BUT, a house of that size with that energy rating is going to cost an absolutely eyewatering amount to heat.
Are you keen gardeners or will you bring someone in to do it for you? Because that’s a lot of land to maintain too.

Lovely house as it is, although I know some tweaks are going to be necessary.

However, honestly? For that money there is absolutely NO WAY I would live on a busy road. Just my preference, there's nothing like a quiet road and I live on one thankfully! Deal breaker for me I'm afraid.

It depends what a full structural survey says. Renovations shoukd be undertaken sympathetically. The 2nd house is not in sympathy with its era in my opinion.

There's a lot of square footage involved and renovations, even decorating will be expensive. If anything structural happens regarding the kitchen, that will cost upwards of £70k. You can't fit out a £1.5m period house from Wicks.

Small example. We have a large house. It has 20 radiators. Even smaller jobs cost.

No, you don't make money back from updating the decor, it's just something you budget to do periodically when it starts getting worn. Plus most people
decorate to suit their tastes when moving in (either immediately or as they can afford to do it). It'll already be priced to reflect the condition.

It's very difficult to "make money" from any kind of renovation now unless you buy an absolute wreck (which this most definitely isn't) and have a load of trades in the family. Labour and materials prices are very very high.

Do you need both bedrooms on the top floor?
As you have two DC and yourselves, that’d be the bedrooms on the first floor and top floor as a guest room as an example.

You could use one as a bedroom, one as an office and then the space not measured as a bathroom (or vice versa) depends what the plumbing is like in the house.

I prefer the first one. You could live in it as it is quite easily and do the work over time. It has a much nicer garden than the semi detached house you posted, plus it has a tennis court!
Something I like to do is see how much they are per sq foot. The detached is £540.83 per sq foot and the semi detached is £559.13 per sq foot, so quite close but the detached has much more going for it imo

House 1 is lovely, the thing that jumped out at me is the downstairs layout is all bits and bobs. You could open up the back of the house relatively easily by moving the WC, which then allows you to knock the kitchen through - up to you whether you want to retain a small utility at the end (either of the two dotted lines).

House 2 is a very different decor style but a PP is right that there are still "features" left if you look for them, they're just not the focus of the decor. Bear in mind that a lot of Victorian / Edwardian styles were considered deeply unfashionable in the 1960s - 1980s, and were ripped out then. So it's not necessarily the people who did up House 2 who are the culprits! I know I'm spending an arm and a leg to reinstate 1930s features in my house atm, and from what we can work out they were taken out donkeys years ago!