What did you not expect when starting to renovate?

[Natsash]

I expected renovations to take some time but wow I did not expect it to drag on as long as it has.
We're doing things bit by bit as by the time we bought the house we were skint and I was 7 months pregnant. 2 years on and we're just starting on the bathroom 😂 and by starting I mean we ripped most of it out and managed to tile the shower two months ago, the floor is basically sellotaped floor protection taped down because I need to pick the tiles, even once picked we can start tiling until we move the loo and so on.
I might have the house of my dreams by the time I retire at this rate! I really had to lower my expectations ha

We’ve bought and fixed up three houses over the years. The best one was when we moved in and suddenly life happened and we did absolutely nothing for nearly two years. Because we lived in the house and got to know it before attacking it with our plans. It was a more thoughtful process as a result and the finished (is it ever truly finished?) result suits our needs far better. Take heart!

We bought a real doer-upper and had a much wanted but unexpected baby only a year later. We'd ripped so much to shreds in the first few months before we knew about the pregnancy it was really a shell. I gave birth using the light from an angle poise lamp plugged in at the wall because there was no power to the lighting circuit at the time. All but two rooms had no plaster at the time too and there were bare floors everywhere except the lounge which sported a brand new carpet. We followed up two years later with another baby and just lived in the place as we did it with no kitchen for several months when both were still too young to be in school. I don't even remember the lack of bathroom for a while. I blame house trauma . It took ten years to get it finished which only happened once the furniture had already been shipped for our overseas move.

I have done a fair few renovation projects now and have learnt the following.

1. You need the patience of a Saint.
2. You need nerves of steel for the stress.
3. You need deeper pockets than you ever thought.

If you can do all of the above then you will sail through any project!

I lived in a house for 11 years, 11 months and 11 days.
I can honestly say the list of jobs to do that was drawn up the week I moved in & pinned on the (non working top oven) stayed there until about a week before I engaged the estate agents. Still hadn't completed a few things before I moved out.

Oh god we're just in the process of buying a do-er upper. We need to keep all of our cash for an extension and plan to upgrade the other rooms one by one when we can.

We also have a 1 and 3 year old

It's the only way we can afford the space we need in the location we'd like!!

I know it's going to be hell but needs must eh.