Do-er upper support group

[Whathaveidone3232]

I’m having a shit time. Completed on my new house two weeks ago and, Christ, it’s a shit show. DH and I have never done any DIY so why the fuck we thought we could take on such a big project escapes me! We have had to do so much in just two weeks and so many things have already gone wrong but, to look at the house, we have barely made progress. I am already beginning to dread pulling up to the house. This house is in an amazing area and the bones of it are great. But - BUT! - it was neglected by its elderly owner for circa 30 years and needs so much redecorating.

So far we have: re-carpeted upstairs, stairs, landing and downstairs garden room, stripped wallpaper in master bedroom and upstairs small bedroom and re-plastered master bedroom. We have also: burst a radio pipe trying to remove a radiator from the wall (£300 for emergency plumber), painted small upstairs bedroom (but then had to scrape paint off and re-sand because sticky all paper residue made it gunky). And today we have discovered that some of the walls are literally dripping in water because of condensation and a lack of cavity walls.

Please tell me it gets better.

Just needs a lick of paint

It does get better but you need to do the jobs in the correct order.
Generally speaking yoi work from the top down and get everything water tight first. Roof, gutters, windows, any repointing etc. ( I’ve spent thousands in the last couple of years and really no one would notice). Then sort the plumbing and wiring. Next is plastering if needed and new door, skirting boards etc. New kitchen and bathroom and finally decorating and new carpet.
unfortunately two years in I haven’t yet reached the decorating stage.
Not quite sure why I’ve got a doer upper as I said I’d stop after the last one ( my third one) .

we are five years down the line. we decorated our bedroom first so we had at least one oasis, then decorated the lounge, painted over the anaglypta paper in the hall, just as an interim so it looked clean, carpeted those rooms to get rid of the garish 1980s carpets, that took 1 year, then did the kitchen which took over a year due to a leaky window (think waterfall inside the window frame) that needed pointing outside and lockdown, then last year got the bathroom done , redecorated the hall and new carpet and roof minor repair, this is only a two bedroom house and the back bedroom (husbands mancave sorry office) is still how it was when we moved in, so in two weeks you have acheived a lot

Welcome to old house ownership. I'm afraid no, it generally doesn't get better. Old houses have continual problems.

Start with sorting the damp walls - you shouldn't get any condensation even with solid walls.

I have found my people. This is our third (!?) fixer upper too.
We moved in May and have been doing the usual, crazy weekends of DIY from dawn to dust followed by absolute burn out.

Everything is so expensive and this time around we have a higher mortgage to contend with. Although we don't plan on moving again, I do wonder if this one is worth it. Location is amazing and house has good bones also. I have to remind myself why we bought it daily.

We knew nothing when we first started renovating and have learned from tradesmen and our mistakes. Happy to share any tips and offer solidarity.

I highly recommend taking pictures at bad moments. Like take a photos of the stuff in boxes and dampness as you have OP. Then take pictures when you've done a room. It's so nice to compare and remind yourself of the graft you went through. Rooms feel earned and there is a lot of satisfaction in that.

@Autumn1990 thank you for telling me it gets better. I don’t know how you have renovated two houses and are on your third. This one has almost broken me after two weeks! Reminding myself of the house’s good points - roofs, gutters and windows are in good condition. I can’t spend money on plumbing and wiring though because I don’t have it - washing machine and boiler are in an outdoor leaking utility room and the electrics are so bad the lights go out if you plug in too many devices. The meter is also ancient. As an interim measure, I have bought more smoke alarms. Good luck with your own reno.

We're 7 months in and it's definitely a ride! Take lots of photos as you go along to document the progress, it'll remind you how far you've come even when it doesn't feel like it! As others have said if you can get one room nice and somewhat done it makes life a lot easier as you have somewhere to hide from the mess - enjoy and good luck! Also make sure you give yourselves some time off as it progresses - renovation can take over your life and be quite stressful so important to put it in perspective and give yourself time to do non house stuff. I remember people giving me that advice at the beginning and it has been very true!

Yep. We've spent a fortune on ours, mostly stuff that doesn't 'show' like roof, drains, etc. But that's still the right way to do it. Structure first, cosmetics last, and get the deep stuff right before doing the icing. Though the house still won't have any kerb appeal until we do the drive, current one makes the place look like a slum.😊

I don't want to discourage you but we're four, nearly 5, years in....
But we did have to do all windows, doors, gutters, roof, drains, etc, so a bigger job all round, and covid didn't help. Pre covid I estimated 2 years for the big stuff and another 2-3 for the small. Nearly all the big stuff is done, jutst bthe drive left so not that disruptive, and most of the small inside stuff, bar the bathroom and shower. I think it's another year-18 months before we will have it pretty much done.
I suggest that you do the rewiring as soon as you really can manage it, though. Partly safety as you obviously know, and also because it's no fun redoing decor because of chiselled out runs of wiring.
But I'm impressed with all you have done in the time! Well done. And you will get there. Just try to keep one room decent as a refuge whatever else s going on, that really does help.

Wise advice. We did this to keep my parents involved during covid, making up a sort of book of photos on the computer, and sending them pages each time we delivered shopping. It kept them involved (they'd wanted to be but covid stopped all that) and it's been invaluable as a record- it's surprising how fast you forget what things were like (even like where joists were you replaced two years ago). And looking back in it recently, it cheered me up- I'd forgotten how awful a lot of the decor was, and just how many jobs we've actually done.

Ours is a funny one as actually it is very aesthetically beautiful and was well looked after by the previous owners (and restored too) but it needs almost completely updating. We have put in new gutters, remodelled some of our downstairs to add a second toilet and are about to change the boiler and radiators. We have also had some roof work done to a couple of places as we had major leaks! In January we are doing the bathroom. That, plus some decorating I’ve done myself, will be our first 18 months in this house. We still need (and this is going to be very slow going due to money):

A new kitchen
French doors in the back plus some reconfiguration of part of the garden
A new roof / insulation / flooring / windows / door in the garage to turn it into a home office
Properly restoring all the original windows (some glass repair, fixture restoration and stripping / painting)

That’s without the loft conversion we’d like to do at some point!

Can I join? Have had mine for a month and spent more than half that time stripping many layers of wallpaper off every possible surface including the ceilings. Electrics are done (not a total rewire thankfully), new boiler in the works, gas fires and '80s surrounds out so now I have giant holes with drafts blowing through, radiators off, a few walls with cracks and holes filled and sanded but lots more to go, started painting one room but it will need a million white coats before I can put colour on. Carpet is gross but I have to live with it until the new year. Likewise loo which is a bit smelly, but have to prioritise the kitchen. Plastering next week. I've done loads but there is still so much to do. And everything is expensive. So I feel your pain.

Can I join please? This is renovation number 5, we have always renovated to varying degrees. I am impressed with what you have done so far, hang in there. Apparently Zinsser Gardz is what you need for previously wallpapered walls. I have a pot and haven’t used it yet as thought sod it and just painted the previously wallpapered ceiling as was so fed up after hours of filling and sanding. It was fine so I got complacent and tried a wall which then wasn’t so the Gardz is coming out soon.

I agree about the electrics. Our last house we had an electrician out straight away but we had moved areas and had no one we knew and it was before the days of Facebook groups. The guy did a bodge then 10 years later a builder emerged from the loft as we were knocking all the stud walls down to change layout. He had gone pale and spluttered he had just found rubber wiring. It was the same week the car needed about 2k spent on it and our cat who we had had for 4 years and thought was spayed had just kittens which wasn’t great timing when you discover the house needs a rewire and trashing a lot of what had been already done.

Current house we have had since Spring last year and were able to do a fair bit before moving in last autumn but still lots to do. Out of money now so it is me doing it and I am still recovering from major surgery in the summer.The house is Edwardian and hadn’t been updated since the 70s though consumer unit had to accommodate stair lift I think. The main roof, soffits etc and guttering had been done and it was mostly double glazed and has an electric garage door. It was well loved but very very dated, previous owners had been there for 45 years.

Electrics been done though not full rewire, new boiler in different location and new radiators, remaining single glazed window done and new doors, Woodburner, small utility and toilet now a shower room, bathroom tarted up, en-suite done properly, drains sorted, kitchen moved but not finished, garden tamed. Most rooms look fairly decent on the face of it. Still have a fair few boxes to unpack and garage full of remnants of 2 second hand kitchens as decided to do this rather than buy new. I think I can see the end though wouldn’t like to say which year or even decade it will be !

@Seaitoverthere I thought your post said a builder emerged from the loft 10 years after the electrician left! 😀

I could write a novel about our renovation! 5 and a half years on and we have done 90% of the work ourselves so it has been slowwwww going.
We still have the biggest project, the kitchen/dining toom still to do, but in no way have the money at the moment so will have to put up with the back end of the house looking shite for a few years longer!
Thought I'd post a couple of before and afters though.. totally agree with a pp that taking pictures of things at their worst, during and after is so helpful and keeps you remembering how far you have come.. renovation is not for the faint hearted!

Reno

Reno

@lingmerth there were times when it felt like it 😀

That’s looking great @pinklemonsparkle . Agree it is helpful to have photos to look back on.

We need another bed for when DD is back at Christmas so are going round the corner at lunchtime to pick one up for £90 from Gumtree. Will take several trips but the sun is shining.

You are all making me feel so much better already. It’s always nice to feel like you’re not alone. The more the merrier!

I bought a 1930 3 bed house last year on my own and I was only expecting it to need cosmetic work according to the survey.

But the surveyor missed a lot of issues and I also discovered decades of dodgy DIY from a previous owner who was a builder. I did as much as I could myself but of course also needed some decent tradespeople.

Some of the stuff I have had to do:

Full rewire; install a new boiler; remove an old gas fire (described as a 'death trap' by the gas engineer...); remove all the carpets myself to restore the original floorboards and also paint the entire house, shed, garden fences and kitchen cupboards; install some new gutters; asbestos survey; drain surveys (had one broken kitchen gulley); put floor tiles in the corridor; cover up a very odd looking 80s fake Brick wall; clear out the gardens and all the mess the previous owners had left in the shed and loft. I also dug up and installed a pond in the garden :).

Once I came back to the house one day to find water dripping down the ceiling form the bathroom above. Turned out to be a leaking toilet cistern. This week I also had my trusted plumbed upgrade the shower draining system and apparently the cowboy who must have installed it a few years ago has pipes going up rather than down so the water was just going back into the pipe/shower drain. Frankly it is never ending as I am now saving to replace the toilet and basin in the Spring.

At least my house is now looking a thousand times better after all this and I am settled in and happy with my little town but it did affect my mental health horrendously in the first couple of months of owning the place.

I even ended up creating a little blog about my house of horror, how depressed it initially made me but how I grew to love it and how it taught me so much about resilience, DIY, sustainable lifestyle and upcycling (as I had no money left to decorate the place!) https://greenmermaidcottage.blogspot.com/2024/09/from-black-to-green-how-facing-toughest.html

I was walking in my local area this morning and could not help notice how many plumber vans and builders/scaffolds there were.I think many of us, especially the ones with older houses, are constantly having to fix them so I know I am not the only one dealing with these type of issues.

Glad you are feeling better @Whathaveidone3232 .

@Startingagainandagain , love the blog! I am filling my raised beds slowly. So far I have a layer of cardboard from moving boxes, old bank statements, grass clippings, bag of chicken bedding as the fox sadly got the chickens and windfall apples. Am going to find some manure and then will be adding fallen leaves.

I’ve inherited a greenhouse full of old plant pots, a bag of compost and chicken manure pellets and determined to get growing next summer as struggled this year as unwell. Nearly all our furniture is second hand as is the kitchen. I also sometimes make my skincare products, need to find a local beekeeper and get some beeswax as found some of the glass jars recently in a box and my measuring jugs.

I am putting Zinsser Gardz on walls which is a bit of a rubbish job as it is pretty much clear and it doesn’t look like anything happened😀

The Zinsser gardz did actually work for me (on the walls that are not damp). My advice would be to do thin coats as it does run.

It really does run doesn’t it !

It is a tough life, living in a doer-upper. We did our last house almost completely by ourselves - I never thought I would become so proficient at tiling but I have to say that I did a bloody good job!
In the end, we moved as we had made so many mistakes and frankly couldn't deal with fixing them ourselves. We took a haircut on the price (we made money but locally houses have sold for much more than we sold ours) to pass it on to someone who would have the energy to make the changes needed.
So, I counsel you this - do things in the right order. Retrofitting repairs is always more expensive and convoluted. Here is a personal example:

We lived in a victorian house which had dodgy stairs. We decided we'd sort them another time. By the time we got to looking at that we'd have needed to changed the floors, a doorway and skirtings. That skirting might have pulled some of the plaster off, which means patch repairs.
What could have been a relatively simple carpentry job turned into a much bigger problem by leaving it.

I have loads more of these examples - I can't even tell you! My top advice is to think about the order of your works and if you are budget restricted live in a crap hole and get the fundamentals done.

Electrics and heating / plumping can be very disruptive to do later down the line and are central to making a house comfortable. Leaks can also be lethal - we didn't realise we had rot from a bathroom leak when we first moved it and had to rip out a load of concrete in the floor which was a horrible, horrible job.
Next but equal - make the house water and air tight. Fix any cracks in render / repoint where you need to. Reseal windows, inside and out. Get new chimney pots if you need - those are so often the cause of bad damp in chimney breasts and it makes an older house feel and smell horrible. We didn't do ours properly at first and every time we had bad wind it whistled through the house and made it smell.

Check all your guttering and fascias. They might look OK at a glance but they might not be - often they need cleaning and while you're at it you notice loose screws and stuff which you should fix before they before a problem.

IF you have to pull down ceilings, do it before doing any ealls. We loved with unplastered ceilings for ages and it was fine. They are so messy coming down though, that you want them down before you put in any other effort. Also, taking them down after you have plastered the walls will cause damage to said newly plastered walls, which is a waste of money and effort.

Final thing is, if you can only do a couple of rooms then do your bathroom and bedroom. Having a nice bedroom to escape the horror is essential and being able to take a decent shower / bath after a long day of DIY is bliss.

We are totally bonkers as we are about to start another renovation - this one even bigger as we've bought a pretty much condemned house (why the devil not, after all!). It wasn't even that cheap as we live in an area that is very hot. But you can make it what you want if you do it yourself, so there are upsides and it definitely does get better. It just takes a while. Good luck