Is this a good idea - doer upper

[Saffie920]

Hi everyone - posting because I’m so undecided and starting to drive myself a bit mad. For background, my husband and I have a 15 month old daughter and we are pretty decided we would like to have a second child but with a 4 to 5 year age gap. So we wouldn’t be ttc for another 2 to 3 years. We currently live in a ground floor flat with a small garden in an area we love. We moved in June 2024, a couple of months before I gave birth. The flat has two double bedrooms which are at one end of the flat with the bathrooms. It then has a large open-plan living/kitchen/diner and a small third ‘bedroom’ which comes directly off the kitchen. We currently have a sofa bed in this and we mostly use it as an office for WFH. I am concerned that this flat is too small for us to have another child, particularly because the third bedroom is on the other side of the flat so it wouldn’t really be ideal to have a baby in there. We do need space for guests as our in laws come to help with childcare regularly and live several hours away so they need to stay.

Trouble is, we love the area we live in for several reasons but houses in this area are just so expensive and out of our price range. I have recently seen a house which is a really good size and in a fab location on a lovely road. But it needs substantial work doing to it - new kitchen, bathroom, new flooring everywhere, every room needs redecorating, and - in the longer run - new windows. It doesn’t need a new boiler or rewiring though.

Am I mad to be contemplating a project on this scale with a young toddler? On the one hand I think the timing could actually be good - we are past the tiny baby stage (which I found hard, and much harder than toddler age so far) and we have several years before we will have another baby in the house. But on the other hand I reckon we could only afford to have about £25k to kick start the works and I know this won’t be enough to do everything. So I think we would have to save and do as we go. Is this a terrible idea that we will regret?!

if you read this far, thank you!

They always say but the worst house in the best street. £25k won’t get you much at all, but I wouldn’t let having a toddler stop you (as someone who did a lot of building work with a toddler). But get a builder to look at the house with you to give you a ballpark figure (then double it and triple the time).

Thank you! It most definitely is worst house/best street territory! I think we would just have to save like hell to try and get it done in a reasonable timeframe. At the moment I’m working 4 days a week but I could go back up to 5 as I think we could (with some gentle begging) benefit from more grandparent childcare for an extra day a week. It would be a shame not to have that dedicated day with my daughter but think it’s probably worth it for the long-term in the house

Do it. Houses are long term and babies and toddlers don’t care about their domestic environment! By the time your children are year 6/ teen age, you will have the house mostly in shape (house renovation never really ends, however) and you’ll be delighted with the right-sized space in a good area.

My first house took five years to do up, the second ten, we’re still there, the kids are now adults and left, we have extended twice, plus had a loft conversion, changed bathrooms and kitchens now several times, put in windows and doors! landscaped the garden. It really is a forever home.

if you’re prepared for years of ongoing mess and ugly fixtures and fittings, go for it.

You can do it room by room and manage the mess. There is also a pleasure in leaving a house better than you found it- we’ve put shonky plumbing to rights, modernised the heating, stripped out the lazy, ugly shortcuts on electrical work, stripped back flooring, landscaped front and back gardens. Small things like getting proper steel curtain rails to replace the crappy plastic ones (beautiful curtains, crap curtain rails: why?) cost over a grand, so needed saving for, but make a difference to everyday life. In the magazines/social media accounts these things are done in months. Here on planet earth they take years, and you find yourself repainting stuff in between major jobs, and some things wearing out.

I'm just at the end of a two year renovation project OP.

If you are really keen then do not let me influence you, but I would say it is VERY hard work to live in a big renovation. Periods without a bathroom or kitchen, washing up in a bucket, dust and mess everywhere. If you do the work yourself it is cheaper, but materials are still ridiculously expensive. It is also much slower and more time consuming than getting a professional in. Trades people are VERY expensive. A builder or decorator in my area (south West) charges around £400 a day, that's before materials.

A large project eats your life. It's only now it is all finished that I realise what a toll it took on me and how much of my own time was lost.

I know it's not the point of the thread but what made you change kitchen and bathroom several times in ten years?

Go for it! Small kids don’t care about decor -as others have said -do a room at a time.

Depends. How much is a need and how much is a want?

When you say it needs a new kitchen and bathroom, do you actually mean that they're dated and not to your taste but perfectly functional...or non-existent?

If the former, then those bits go on the back burner and the money you have available now goes on the non-negotiable bits like flooring or whatever.

It doesn't even sound like you need a builder, you're just needing to update. £25k goes a lot further that way

As nothing is structural then I would definitely do it and I say this as someone who extended their house. Always think long term.

Lots of things are livable, we had a pink bathroom with a scalloped sink. Was is beautiful? No, but it functioned until we could get round to doing it. It was the children's bathroom and I had sons. You live with what works and fix as a temporary measure before replacing, ie kitchens. I always think it is good to live in a house for a couple of months to get a feel for the light etc before embarking on works.

We have renovated two houses, the last one was just cosmetic, new bathrooms, kitchen, flooring. This house was windows, radiators, boiler, bathrooms, kitchen extension, flooring throughout.

I had Pinterest boards for every room and I like researching. I also follow a lot of plumbing, electrical, general DIY channels on youtube as we do a lot of it ourselves. We were lucky to have good recommendations for plasterer, electrician etc.

Be your future friend, consider where your Christmas tree will go and get sockets put in, in all the rooms, bedrooms etc and outside sockets for Christmas lights, powering your lawn mower or power washer before you get giddy and start decorating. This is why I say live with it for a bit, work out what works for you in terms of placing furniture and then sort out sockets, lighting and the rest.

Not a bad idea in principle but I would be wary of escalating costs. £25k would get you a new kitchen and that’s all. I would also get a couple of quotes on the total cost. If you’re sure you can afford it then go for it.

You didn’t read the post correctly, I said it took us ten years to do it up. We’ve been here 27 years. One kitchen when we moved in, one last year and one in the middle. Same with bathrooms.

Well yes, a kitchen every 10 years? They don't sound like they last very well

13 years actually, and the first one was cheap because we were hard up and the second one was fine but the layout didn’t work anymore and so the third came along because we can afford it, as empty nesters with a paid off mortgage. I now have the one I’ve always wanted with beautiful appliances and ceramic worktops.

If I am meant to feel guilty for not keeping the same kitchen for decades, sorry, I don’t.

I think it depends on whether the kitchen and bathroom are serviceable. I'm doing up ours and everything is so expensive so 2 years in I've only done the bedrooms, the lounge and converted part of the garage into a dining room and shower room.

The kitchen and main bathroom are not great but they are serviceable and I'll get them done next year.

The thing that will save my sanity here is that we won't be relying on just one bathroom when it's done up and we have lovely clean bedrooms.

£25k won't go far but I'm managing on a small budget.

Thanks everyone so much for your responses! Great to hear different perspectives and from people with a lot more experience in this stuff than me. We have owned our current flat and a house previously (in a different city), and we have done a few things along the way eg a new bathroom in our first place; all new windows in our current place; garden re-landscaping (by ourselves in our first place and by pros in our second) so not totally inexperienced but just a bit overwhelmed by a place that needs something doing in every single room. I think some things are maybe more liveable than I first thought - I think the kitchen would be my priority and we could cope with the bathroom for a bit, just with new shower head and a few quick cosmetic things. Currently trying to find a builder who will come with us for a viewing for a quote!

This is the house in case anyone has other thoughts. It looks a little more worse for wear in person than in the pictures haha https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/167968328

Potentially in the very long run I would be interested in converting the garage into another reception room

Just bearing in mind that you've only moved just over a year ago, would it not be a better idea to stick where you are for a few years and save up for a bigger move later on? House looks fine but probably not a forever home. Buying and selling repeatedly isnt the best financial decision so it may be a better shout to minimise the number of moves.

Ooh I like it! It looks in fairly good condition! It's got a mid century vibe that I like!

I think the kitchen and bathroom could work for now.

It's got some serious looking cracks in the wall in 2 photos.

Yes I do totally take your point and it’s a big consideration. We haven’t been actively looking at all, it’s just this came up and I wanted to explore the option.Unfortunately around here this sort of house is definitely forever home sized (esp with converted garage) unless you have well over £1m to spend!

Yes I’d like builder to look at these and needs survey of course

I like it, @Saffie920 .

You need a seriously good survey done. One of those cracks is right where the lintel joins the wall, and that lintel is basically holding up the floor above.

Also be aware that properties with tiles on the front like that tend not to have cavity wall insulation. We have that issue at the front of our house.

The walls look very thin (no window sills) is it single skin construction?

If the house is habitable then I think you should go for it. We moved when I was six months pregnant to a completely derelict house. I stayed with my mum for about a month while we had a bathroom and most of a kitchen installed before I moved in, while my poor husband lived in a total building site without even a proper working toilet. For the only time in our lives we paid to have someone decorate our bedroom and our daughter’s bedroom, which was done shortly before I gave birth. We did everything else ourselves very gradually over the next ten years. We realised it wasnt necessary to have a nice immaculate living room immediately, and we ate off an old picnic table and had an old single bed as our sofa for several months after we moved. Our kitchen csme from the equivalent of B&Q so didn’t cost a fortune, we designed it ourselves, and it’s still I’m really good condition over 30 years later. I think you could do a lot of work for £25,000.