Advice on making a renovated cottage regain character on a tight budget?

[Toddlergrumps]

We are considering moving house, my parents live fairly rurally (we live about 35 mins away on edge of large city).
There is a house that is about 5 mins walk from them (was owned by their friends) on the market for £680k, their friends sold it in 2021 for £730k during the race for space! It’s a good layout, and has the option to buy some extra land BUT it has been “renovated”!
It was/is a cottage house (probably 1850s) and it now has awful glossy laminate wood floors throughout (including all the bedrooms), it has a new gloss grey kitchen, no window coverings downstairs and only roller blinds upstairs, it’s all white/light grey and all the quirky bits have been removed in favour of clean lines - unfortunately it is now totally soulless. It’s also got a biomass boiler (no mains gas) which puts me off.

The house is at the top of the budget for us so we wouldn’t be able to change the kitchen (back to the lovely cottage kitchen with aga that was there) or the wood floors (maybe we could carpet one bedroom), even curtains would be a lot as quite a few rooms are dual aspect.
They have clearly spent a lot of money doing the work, but I just don’t understand why someone would buy a cottage if they wanted light bright, modern open plan! Clearly the market agrees with me as it was listed last spring at £800k and now £50k less than they paid.
Does anyone have any tips on bringing the cottage feel back without breaking the bank or do we skip it?

We’d like to see the online listing!

It sounds like you dislike it as it now is and as you’re on a limited budget and changing things would be costly, would probably skip it.

I’m not going to post the online listing, it’s a tiny village (c30 houses) and DP know the current owners (although only to chat to not been round). I know they have spent a lot of time/money renovating it so I think it’s a bit unfair to post a link to their house. It’s a shame for them that they will lose a lot of money, partly because they overpaid when they bought in Covid.
I can probably live with the floors and get some rugs, it’s the kitchen that really puts me off as it is just completely not my style and it would be years before we could change it. It is 5m x 4m and they’ve put cupboards round the whole room so not even space for a dresser.
I think it is a skip it house, it’s a shame as it’s the location we want (and there aren’t many houses in our budget with 3 bedrooms). I think we will sleep on it for a bit, see how we feel in a few days.

I'd be concerned mostly that they've used modern materials which won't be breathable and will be storing up a load of problems for the future.

I suppose the question is whether the good things about it (location, layout, extra land etc) will make up for living indefinitely in an expensively-renovated space that you think is awful and soulless but that you have no ability to alter?

Is it done up ‘well’ with quality materials and things, just not to your taste?

We live in an older property. We found the tiled kitchen floor under 2 layers of vinyl when we renovated the kitchen. We had to do something about the layout the prev owners had for the kitchen as it felt wrong. With this new kitchen in the cottage you are looking at OP, could you do a quick fix by just changing the doors or the handles on the doors? You could add a few cottage vibe items on the counters/work surfaces. Put some older/secondhand items in to bring the vibe round. Our kitchen window is modern, we have a blind and I don't open it right to the top. The window sill has houseplants in plant holders that are more cottage core vibe.

As regards the flooring in your house, my only reservation with keeping it long term would be that old houses do like to breathe and you might want a survey that indicates whether the owners have renovated correctly.

In our neighbourhood we have quite a few neighbours whose renovations have modernised at the back of their houses. Sometimes this works, sometimes they go too far for my taste. At the front of some local properties quite a few locals put in front doors with handles that look very out of place. More recent renovators have used door furniture that fits in better with the age of the properties.

I think you can change the character of a renovated property with decor choices that don't cost very much. Cottage core meets modern can work and you can gradually claw back the character you like.

We are very cottagey here but my artwork taste is quite modern. Likewise table lamps and vases. I think it works, it works for me.

My concern would be they have sued the wrong materials throughout and not heritage ones, therefore it’s a time bomb of issues.

yes rugs, curtains, pattern and warm lightbulbs will help. Is the kitchen one where you could keep the carcass and replace the doors/worktops/knobs …
also on Facebook market place and others people often sell their old kitchens. There are ways to do this on a budget.

what do you feel the value is? Is £680k fair and reasonable?
you could offer £630k to give you a bit of budget to sort critical issues.

They’ve used a local kitchen company for the kitchen, it’s not basic but not high end either, standard gloss units and laminate tops.
I hadn’t thought about materials, I don’t think they will have caused too much of a problem to the structure, it has the same windows/doors etc (it had wooden double glazed sash windows from previous owners). They’ve just put in new kitchen, bathroom, utility, flooring and then things like removed the fireplace and surround and put a modern log burning stove in the hole - so instead of the open fire, it’s just a plain wall with the log burning stove (no tiles, surround etc).
I can ask DM but I think the biomass boiler was installed by their friends. The house was always well maintained/looked after, and when work was done, their friends used a professional so the original bones are good. It was a bit dated, but that’s because the couple who lived in it were late 70s and had different taste in decor.

I think you could possibly make it work for you @Toddlergrumps especially if the location and external appearance/bones of the cottage are right!

We bought our Georgian cottage by the sea in 2024. It was last renovated in 1965 and the previous owner had lived there since 1970, doing virtually no updates since then. Unfortunately, the 60s makeover included removing all period features - lime plaster, doors, skirting, architraves, fireplaces, most of the windows (although replacements are timber, Georgian style) and majority of the floorboards. They'd also converted part of the cottage into an integral garage. Sacrilege.

We only bought it because a) the location was good and b) we missed out on a prettier, but internally challenging cottage with stubborn vendor around the corner.

Our plan was to sympathetically renovate and restore as many character features as possible on a tiny budget (30k). We were confident of achieving this it's our 8th period house restoration, DH is a conservation builder and we can do most jobs ourselves with me sourcing good quality stuff online.

We're half way through the project and have spent around 17k - including 3.5k for a Charnwood wood burner and £300 for some used oak in-frame cabinets around which we're building our kitchen - relocated to a former reception room, the only space with gorgeous original Georgian floorboards which we're leaving exposed. Gradually we've been replacing the internal doors with originals found at reclamation yards and eventually we'll replace the other joinery too.

We also added two late Georgian/early Victorian fire surrounds found on fleabay for £20 each - these look slightly more appropriate than the 1970s crazy paved fireplace we ripped out!

Unfortunately the walls are flat as a characterless pancake and I'm not planning to remove all the grey gypsum and replace with lime. But period paint colours (hello Edward Bulmer!) are making a massive difference, along with all our antique rugs, furniture, textiles and decorative bits we've collected over the years. Finally it's starting to look like a period cottage as opposed to a 1960s box 😁

So, it can be done - and on a budget - although obviously if we were having to pay trades it would be costing considerably more. I wouldn't dismiss the cottage out of hand OP, however annoying it is that the current owners have butchered the place - you just need to weigh up if the work involved to put things right is worth it and if you're prepared to wait to get it done....good luck whatever you decide!

you could keep an eye out for replacement kitchen doors, keep the carcasses and just replace them.

do you think they may have kept original floors and put the laminate over the top?

Sounds like the wrong house in the right place. Keep looking.

I think I might have a go if you like the area and if the plot and floor plan work . I have seen people make flat doors into shaker by adding MDF strips around the edges and handles. Zinsser Allcoat is brilliant and doesn’t need a primer, I’ve been painting straight onto cleaned melamine with Two fussy blokes smooth rollers. We needed the boiler boxed in so last week found a shaker larder door on FB for £20 and builder built cupboard from wood we had in garage.

Maybe ditch some of the cupboards and a bit of work top and get a dresser from Facebook marketplace. We’ve done the same as @LibertyLily and relocated our kitchen to another reception room with cupboards, worktop, Belfast sink and taps, cooker all from Facebook.

There were a load of 70s fitted wardrobes in bedroom over chimney breast wall so they came out and we have fitted a £15 fire surround with black granite hearth from kitchen we bought and Woodburner from old house with bioethanol burner in. Use what you have and can find.

Do you have any friends who are good at sewing and could help you with curtains? Second hand ones around that could be altered. A cheap way of getting a decent amount of fabric is second hand duvet covers, look in charity shops and they can be interlined with cheap fleece blankets.

There are probably floorboards under the laminate you could use, worth asking vendor what is underneath.

I wouldn't buy this house because I would feel miserable about the character being destroyed. It would be very expensive to get it back. You will find something better.

As said before, it’s possibly the wrong house but right location. So keep looking.
But don’t dismiss it entirely and keep an eye on it, in case they drop the price again.

The more you look the more you will get a feel for the market in that area, and what this house could achieve if it reached its full potential.

Regarding the queries others have made about its integral structure and if renovations may have compromised it? - I would always advise getting a full level 3 structural survey.

Lastly, a few rugs, some eBay curtains and a lick of paint could make a real difference. Don’t forget you can redo things like the kitchen in slow time when the money is available.

It doesn’t matter why – it was their house and they could do what they liked to it.

Without wanting to sound negative or disparaging, I don’t think you can afford it. Top budget of £680k and already worrying about expense of flooring and unable to put in a new kitchen. These aren’t the finances of someone who can tackle restoring an 1850s property.

I think you can do it at a reasonable cost. Fireplaces and surrounds - we got ours on EBay. Loads of people are ripping them out of their houses when renovating. We got one beautiful old
solid oak surround for £60. They’re about £600+ from reclamation places near us. It’s honestly made a huge difference to the rooms.

Ditto reclaimed doors. We had to get the picture rails and architraves from a wood company, but they weren’t too expensive, and they’ve made a huge difference to the rooms and proportions. Painting will really help also.

Is the kitchen layout as you’d want? New period appropriate cabinet doors and end panels and new handles would be a good upgrade as the cabinets are new. I’m guessing from your description the lighting would be spotlights or just not nice? An easy upgrade is new pendant and wall lights, remove the spotlights and patch the ceilings, install dimmer switches.

Highly recommend carpet remnants from somewhere like this https://designer-carpet.co.uk/?srsltid=AfmBOopG5BfrRev48NyAU3Myc8b3DSvSBNktHujgDjXcK418RiQ4JOir we got wool remnants for a very reasonable cost and they’re lovely

So sad when people rip out every bit of character from a period place. Hopefully some of the flooring will still be under the laminate