Has anyone else recently bought a house in need of renovation to LIVE in as a family home?? We have and its completely daunting!

[stilltryingtosell]

Dp and I moved three days ago from our tiny but very servicable little two bed to a much bigger house, which is in need of 'total renovation'.

We woulod not have been able to afford to make this move if the house had not been in need of a lot of work, but now we are in i am really really overwhelmed and daunted! PLEASE COME AND HOLD MY HAND LOL LOL!!!

No help but I am seriously seriously .

Hi Paws

Thats the thing, I would have been (was) before WE did it but we have very little money lol!! At present just enough to re-wire and central heat, we will then have to tackle everything else month by month til we retire !

Do feel lucky though and just hope we can make it work.

Ooooh central heating, mmmm! Just to make you feel a teensy bit worse (sorry!!) my friend got one 11 years ago, and so far they have:

re-wired
re-plastered
Got a kitchen.

In 11 years!! No central heating or anything! So at least you will be better than that!

We've been lucky enough not to live in ours while it's being done but we are totally stretched. If we hadn't managed it we were going to live upstairs while doing downstairs and vice versa. Can you do that?

It's nearly done but we are moving in without a kitchen as we've run out of money. We've got a very long table from ebay and the cooker that was there and it will be quite a while before we get units or anything else.

I've done it five times (although only twice with children) and it is stressful but not in the ways you imagine: you get used to some aspects of squalor and the children really couldn't give a hoot/quite like it but it is very hard work.

The problem with just doing the wiring and plumbing first is that they cost a lot of money and definitely should be done but they're not very satisfying - it's just lots of money and mess for a pretty unspectacular end result (unless your thing is really fuel efficient boilers). To be absolutely honest, I am not sure it is possible to put in central heating and rewire and stay in the house, especially if you have them done simultaneously - that's a lot of floorboards to come up. Is there any way you can get a couple of rooms replastered at the same time so that you can paint them and make them feel more finished and achieve a feelgood factor?

There was a very good article in the Guardian this weekend by a woman who had recently done it (although she did move out) but expresses some of the agony very well.

We did it with a holiday home, and it was very, very hard work - but more than worth it. We didn't have children at the time, but I'd do it again (even though I had a daily weep when we were actually doing it!!) - I think children find this sort of thing quite interesting. Focus on the fact that it will be wonderful when it's done - because it will be wonderful!

I'll hold your hand.

We moved into a house in need of renovation nearly three yrs ago with a 5 and 3 yr old. The idea was that I could do most of the decoration before I went back to work when the three yr old went to school. Three months after we moved in I found out I was pregnant - the extension we had thought about became a necessity and the builders knocked through into our bedroom when she was four weeks old!

Everyone shuffled bedrooms so many times it was a real achievement when (last yr) everyone got into their own room!

We are nowhere near done (I only put the minimum on the mortgage so we are paying month by month but it has been so worthwhile when I look back at what we have achieved.

Try to do it room by room if you can and don't leave your bedroom until last (we did!) - it is great to have a sanctuary which is finished. The children really don't mind - our were eating breakfast outside for several days when the floors were being done.

Good luck - wouldn't particularly recommend a new baby in the middle if it!

We are in the same situation as you and I agree it is daunting and sometimes overwhelming...
We moved in a year ago and all we have managed to do is to sort out the leaking roof and make a start on the garden.

I think we'll try and stage it so that we re-wire upstairs first and maybe doing plumbing work at the same time (we have central heating but the system needs some attention and we need new rads). Once this is done we can decorate and then we'd make a start on the downstairs.

It is very hard to fit it around kids IMO, esp arranging things and meeting tradespeople etc, esp when they are small and demanding (DSs are 4 and nearly 2). That said, I agree that kids think that its fun and interesting, its just the parents who suffer!!

We are hopefully going to be doing the same! Currently in the middle of selling our house and buying a wreck, a victorian terrace that hasnt been touched for 30 years. At survey stage at the moment, just waiting to hear if the survey on ours went ok, fingers crossed for tuesday.

We probably need to do the following:

• roof
• rewiring
• new central heating
• new boiler
• damp proof downstairs WC
• new bathroom
• new kitchen (but can survive with what we have)
• remove ceiling tiles throughout
• replaster
• decorate everywhere

We have 5k to start with but have got a small mortgage so should be able to do it all bit by bit. Oh, and have a 1yo DS and 2yo DD .

I hold your hand, will you hold mine too!

We moved into our house that needed complete renovation almost exactly 5 years ago.

There was no way we could have afforded it if it hadn't needed a lot of work and we couldn't afford to do everything at once so it is a very long term project.

So far we have:

Put in new damp proof course downstairs
Put in a new bathroom
Ripped down all the ceilings upstairs to remove the office tile suspended ceilings and reinstated ceilings at the original height.

Currently we are restoring the original stone staircase so for the past couple of weeks we have had no bannisters at all which is a bit scary.

I don't envy you starting from scratch it isn't particularly nice staying in the house while work is done.

It will all be worth it!!(or so i keep telling myself!)

Hmm, that really doesn't look like we have done a lot!!

We did two big projects the first being most of downstairs and then had a couple of years to recover forget and then did most of upstairs in one go.

We still have to:

the en-suite
the utility room
the living room

Then we are planning a massive kitchen refurbishment/extension project, but not for a few years i think!

Yes we did, it's nearly done now, well as nearly done as we will ever get.

I would never buy a "done" house and pay a premium for it, I've seen the quality of some workman's electrical and plumbing work and how easily it's hidden, so from that prospective alone you've made the right choice and you can see it's being done properly.

I have 9 times.Am currently in teh priory

we are almost a year into our move, exactly the same as this. it's a great house, but full of 'potential'... we have no spare cash, and need to plan for school fees in 2 years time (can't bear to move nearer better state schools, house so lovely..). So we do as much as we can ourselves, decorating, gardening (tree chopping etc), fixing small things etc. Essentials done so far: rewiring (before we moved in), flat roofs replaced, rotten window frames replaced. but we''ve left them single glazed for some future date. the kitchen and bathroom are totally disgusting, the bathroom worst, but they function and as time wears on the urgency to fix them up fades away. at first i was all for budgeting each month and lining up the jobs but now i'm happier to wait and see.

i did find it very stressful at first, i i have to say. but now i'm used to it it's all fine, i can wait til we retire!

Yes, we did this with a 3 year old in tow and me 6 months pregnant. It is hard. But it will be worth it and you will get through it! We moved into a hotel while the re-wiring was being done as it was SO dusty and messy and I was worried about the children. We also had a simultaneous replumb meaning all floorboards up, workmen all over the house. I found that dd and I spent a lot of time in the car, indeed it became my "home office"!

I can't believe I am saying this - but I would do it again!

Good luck, you'll be fine and as always, will find loads of advice on mnet!

We have done this 3 times! When you are living in the house while doing the work the only way to stay sane is to do one room at a time. The kitchen and bathroom should be the first rooms to do, money permitting. We could not afford to do the kitchen straight away and the kitchen was in a terrible state so I set up a makeshift kitchen in the lounge with a hotplate, microwave and fridge. It is surprising how easy it is to get used to things! As soon as you get the kitchen and bathroom usable, everything else is easy. When doing really dusty work, seal off the other rooms with sellotape round the doors.

we're 3 years into ours, although the house has been liveable but just needed updating.

so far we have done

re wire,
new kitchen,
new boiler and mains pressure hot water tank,
new shower although the bathroom is next on the list,
2 room ground floor extension
new suite in downstairs loo
double glazing
insullated loft

not to mention painting every wall, stripping every bit of gloss and re doing, flooring (carpets and oak)
also new fencing in the garden. landscaping the front garden and patio at the rear.

We started with the re-wire then kitchen first and went from there.

You have to make sure you do things in the right order, it was no point us having new carpet in the lounge/dining room when the builders on another project would have trashed it.

Deep breath... phew just the thought of what we've been through in the last three and a half years is enough to make me want to hyperventilate!

When we moved in I was three weeks away from giving birth to dd2 plus had an 18 month toddler, so things weren't going to be easy... but we fell in love with our house and therefore committed to even more chaos!

Our house needed completely gutting, rewiring and central heating before even thinking about cosmetic renovations. It needed a wall to be knocked down, a window to be replaced and an extension. The fact the house is grade II listed and in a conservation area added somewhat to the complications! We have had a new kitchen plus bathrooms installed. Still we have no carpet on the stairs (drums fingers impatiently ]) but dh (who's a builder) is currently working on re-landscaping the entire garden.

The hardest bit for me was not so much the living in 'squalor' (as lala so eloquently put it) but more the fact that this has taken over our life so much. In order for us to afford it, dh has had to work one helluva lot of weekends and of course this made us both exhausted (I had no let up from the dds in the early days!).

That said, it has to have been one of the most rewarding projects we've done as we are living in a gorgeous house which has all been done the way we want it!

Good luck with your venture, it's soooo worth it in the end!

Yes, we've done it twice. [slaps self with wet fish].

If you can possibly, possibly, possibly, move out while the wiring and central heating are done, then do so even if it involves sleeping on people's floors. DON'T even think about getting both done at the same time, the men will be falling over each other. Get the wiring done first, then the plumbers in immediately afterwards while the boards are still up.

Unpack as little as possible before starting work, and pack away everything you don't want broken.

We are about to do it!

We are in the process of buying a Georgian Farmhouse in need of complete renovation.

We've just had the first quote back and it seems that the roof alone is going to cost £38K plus VAT!!!!!

Our basic job list is:

New roof
Re-wiring the whole house
Plumbing the whole house
Damp proof course, including digging down 1m at the back of the house like a moat.
Replacing all the joists on the ground floor
Replacing all the floorboards on the ground floor
Digging out and replacing all the floors at the back of the house
Re-plastering most rooms
Replacing the ceilings in most rooms
Re-building 2 chimneys
Rebuilding one of the gable end walls
etc
etc
etc

That's before we even start installing the kitchen and bathrooms!

We made a decision this week that we are going to rent somewhere for 6 months while the worst of the work is being done. We will be without a roof for about 6 weeks, so there's no way we can live there.

However, I am completely and utterly in love with the house and want to live there forever.

we are doing it, 7 years later

we lived with ILS for 4 months and were exempted from council tax as it was deemed unfit for human habitation

so far we have

rewired

replaced lead pipes

recently got new boiler, pipework and hot water tanks

re plastered around half teh house, including kitchen ceiling, which fell down when we took teh paper off

redone garden including knocking down and removing derelict outbuilding

new bathroom and kitchen, although kitchen is a cheap ex display, as that is all we could afford

stripped out old carpets, sanded and varnished all floor boards, except for the bedrooms which we re carpeted

replaced some single with double glazing

various repairs to the roof , chimmney and flashing

redecoration

new fireplace in lounge

resprayed oven/range fire in kitchen

knocked down two internal kitchen walls, installed RSJ.

and it goes on!!!!

Best of luck STTS - but I hope you're not still trying to sell the old property while you are doing up the new one?

I did this but it was mildly bonkers in retrospect. I didn't mind the disruption (although I didn't like the dust) or the constant need to organise grown men. The cost though ... phew!!!

We did the following:

• new central heating
• new boiler
• cavity wall insulation
• redid old bathroom (twice now)
• built two new bathrooms
• new kitchen
• remove ceiling tiles throughout
• replaster
• new flooring throughout
• new windows (including removing the car showroom window and replacing with french doors and creating two new sets of french doors in other rooms)
• new stone flags outside
• remove garden pond
• remove and replace fireplace and rebuild chimney breast
• reroofed
• decorated everywhere

We've still got three major projects to go - one being the garden walls, the second being replacing the concrete flags with stone flags at the front and the last one being
the landscaping at the back.

yup. sympathise. cant even bring myself to write our long list... feels like we will need to win the national lottery! but we do have one of the nicest houses in the village, and every morning i wake up and look out over the cricket green and think i am the luckiest person in the world (as well as the brokest- fi that is a word!)

My parents did, when I was 10 and my brother was 8!

The only thing they had to move us out for was the woodworm treatment (toxic, apparently...)

It was a 1920's house, lived in by the one lady for ever, and empty for years before they bought. Needed de-woodworming, new roof, wiring, plumbing (was all lead), decorating, extending, kitchen and bathroom replacing, garden sorting including major tree work, asbestos garage removing. Everything, really. They got through it somehow, doing it pretty much all themselves. Respect, mum and dad.

They have a lovely home now (I could never afford it), and as kids we were fine with newspaper on the floors for carpet, and unbelievably hideous decor never really featured as a worry in our childish lives. I also earned money being my dad's 'plumbers mate' (little hands very good for sanding down pipe ends, applying flux and solder).

Good luck, it will be worth it.

We did 5 years ago. DH wasn't working so was going to do the work himself. House had no kitchen. Needed totally redecorating, walls knocking down, new central heating, there were big holes in the internal walls, chimmneys were falling off, holes in the roof, no shower.

I was working full time and DD was 2. The day afetr we moved in DH got offerred a job and left 3 days later for an oil rig in the North Sea.

I nearly had a nervous breakdown. I rang a builder I knew and told him to do everything. DH is still pissed off to this day as it coust thosands. But he was coming home one weekend in four and then going again. As it was it was 6 months before I got a kitchen.

I remember coming in from work one day to find the whole of the kitchen and dining room a foot deep in bricks and rubble. I turned straight round and we went to the pub for tea.