would you live in property whilst work is done?

clutton_2

i have done it and NEVER EVER again .. i got so depressed at sleeping with grit in my sheets and having to shower at work that one weekend i went babysitting for some chums and pleaded to stay till wednesday... just could not bear to go home.....

if you have to do this.. put 99% of your stuff in storage... otherwise you will find grit in drawers for years to come

Magslad

Just to confirm the view of other posters, we lived in our house while we had work done, and there is absolutely no way we would do so again. We had very conscientious builders, but it is impossible to avoid the dust and dirt and carry on any sort of normal life.

I normally work from home at least once a week, but during the build period I didn't do it once, you need to consider a number of things if you permanently work from home like you said in your first post:
- Do you want to spend all day working in a noisy, dirty environment?
- You will end up being less productive as you will be dragged into decisions on the build etc
- As a graphic designer, I'm sure some of your equipment will not take too kindly to the type of dust produced during building work. It is impossible to protect rooms from dust, even when sealed up (which wouldn't be possible anyway if you were using the rooms to work in)

motherofstudents

Sounds very much like our bungalow which we bought 3 years ago. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with relatives, not perfect but at least we could have a shower and sleep in a proper bed. Do not underestimate the mess, especially if you are having a rewire or plastering, well anything really ! The caravan in the garden sounds like a good idea if it doesn't get too hot -especially if you are trying to work. I think it depends on how liveable it is now, could you move in for a while until you get pp ? If that would work it does help to live in place first so you know exactly what you want. If it's any consolation, it does get finished eventually and better to do everything at the start I think:)

dander

I don't know what you mean by a huge extension - but with all the work you want to do, £50k doesn't sound like enough to have a huge extension as well. I'd start by getting all the individual jobs costed up so you know what is and isn't feasible.

GoToGal

Oh for the love of all that is good, no! I'm just, just finishing work on mine after 6 miserable months. The worst thing is the dust, it gets everywhere, so you are constantly cleaning. Most of my stuff is packed up and in boxes and I'm eating at mums. Awful, awful, awful.

As you might be able to tell, I've hated every minute of it

pawpurrs

Am currently doing just that, and its involving taking down lath and plaster walls and ceilings! A lot of mess and dust! And you have to resolve yourself to living in a dust pit, bit stressfull, hubby and I are clean freaks, and actually not finding it so bad, you just have to relax. More stressfull is we are doing the whole renovation ourselves and we are knackered! Havent had a sitting room for about 4 mths now! It would be nice to have somewhere to relax!

thehat

Hi Michele. I did a double-take reading your post. I too am buying a 2-bed bungalow, with our buyers renting and the bungalow empty, and needing major renovation; and I'm a graphic designer! Very bizarre.

We've luckily found a friend with a static caravan on a site which we can rent for cheap - sounds like you have a large garden so a caravan could be a great option as others have suggested (assuming you can be far enough from the building work, I guess). Our garden is too small, alas. I looked into things like short lets and holiday cottages, but at this time of year there's nothing less than 400 quid a week, which would mount up horribly quickly.

Not sure how I'm going to work yet - might be the shed, or I'll risk boiling all day long in the caravan. I guess keeping an eye on the building work is useful, though, as long as it doesn't intrude too much.

We wanted to do a loft conversion too (to make 2 rooms). Though it looks like quotes are coming in at around £45K (in VAT), which would blitz out budget totally, similar to yours. We're now thinking of rearranging downstairs to make an extra bedroom out of one that's larger than needed.

Anyway, I had to say hi simply because of the weird coincidence. Very best of luck - it would be interesting to hear how you get on!

Cheers; Andrew