Buying a house that needs work

rosie383

Don't forget that car boot sales will be starting up again around Easter. Great for picking up tins of paint, almost new furnishings, fabrics etc. Also boxes of tiles that someone has left over from a job.
Look on ebay for stuff too. And on freecycle. A couple of years ago we needed one more sheet of underlay for under the laminate. We didn't want to buy a whole new pack, so asked on Freecycle and someone gave us a few that they had lurking.
Go for it if it seems like the right house for you, and have fun doing it up. I agree with other posters about the bathroom. If it is usable, it isn't that urgent. A tin of white tile paint and a couple of coats will make a huge difference. Our bathroom had horrible brown flowery tiles when we moved in. They got painted white years ago and repainted when needed. They look lovely and you would never know they were originally hideous.

enginesuck

We bought a 1970s 4 bed detached last year for £30k less than the other houses on the street are going for, so far ive done one room ! Windows are next at £15k and by the time its all done to the standard i want we will have spent around 40k - im enjoying it as we can plan the rooms exactly as we want. I can cope with salmon bathroom suite and old fashioned kitchen for a couple years until we get it right !

Hoploz

You would definitely be ok with a dated house. Decorating, kitchen and bathroom, all fine for doing a bit at a time as and when, to your taste.

However, I second what has already been said about wiring. I had my last house re-wired and I will never do it again unless absolutely necessary. Luckily our buyer pulled out so through refinancing we managed to buy the new place before we had sold our old one. That meant we did the wiring before we moved in. Thank god we did, it was a horrible job, every wall in every room messed up, floorboards up, the lot.

How is the central heating system? If that needs an overhaul as well it's another big job.

Aside from these two jobs, the rest is easy ... and fun!

Hoploz

P.s. I have recently moved, so I currently have a 30 odd year old bathroom, state-of-the-art 1980's, complete with non-functioning bidet.

I am having lots of fun at the moment planning how the replacement will look

Jhoney_2

My garden looked liked it was used to film Jumani... kitchen ceiling 70's pine with bad choice of varnish, the living room alcoves were boxed in with said pine and topped with large square formica floor tiles - naturally complimented by a sit on top electric fake coal fire -I kid you not. I asked regularly if it was staying, as the thought of seeing it on completion day was the stuff of nightmares.

I'm really happy with my efforts and I like to find things to tinker with around the place but in all, its taken 7 years to where I have it now - full restoration with room to do a bit more if so inclined. which I am!

Zola.

Cheers for all the replies and experienced examples! There's one other thing which I am not fully convinced on and maybe some of you will have experienced something similar.

The house is in a quiet neighbourhood just off a main road. As you open the back door there is a wall maybe 2 feet infront, which must be about 4 or 5 feet tall. On top of this there is a slanted bed ith shrubs and the like in it. To me it looks a bit daft. It runs up to the boundary fence which has the footpath and main road on the other side. This boundary fence is probably 15 feet away from the house.

The fence is high up, compared to the wall height, so I am not too sure what could be done about that. I thought perhaps it could be levelled and decked, but then the wall close to the house may need to come up to to bottom of the fence height?

GalaxyStar

Go for it. We bought our house from an elderly couple who hadn't done anything to it in 25 years. 3 bed semi, needed new kitchen, bathroom, rewiring, redecorating the whole lot. Thankfully we still lived with our parents so stayed there while doing the work as we'd saved up in advance. Kitchen wasn't habitable and bathroom was stained from many years of use. House wasn't even earthed! Thankfully my dad is a retired plumber so he sorted central heating, bathroom, got a free boiler from my BIL that just needed a part. He also fitted the kitchen, fireplace, all the doors back on and coving in every room.

My uncle kindly did the gloss in the house for free too. I painted all the rooms (minus hallway as uncle did that) but we paid for the floors fitting, tiles done and electrics. All together we managed to do it all just under 9k incl new kitchen (Magnet) and bathroom suite. Obviously most thanks to my dad but doing it bit by bit and learning how to do a lot of it yourself can save a hell of a lot of money, just spend it in energy instead!

Make sure you do the electrics and heating done first. the chasing into the plaster for plugs is the worst and will not touch up, you'd have to do the whole room again!

arbrighton

I can't quite imagine what you mean about the garden but to build a wall to support that much earth will need quite a lot of work and strong foundations etc

penguingirl

Think about the order of doing things- as others have said electrics and heating will be messy and require plastering afterwards so no point in decorating before them. Same for if you need to replace the windows.

We had to do everything cosmetic in our house when we moved in 5 years ago. The house was only 15 years old, but it was very tatty and had been poorly maintained. We just did things as we went along, and funded both the kitchen and bathroom using interest-free credit cards for the period of time, saving up a proportion of the amount each month afterwards so it would all be paid off. That suited us as we have an offset mortgage so would rather have the money in our bank accounts! We also thought about what rooms we wanted to do first- for us it was the lounge as it's the first room you come into and we wanted to be able to relax. This was followed by hallway and then bedrooms as they were pretty simple/ cheap. Then we did the bathroom as we wanted a decent shower in there (and I wish we'd done that earlier!), then the kitchen. We had doors replaced, outside paintwork redone and garden returfed this year to put it on the market. Ensuite and downstairs toilet never got done (but need it!)

moneyistooshorttomention

You've had lots of good advice so far.

It is frustrating not to have a house "together" straight away (tell me about it....:() but it is what it is.

You sound as if you are young enough to be able to take your time about it (ie because it isn't "due" to be sorted yet at your age iyswim).

I had to belt on with my starter house because it was 10 years or so later than I expected to have it (ie in my 30s, instead of 20s) and therefore it felt like time mattered (ie because I was at "moving up to 2nd stage house" age iyswim).

My recently-bought house (ie the detached/with garden/in reasonable area one that was due in my 40s) has just been bought in my 60s. With that....it feels like there is no time to waste, as my "Home" should have been sorted for about 20 years by now and I'm not getting any younger.

But...if you are still pretty young...then you have the time to take it step-by-step...ie because you have many years ahead of you to profit from your investment/hard work.

So...take it as it comes...bit by bit and task by task and it will come together and you will still have plenty of "years of life" ahead of you to get the benefit one way or another.