Love this old house... But worried!

sedm

Hello

My husband and I have fallen in love with an old house a couple of roads down from our flat and have put in an offer. (It's been rejected but we are confident we can put in an offer that will be accepted.)
We did have some issues with our flat (damp, plumbing, repointing) so are not total newbies to old houses, however I am a bit worried and would love some advice.
The house is a beautiful character property and if it was more "done up" we wouldn't be able to afford one of its size.
However, the ceilings look uneven and are wallpapered over, the floorboards upstairs are also uneven and very creaky, there is wallpaper all over the flat so it's hard to see what the conditions of the walls are like...

How much would this concern you? Are there any questions I should be asking about these things? And what is worse case scenario - would dodgy ceiling be fixable?

fairy_lights

Can you post the right move link?

AdrianC

Of course a dodgy ceiling's "fixable" - a day or two of absolute, complete and utter mess as you pull the old lath and plaster down, then a day or fixing new plasterboard up, followed by a skim plaster and paint.

All that, bar the skim, is easily DIYable for anybody vaguely competent.

Go round the walls, tapping gently - you'll hear "hollow" on any blown (come away from the wall) areas. Once you've found one, the sound is obvious and easily distinguishable. Again, far from the end of the world.

Uneven floorboards? Live with 'em. You'll soon come to regard them as a part of the character. Creaky? Another nail or screw or three - make sure there's no plumbing/wiring under where you put the fixings...

ManuelG

Not sure I've ever lived in a house without creaky floorboards!

Every house is different but... my prents have lived over 40 years in a house with papered ceilings, so I'd never blink an eye at that (my Dad did the work when they moved in as no cash, the result is woodchip is the desired paper of choice )

sedm

Thanks both - this is all very reassuring! I probably just need to relax a bit and go for it.
Manuel, the house also has wood chip ceilings which I have never seen before
One of the ceilings is pretty bad but perhaps I just need to get someone round to give a proper skim
Adrian that is good advice on th walls, I will try and do that. From th outside the brickworks looks pretty good so that is a good sign.

moneyistooshorttomention

Seconded re being able to tap walls and tell if the plaster is "blown" that way. It is definitely quite a distinct sound. Even if plaster isn't blown and looks reasonably good/is painted (rather than wallpapered) doesn't mean you wouldn't need to get a wall replastered to have standard unblemished walls.

Do not use woodchip...step away from woodchip. I had a lot of that in my last house and its a right pain to remove it and, as for the thought of having it on ceilings:eek: (though, in the grand scheme of things I suppose it counts the same as having artex or anaglypta on those ceilings instead). That is - I've had to go through and have every ceiling in this house with a "false ceiling" of plasterboard put in place fixed to the real ceiling and then plastered over - as the real ceilings had that sort of stuff on them all.

Having those false ceilings put up, rather than taking down the original "real ceiling" was the overall consensus of opinion on here as to the best way to tackle them. Hence that's what I did personally.

AdrianC

Lining paper is a perfectly OK, cheap way of making less-than-perfect walls/ceilings paintable. I'd far rather that than artex... even if it is woodchip or other ("Octopus tentacle" on one wall here!) texture...

sedm

Thanks v much... So could be a case of taking off wallpaper and re skim on ceilings and walls before painting... Sounds very do able

The reassurance is v welcome!

Rollinghills

I would get a good builder to do a viewing with you but for an old house a proper building survey might also be recommended. None of the issues you mention sound like a major concern, it's just whether you are missing anything else. With an old property you always have to allow for repairs also so try not to stretch your budget to much.

Doozergirl

Mmm. I've rarely been lucky enough to only reskim if the plaster is original and there is woodchip in existance - meaning a problem covered ago quite some time ago.

Knocking the walls is only a guide to start with - it's the wallpaper stripper that reveals the most. It's like the straw that breaks the camel's back in most cases.

The other thing to glean from this is that the house has not been well maintained. This might suggest that other things are at the end of their lives. Boiler, inefficient radiators, electrical consumer unit - if not the wiring system.

Very old decor is almost always a sign of a house that needs a lot of work. If you update the electrics, you cause damage, for example. Old wallpaper = no updates.

The price is also a key. If it only needed a small amount ofnwork, the price wouldn't be far off the ones you say you can't afford.

ManuelG

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Do not use woodchip...step away from woodchip. I had a lot of that in my last house and its a right pain to remove it and, as for the thought of having it on ceilings:eek:

You learn to live with it after a couple of decades