Love this old house... But worried!

AlexLK

Everything can be fixed with time, money and patience. If you are prepared to do work yourself it will be much cheaper but do get a decent survey so you know what you're letting yourself in for.

sedm

Rolling hills and Alex - good advice. I think that if my next offer accepted, I will def pay full whack for the buildings survey so I know what I am letting myself in for. I should also have a decent chunk of money left over for any unforeseen problems.

Doozergirl - the decor isn't old it's just.... Very eccentric. Patterned wallpaper (some of it fabric?), floorboards painted dark, lots of clutter. Which makes it quite hard to see the house underneath. I think this is also reflected in the price - makes it harder to see yourself in the house

lonestarfan

My MIL lives in a house with creaky floorboards. She would move if she could. To repair them they need completely replacing. We've had quotes which are quite prohibitive so it would be cheaper to move and avoid all the upheaval in the property. It's a big nuisance because the young grandchildren are woken by them when they stay over and we have a very sick member of family who needs rest and is constantly disturbed by the creaking. The house is 1970's so not old really.
Irrespective of the creaky issue you've got I would always reccomend people have a full survey full homebuyers etc don't rely on the basic report as that is a valuation for Mortgage purposes it's not a report on condition.

sedm

What have you had to do in the past re old plaster/wood chip?

Doozergirl wrote: »

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.

Pete9501

We have just bought a 1930s cottage with blown plaster, interesting wiring, dreadful kitchen, artex ceilings and anaglypta wallpaper. We are slowly doing it room by room and it will probably take us 3 years.

Next door but one is on the market and has been completely gutted and done up. However, they have lost all of the features and charm of an old house by removing fire places and interesting nooks and crannies. A new conservatory flat walls and modern kitchen means it looks like any other modern 3 bed box house.

We still have a larder which with new shelves will be put back into use. Having moved from a house built in 2004 it makes a nice and interesting change and yes the uneven floors creek, there is a draft down the chimney but we don't have any damp as the house breaths properly. If it was all sealed up we might have a problem.

If you buy it the challenge will be to modernise it without destroying the charm.

Pete9501

sedm wrote: »

What have you had to do in the past re old plaster/wood chip?

Ha, spent 3 days with a wall paper steamer on a hot July weekend stood on a ladder steaming wood chip off a ceiling, never again :eek:

The problem with old blown plaster is once you start it never ends. Old plaster is likely to be very soft lime based and completely different to modern gypsum stuff. We have some bumps and changes in layers in the stairwell, they are staying just being painted over.

makeitstop

sedm wrote: »

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!

This can sound a simple enough proposition, but it can be more work than it appears on the surface. Having said that, if this is the extent of what you need to be concerned about, I'd not be too worried by it.

With blown sounding walls, it's often the render (old thick Crap that come away by sticking a fork in it) might be gone too, and that's a different story. Hacking that off is more work, FAR more mess and adds to the cost when it comes to prep before plastering can even happen, as it'll need sand / cement rendering / dry lining first. Still very doable though and likely not to be required everywhere, and, certainly not all at once if you tackle a room / several rooms at a time.

Deffo get a full survey done.

Good luck with it.

makeitstop

Pete9501 wrote: »

We have just bought a 1930s cottage with blown plaster, interesting wiring, dreadful kitchen, artex ceilings and anaglypta wallpaper. We are slowly doing it room by room and it will probably take us 3 years.

Next door but one is on the market and has been completely gutted and done up. However, they have lost all of the features and charm of an old house by removing fire places and interesting nooks and crannies. A new conservatory flat walls and modern kitchen means it looks like any other modern 3 bed box house.

We still have a larder which with new shelves will be put back into use. Having moved from a house built in 2004 it makes a nice and interesting change and yes the uneven floors creek, there is a draft down the chimney but we don't have any damp as the house breaths properly. If it was all sealed up we might have a problem.

If you buy it the challenge will be to modernise it without destroying the charm.

Stick a chimney balloon up it

Doozergirl

sedm wrote: »

What have you had to do in the past re old plaster/wood chip?

Hack it back and replace. Usually by dry lining with plasterboard. Insulated on the outside walls.

mumps

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

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.

Couldn't you just skim them?