The NEW after Completion "New Home" Thread

SassySaver88

Hi Guys...

Mentioned how we had no where to go after buying our lovely homes....
Well here it is...

Well Done everyone for completing....and congratulations on your new purchase

Whether it was easy or hard, short or long winded...you've made it...

Here's your story

LandyAndy

The point where you start to realise that buying it was the easy part.

Littlebobo1981

*waves* is there anyone here.....

We moved in on the 5th Feb and have a LOT of work to do, full rewire ( which is now completed) plasterer still going strong and waiting on new boiler and rads being installed ( boiler is being moved to a better location and changing to combi boiler) ..once that is done we can actually start looking at other things but just feels like we are walking through treacle at the moment ..hoping to get new windows in soon ish although the price is :eek::eek::eek:..

Anyone else ?????

phoebe1989seb

Hi Littlebobo *waves back*

We're not actually in yet - completing today - but will be doing some of the same jobs as you, ie, potential rewire, new combi boiler (re-siting), plus kitchen and bathrooms.

Ours is a repossession with all that entails, plus we may need to drill a borehole......happy days!

Fortunately DH can plaster and we've already got the new kitchen cabinets, range cooker, sink and taps, as well as a few bathroom bits. We'll be doing much of the work ourselves

We're really excited as, although it's considerably smaller than our last house, it is a far more interesting property historically (400 years old with Roman connections and an undercroft) with land and in a fab rural location!

Keep up the good work and look forward to more *waiting to exchange* peeps joining this thread

Katapolt

Hi!!!

What a lovely idea, i felt a little lost not going on the "waiting to exchange" thread every day!

I'm a FTB and bought a sweet little 3 bed end of terrace in December. We got straight ion with the redecorating, and luckily the rest of it can all be done over time!

Our main issue was the old owner had :eek:12:eek: dogs, and was a heavy smoker (not just the legal kind either) so we had to spend a lot of time cleaning the carpet with one of those big machines (one room took 3 times, and still smells!) and the kitchen was vile, but it finally doesnt smell!!

hazyjo

Moved end Nov last year. Loving everything so far - house and area. Can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

Negatives:

- Boiler is a 'bit iffy' and we're not expecting to get more than a couple of years out of it.

- Downstairs is freezing (well, normal to most people, but bloody cold to me! I'm not used to it!). Upstairs is roasting.

- Water pressure downstairs is rubbish. The kitchen sink fills really slowly with no force at all, and if the bath is running, the bathroom sink hot tap is pathetic.

- The downstairs loo flushes as though it's been asleep for 100 years and it's taking every effort to perform its function. Upstairs one flushes just about okay, but every now and then it stops working and you have to tip the top lid a bit, then you get the filling up noise, then you can flush it.

- You have to pull the bathroom light cord 3 times for it to work. Maybe there was a 'dim light' option at some stage (from what I've researched).

- There is a sensor light in the bathroom above the sink (it's in a chimney breast). It sometimes comes on when you're downstairs about to come up, sometimes it won't work at all and you're standing there waving your arms around at it like you're trying to guide a plane in, and sometimes it comes on when you're literally in the doorway. Not to mention the fact it took us a while to realise there was a sensor. Spent the first night worrying trying to turn the damn thing off - couldn't find a light switch for it, and it was boiling hot when we tried touching/moving it. Eventually I twigged.

- Light switches and plug sockets are soooo wonky. I don't remember noticing apart from one bad one upstairs which was hanging off. I cannot understand how someone can fit them like that! It's sending my OCD into overdrive!


I was expecting the house to be minging as it was so dirty when we viewed (condom boxes on the side and empty tampon tubes/wrappers in the open bin, and blinds/curtains absolutely caked in dust/dirt/cobwebs). But she'd had it cleaned from top to bottom. Couldn't have been happier!


Hope everyone else is settling in! We're decorating at the mo - going to be a long job!

LadyL2013

My thought on moving in: 'At least there's not too much work to do, just a lick of paint and some new carpet and it'll be grand'.


What a poor naïve fool I was, the longer I live here the more I notice needs to be done. New kitchen, completely refloor the house, re-landscape the garden etc etc.


But I'm here and I'm happy.

Slinky

LadyL2013 wrote: »

My thought on moving in: 'At least there's not too much work to do, just a lick of paint and some new carpet and it'll be grand'.


What a poor naïve fool I was, the longer I live here the more I notice needs to be done. New kitchen, completely refloor the house, re-landscape the garden etc etc.


But I'm here and I'm happy.

I feel your pain. Our's seemed similar. We've bought a house we plan to retire to in a couple of years, but in the mean time it's being rented out. We knew the utility room (aka the room of doom) was a challenge. Had an old gas fire removed and bricked up the first day we were there, ripped out a run of hideous old cupboards only to find some airbricks behind which also had to be bricked up. A radiator needed moving (it was half way up the wall, they used to dry washing in front of it hanging from the ceiling), both toilets and the tank in the loft had faulty ball valves that needed replacing. A flat roof leaked, a huge water tank needed removing off the flat roof and new guttering put up. The patio door leaked, was too old to be repaired and had to be replaced. We decorated throughout, then had to redecorate the lounge ceiling where OH drilled through a pipe. New flooring, updated electrics, £13K later we're renting it out for less than that a year.........

And yes we had it surveyed, the causes of the leaks were wrongly identified by a plumber and so weren't sorted before we bought.

And in a couple of years time we've got the stress of selling to go through......

JoJo1978

Hiya,

We moved from a 3 bed 1950s ex LA semi on a will-never-be-up-and-coming estate in SE London and used the proceeds to buy a 10 year old 6 bed townhouse in Nottinghamshire. The painful process took 5.5 months from listing ours to moving in.

So our early weeks have been less about decorating and renovating and more about adjusting to a completely new lifestyle: contactless isn't everywhere, public transport isn't 24 hours, everybody drives and thinks I'm mad for walking places. On the plus side: I know my neighbours, discretionary purchases are cheaper e.g. gym, meals out don't require a bankloan, I get called 'duckie' quite a bit.

On the house front, we do now have curtains and blinds, have ordered light fittings and have set up our home offices as we want them. All the boxes are emptied so we can now see how much more furniture we need now - flipping lots! Good job we didn't fill the house yet, alarmingly our former (leading) insurer managed to mess up both the address transfer and the subsequent cancellation request. I've this week had my formal complaint upheld and received compo to deter me going to the ombudsman.

Having more space is lovely but we're still adjusting to the increased council tax and energy bills, especially since our numerous guests expect the heating to be on lol! My next conundrum is working out what to do next for work. I've picked up a fairly sweet day rate contract for the next three months that's only taking me to London once a fortnight. I'm also offering my data skills voluntarily to one of the charity shops here, leaving me another full day to continue looking for my dream 'walk to work' role locally.

Littlebobo1981

I feel grateful that at least we new what we were buying, the only shock we've had are that the floor joists could potentially be the wrong way round which will scupper our plans to extend for a while as we will have to knock out the ensuite in that room in order to sort them out !


We have so much space in comparison it is unreal we've gone from a 2 bed terrace with a shared garden to a 4 bed semi ..still getting used to it as we were all living on top of one another in the last house and now sometimes can't find each other LOL ...

dancing_star

I completed on 29 November.
Rewire, new CH system (back boiler replaced by combi), one wall knocked through, one wall rebuilt and double doors added. Three fireplaces knocked out, one had woodburner put in. New kitchen. New bathroom. All carpets ripped up, all wooden floors restored, sanded & varnished.

Builders downed tools for 2 weeks over Christmas, so at least it allowed me to get in and do the painting/decorating. I might add the entire downstairs was wallpapered with Anaglypta, it's a beggar to steam off. I also part-boarded the loft.

I finally moved in on 29 January, but the bathroom wasn't finished! I'd taken all the old tiles off the walls and the walls pretty much fell down too. Needed complete replastering, by which time the bathroom fitter and tiler had other work on. So I spent my first week/10 days flushing the loo with buckets of water, and taking baths instead of showers. And because there was a hole in the wall where the extractor fan was yet to be fitted, and the heated towel radiator hadn't been installed, it was like taking a bath in a cave. In winter.

I'm still not quite finished - am still varnishing the stairs this weekend, quite a challenge as I've to lock the cats downstairs, they are not impressed. And I can only varnish alternate stairs so I can still get up & down.

Once I've done that I'll finish the skirting boards in the hall & stairs, and I 'm getting bookshelves built in a couple of weeks' time. I've a few more bits of furniture to get.

And I've got the garden to sort out. I hate gardening. It's been neglected and it'll stay that way until I can be bothered.

I'm exhausted, but I love it!

I have learned I can do so much more than I thought I could. Hope everyone else with a project feels the same.