House renovation costs getting out of control - RANT

tacpot12

My best advice is to do the work to the best possible standard - do it right, so that you only have to do it once.

Your experience is very common, especially with old houses, and with people who haven't done a renovation before. Those who have done it, plans what they what meticulously, because they know how difficult it is to make changes. Old houses often have a lot of bodges and amateur workmanship; you are effectively fixing years of under-investment in home maintenance.

But the bright spot is that once the work is done you can start enjoying your house, and for a number of years, very little will need doing. I found that after a big renovation, it took about five years before something major needed doing. So you will get a break after all your effort and it is worth it.

Part of the secret is learning to value the investment you put into the infrastructure off the house, the things that can't be seen, things like the foundations, the lintels over the windows, the drainage, the roof; all of these things make sure that the house will remain safe, saleable and watertight. They can cost a lot and there is nothing to look at or see as a result, but the important thing is that YOU know the work has been done, so you know the house is solid. Keep at it and learn to love the unseen quality in the house.

GDB2222

"A nice old victorian house pops up in the perfect sought-after area. It's on the market way below what you'd expect in that area so you can actually afford to live there, but it's a wreck."

People invariably overpay for these, I'm afraid.

If it's worth £X in good condition and costs £Y to refurbish, people tend to pay £(X - 0.5Y), whereas they should be paying £(X - 2Y), because it always costs twice as much to refurbish as you think it will.

If house prices are rising faster than building costs and it's liveable-in, it may make sense, and if you value your own time doing DIY at nothing, that helps, too, but often it's simply over-optimism.

Doozergirl

Ozzuk wrote: »

If you are buying an old house to do up then you really need the best survey you can get as it should identify a lot of the jobs that need doing and help you to forecast a budget. Which as we've seen from Grand Designs is never enough, and you'll get pregnant.

I'm sure it's no coincidence.

I often wonder how many children Kevin McLeod has fathered by now.

Doozergirl

GDB2222 wrote: »

"A nice old victorian house pops up in the perfect sought-after area. It's on the market way below what you'd expect in that area so you can actually afford to live there, but it's a wreck."

People invariably overpay for these, I'm afraid.

If it's worth £X in good condition and costs £Y to refurbish, people tend to pay £(X - 0.5Y), whereas they should be paying £(X - 2Y), because it always costs twice as much to refurbish as you think it will.

If house prices are rising faster than building costs and it's liveable-in, it may make sense, and if you value your own time doing DIY at nothing, that helps, too, but often it's simply over-optimism.

Agree. We only made money from extending broken houses and creating square footage. It wasn't from the renovation. Renovating a house meticulously always costs more than any estate agent allows - because people will always underestimate.

We're building our own house now and even I've looked at the original budget and wondered what moron put it together

EssexExile

Doozergirl wrote: »

I often wonder how many children Kevin McLeod has fathered by now.

I was wondering that because the owner builders are always telling us how they don't have any spare time.

So many of people featured on Grand Designs are architects that I was wondering if they use it as a shop window for their services. If so it invariably backfires as they prove that they can't work to a budget or a timescale!

phil_b_2

Great input guys. Can't say it has helped my frustration though!

I can very imagine this is an all too common issue, and I definitely don't feel alone.

We aren't living in the property until it is sorted. It is unlivable and we could do to be in sooner rather than later, so the money needs to be spent quick and fast.

It's a frustrating phase at the moment while we trudge through a fair chunk of unbudgeted works needed to get the whole house just prepped for a new solid foor and the plastering. It's this that is getting my down. I've done fairly ok with the budgeting for the most part, but it will all of course cost a lot more than planned.

When/if I do this again I will be MUCH wiser! Or will I??

Working_Mum

A wise friend once said to me that living in an old house is a love affair, you have to make allowances for the wrinkles and see the beauty in the perfection.

My house was built in 1910 and I love so much about it. WE renovated it 17 years ago so am definitely at repairs and renewals stages BUT the pace of technology and how we live in our houses nowadays has changed phenomenally in that time - out TV's are smaller, we have sockets with USB ports, kitchen islands and wine fridges not to mention wifi so our lives are very different even in such a short space of time.

If anyone could invent something which automatically removed cobwebs from high ceilings I would be first in the queue!

phoebe1989seb

You will come out the other side (relatively) unscathed I'm sure OP - although the budget will undoubtedly take a bashing! I know ours has.......

We're on our umpteenth house restoration and are just starting to feel that things are coming together.

An age away from the unloved repossession we moved into back in February - there was no mains water and the farmer on whose land the supply originated had cut it off, so there was also no flushing toilet or heating (except a few electric heaters we brought with us)! All our furniture and other worldly possessions were in storage and the damp, leaky 400 year old cottage was bleak to say the least.

We had to get on with the work fairly quickly as we were paying for three large storage units in another part of the UK, the outbuildings here being not watertight either, lol!

For the first few months we camped out upstairs with the dogs at night whilst DIYing a lot of the work during daylight hours. Having a borehole drilled in April was a huge step forward, but even then it was early summer before we got a working inside tap and flushing toilet. We still only have a working tap (hot and cold, yay!) upstairs as the kitchen isn't quite finished.

The amount of bottled water we got through in those early weeks was crazy - in the end DH was filling huge bottles from the nearby stream for toilet flushing purposes!

Since getting the keys we've not only had the borehole done, but had wood burners fitted, rewired, new boiler/radiators fitted, removed walls/chimney breast, stripped out the hideous Kitchen and bathroom, replastered loads, fitted a hand built kitchen and built a large kitchen island, renewed the roof on the extension, built new walls, decorated several rooms including constructing period style panelling and partially landscaped the gardens which has involved planting around 400 plants so far. Not bad for seven months, I suppose.

At times it's been really hard but its now beginning to look great, although we're looking forward to taking a break at Christmas

GDB2222

Wow, Phoebe. Simply wow! That's a big project, and I don't envy you all that work. Anyway, I take my hat off to you.

Niv

Budget? Mine went out the window on day 1!


I had a full survey, I knew what works i had to do but still we found other stuff that needed doing.


My place was built in approx 1600 and the previous owners had lived in it for around 50years. In that time they have DIY built a kitchen which we thought was solid enough but turned out to be terrible - so that needed going. In doing so we moved the postion of some units so now teh floor needs redoing. ALso discovered that the boiler actually only did central heating so had to get that re-plumbed to do the hot water also.


Pulled a bit of random hardwood off teh wall and found an old wall - nice but needs renovation.


Multi layers of wallpaper causing damp so that had to come off and replaaster most fo the ground floor.
Oh yea, and the garden, what a mess, brambles all over up to head height with dead cut brambles under them. clear them and teh bindweed starts. Mini 'landfill' at the bottom of the garden - god know why they didnt just bin the junk, thats all i did... Crazy - but getting on top of it now.


Honestly the list just goes on, but i do not mind, at least i was under no illusions when i got the place.


We are now at the stage of doing the last bits ahead of painting so hopefully by new year it will be done for now - until the next thing comes along haha


Oh yes, I nearly forgot - my wife has got pregnant half way through the project too!