House renovation costs getting out of control - RANT

Carrot007

tacpot12 wrote: »

Old houses often have a lot of bodges and amateur workmanship; you are effectively fixing years of under-investment in home maintenance.

You mean ALL HOUSES ;-)


And a lot of what ordinary people would think of as bodges as perfectly normal as things are not simple and stuff just does not fit perfect.


Of course there is a pooint where it becomes poor workmanship, which is a different thing.


What I am saying is that unfortunatly unless your house is made of lego (and there are some lego like building materials these days but anyway...) it is not going to be perfect unless you are a master craftsperson and you did it yourself. (or paid someone twice the going rate to do it ans watched them!).

phil_b_2

Niv wrote: »

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

That's a great thing, congratulations! It must surely make all the trauma seem much more worthwhile. You're now creating a family home for your childrens future. I imagine a chunk of the resentment and stress must melt away a little with that thought.

I'm in the opposite boat in that we've struggled to get pregnant and are facing a very large bill for further IVF too. Really not ideal! If it was the other way around I think I'd care less about costs of renovation works.

I suppose you could buy a house fully 'done up' at a massively inflated price and still find all of these things and need to spend umpteen thousands in any case. I'll try to go easy on my wreck for now and learn to enjoy the process, somehow!

Doozergirl

Carrot007 wrote: »

You mean ALL HOUSES ;-)


And a lot of what ordinary people would think of as bodges as perfectly normal as things are not simple and stuff just does not fit perfect.


Of course there is a pooint where it becomes poor workmanship, which is a different thing.


What I am saying is that unfortunatly unless your house is made of lego (and there are some lego like building materials these days but anyway...) it is not going to be perfect unless you are a master craftsperson and you did it yourself. (or paid someone twice the going rate to do it ans watched them!).

I think anything that looks like a bodge to an ordinary person is definitely a bodge!

It's not that hard to get things right. I think your expectations are a bit low!

The Victorians were terrible bodgers, by the way. A 16th century timber framed house would come up with less surprises.

Ganga

phil_b wrote: »

That's a great thing, congratulations! It must surely make all the trauma seem much more worthwhile. You're now creating a family home for your childrens future. I imagine a chunk of the resentment and stress must melt away a little with that thought.

I'm in the opposite boat in that we've struggled to get pregnant and are facing a very large bill for further IVF too. Really not ideal! If it was the other way around I think I'd care less about costs of renovation works.

I suppose you could buy a house fully 'done up' at a massively inflated price and still find all of these things and need to spend umpteen thousands in any case. I'll try to go easy on my wreck for now and learn to enjoy the process, somehow!

Everybody has told you the answer,get on Grand Designs and invite Kevin Mc round,problem solved:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

phoebe1989seb

GDB2222 wrote: »

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.

Thanks, GDB Thankfully we're thinking this will be our last move for a long time so worth all the effort and expense!

esmy

We live in a 1904 built terrace. 18 years on we have taken Robby's approach - if it ain't broke, we don't attempt to fix it. In fact most of the fixing we had to do was undoing a 1970s refurb. Hence I still have woodchip on some ceilings, for fear of whats behind it, we haven't touched the electrics which are old but in working order, and we still haven't done the repointing recommended in our survey (doesn't cause any issues). I dread to think what a modern day survey would recommend!

kerri_gt

Didn't want to read and run, but we're in a relativtly new house compared to many on this thread (c.1960) - thankfully (as far as we have found) it's solidly built but even that's had its issues. Booked in to have some under stairs storage fitted, effing wall that needed removing was block not stud, company booked 'didn't do block removal'. So even what was supposed to be a straight forward small job turned into getting a builder round to drill remove the blocks required and dust...so much dust even using the least dust causing method he could. So another month before the storage could be booked in.

We've learned (the hard way) that however long someone says something will take, double it. Same with the quote. And if a well meaning friend says 'I should be able to...' run a mile.

I now tend to stick my fingers in my ears and say 'just make it go away' when (often a sparky) announces 'well I've never seen it done like that before' or 'hmmm, that's interesting'

We're still kind of mid-tunnel - have a list of jobs we're wanting to get done this year then take a break and replenish the coffers and our sanity before doing other things on the list.

You will get there OP, and until then, keep the gin handy

naf123

People completely underestimate costings.

Just to decorate a room properly (skimming, skirting, painting , wallpaper etc) can easily be a grand. Multiple by 10 rooms its 10 grand. Then that is without carpet, furnishing electrics plumbing etc

Brummie85

We're in a similar boat and the realisation is hitting home just before we're about to start. I managed to lump up £23k to improve my 3 bed semi and the sad reality is that in our circumstances against our planned wishes - It's not going to cut it.

New windows and doors are coming in at £5500. Rewire is £2300. New Boiler with relocation, system flush and replacement rads will probably hit me for another £2000. The tiles for the kitchen and bathroom alone are £700. That's knocking on for half the budget....

There's still a new kitchen to buy, upstairs bathroom to build, labour to pay, decorating to do, furniture, insulation under the floor etc.....I just can't see it happening within the remaining money.

If we had somewhere else to stay. I'd just dive in!

naf123

Brummie85 wrote: »

We're in a similar boat and the realisation is hitting home just before we're about to start. I managed to lump up £23k to improve my 3 bed semi and the sad reality is that in our circumstances against our planned wishes - It's not going to cut it.

New windows and doors are coming in at £5500. Rewire is £2300. New Boiler with relocation, system flush and replacement rads will probably hit me for another £2000. The tiles for the kitchen and bathroom alone are £700. That's knocking on for half the budget....

There's still a new kitchen to buy, upstairs bathroom to build, labour to pay, decorating to do, furniture, insulation under the floor etc.....I just can't see it happening within the remaining money.

If we had somewhere else to stay. I'd just dive in!

and the plastering!

if you are redoing boiler, instead of a system flush you could replace all the radiator pipes....there goes more money lol