Taking on a major renovation project & living in it

LondonSi

Looking for some opinions from anyone who has done something similar!!
I am looking at taking on a major renovation project and living in the house whilst the renovations take place.  The house is approx 300 sq/mtrs in size, and has potential to convert the basement and loft also, to take it from 3 floors to 5 floors.  The house hasn't seen anything except a little bit of paint in 50 years.  Whilst structurally sound it needs at least:  
- a full rewire, the electrics are very old
- new plumbing/boiler 
- a new ground floor layout, which would require an extension of approx 20 sq/mtrs
- 2 new bathrooms and creation of an en-suite where a bedroom currently sits
- new kitchen
That's before considering general decoration and modernisation of bedrooms etc.
Has anyone done something similar, and lived in it whilst doing it bit by bit?  I don't have enough savings to do it all in one go, so would have to do it as I can.  Any advice?  (Avoid like the plague is perfectly acceptable advice also!).  The end result could be amazing, but it's also quite a daunting prospect!

GDB2222

How many of you are there? What ages?

AdrianC

Will you need a mortgage to purchase? Is it mortgageable...?

Have you considered the realities of how projects can escalate, and how your living space will be affected?

How long are you happy to be without (or with very limited) heating and hot water? With very limited cooking facilities? At what time of year...?

LondonSi

GDB2222 said:

How many of you are there? What ages?

2 of us, not that old!  

clive0510

how much of it can you do yourself? if you can do a bit of carpentry, plastering and painting, you could save yourself a fair amount of money. the people you get in to do this sort of work, usually charge something approaching £200 a day! so bear that in mind.

LondonSi

AdrianC said:

Will you need a mortgage to purchase? Is it mortgageable...?

Have you considered the realities of how projects can escalate, and how your living space will be affected?

How long are you happy to be without (or with very limited) heating and hot water? With very limited cooking facilities? At what time of year...?

Yes it will be bought with a mortgage, it's definitely mortgageable and inhabitable.  It would just be like living in the 1960s.  I'm aware that there could be times without hot water etc, and we'd happy to temporarily move out to an AirBnB or something for a week or two if necessary.  

blue_max_3

That's a mansion already! Why are you doing it? What do you hope to achieve?
I underpinned my flat and it cleaned us out financially. It took years to finish anything and proved a pretty poor decision. 
The loft conversion is pretty common and should be more predictable. I stayed in the place during the underpinning and eventually we went to bed via a ladder for about a year!
Get everything costed and work out a plan of which needs to happen in which order. Then make sure each stage is completed before embarking on the next. And make sure you have the funds to finish each stage.
You have different floors, so hopefully you can live on each floor as work progresses on the others.

LondonSi

blue_max_3 said:

Why are you doing it? What do you hope to achieve?

It's a possibility to buy a house that I wouldn't normally be able to buy, and either 1) live in it for a long time or 2) sell it in a few years once renovated and make a little money for the effort involved.

GDB2222

LondonSi said:

GDB2222 said:

How many of you are there? What ages?

2 of us, not that old!  

Having kids would scupper your plans. Basements are hideously expensive to do well, but I guess the rest can be done easily enough. Make yourselves a liveable apartment first, then haul up the drawbridge whilst the work progresses. Work costs more if they have to work around you.

Round here, property costs £1k psf. So, a basement conversion at say £500 psf makes some sort of financial sense. However, if property prices where you are are much lower, it’s probably not worth doing. 

And it’s usually not sensible to have the only 5000 sqft house in a street of 3000 sqft houses, as you will struggle to sell for more than the smaller ones. It depends on the area.

Teapot55

As long as you have access to a toilet, a working tap & somewhere to plug a fridge in you should be fine. Making sure that the premises can be secured every night is a given. 

FreeBear

Cellars are traditionally damp cold spaces. Depending on location, some are liable to flooding. Don't waste money on trying to convert it on to a habitable space. Instead, use it as it was originally intended - i.e. storage of "stuff" that will tolerate getting damp from time to time.

I'm guessing that as there is a cellar and it hasn't had much done in 50+ years, this is an old property - Identify original features, and do your best to preserve them. Be mindful of the construction and use sympathetic materials in any repairs. e.g. If the walls are lime plaster, use lime for any repairs. Solid brick/stone walls should be repointed with a lime mortar. Modern materials such as cement, gypsum plaster, and plastic paints should be left in the stores where you found them.