What are people’s experiences with buying a fixer upper who have no DIY/tradesmen skills?

Blank11

Do you regret it? What work did you get and how much did it cost you?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I was told you build the first house for your enemy, the second for your friend and the third for yourself.

10 years ago we purchased a large house that needed complete renovation and I had no clue, if you are able to learn it's possible but you might find the finishing touches aren't perfect first time around.

Cost is impossible to say without knowing what needs to be done but obviously doing it yourself is going to be much cheaper given how much the various trades charge for labour.

You'll need to consider the cost of things you can't do, maybe extensive electrical work as an example. 

Browntoa

It was knowing my limitations. I plasterboarded , bricked up doorways  , did basic plumbing but left electrical and plastering to experts. I tried plastering but it seems to be outside of my skillset 

lookstraightahead

We're two years in. We bought a place that was comfortable to live in, and that's relatively small (3 bed cottage) so that we can make an impact without ruining our finances. We figs tradespeople by word of mouth as everyone on our road is doing up an old house

FreeBear

Browntoa said:

It was knowing my limitations. I plasterboarded , bricked up doorways  , did basic plumbing but left electrical and plastering to experts. I tried plastering but it seems to be outside of my skillset 

I had a "professional" in to plaster plaster my stairwell. After it had dried, I could see that it was a very poor job, and thought "I could do better". Local adult education were running some free introductory building courses, and I managed to bag the last place for plastering.

Have since tackled the hallway ceiling & walls and now have the answer to my earlier question - Yes, I can do a better job than the "professional".

Bigphil1474

Depends on the fixing up - we just learned/had a go at all the decorating skills we need to make our house look decent - tiling, wallpapering, painting etc., but wouldn't touch the more technical stuff - electrics, heating/plumbing. I think the most expensive work we had done was a new front door which cost about £1,200 a few years ago. Fortunately had a heating engineer relative who did our boiler as a Christmas present, and the radiators over a few years for birthdays and Xmas. Only thing we never did was a new kitchen - it was a toss up between that and a holiday of a lifetime round the world. The kitchen is very tired now, but we're moving on anyway.

We did have a relative who was a great plasterer but retired over 10 years ago. They are hard to find, and that's a job I never got the hang of. Can do a bit of finishing but not a whole wall.

Herzlos

Everything will take twice as long as you expect and cost at least 4x what you expect. Especially at the moment where good tradespeople are hard to find and material prices have gone through the roof.

We're in a fixer-upper now, but it's such that it's perfectly livable whilst we get things replaced, so there's no pressure and we're not suffering in the mean time.

Albermarle

Herzlos said:

Everything will take twice as long as you expect and cost at least 4x what you expect. Especially at the moment where good tradespeople are hard to find and material prices have gone through the roof.

We're in a fixer-upper now, but it's such that it's perfectly livable whilst we get things replaced, so there's no pressure and we're not suffering in the mean time.

For a complete DIY novice, then only twice as long is probably a bit optimistic. 

tacpot12

I bought a property that needed renovation without having much by way of DIY skills, but I was willing to learn, was willing to do research and to pay tradespeople to do work that I couldn't do. I got lucky with the tradespeople I used, all of whom were recommended to me by a friend. I learned so much that I'm now a very confident DIY'er and have tackled jobs such as creating a new downstairs toilet in the house I now live in. 

You will make mistakes, but there is a lot of information available online that wasn't so available back in 1995 when I started my renovation. Take care choosing tradesmen if they don't come with a personal recommendation from a trusted friend.  

dannim12345

I work in the industry but not as a trades person, our first house was a lot of work and we lived on a building site essentially and it was a lot more work than I thought and it was hard going. I would not do that again but it helped us move up the ladder. 

Our second house is also a doer upper but we can do a room at a time which I think is more do-able with no experience as you can learn or save up bit by bit. 

ArbitraryRandom

My advice would be to do things in stages and be flexible with your plans - if you work out broadly what you want, then break it down into a logical order of operations so you can feel that you've achieved something and take a break before the next 'project'. 

Don't do what I did in my first attempt of getting half a job done in several rooms, then running out of cash/steam and having to live with it for a while - which then means trying to get it finished around your furniture and mess!