[Closed] House refurbs - spotting a bad one

My god, those carpets!

I feel unwell....

Ooft that bath is minging!

Looking at it and how old the decor is it may need rewiring. Kitchen looks fairly new so they may have done something in there. If the consumer unit is new it may have been rewired already.

We had artex skimmed over, it didn't cost any more than normal.

Nice location. House looks pretty solid from the pics. Try and get a view of the roof from both side. Looks straight and in good order in the pics, though. Is it elevated at the rear? Should be fine for damp if the roof is OK. Structure looks in good order too, but look for cracks, especially around the windows and have a wander down the street and see if all the others are OK too. Why have you budgeted for a new bathroom? Joking, obviously needs a complete make over but that's all achievable. Other things to check are the paperwork. Is it actually freehold? Is there any weird access over the land? Is it over an old mine?

Oh boilers prob yonks old as well so could probably do with replacing

Following with interest
Similar position. Late 20's. My options are stay in SE and buy a grotty grotty awful leasehold one bedroom flat (somehow) for £200,000, or slowly move my business north and at some point buy north and make 150k go very far. And make it a house for life. Very interested in where this thread goes....

I can tell you now that you'll probably want to allow for rewiring. Looking at that house it's a very long time since anything was done and while the wiring may be perfectly safe I expect you'll find there are no where near the number of sockets you'll want or need.

Artex can be skimmed over, it's quite likely that the artex in that house contains asbestos as is the case with I would guess hundreds of thousands of other houses. I know for certain that mine does. Just something to be aware of if you are making holes in it. And the paint may well contain lead. Before I was aware of these things in a previous house I tore down 2 ceilings that were artexed, scrapped the artex from all 4 walls of one room and stripped god knows how many layers of paint from 130 year old woodwork. One day I might end up regretting that!

Edit - the nothing being done for years is a good thing in my mind, in my first house half the work was undoing the bodged diy of previous owners - actually probably one owner, it all looked like the work of a single idiot! 😊

Thanks, I'm banking on it needing a re-wire, £3k for a house of that size?

It's a back boiler so you're looking at either putting a heat only somewhere or a conversion to combi. Probably around £2-2.5k due to pipework/labour involved.

Rewiring quotes can vary massively. We had quotes beteen £2000 and 7000 for a 2.5 bed terrace a couple of years ago.

£2k chap got the job, all competent signed off etc, and very tidy - we just plastered up behind him.

We paid £1.6k for a rewire 7 years ago. 3 bed terrace but single floor. All I will say is make a map and put sockets where you think you'll need them, then add more.

Worth getting up in the loft and having a nosy about for any leaks and stuff.

FWIW It might make more sense to get someone to do tiling and wall-papering, and do the other stuff yourself. Someone tiled our entire bathroom in a 2x 1/2 days for 150 quid. Would have taken me ages. Whereas I did all the plumbing, fitting of new bathroom, because thats a more highly skilled job and would have cost more to get someone in.

I didn't realise old artex contained asbestos until I did a bit of research last night! I've fitted enough new light fittings etc into old houses and knocked the artex through a bit to fit

If planning on stripping the wallpaper (lol) bear in mind the plaster may not be 100% anymore underneath - we had patches/walls that needed replacing entirely, and others that just needed some cracks filling. Paying a plasterer adds up very quickly unless you're keen to learn yourself. It's good fun though!

Looking at it and how old the decor is it may need rewiring.

That was my initial thought - if not a rewire then at least a new consumer unit.

If there is any damp you will be able to see it pretty easily given it doesn't appear to have had any remedial work done to hide it. It is mid-terrace so probably only going to get issues front and back. The front is paved so water may not drain away so potential for damp around the front window etc. The garden appears to slope down so water should drain away okay on that side. Also look around the chimney breast areas - the adjoining property appears to have a chimney but this one doesn't so it may have been removed (which seems odd, but I have seen odder things happen).

If it were me I'd be spending on the essential work first (electrics, heating etc) then see what I had left - there is no need to spend £10k on a kitchen and bathroom straight away - just make sure it is safe, clean and warm first.

I'd also suggest living in it for a bit before doing anything drastic - you might want to alter the layout but if you've just spent £000s decorating it you would be unlikely to want to do it and end up living in a house that you really want to end up ripping internals out of.

You get a lot for you money!

I'd be taking that glass wall out between the kitchen and dining room and making one big living kitchen.

Good point John! Theres only me there so I can live with the essentials

Bathroom and kitchen quotes came from a mate who's had them done recently, id probably get the kitchen from IKEA, and it's not a massive space

I have 10k immediately available, I might set myself the challenge of doing the whole job for that (whilst getting it to a decent finish)

That looks like it's been a happy home for many years. If it feels right, you can make it right. You can't fix the neighbours or the street though, so have a wander and a chat unless you're already very local.

The old wallpaper looks in decent condition - no lifting or staining.

With a house on a slope the back (high side) is your potential damp issue - get a damp meter and check it.

Roof tiles are clay and fairy modern - def not original, so the roof has been done at some point. Clay tiles are heavy & sagging can be an issue/red flag. It looks good and straight.

Id say it looks in decent condition, just dated. Don't forget how expensive skips are these days.

I'm also hoping those floorboards are in good order as I'll strip them back and sort rather than re-carpet

Very tempted now to chuck an initial low ball offer in

Good point John! Theres only me there so I can live with the essentials

That's what I did with my first house - everything done on the tightest of budget - second-hand furniture, new kitchen bought from Focus DIY on a Thursday when I dragged an OAP contact along to benefit from the 10% OAP discount they gave every Thursday (even though the kitchen was the cheapest thing I could get and only cost £460 IIRC).

I’m also hoping those floorboards are in good order as I’ll strip them back and sort rather than re-carpet

You will find that cheap carpets will be cheaper and quicker (and definitely warmer) than stripped floorboards by the time you have hired the equipment, spent a fortune on the sandpaper for the machine (which gets ripped off every time it comes within 12 inches of a nailhead) and the coating to seal it.

Your other alternative is to do nothing with it, furnish it entirely from retro shops then rent it out for use for filming in gritty BBC 70s crime dramas 🙂

I'd be looking at knocking that kitchen through to make a large kitchen diner but without a floorplan its difficult to judge. If so 10k would cover that and could transform the place, but could probably be done for closer to half and would be an easy win as you don't need any structural work.

I'd assume a re-wire and new boiler. The kitchen may be on a new consumer unit but everything else may be on legacy wiring. The radiators all look ancient.

Don't re-arrange the bathroom, it looks like its making the best use of space so you can just swap new with old units, keep tiling to a minimum to keep costs down.

Finally, don't get impatient, you'll probably get the whole place re-done in about 6 years, which will probably fly by.

And proper finally, if you don't like the neighbours, walk away.

And proper finally, if you don’t like the neighbours, walk away.

One more thing to add on that note. If my months working on the bins while I'm furloughed has taught me one thing then if you really want to know what a place and the people who live there are really like go on bin day 😊

That looks very similar to my first house in Nott's.

Things I wish I'd done:

Paid someone to plaster over the artex instead of sanding it. As above might be regretting that one day!

Pay for an electricity and gas survey. When I it sold after 2y the boiler was condemned. So I'd been breathing in an illegal amount of carbon monoxide in the kitchen for 2 y. Whoops!

No used cheap b and q tiles.I smashed loads and it took ages to tile because of it.

Find somewhere cheap for carpets. The crap place near me sells exactly the same carpet as the big box places for 2/3 price fitted.

Second house

I wish I had sent sanded the dining room and hall. It looked amazing, for a while. After two years it needed redoing. House 3 has laminate in the same place which is fine after 5 years, cost the same and took the same time to do.

Second hand furniture. If you can hire a van there is a wealth of ace stuff people don't want to hire vans to get rid of. This is written at an RAF desk that cost £10 collected and should last the rest of my days. Sofas, rugs, beds, dining tables. It just takes some patience and a load of van hire faff.

Measure the front door carefully before buying sofas!

I've had two that didn't fit through the front door. One had to have the 3 doors off the hinges and I had to cut a big chunk off a window sill to get it in the back.

Thanks Martin, vintage Gplan etc on gumtree is my go to anyway, like you say you just have to be patient and avoid the hawkers, and get hold of a van, I don't own a car at the mo but will need to, an old estate or van is ticking the box at the moment

Get a proper survey, your surveyor should be able to pick up most of the issues eg. if its been reroofed, is the roof supported properly for the additional weight of modern tiles?

Try and check the floor under the carpets, if its quarry tiles and you want to put carpet down its a big job to sort out, you'll need to either dig it out & lay concrete or put asphalt down (not the best idea if you want to live there long term.)

If its floorboards check for bounce & knocking by jumping up & down, could be a sign of damage or rot if they move (knock) check corners of room to see if the bearers have dropped.

Check for damp, its not always a major issue, often in these older houses it can just be because the blue brick course has been bridged either by ground movement outside or people plastering down to the floor on the inside.

People often assume they have 'rising damp' but these houses dont usually have cavity walls so are prone to temperature transfer, damp can be caused by inadequate ventilation - 'rising damp' can just be moisture condensing on cold walls and running down to the lowest point.

It seems overkill, but if I was doing it for myself i'd batten the exterior facing walls with 25/50mm batten & fill the gaps with 25mm insulation, impermeable membrane on top then plasterboard, depending on the state of the walls you may have to replaster anyway once you start stripping wallpaper off.

I would board over the artex, if you get a plasterer in he may suggest this anyway, its not too hard you could do all the boarding throughout the house yourself, then you only need to pay the guy to skim.

Get a van that you can fit an 8' x 4' sheet in

Windows look like they do not allow safe exit in case of fire. Big fixed pane and small opening pane.

Definitely needs a rewire, the sockets are mounted to the skirting board. I would also be checking and asking about the work done when the walls were knocked down. Photo's 2 and 5 show where the wall was originally so need to check the work was done properly especially if it was structural.

No worries

I had a Octavia and hired vans. I probably only hired two or three per house. I did have to take an IKEA bed back when the bed frame wound not fit in the car.

I'm better at measuring now 😜

If you like the vintage mid century modern stuff there is a shop in Nottingham with checking out.

Danish home stores. There business is buying expensive old Danish stuff in Denmark, shipping it to the UK and flogging it. At one point they were also buying posh 70's British stuff and shipping it to Denmark. It's not cheap, they have a van that regularly delivers to London...

http://www.danish-homestore.com/

Denmark would be an epic road trip for some furniture bargains 🙂 furthest I've been for furniture was Bristol to Nott's. That was fun until I got 100% lost pre sat nav and turned up 2h late.

Can you do the work before moving in, or do you have to move in and then start work?

There's a lot of promise there that will likely pay off but, man, there's a lot to do too.

Only go for it if you're brave. Literally every room needs substantial work. Would be a nightmare to live there while you're doing it up. In my experience these things always cost quite a bit more than I expect (and I'm generally not that optimistic about costs in the first place).

Would be a nightmare to live there while you’re doing it up

I disagree. Many people would agree 100% including my wife who is refusing all the project houses I've shown her at the moment.

I'd say if you are canny about the price and do a sold chunk of the work yourself you might see a substantial increase in value. Caveat- you have to find out what the price is on that Street fully done up.

I did one room at a time when in my first two houses. I mostly found it fine.

My wife found it stressful when I repainted a bedroom and insulated the floor.

Check it's not your idea of a nightmare before buying that though! Unfinished/ part done projects are difficult to sell.

one sold for £115 in 2019 in good condition with a newish kitchen.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=75115472&sale=56058602&country=england

One sold for £115 in Jun 2020 in ok condition
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=75991219&sale=90965499&country=england

I'd go for that at £105k if I really liked the area. Maybe £100 if it was ok for me. I don't know anything about the housing marked in Wales. Have a chat with the estate agent. If they think its over priced they have told me some times. If it's underpriced they will have sold it while you are thinking about it!

Yeah it's high and that's what's giving me second thoughts at the moment, the 2020 one is on the same side of the street so same garden size, although I'd want to get mine looking fresher and better laid out.

I'm thinking of 110k tops at the moment offer wise, everything locally down here has litraly had £10k+ thrown on top of it since last summer, there's s house around on the corner which was sold last summer and gone back on now with 10k mark up and no work done

It's a decent area though and three bedders are at a premium so it may well go for close to asking, a fair few builders buy them and refurb in the area as well so they'll have a look no doubt

I am slightly tempted to hold and find something not as in a bad state for the same money, combi boiler already in etc

I'm not looking to flip and it'd be a 5 year plus stay I'd say so I'd just be looking to get my money back in due course hopefully

As for doing it up while living their, it'll be me only and keeping them NGS very basic and till the dirty jobs are finished

Re electrics Green goo

My mate used to live on that street. Nice houses once modernised. Damp was an ongoing issue.

The weatherspoons down the road is epic on a Friday night.

Get yourself a full size van (transit etc) - hauling plasterboard, plaster, timber etc and it's far cheaper to throw junk in one and take to the weighbridge at the skip hire place and saves paying for everyone's mattresses in your skip.

Be aware that old houses spiral out of control. Our two bed Victorian cottage/terrace took 5 years and involved full plastering, new kitchen & bathroom, full rewire, new windows and door, new ceilings, exposed fireplaces, new boiler rads and pipework, new bathroom floor joists. All because MrsRNP wanted a cast iron bath and one job led into another.

Just viewed, don't think the EA thought I was serious and couldn't get me out quick enough, three builders have already viewed with offers over 110k in already, sellers hanging in as it only went on on weds

Ceilings are mostly polystyrene tiles so can be stripped, EA quoted rewire at about 3k, there's two areas of flat roof at the back that'll need to be stripped and re-done

Builders were quoting 30k to modernise, I've been looking at a max house cost of 150k all in and had recently put an offer in a finished place with a nice view for 153k - turns out planning for a 4 bedder had gone in opposite so I pulled out

Still tempted to put an offer close to asking in as houses in the area are going for 160 plus, I have the weekend to think about it...

That bathroom is worse than it looks in the flesh, all floors are concrete which is disappointing, the kitchen is also barely livable while the place gets sorted,good solid house though

Edit – the nothing being done for years is a good thing in my mind, in my first house half the work was undoing the bodged diy of previous owners – actually probably one owner, it all looked like the work of a single idiot!

Very much this. I think I've undone all of his work now, it involved a downstairs rewire, a new extension and some other stuff I've managed to forget.

Good tip on the carpet places too, our local is miles cheaper than the sheds.

I'd rather start with that than something that's been tarted up n flogged

Rewire plastering etc all messy jobs but ones you can save labour on by doing the donkey work on.

I'd be in the loft and having a good look.

Alot of old terrace houses mine included had no dpc on interior structural walls so bank on a dpc or tanking costs too

Doc was mentioned this morning and does need doing on some internal walls

DPC not Doc, phone/sites playing up so can't edit

Just viewed, don’t think the EA thought I was serious and couldn’t get me out quick enough

Can also be double booked estate agent or someone just wanting to get finished for the day.

three builders have already viewed with offers over 110k in already

Did you want to live in that house on that Street in a building site for ?? Months you think it will take plus ?? Months to finish?

If builders have put those offers in then that gives you the price and if it's worth £150 that's the profit margin you have.

I'd want to spend a bit of time poking around sold prices in the area on right move and see if while thinking it over.

My dad did our kitchen up over a month while me and my sister were small. All you really need is a microwave sink and one food prep bit. It wouldn't be ideal, but you won't starve or die. Just for balance my wife absolutely disagrees about that!

Last two IKEA kitchens room me about a week full time to install mostly on my own, 50 hours? That was after the electrics and plastering had been done buy pros.

My god, those carpets!

I feel unwell….

Compared to the bath.... 😆

How long can you live in it as is? Trades around me in Brecon Beacons are flat-out, busier than ever, don't know if it's the same down Ponty.
Got friends down that way who can tell you a kitchen and bathroom fitter to avoid, uphill shower waste was a highlight.

Otherwise, doesn't look too bad and thick end of decorating rather than renovation if you like the area.
We ended up in bidding against builders, whilst it would have been nice to have got it cheaper, it's still made financial sense as we bought it to live in rather than to get a good profit off. 10 months with just the garden to finish now. The finished house would have been out of our budget.

Looks pretty tidy, if a bit tired. Look at the consumer unit, how old is that? It will give you an idea of how old the wiring is.

I'd be going in with the attitude of it needing a rewire and possibly a new boiler. If it doesn't then Billy bonus. You have 10k which will easily cover that.

Then it's just a new bathroom, decorating and carpeting. I could live with the kitchen TBH.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property/72919605

After everyone's advice a few weeks ago I hesitated and bought this instead, it's around the corner from the previous place but much more in my comfort zone re-do wise, plus it had a Worcester boiler with mag-wotsit fitted not long ago so the CH is up to scratch and apart from the low sockets upstairs the electrics look ok, I got in first with a low bid but there were 7 people lined up to see it the next day so offered full asking in the end and got it.

Lots to do and can't wait to get started but I'll take the advice from this thread and do it over s long period to get used to the space, if the kitchens in by Xmas it'd be a bonus but no rush

Any ideas how to best use the space?
That utility room I'm thinking will have s new roof / french door and convert it to a little dining room (with heating) as long as I can hide the washer/dryer somewhere

Thanks for the replies last time around, really helped

If your parking out front, make sure your handbrake is good and turn the kerbside wheel inwards 😉

It looks like it has been squeezed hard to be converted to a 4 bed. I'd be tempted to make it a nice 3 bed. Put a proper bathroom upstairs at the back and then either open up the kitchen/bathroom to a bigger kitchen or convert the downstairs bathroom to a utility and loo. Upgrading the lean-to to a nice summer room will be good. You could put a new back door into the kitchen space then block up the existing door and put a door in from the lounge.

Plenty of room for a nice shed too.

Looks a great blank slate!
Could you copy this layout?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=68957842&sale=9417811&country=england

From £60k to £145k! Looks like it has had quite a lot of work, but it sounded like that was what you were after

Ha, current thinking was a do-up and tidy to maximise space rather than move the main bathroom upstairs but that's the kind of advice I'm after as an option

I have limited funds available for big jobs like that, so need the most bang for buck throughout, so far I've thought as far as new kitchen, bathroom units and deco (those green tiles in the bathroom are painted green!) Then stripping the upstairs floorboards back and having 3 bedrooms and an a tidy seperate office space to WFH

I'm not looking to flip and when I sell it'd make a decent family home so bath/shower rather than a large wall in is the aim I'll go for - although I'm yet to see a nice combi-bath/shower

I need to get in and live in it for a few months ideally but closing up the rear door is a nice idea, I need to see what options are there for extending out the back a bit as french doors might nice for that although it's not the best view on the world from the rear door and is probs only useful on a handful of days per year!

I did think about converting the small bedroom at the back into a bedroom/on-suite but then everyone would lose access to the upstairs loo so I'll probs keep as seperate shower/sink/toilet plus office / 3 beds

Then stripping the upstairs floorboards back

Don't do this . Do you like noise downstair......do you like the cold drafts coming in through your floor.

I know what you mean TR but my old house had bare/varnished boards upstairs and I never had a problem with it

I'd make the upstairs bathroom bigger using the small bedroom, then you could make the now redundant downstairs bathroom a spare room which could be an office or 4th bedroom if needed. With there already being fresh water and waste for the shower room it shouldn't be too big a job plumbing wise.

Downstairs looks like a lot of doors to me, door into lounge, doors between lounge and living room and a door into the living room fro m corridor. Id consider blocking up the double sliding doors between the two rooms so they are separate spaces. Then see if you can remove the wall and door between living room and corridor for more space in that room.

Looks like a solid house an older person has owned. Which can be a good thing as the older generation tended to look after their houses a lot better and don’t miss the essentials like the roof, guttering etc which can cause huge issues down the line.
There’s a lot I could do myself there, but if you’re reliant on other people doing most of the work then it’ll be costly.

Yeah was an older persons home, that corridor wall isn't load bearing so can come out to open up downstairs

Re bathroom, upstairs bathrooms are preferred reselling but I don't think that's as much of a problem as long as there is a toilet+sink upstairs - the ground floor would be the main one for getting in off muddy walks/rides etc straight from the rear door without tramping upstairs, different for everyone though

Re bathroom, upstairs bathrooms are preferred reselling but I don’t think that’s as much of a problem as long as there is a toilet+sink upstairs – the ground floor would be the main one for getting in off muddy walks/rides etc straight from the rear door without tramping upstairs, different for everyone though

Yep, whatever works for you. good plan to live there for a bit and see how it goes before splashing out too much money. I'd go for a proper bathroom upstairs then turn the downstairs bathroom into a utility room and toilet/shower room. Move the back door to the new utility room. That gives somewhere to keep coats and boots and you can chuck stuff straight in the washing machine and jump in the shower. Upstairs bathroom makes the house more "normal". If you need 4 bedrooms then fair enough but I wouldn't keep that 4th bedroom just to have it as an office. You can use a corner of a bedroom for now then maybe look to getting a summerhouse office outside. That'll give you some separation with work/home.