Everything needs doing to our house

A question about : Everything needs doing to our house

Hi,

As the title states really - we've bought a house that needs everything doing to it. So, I've written a list of everything I want to do - but wondering if I'm missing anything obvious, and what would be the most logical order in which to do things.

Could you have a look at my list and let me know which way round you'd do things? Please note, this is just for the outside and downstairs of the house. Eventually we'd like a loft extension for an extra room and we need to sort out the bathroom, but not a priority. I guess I need project manager.

House Plans
Front Garden
Dig lawn over/covered
Plants removed ( except by wall)
Lawn area paved/concreted
Gates cleaned up
See if van and car fit on front? (bike down side??)
If not, need to build bike shed
Nice hanging baskets!! Tubs for plants

Front Porch
New front door window to be built flush with house (basically doing away with porch)
Floor ceiling made good

Living Room
Redecoration
Have someone look at the wiring
Remove fireplace
Fit new surround/gas fire
Strip wallpaper/paint
Furniture that its
Carpet/curtains

Hallway/stairs
Turn under stairs into useable storage
Strip paint from banisters/stairs ready to repaint
Parquet flooring (to be same as kitchen/diner

Kitchen diner
Make a plan!
Build out at least 3m
Downstairs toilet/sink
Able to put utility with this?
Wiring
Can we take out wall supporting stairs?
Design kitchen
Skylight
Bifold/sliding door to garden
Flooring to match from hallway
Place for radiator

Garden
Chops down tree at side
Find home(s) for all the stuff in big shed
Knock down big shed
Possibly re-site greenhouse to where big shed is
Summer house/workshop at bottom of garden to replace existing sheds
New place for composting
Replace fence with new (higher, like other side)
Plan for planting
Tree to stay??

Outside
Repointing
Check/fix/replace guttering
Windows need replacing
Check/fix bay roof

Best answers:

• Aaah bless.
  Is this your first home? (a house & a home are 2 totally different things)
  I'd like to help, I really would. I have echoes of my first house that became my home.
  First things first is to get the thing externally weathertight (assuming it is structurally sound).
  Spend your Јmoney on the basic structure first before worrying about the cosmetics. Who cares what the garden looks like if you need 8x buckets to catch the drips when it rains.
• as babbawah says, watertight first. Then wiring check as it will be expensive and ruin any new decor etc if any rewiring is required.
  Apart from gas fire, you haven't mentioned heating. Has that been sorted?
• As a rule of thumb, outdoor jobs in the summer, indoor in the winter!
  It sounds like you want/need to park the vehicles in the front garden. Obviously I don't know what street parking's like but if it's bad this might be a priority this spring. I'd keep the "big shed" for now (I dream of owning a "big shed") because it will be useful for storing materials for all the indoor works, especially if you have to change the wiring.
  Do the wiring, new windows, new door etc before the new floor. Redecorate last. Do you need to get rid of the porch? They do help prevent heat loss though a good quality [and secure] PVC door will do just as well.
  Seek expert advice before taking out any walls, you may need planning/building control permission too.
  How much of this work are you going to do yourself?
• We are in a similar boat to you, everyroom needs a redecorate, kitchen and bathrooms replaced, rewiring, windows and doors are urgent. BUT it is totally livable - for now.
  It took me a couple of months to realise that it will take time ! Im thinking around 5 years (its probably going to cost around 35k) so we are going to chip away at it.
  If just ordered windows and doors - very high quality (and cost)
  Later this year will be a re-wire
  Next year will be redecoration and carpeting bedrooms,
  Hallway etc then in year three some restructuring of the downstairs replacement kitchen and finally year 4 kitchen replacement !
  Take a breath and realise it cant be all done at once ! - unless you are fortunate to have all the spare cash at once !
• No point in redecorating before you rewire. And no point in rewiring before you make the place watertight.
• You sound exactly like me! Trust me you are not on your own here... We chose our house as it has so much 'potential' but just don't know where to start! I'd think the extension would be quite high up the list as it will be a big job & I don't see the point in making everything nice for it to get messed up when the building work starts?!
  That's where I'm heading first on my project so keep working hard at the savings
• I'm in a similar position (well my family). So I'll be looking here for interesting updates.
• Hi, sorry for leaving this so long, been snowed under with work (not house related :-( but thanks for those suggestions. I think I'm going to start with getting the guttering fixed, then graveling the front garden to get another car on there (parking a nightmare round here) and measuring up for the extension/designing the kitchen to go in it. It's still overwhelming. And I need to find a load of money, but I'm not in a massive hurry. Are any of you doing a blog or diary of your experiences? If so I'd love to follow them?
• As someone who has recently had a fire due to a spotlight overheating ( fire in attic , we were very very lucky in discovering it before we went to bed ) I would stress check the wiring as the first thing you do .........the fire destroyed our wiring we have to be completely rewired and have been told we need to move out while its being done
• I also had this when I moved into mine, still not finished yet, nearly 10years later.
  As everyone else has said, make sure water tight first and sort anything that may cause damp, so gutters/roof. Check wiring and replace windows/insulation if needs be.
  Next will depend on what will make you happy while the rest of house a mess - I chose to do up one bedroom and the living room so I had somewhere nice to escape to when it got too much.
  I would in your case be tempted to do extension first if you can afford it, the kitchen diner can double as living space. Otherwise just focus on one room at a time, you'll get there eventually. Sometimes a quick coat of paint can make a massive difference if you know it's going to be a few years before you can afford to do it properly.
• Can i join in? Sorry for the thread hijack...
  We have finally completed on a "do-er up-per" so just starting to plan out modernisation works. I agree with all said about make it water tight first then focus on electrics and plumbing if you need to and try and do these jobs whilst house is empty rather than living round them.
  We've had a few quotes on a re wire (3 bed semi in South of England) they range from Ј3k to an eye watering Ј4850! Top end is including chromes and spot lights with extra sockets though so midrange I'd say for a basic with minimum sockets in plastics was around Ј3500k.
  We've also planned a temporary kitchen as we plan to extend as well in future so just looking at the bare miniums to tide us over but we've done some jobs with that in mind ie moving plugs / rads to alternative walls as we think we will knock through at some point so it might even be worth thinking "ahead" if you can so you do things now where you can that make sense later...
• Thread high-jacker!
  We moved into our same property in June - we had a list as long as our arm, but tackled the garden and outside in what was left of the summer and we're on with the inside now.
  What we've done -
  Knocked down two sheds and bought a new one and fit it
  Stained the decking
  Knocked down the garden fence
  Got new gates down the side of the house installed
  Removed unwanted small trees and returfed
  Put in new sink
  Got rid of old dishwasher and fixed pipes behind it and replaced with a kitchen unit door (storage for the bin!)
  Stripped bedroom number 1
  Got rid of bulk head box over the stairs which was falling in
  Repleaced electric meter box as it didn't have a door!
  Replaced fence panels in gardens and raised with gravel boards
  Cleared loft (previous occupants left 5 cars full of rubbish in it!)
  Currently on with:
  Skimming roofs in a few bedrooms
  Replacing radiators
  Pointing side of house and replacing some spalling bricks (maybe March or April time when weather gets better)
  It's crazy looking back that we've done all that in practically half a year, but being a FTB is really not as bad as everyone makes out as long as you put some time and effort into it.
  Will be good to keep up with this thread.
• Speak to someone (builder/architect) about the order you do things in.
  We are having a ground floor extension and were told that we shouldn't have refurbed the first floor bathroom before the build because when they support it to put the beams in, the whole room will probably shift and tiles break etc.
  But we were impatient and wanted to make a start while we were doing all the paperwork for the extension.
• Just had a couple of quotes in for getting the guttering replaced - the first was Ј390 - the second Ј550 black plastic guttering and 2 downpipes. Does this sound reasonable? They differ wildly.