Our House Renovation Part One
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll probably be aware of our house renovation which I’ve been documenting on my Stories. There’s a category which has all the renovation clips within it if you fancy catching up!
The house itself is a quirky 2 bed Victorian terrace, I say quirky because it does have some rather unusual features including a double staircase and a slightly different layout to the other houses on the street. We snagged it for a bargain, at around 60K less than the standard asking price, had the house have been in tip top condition which it most definitely….was not. We knew we were taking on a big project from the initial viewing. I won’t delve into the details but the previous owner had severely neglected the house for around seven years or so.
UPDATE: Check out our progress so far via my renovation account:
The buying process was a little rocky but we got there in the end, at least we thought we did. The day had come to collect the keys, only to receive a call from the estate agent who had paid a quick visit to the house only to discover it was a hundred times worse than imagined. We had been left with all of the owners belongings, including four cats (they’ve now been re-homed!) and a mess I can’t quite put into words! Faeces on the floor (both of the cat and human kind), grime on every surface, cigarette butts littered everywhere, and a huge pile of vomit. Just what you want when you pick up the keys to your new home…
The pictures below are what the house looked like on completion day, as you can imagine, not quite what we expected…yes we are crazy for taking this on.
I thought I would panic a lot more than I did, but at the end of the day we knew this was going to be one heck of a project so I remained calm and the estate agents (who were really great) helped us out and organised for the house to be professionally cleared at the previous owners expense. Just as well because it cost almost 3 thousand pounds! Even after everything was removed, the smell lingered and every surface of the house was still dirty. It’s a good job I can see past these things because at one point I did almost throw up.
Here’s what the house looks like at the moment…
Living/Dining Room
We’ve knocked a wall down to make the living room and dining room open plan, it also lets more light in so I’m really happy with the outcome. I love open living spaces and it was one of the first things we did. We’ve also taken up the flooring, and removed the skirting/coving.
The Kitchen
We’ve ripped out the kitchen and taken up the tiles, we’ve also removed the boiler as it was very old. Behind some wooden panelling we discovered the wall was wet due to the issue with the roof but it’s starting to dry out now we’ve got that fixed. We’re also planning on extending the kitchen and having big double doors going out onto the garden, we’re meeting with an architect next week to discuss some plans.
The Bathroom
Similarily to the kitchen, we ripped everything out of the bathroom and we’ve also now smashed up the cupboard that was in there and taken the plaster off the wall. We’ve also started taking the ceiling out, and we plan to leave it with no ceiling and paint the beams in a dark grey.
Bedroom Number 1
I couldn’t WAIT to rip the disgusting carpet out of this room, we’e stripped the wallpaper and it’s basically a blank canvas now. And yes we will be getting rid of the god awful artex. I also need to source a good fireplace to go in here when the time comes.
Bedroom 2
The Stairs
I love our stairs but they’re in need of major TLC. We ripped the carpet up, which was holding a lot of smells and unimaginable stains. There’s also a couple of steps that need fixing.
The Garden
We couldn’t even access the garden when we viewed the house because it was so overgrown and littered with rubbish. We didn’t even know there was an outbuilding at the bottom!
So in 8 weeks we’ve managed to really move things on and here’s a little breakdown so far of our work, and yes by our I mean mostly Charlie and his dad whilst I film for Instagram:
- Smashed up and removed the kitchen, bathroom and ANY other items such as shelves and curtain poles, basically removed every single thing… £0 did ourselves
- Stripped all wallpaper off the walls £0 did ourselves
- Taken up all flooring including carpets and tiles £0 did ourselves
- Removed all skirting board and coving £0 did ourselves
- Removed all existing radiators and the boiler £0 did ourselves with the help of our plumber next door neighbour
- Attacked the garden and discovered we do actually have a building at the bottom of the garden which was hidden with the overgrown jungle and general crap (this place is full of surprises) £0 did ourselves
- Had the drains professionally cleared due to a chronic blockage ‘a 10 on a scale of 1-10’ of how bad they could be. £120 local drain man
- Fixed an issue with our main roof and had a new kitchen/bathroom roof £1610 local roofing company
- Removed our ceilings to take them up a little and put new boards down £0 currently doing ourselves
- Knocked the wall down £460 builder contact of Charlies
Money spent so far: £2190
For the minimal money spent, we’ve made quite good progress considering the state of the house when we first stepped into it. I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve been to the tip, and it’s bloody hard work! I mean, harder for Charlie because I just float around getting in his way really but yeah, not easy. The most annoying issue so far has been the roof, this isn’t something we were aware needed fixing when we bought the house but it is what it is and it still wouldn’t have put me off the project!
What’s next? The real work begins.
- Begin work on our extension, we’re extending the kitchen out to the side and putting big double doors in onto the garden. We thought we might as well whilst the house is building site
- Re-wire the whole house
- Plaster the whole house
- Decorate the whole house
- New windows and doors
- New kitchen
- New bathroom
- Choose and install new flooring throughout
- Plus anything else!
Do let me know if you’d be interested in keeping up to speed with our renovation, I wasn’t sure whether to blog about this or not but quite a few people seemed interested so here we have it! Home Sweet Home…lol.
