To summarize a wall o text that I was going to write:
Bought my house in 2012 for ~$120K (it was probably worth 90K at best, IMHO)
over the past ten years, including the three major projects that I started at the tail of last year(both bathrooms and the pool, and a add-on of replacing the main drain line) I’ve sunk roughly 100K between upkeep on the house and the aforementioned reno work.
Still needs another 70K worth of upkeep (windows, flooring, more roofing) and a new kitchen to undo the half-assed DIY ‘reno’ that was done in the late 90s and to raise the ceiling in there. (7 foot ceilings? IN A KITCHEN!?!?!?)
(oh, and maybe another 20-30K to enclose the carport too…)
Fixed that for you! (By which I increased the value by the exact same amount we’ve increased the value of our home every time we’ve had to fix a repair made by the previous owners. I love our home, but the previous owners made some poor life choices.)
the short list of what I’ve done to the place:
new HVAC plant and a re-duct - ~$14K
roof repairs to the main building - $1.5K
new roof over the arizona room - $2K
replaced kitchen drain line - $6K (that was a ‘friends n family discount’ price from that plumber)
replaced flooring and repainted walls in one room as a DIY project - ~$2K in materials and about 4 days cumulative labor
removed ~$5K worth of value converting the enclosed arizona room back into a screened porch because it was stuffy AF in there and useless as a bonus room.
Added a utility sink and outside hose spigot to the one side of the house for the pool remodel company to add a water level maintainer as part of the re-build - $1K
overhauled both bathrooms - $30K
replaced main drain line in the middle of that - $19K
full re-build of the pool - $50K
I’ve stated to multiple contractors that have worked on this place that the prior owners half-assed most of their ‘improvements’ to the house, and sometimes not even then. like just twisting wires together and wrapping it in electrical tape instead of using actual wire nuts LIKE CODE DICTATES. Or replacing one run of galvanized water supply to a sink instead of both. (that’s still on the List Of Things What Needs Fixing around here, but I’m waiting on cash flow again for it…)
It’s interesting to me that the bed/bath is downstairs and the kitchen/living area is upstairs. Is this common in the UK? I would have expected the reverse.
This earned a heart for the whole post, but especially “Millennial Gray”
You make a really good point though- some light surface work definitely helps. The house I am in now had trouble selling, I think largely because the previous owners had painted every room clown colours (seriously- it was a fluorescent circus in here). I seemed to be the only buyer who saw through that and was willing to repaint every room after moving in.
Oof. It’s worse than I thought. I have read that the “house hunter” format is all fake as well- the owners have already bought a new house (and it’s often their stuff that’s already in it) and are literally driving around faking interest in other houses that the producers found.
I’ve been somewhere near there (metaphorically) and done done much the same, on an only very slightly larger scale. Even down to having the little ‘cubby hole’ in the wall where there was only one layer of stone, though we pushed ours out to make another place for light to get in
I do hope he used lime mortar on all the pointing. That was one mistake someone made for me (on one wall only, thankfully), that had to be redone.
But what was behind that little cupboard next to the TV? That was an external wall.
It is not common, but the arrangement allowed him to maximise use of space, I suspect. Pushing the toilet upstairs rather than just kitchen waste plumbing (or rather, not doing that) may also have been a factor, especially if there was already a sewer connection at the back downstairs.
That’s a pretty adorable little house, doesn’t feel “tiny” at all. BTW, the British Channel 4 teevee show “Grand Designs” has a lot of amazing “self-builds” as they call them. Often the houses aren’t that wonderful, but the ideas, executions, and people are very enjoyable. I used to watch a season or two on Netflix, and it shows up on some other channels from time to time.
We’ve kind of grown out of it, but the first five years owning and renovating this old farmhouse the mantra was, “What were they thinking?” After pulling down the dropped ceiling, for example, we saw that a few walls went up to…10” below the real ceiling, and the ones that did go all the way up were only covered with drywall up the the dropped ceiling.
That and the buyer’s inability to imagine a different kitchen cabinet kills me about those shows. Seriously, unless you need to remove old wallpaper, painting is easily one of the easiest and most rewarding projects a home owner can take on (or pay for).
But those are nearly all ‘from scratch’ self-builds, and many are enormous! For tiny house/space construction and adaptation try George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces - there are 10 series now! (You may need some UK impersonation software VPN thingy)
You’re in for a treat. Start at series 1 if you can. Watch out for Will the modest but brilliant designer/builder. A lot of the projects are mobile, or not living accommodation, but are still huge fun.
And when you’ve watched all those, there’s this. Renovations of existing properties for living in, many of them quite modest properties.
So it sounds like the only thing that got kept was the walls, and even they had to be redone to some degree? So it might have actually been cheaper to build a house from scratch (as working around existing structures adds to costs) and he would have ended up with the same house. (This is why a lot of renovations simply don’t happen - because it’s not the most profitable approach for capitalist land-buyers.)
He could have bought it from the local government, though.
Yeah pretty much. That format is almost more of a boondoggle. Cause a lot of time the “buyers” aren’t even compensated for their appearance. And might provide the other locations as well, by giving over a list of the other places they considered.
In most cases the other options aren’t even a house for sale. They’re rentals, Airbnbs and shit that have been booked as shooting locations. Any real estate agents involved tend to get a payment, and of course can advertise based on the property being featured.
My parents regularly spot places they stayed at on vacation on the travelly versions of these shows.
Oof, yah, the “exotic travel” house hunter format is the worst. Moving internationally with a household (something I have done twice) is extremely difficult and a ton of work (often spanning multiple years). Those shows make it look like clicking a few buttons on a website is all you need to start a new life in Borneo or whatever. Yeesh.
Those ancient stone walls were worth a lot. It would have cost tens of thousands to do that from scratch (and finding craftspeople capable of that these days is hard and they are booked up months/years ahead). And in UK it is often easier to get away with renovations compared to the red tape for (demolition and) ground-up new build.
not quite that bad - looked like the second floor and roof framing stayed, and the roof tile were repaired, but largely it looks like the original roof tile in place. Not to minimize the job, but the floor and roof are not small line items.
