Long running/stalled house jobs

[TheRoost]

Help me feel better - how long was an important room in your house out of action for, due to renovation/DIY/decorating?

We emptied out our living room (1st reception room) in January 2019 and decamped to the dining room. The plan was to completely restore the room removing any non original woodwork, paint strip the cornicing, repair the walls, repair and sand the floor boards and install a nice cast iron fireplace.

Some work was done between Jan and April 2019, the last being the removal of a modern fireplace to find the brick/concrete constructional hearth had collapsed and needs rebuilding. No more work has been done since partially due a busy year at work, kids, other repairs and my own poor time management it has gradually filled up with tools, storage boxes, shoes, 2nd hand furniture bought for restoration, and become the garage I never had.

This is normal right? anyone?

 

[Allison]

No.....get a grip......write a list of what jobs you need to achieve then get your tools out and your head down and do them. My biggest joy is ticking off the jobs I have done. Reward yourself with a shed for all that hobby furnature ( that you can put on your list once your room is finished)

 

[malcolm]

I emptied out kitchen at the beginning of 2016. I knew it would be a big job so started by setting up a temporary kitchen in the barn with a sink in a corridor. Didn't expect it to take quite this long.

 

[Easrow]

Yep its normal. My 1st job was going to be to rebuild the garage when we moved in nearly 5 years ago. It's now full of building supplies and general garage stuff so can't do it until the house is more finished. Our dining room has been on going for about 3 years! It's been one thing after another in there. All features had been removed years ago so have been adding them back in and fitting a log burner. While empty I've been using it as a workshop while building a room for the baby. But that is now done and I've spent the last 2 weekends and Fridays on my hands and knees restoring our flag stone floor. I hate that job hence I've put it off for so long. Finally getting there and hoping to be able to decorate soon. Then there is the big bedroom, downstairs toilet and study, hallway and landing, re doing the bathroom Inc complete floor, replace the lean-to boiler room with an extension and also render in lime. Not much to go

 

[Feltwell]

Not had rooms completely out of action for long periods, we don't have enough space (large family!) - but - certainly had & have plenty of jobs that haven't been done for ridiculously long periods.

For example, when we moved in we remarked that the lounge really needed decorating, plus the cracked ceiling repaired, cornice repaired, bay window repaired, electrics sorting, fireplace replacing, radiator moving...…

Well, the bay window externally was all finished about 2 years ago. Internally, erm lets just say I fitted the window cills and plastered the wall underneath about 3 weeks ago and I've still to paint it. The radiator was moved about 4 years ago. The room has still never been decorated and the other jobs need sorting.

Mrs F and Miss F chose the wallpaper a few weeks ago, I was consulted. Whilst the weather is good I'm doing sash windows, but as soon as it gets wet I think my attentions will be directed & diverted shall we say..... :lol:

Miss F got a cupboard door made & fitted in her bedroom recently. I finished the rest of the room a mere 6 years previously......

 

[mims&pip]

We've had plenty of these over the years, but as our current cottage is by far the smallest property we've owned since our first house you'd think we would have managed to get the entire place completed in the two years, three months we've been here......

But no :wink: The worst - or should that be best? - example is the family bathroom. When we bought the cottage (a repossession, so some issues to be expected, lol) the bathroom was actually a window-less shower room painted bright orange. Having sold a house with a bathroom window looking out over the lovely garden so you could enjoy the view whilst soaking in the bath, this wasn't something I was prepared to live with for long......or so I thought!

First job on my list was to get rid of the shower and replace with a lovely, slightly more period appropriate roll top bath. So out came the shower. And in came a rather nice bath. Just one problem - a severe lack of water. The cottage had no water supply, so the first few months were spent washing - and flushing - with bottled water. During this time the bath was actually situated in the extension and if I wanted to make use of it this involved filling copious kettles with water and hoping no-one popped round whilst I was doing my ablutions (good job we're rural with only two near-ish neighbours!)......

Then we had the borehole drilled. That improved the situation and the bath moved upstairs after six months. Having purchased the rest of the sanitary ware etc during the summer of 2018 I thought we were good to go. Then Pip got really busy work-wise (self-employed gardener/landscaper) and we decided it was more important to finish the kitchen (moved into a different part of the cottage so loads of building work - mostly DIY) and get a living room.....well, liveable, so those took priority. During 2019 we - or should that be I? - concentrated on turning the garden into a place you'd want to sit out in. A few inside building/decorating jobs were done along the way but the bathroom wasn't one of them.

In January this year Pip finally began removing the partition wall put up by a previous owner when the cottage had no inside facilities and a bathroom was carved out of a bedroom. This was in readiness for us to relocate the bathroom to a room with a window. Said room was decorated, the bath put in position - but crucially nothing was plumbed in. Then he got busy at work again. Lockdown hasn't affected this so two years on from when we started we're still filling the bath with buckets and emptying the same way :lol:

 

[malcolm]

Planning and sequencing is something I'm not very good at. Only the bedroom here is decorated and has a new carpet. I had a cunning plan to finish one side of the house, move into it, then do the other side. Then I thought it wouldn't do any harm to just do a little bit of work to a window in the side I'm not supposed to be working on. A bit of mission creep later...

Having a tidy up and reorganisation today and I've decided the unfinished first half is now a lot nicer that the newly destroyed half so I'm planning to move in there this week before any decoration.

I have a shower room with no window too. There is evidence in the bricks of a full size window followed by a smaller window. It really is an advantage to live with a place for a while. I could knock down the cardboard wall and have a properly useable size bedroom with 2 windows, and make another awkward bedroom into a shower room and a dressing room.

 

[Flyfisher]

This is normal right? anyone?

Normal is a relative thing isn't it?

I'm afraid I can't take fretting over a room in progress since Jan 2019 very seriously because that seems blindingly fast to me. :lol:

The room in which I've just removed a stud wall and opened up the fireplace has been pretty much unused since . . . er . . . 2007 :shock:
Well, I say 2007 but it was really 2013 because we were also living elsewhere before then, mainly because the house was in such a poor state and I worked on the basics during the week (you know, re-roofing, new drainage, new electrics, windows, heating etc - standard stuff :wink: ) before returning for some home comfort at weekends.

We're fortunate that the house is large enough that we could cope with a room out of action, but that's a double-edged sword because it also takes off the pressure to finish it - or in this particular case, to actually start it. I'm sure we've all read about people living in a caravan in the garden while they work on their 'project', which is something I've always admired for sheer dedication but doubt I could do myself. Anyway, my target for the completing the current project room is Christmas, which will mean it has been done within a year, it's just that it took 12 years to actually get started! :lol:

All joking aside, I'd say the only important thing is whether you can cope with your situation. If you can, then all's well.

 

[RBailey]

No.....get a grip......write a list of what jobs you need to achieve then get your tools out and your head down and do them. My biggest joy is ticking off the jobs I have done. Reward yourself with a shed for all that hobby furnature ( that you can put on your list once your room is finished)

I'm with Allison, lists are key. If its not on the list it doesn't get done. (And I am in charge of the list not SWMBO )

I use excel lists which I make into a Ghantt chart (poor man's MS Project). I love messing around with my lists, adding in delivery schedules, sorting by priorities etc.. Lots of small milestones in the overall projects helps me organise and gives a sense of achievement.

Which feels like you get more done
- Decorate hall
or
- Clean walls
- Mask walls
- Paint walls, 1st coat
- Paint walls, 2nd coat
- Clean down
- Paint trim, 1st coat
- etc,,,

Ticking off the small steps keeps me on track and I get a sense of achievement every task.

Sadly progress stalled at the moment by supply logisitics, but I have a spreadsheet for that too :lol: :lol:

 

[Zebra]

Not any individual room fully out of action for a long time, because the house is too small, but everything was decamped from one room to another constantly. A temporary kitchen was set up, which was moved five or six times. A temporary bathroom was set up and then moved to the kitchen (the bath/shower, not the toilet) as the bathroom was done. I slept in the bedroom, then in the living room, then in the bedroom again. Every room has had materials and tools piled up, all of which had to be moved again to work on that room. This went on for about five years.

 

[TheRoost]

In January this year Pip finally began removing the partition wall put up by a previous owner when the cottage had no inside facilities and a bathroom was carved out of a bedroom. This was in readiness for us to relocate the bathroom to a room with a window. Said room was decorated, the bath put in position - but crucially nothing was plumbed in. Then he got busy at work again. Lockdown hasn't affected this so two years on from when we started we're still filling the bath with buckets and emptying the same way :lol:

Oh dear Mims, it's great that you have a nice bathtub but the filling method sounds a little Victorian!
That's the problem with working long days or weekends, it saps time and energy away from working on the house.

 

[TheRoost]

Thanks all, I might print this thread off and show it to Mrs Roost when she complains that a year is an obscene amount of time for a room to be unfinished!

 

[Feltwell]

I'm with Allison, lists are key.

I think lists are a bit "Marmite". Personally, I'd hate having a list, having to deviate from it and delay activity every time an outside influence - such as the washing machine or car breaking down, or some wildly unlikely scenario such as materials not being available due to a global pandemic :wink: - would just depress me. I have a list of sorts, it's in my head, luckily possessing both an X and Y chromosome gives me the blessing of an appallingly bad memory so my list can change and flex and I'll never notice because I can't properly recall the last version :lol:

Now Mrs F *loves* a good list. Luckily she is sensitive to the fact that doing a list of jobs for me on the house (or anything else) would not be conducive to marital harmony :lol:

 

[TheRoost]

This is normal right? anyone?

Normal is a relative thing isn't it?

I'm afraid I can't take fretting over a room in progress since Jan 2019 very seriously because that seems blindingly fast to me. :lol:

The room in which I've just removed a stud wall and opened up the fireplace has been pretty much unused since . . . er . . . 2007 :shock:
Well, I say 2007 but it was really 2013 because we were also living elsewhere before then, mainly because the house was in such a poor state and I worked on the basics during the week (you know, re-roofing, new drainage, new electrics, windows, heating etc - standard stuff :wink: ) before returning for some home comfort at weekends.

We're fortunate that the house is large enough that we could cope with a room out of action, but that's a double-edged sword because it also takes off the pressure to finish it - or in this particular case, to actually start it. I'm sure we've all read about people living in a caravan in the garden while they work on their 'project', which is something I've always admired for sheer dedication but doubt I could do myself. Anyway, my target for the completing the current project room is Christmas, which will mean it has been done within a year, it's just that it took 12 years to actually get started! :lol:

All joking aside, I'd say the only important thing is whether you can cope with your situation. If you can, then all's well.

That's just it - we can manage without the room, so there's much less pressure to work on it.

We spent quite a bit of time getting the garden planted up over the last 5 years and it's ended up being fairly high maintenance. Add to that the external repairs and painting that needs doing, if the weather is reasonable then I end up being outside and the inside jobs get pushed back all the time.

My wife misses the room as it gets lots of sunshine whereas the dining room doesn't, and visitors ('normals' )always find it amusing that it is unfinished (although not really an issue now in lockdown!)

I think it will have to be done by Christmas (or at least habitable by then) or I will be in trouble!

Either that or we replace the living room bay window with a garage door, and tick a job off the list :lol:

 

[Allison]

Sometimes I write things on my list I have already done because it makes me feel good!!

 

[a twig]

4 years to do the dining room in our case.

Had to start it out of sequence due to structural work caused by half a missing chimney breast. Blockwork complete and structural issues resolved it then sat there for 4 years until pregnant wife ensures a mad dash to get it done.

Likewise daughter's nursery, I gutted it and redid floor, then it was a dumping ground for unopened removal boxes for 4 years until impending arrival of daughter necessitated a "sprint"

The last of the exterior paint is being stripped off this week, a job I started in 2014...

Living room, got woodburner working and replaced windows, but then used it as a living room/diner for 5 years until getting round to hacking off, replastering and decorating it last year

One year? Nuffin

 

[CliffordPope]

Sometimes I write things on my list I have already done because it makes me feel good!!

I agree! It's mildly annoying to complete a job and then find it wasn't actually on the list anyway, so there's no satisfaction of ticking it off. It's some consolation to write the job in (neatly) and then tick it off.
My lists get messier as I sqeeze replacement or supplementary items next to the crossed off one, until the paper becomes a mess of crossed out items and new items.
But writing out a new list from the debris of the old is vastly satisfying. But also depressing because lists inevitably get longer as jobs progress. The first version just has "Fix collapsing window sash", but as the job progresses all the individual stages become apparent.
Writing "Paint new sash" is usefully simple, but not once you have rub down, prime, undercoat, top coat, fit cords, clean up brassware, fix brassware, fix insulation. Even the satisfaction from ticking off the final item has palled by that time.

You might just as well write "Fix house" and then 30 years later cross it off as done.

 

[Bogart]

Don't worry I once did a selfbuild was 13 years, yes years, before I got it signed off.

 

[Feltwell]

You might just as well write "Fix house" and then 30 years later cross it off as done.

Woah there, why the rush? :wink:

 

[Craig89]

Don't worry I once did a selfbuild was 13 years, yes years, before I got it signed off.

Well that certainly makes me feel better. I'm just over 3 years into my full renovation and extension and the end is quite a way off yet but I would like to think I'm closer than 10 years away