The question is not that…the question is what are you willing to do to change your life? By that I mean what if you really are 100% willing that you want to renovate the house of your dreams and start a new lifestyle for you and your family.
In answer to the question of whether restoring an old house is expensive, I will answer yes and no. And at the end of the article I will be very clear. And at the end of the article I will be very clear and honest.
Let’s analyse the first answer. Of course it is expensive. An old house if we identify it as a house of 300 m2 habitable plus a patio, then of course there is a lot of money to invest. More material, more work, more time… The amount of meters affects the final budget. It is not the same to renovate 300 m2 than 80m2. Or is it the same to run 1km than 15km? Of course it is not. The effort, energy and time is much greater. And so will be the reward with the final result.
In one of my videos on Instagram and I have the same one on Youtube entitled “Roof inspection advice” I recommended that before buying a house you should always visit a trusted professional. The reason was because the day we went to visit the house in question it didn’t seem to have any structural damage and the owner of the house assured us that even the roof had been inspected. We were quite happy about this because it would mean a reduction in the buyer’s budget but experience leads us not to believe it but to check it out for ourselves, as much as we can before making a decision.
The seller was right and they had indeed intervened on the roof, albeit not in the right way. His brother, in good faith, had worked on 65% of the roof. But in reality this intervention was not correct and it would have to be removed in its entirety and the roof would have to be restored to 100%, therefore another item to be added to the budget.
I am going to make a note about the interventions in good faith by the owners. Even if they are not professional or have to be removed, they have done us and the house a favour. Why? Because they have actually slowed down the deterioration in some way, otherwise the house would have been damaged much more. In this particular case the reinforcement of the roof was to be welcomed because otherwise the rainwater would have caused greater damage due to rainwater seepage creating damp and rotting of natural elements such as wood, which should have been added to the budget.
Restoring an old house is not expensive
Now let’s look at the answer that it is not expensive. Why? Because the layout will remain virtually untouched. The floors are in good condition and we are not going to intervene or change them. We are only going to look for a few loose metres for a room that does not have the original ones. We are going to fix 2 leaks and put the tiles back in place because the cats have moved them as happens in 100% of the roofs. The electrical installation will be changed but we will do it on the outside without making regattas which gives it a more characteristic touch of the period, the plumbing we will change the general one, we will take advantage of all the tiles and bathroom fittings possible because they are original…And to adapt it to our time we will make the kitchen completely new from carpentry, furniture and appliances (adapting it to the aesthetics of the house so it does not look like a band-aid) and we will put radiators to make it more comfortable in winter although we have a fireplace. Everything that can be left out will be less items to be added to the budget.
This is the majority of cases but now I am going to be realistic and tell you that in the first session with my clients they ask me if the reform is going to be expensive or not and my answer is “what can be saved will be restored and the house will be adapted to current needs so that it is habitable and comfortable. Whatever you want to add is what will determine whether it is expensive or not”.
As for any other project, and I’m not talking about the renovation of an old house, exactly the same thing is going to happen. Everything you add is going to add to the final budget. I will advise you to do the urgent first and then the important things that will depend on the house to be refurbished.
Continuing with the example that running 1 km is not the same as running 15 km, it is not the same for a runner who wears 150 euro shoes, the latest generation heart rate monitor, anti chafing socks… as it is for a runner who wears 70 euro shoes, a battery operated stopwatch and a cap with advertising.
I am not telling you to live in a museum where nothing can be touched, just bring it back to the era we live in. Remember that this is not just an investment in a house, it is much more, because living in an old house implies a change of life, a different style, mental and healthy benefits that you are looking for peace of mind. The tranquillity of the wide walls, the stability of temperature basically all year round due to the materials and way of building in the old days, the warmth of the wood, the invoicing of the handmade materials, the atmosphere of peace and tranquillity that you breathe when you enter, taking the fresh air in your own patio surrounded by plants and nature,…. It seems that time passes more slowly and makes us relax in a unique and special way that makes living in these surroundings worthwhile and add to that the experience of preserving the history of our environment and/or town through the restoration of an old house.
The gratification after the process makes the answer to the question of whether it is expensive to restore an old house you answer to yourself. If after all this is what you are looking for we will listen to you and advise you throughout the whole process. The decision is yours alone. Shall we accompany you in the process of change?
