Definition of Project Completion

[MatthewC]

I have decided that, after five years work, my house is finished. People often have commented here about the prolonged duration of their project and it had worried me that I might do the same without realizing it.

A few weeks ago I had the realisation that I had done a lot of pretty major tasks** this year and, in fact, have ticked off most things on the list. There only remains a couple of bits of plastering in two window recesses, plus a few sash windows to refurbish, and there's some re-decorating (already) - but that's it! Another clue is that when doing the last bit of my driveway I sold my cement mixer to the groundworker. Following on from this, I realized that my boxy Vauxhall, used for many a purchase of bagged sand, cement, slate, stone, brick, timber etc, plus for runs to the tip and scrap merchant, was no longer going to be used in such a way - so it's sold and I have now bought a brand new car (which makes me smile every time).

I think the real realization was that instead of refurbishing a house and landscaping the garden, I am now simply maintaining an old house and doing gardening.

So how do others define project completion, in an old house where there are always things to do? Have you had a similar realization of completion? Or are you happy to carry on in major project mode "because there's always something to do"?

Matthew


** If you want to know what I've done this year and how it looks, see my blog at http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[malcolm]

Having finished sounds like a great achievement. I'm feeling good having just about reached a partly finished stage with the scaffolding coming down later this week but have at least the same again to do elsewhere.

I've never finished a house restoration so can't comment, but my car restoration projects tend to become finished with the first MOT and I don't seem do any more with them even when there is more to do. I just move on to the next. The MOT for the house will be building regs sign off which I am supposed to do by the start of 2017. There is no chance the house will be finished, but I suspect progress will slow after that as there are so many other things to be doing.

 

[Owain]

About two years after I've left the property and stopped thinking "It would be nice to ... " whenever I walk past.

Or even just got over the new occupant not putting their bins out.

 

[Zebra]

I've decided I've finished because there is nothing left inside the house which is a real chin-scratcher of a job, and my lifestyle is no longer the primitive matter it was, when washing up was done in a bucket and the bath was in the living room. The remaining tasks such as painting the fireplace surround and building a laundry cupboard can happen as and when. So it's finished because I say it is, even though technically of course it sort of isn't........

 

[livias]

I had a protofinish when the house became pleasant and habitable. Five years later I had an actual finish the day before my tenants moved in. And thought "It only took an hour to fix that tap why did I live with it all that time". But in truth I was so fed up with living on a building site and I had devoted the interim five years to getting a life.

Here I am back on a building site again. But I have a Mr Livias to share it with so thats just fine

 

[formerly known as]

project completion? when everything on the list has been struck through. I like lists - although initially daunting to realise all that has to be done, it is great to strike through and see the list reducing. I am sure that there is a clinical condition for being like that, but its too late in the day to change :lol:

 

[mims&pip]

project completion? when everything on the list has been struck through. I like lists - although initially daunting to realise all that has to be done, it is great to strike through and see the list reducing. I am sure that there is a clinical condition for being like that, but its too late in the day to change :lol:

Oh, gosh, me too! I'm an obsessive list maker - or at least according to Pip I am :lol:

Project completion on our last two houses was defined as the day before we put them on the market......although in the case of the most recent one we hadn't quite finished (still had a bit of decorating to do in one bedroom), but it was deemed necessary to get it up for sale on September 1st if we wanted to find a buyer and be completed on sale and purchase by Christmas (we completed December 16th, so only just :wink: ). Coincidentally both houses took exactly three years, three months to go from wreck to restored.

Previous house was slightly more leisurely. First six years we did all the nasty stuff - apart from the obvious rewire, new heating system, replastering, new conservatory, kitchen, two bathrooms and garden landscaping, it had to be reconverted from four flats to a single family home as originally intended when built in 1888 - except the roof which we struggled to afford initially, so we just had it patched up and lead work replaced.

Then we chilled for a while as everywhere *looked* finished - all decorating done, flooring laid, no obvious issues, until a further two years had elapsed by which point we could afford to have a new roof. Two years later we sold up.

We tend to decorate for the long term and - whilst we've never lived anywhere longer than ten years - we choose decorative finishes that we love so won't want to change a few years down the line. For example, we have some amazing (out of production) Art Nouveau style curtains that we've used in the last three houses so our paint colours etc have remained constant over the past fifteen or so years This means we need to keep supplies/records of our favourite paint colours* and secret stashes of fabric/wallpaper so we can easily recreate the look elsewhere and touch up when necessary!

Only time we ever redecorated the whole house because we weren't happy with the colour schemes we'd chosen was in our first house. We even changed the kitchen units we'd put in when we first bought the place.......and we were only there a total of two years, ten months! Pip had a friend with a kitchen showroom who was selling off some ex display kitchens. We bought one (white with a grey tramline - I never liked it, but it was cheap!), then a few months later I was passing a second hand shop that had a limed oak plate rack for £35. I snapped it up then persuaded Pip we needed to get the kitchen to match - it was from Magnet - so we changed the whole kitchen (including replacing all the tiling etc) because of a £35 plate rack :lol:

Mims x

*and I'm not talking blooming magnolia either!

 

[88v8]

Ahhh, lists.
I love lists.
Even to the extent of adding something I've just done to a list, so I can cross it off again.

At work, I ran three lists; Do Today, Urgent, and To Do.
The Today list had to be done. The Urgent things tended only to get done when they could no longer be deferred, and the To Do became gradually fuller and tattier until I had to rewrite it.

In our previous house, in the same way I had lists. When I started a room I made a minute list of jobs and necessary purchases. Other than individual rooms, I had maintenance lists and wish lists and here too I found that many things never got done, they were rewritten from list to list, some for ten years and more, as I can see because I still have some of the lists.

Where we are now, I make fewer lists, I think this is a symptom of the fact that I no longer have the enthusiasm. There, I've said it.

Our previous house was sort of finished when we put it on the market. Not as I intended and there were overdue maintenance issues, but after 31 years it was finished.
Here, the cottage is perfectly liveable. This blunts the need to get on with it so I don't think it will ever be 'finished' as far as I'm concerned. Basically, it's too small, and aesthetically and because of the listing there is no scope for extension. So I tiddle along with jobs in an unfocussed way, and we still have two storage units eating up £400/month, full of things we seem not to need and for which we will never have room.

I agree, eventually one has to get on with life, and call a halt.
Break out the champagne.

Ivor

 

[steveb]

we have a single unpainted door frame. It's been bare wood for 3 years now but I am reluctant to paint it and declare the place "finished" , as the correct British thing to do is immediately sell up and start again.

I am trying to trick myself into not doing that

 

[Zebra]

Ha ha steveb, yes - here's to unfinished houses which we still want to live in! Pah to finished!


(I too am not allowing myself to think about doing another one. Not after all I've been through here....)