The Lemon Fool

I watch a lot of those property redevelopment shows (Don't have Sky so mainly UK based ones) and a reccuring theme is for everything to be late or broken, then people run out of money and end up living in rental or with their parents.

I've noticed that usually someone gets pregnant and an unexpected problem blow the budget. Everyone cries a bit and then they do most of the work themselves and they end up with a nice kitchen in a mostly unfinished house.

I want to be them, but with lots of forward planning, I'd like to do it properly and not be on a TV show looking at a spreadsheet and sobbing.

I realise this is not related to automotive yet but here's a plan.

Buy some sort of do-er upper, a bungalow in a big plot that has not been improved since the 1950's next to a Tesco extra would be fine. (Other supermarkets are available). As long as the semi-derelict house has power, water and a workable toilet, we're good to go.

Buy a really big RV, park it on my own land and plug it in with a view towards living in it until grand design is complete.

Do a quick job on the dilapidated house to ensure that it has a functional bathroom and kitchen and start getting planning permission sorted. Spend most of the time in the RV apart from nipping over the the other place for showers and calls of nature.

Once planning is in place, get the foundations in and build the timber framed shell of the final house (Allowing for some kind of opening to get the RV in and eventually out again - It's going to be a big front room.)

Build the interior of the house with the RV sat in the middle of the front room and when the house becomes semi habitable, go for a tour around Europe in the RV, get it serviced and sell it on.

To keep this automotive,

What would you buy RV wise?

Regards,

B.

What would you buy RV wise?

For parking in the living room, something that didn't have fuel in its tank?

BJ

Okay, semi-serious answer from somebody who's camped in a semi-wreck house while fixing it up - hole in roof, lethal kitchen, lethal wiring, unspeakable sanitaries, collapsing floors, unsafe stairs, and most ceilings not safe for sleeping under. (Three year project.)

It matters not whether you sleep in the RV-in-the-house or the RV-outside-the-house. Just create a few areas of sanity in the house that you can retreat to, because there will be times when the mess and chaos gets all too much and you need a place to get away from it all. Reliable, rock-type partners come in handy at times like these.

Sanity area needs to have electricity (however basic), broadband and TV signal, microwave and a big sofa. As for the RV, who cares where it is? No matter how big it is, you'll go mad looking at its chintz curtains and its practical cushions and you'll need to occupy some of your home during daylight hours. Make sure you've got a way of doing that.

BJ

Why an RV. Just buy an old static caravan thing, people live in those things full time on mobile home parks and they can be bought dead cheap. Any RV that you would want to live in would be quite expensive.

If I wanted to self build then I'd buy a plot, if there was an old house on it then I would demolish it, then buy a flat pack home that can be built in a few weeks. Put key in door, move in sell static caravan, landscape garden. Job done.

John

I renovated a 16th century cottage in Lincolnshire while living in an old static caravan. Not bad in summer but the winters were cruel. We woke up many times with ice on the outside of the bed sheets. Good fun while you are young but my older bones would make it difficult now.

I've renovated a lot of properties. If we were living in them I always did a bedroom first, this was used as a clean room in which to sleep and somewhere to regain ones sanity. As I was doing this work full time I'd work long hours, often until late into the night if there was something I wanted to accomplish. Sometimes I over did it and needed to hide away for a day just to regain my sanity.

... a dvice from a friend who did something similar about 20 years ago - he said do NOT do the lounge/sitting/TV room FIRST as you'll always have an easy refuge for all excuses to not work. Instead do the bedroom for sleeping tidily, and the bathroom for ****ing nicely!

didds

I agree with other comments. An RV that would be acceptable for most to live in medium term would cost five times as much as a big/static caravan, with few advantages.

Scott.

Selling a knackered old static caravan to another fixer upper self builder is easy, or at least easier than,

Selling a knackered old motahome.

Writing this whilst looking across the bay towards Harlech castle, from my motorhome.... They are brilliant for touring and camping, but I wouldn't have one just to park in one spot; I'd get a caravan instead. The RV / motorhome is just a truck with a caravan welded on - and you don't need the truck part for what you describe.

If you put the caravan in the living room (with a view to getting it out at some point, you will benefit from additional shelter from wind and rain and be able to access the bedroom / toilet / kitchen areas of the house without having to go "outside", so that might be a plus. With an old caravan you might also choose to "dismantle" it to get it out should the need arise - depends what you spend on it of course and how big the opening is you have in mind!

If you're serious about this, you might want to purchase your caravan (or RV) and try living in it whilst using your current home as you expect the renovation to allow - so nothing for x weeks, then toilet, then a further n weeks before bedroom or kitchen etc. If everybody is still talking to each other after that, then go for it!

VRD