Where should a renovation actually start?
Outside and at the top: roof, gutters, pointing, ground levels and any damp. Until the house is dry, money spent on plaster, kitchens and floors is money at risk. It is not the exciting end of the job, but doing it in that order is what stops you paying for the same room twice, and we will give you an honest view of what the fabric needs before anything else is quoted.
Can you deal with damp in an older house?
Yes, and the answer is very often not chemical injection. Older solid-walled houses in Dorset get damp from raised ground and path levels, failed pointing, blocked or leaking gutters, and modern non-breathable finishes trapping moisture in walls that were built to breathe. Fix those causes and the house dries out. We look for the cause rather than selling you a treatment.
Do you renovate room by room to spread the cost?
Yes, and it is a sensible way to do it when the budget will not stretch to everything at once. The order matters though: fabric and structure first, then services, then spaces, then finishes. A staged renovation done in the right order costs less overall than one done in the wrong order, even though it feels slower.
What happens when you find something unexpected?
Old houses always hold a few surprises. The difference is how they are handled. We flag known risks as provisional sums in the original quote, show you what we have found with photos, and price it before touching it. You should never open an invoice and find something on it you had not agreed.
Can we live in the house during a renovation?
It depends on the scope. Room-by-room and floor-by-floor work is very liveable and we programme it that way when you need it. A full strip-out with floors up and ceilings down is genuinely miserable to live in, and moving out for those weeks usually works out cheaper than the alternative once you count the time lost. We will tell you which one yours is.
