The Architectural styles and character of period homes is absolutely stunning, but over their long lives they've often been maintained poorly and suffered from many 'modern' day improvements.

The dream is always: 'we'll buy that house and restore it back to how it was originally' - the reality is: it's not quite that simple.

The stress levels only begin rising as the realisation starts kicking in that the budget seldom goes anywhere even close to where you thought it would; the cogs of Listed Building Consent applications and/or Conservation area restrictions turn very slowly, finding materials and/or skilled and knowledgeable trades are very difficult, trying to live in a property whilst trying to carry out restoration works, surrounded by constant dust and debris,  can be mentally and physically exhausting - often fuelling the exact opposite of what's wanted, and very often a resentment towards that building grows.

TV programmes exist to make money for those producing them so they are heavily edited to attract viewer numbers; don't ever think they are showing the realities.

But here's one old TV clip to take notice of; 30yrs ago, even Fr Ted knew that dreams and reality are very different:

A few 'not great ideas'

Thinking you can save some money, for example, by carrying out all the prep work before the lime plasterer arrives - when you don't know anything about lime plastering (hence you're employing someone who does) - not a great idea.

Thinking your lime renderer will be pleased that you can get a scaffold cheaper through a mate, when you know nothing about the specific requirements for that scaffold and therefore know nothing of what to specifically request - not a great idea.

Having no understanding of the molecular compositions and therefore restrictions on materials and the need for specific temperatures and moisture levels to be satisfactory to using them - not a great idea.

Thinking that the first dry day following a week of rain means that works can immediately be started, without the understanding of how long those substrates will need to dry out before they will be capable of having satisfactory absorbency for materials to adhere correctly - not a  great idea.

Thinking: 'oh, tonight it's chilly! So tomorrow we'll order a new woodburner'; when the stove installers are suddenly getting inundated with calls from similar minded people, so are suddenly booked up for the next few months - not a great idea.

Thinking 'We need the dining room decorated for Christmas day, so tomorrow we'll call the decorator' as you are decorating the tree, when your Decorators phone is melting down due to the number of calls from others who were also decorating their trees yesterday - not a great idea.

Thinking that very expensive 'fancy-pants' paint brands, who, for example, caim to know the 'colour' of an elephant's breath? are better than any other paint supplier when you know nothing about surface coatings - not a great idea.

Thinking that because you've watched some amateurs on YouTube and you've joined some Facebook groups makes you a heritage building expert overnight - not a great idea.

We've found that a lot of people these days appear to think that every trade does absolutely nothing all year 'round apart from sitting and waiting for their one phone call , when the fact is they will normally have many customers they are trying to keep happy so you do need to plan and book in advance to help your project run as smoothly as possible; thinking that you are their sole customer - not a great idea.

Thinking that restoration project management is easy - not a great idea

Here's an example of one we were involved with; but sadly for the buyer they called us a bit too late - if had we attended the first viewing with this first time buyer we would have raised this as needing further investigation before they committed themselves to buying it, and of course also to a 25yr mortgage debt!