The Victorian School Renovation – Prioritising plans + the impact of Covid

Sarah + Col, fellow members of the Reno Club are back to share the progress of their Victorian renovation in the North coast of Scotland. In this update, they discuss the importance of prioritisation when you’re taking on a huge reno project, as well as the impacts Covid has had on their plans so far.

Want to read from the start? Begin here.

---

We picked up the keys to our new home – an old Victorian primary school on the north coast of Scotland – 3 months ago last week. You can have a snoop at how it looked before we moved in the ‘before tour’ blog. 

These 3 months have mostly been spent unpacking and making little corners of it feel like home, hosting what feels like a million visitors, and exploring our new backyard. We’ve also fitted in some time for planning, prioritising and re-prioritising our renovation.  

While I’ve been itching to get started, it’s also been great to just live in the school for a while before getting the sledgehammer out. Seeing how the light changes in different rooms as the seasons change, discovering the warmest corners and finding spots with the best views have changed some plans and de-prioritised others. 

‘For now’ versus ‘forever’ 

“Do it once and do it well” was the motto we wanted to stick to throughout our renovation. While we have a limited budget, we are not in a rush – we hope to be living here for decades to come. So the principle is that if we can’t afford to do something properly, we will live with it and save up until we can. We also wanted to plan everything before starting anything, to avoid having to re-do it down the line as ideas evolved and circumstances changed. 

However, after living in the Old School for a few weeks we soon realised that there were some quick wins that would make living here so much better in the short-term, even if we will re-do it or rip it out down the line. This mostly involved a few tins of paint and evenings of sanding, priming and painting. 

Waiting for the final wall to dry – goodbye yellow Rudyard Kipling everywhere you look!

I honestly cannot tell you how much happier I am now that there isn’t half painted loft

hatches, bare plasterboard and grimy doorframes to look at while eating breakfast, and that I don’t have to read snippets of Kipling’s ‘If’ on my way to the loo! Both of these areas will eventually be remodelled, but sometimes we need the little wins too!

Prioritising, re-prioritising (and post-its)

With a project this big, figuring out where to start and how to phase things has been pretty daunting. This is made more challenging by the fact that our plans involve making an income from part of the house – so trying to balance costs and time involved against potential income and cashflow in a Covid-uncertain world.

Initially, we were planning to spruce up a room with a lick of paint and have it ready to put on Air BnB for the summer market. After moving in later than planned (thanks pandemic), we also realised it need far more than a lick of paint, and we’d have missed the season by the time it was ready.

As quotes started coming in, we also realised that some jobs were going to be much more expensive than anticipated (boo), while others came in at a fraction of the cost we feared (hooray!). Cue massive post-it sessions on the floor with our trusty roll of Ikea drawing paper (cheap wallpaper rolls from charity shops also make good extra long scribble pads!).

One thing we’ve tried to keep in mind when prioritising is something Fi asked a few months ago “how much difference will this make to our lives?” This has meant prioritising putting in a door to the garden over a new kitchen, for example.

It has also made me so glad we didn’t bid on that reclaimed spiral staircase I found on ebay before we moved in…

This kitchen will eventually move to the other side of the house, but for now this room is our reno-free ‘home’

Temporary living quarters

When coming up with ‘phases’ of renovation plans, we’ve also tried to factor in having a liveable space for the duration. This does mean we are currently living in the kitchen. But this isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds - it’s a big old classroom with a wood-burning stove in the middle, a ‘storage’ mezzanine where we’re sleeping, and enough room for a sofa tucked under the stairs. It means we only need to heat one room (still waiting for the loan approval for our air source heat pump…), can keep all our stuff relatively out the way of reno-land, and have a designated space to make feel like ‘home’.

The temporary ‘bedroom’ – a storage mezzanine that neither of us can quite stand up in, and is a rather striking shade of purple…

I’m sure we’re not the only ones who have had to reprioritise and re-budget because of the impacts of Covid. But in many ways it’s been good – it’s forced us to really think through what’s important to us, to not rush into getting stuff done but enjoy the planning and ideas stage while living here and getting to know our new home.

How has your renovation changed over the past few months?

Have your plans or layouts evolved as priorities and budgets shifted?

Did things get delayed or sped up during lockdown?

Let us know in the comments here, or drop us a message on Instagram @old.school.scotland – we’d love to hear from you!