Our house needs a major makeover. It's seriously lacked maintenance (it's my husband's family's home and there has been NO maintenance in about 10 years).

Since we've moved in we've done very basic work but it's a bit overwhelming. A lot of the fittings are over 20 years old.

We also are going to be doing this in bits and pieces as we don't want to take out any loans to do this. We're saving and we're going to do a certain amount of work every couple of months.

For those of you who had to fix up your houses, where did you start? We have both minor and major work to be done. Do you recommend doing the little things first (updating plugs, light switches, light fittings, door handles, painting) or the bigger things (replacing doors, breaking down walls to create windows, breaking down windows to create sliding doors)?