“WHEN are we going to get the house fixed up?”

This is the number one question asked by both my daughters when they come home to visit. I am tired of hearing how their student digs are more comfortable than our home.

“Soon,” I always answer, knowing that it won’t be.

We moved into our home 14 years ago and there is still so much to do to make it ‘ours’.

As anyone who buys a house knows, as you look round you think ‘I’ll do this and that, remove this wallpaper, replace this window and knock down that wall.’ You make plans, which quickly bite the dust as you do the maths.

Home improvements take money, and if you don’t have it, these things don’t get done.

Despite nagging from my daughters, every year I make a New Year’s resolution to sort out the house. In the last couple of years we have made some progress - put in a damp proof course and rebuilt the chimney breast - but there is still a heck of a lot to do.

There are many things I don’t like about my house, but it is surprising what you can live with once you get used to it. Things that horrified me when we first bought the property, I no longer notice.

Like the revolting bay windows with gold glazing bars, the built-in wardrobes resembling a cold storage unit in a mortuary and the grotty laminate flooring that doesn’t quite fit.

I used to hate bringing people round, but now I don’t care. If they judge me by my home they are not true friends.

I was heartened to read about a recent competition to find the UK’s most dated bathrooms. Hundreds of people sent in photos of depressing rooms, from lurid lime green suites to turquoise tiled monstrosities, and, of course, the much-maligned avocado three piece.

With a brown suite and floor-to-ceiling floral tiles, a bathroom belonging to a Norfolk family was judged the worst in the competition, run by Victorian Plumbing. As winners they will now be able to pamper themselves in a bathroom makeover.

The images made me feel better about my own home. We all tend to think the grass is greener, that other people live in palaces, but it really isn’t. People in every street are living with homes in need of some serious TLC.

Perhaps I should have entered my own bathroom in the contest. While, thankfully, cream in colour, it has a huge curved mirror on one wall, facing a second mirror on another wall, giving the impression that the room goes on and on. I don’t like seeing my reflection once, let alone dozens of times.

It also has a bidet - does anyone in the UK actually use one? - that a plumber once unsuccessfully attempted to remove.

Like most of our house, it is in need of a serious revamp, but it’s on hold as other expenses, such as the mortgage, and unforeseen disasters, take priority.

We are saving up for the next stage of our grand plan, and I hope by the end of this year some progress will have been made.

Forces are already conspiring against us. We began the new year with a blocked toilet. An expert from Yorkshire Water kindly came to check the drains, delivering the unexpected news that, before we bought the house, the waste pipes were installed the wrong way round.

“It’s a miracle it’s never been blocked previously,” the expert said. It will cost more than £500 to fix it, but it has to be done to avoid future problems..

Everything else will have to wait.