Couple of Refurb Questions

sparklewing

I bought a victorian flat last November and am hoping to soon be in a position to start doing it up its seriously outdated. I have the original wooden floors which I intend to keep and the original cornicing and fireplace. So my questions.

1. Is it possible to buy a ceiling rose? And are they easy to fit?

2. I need new windows the wood is rotting on mine and yes I will be commiting the ultimate sin and relacing the wooden ones I have(not sash) with UPVC but I am planning to get the wood effect ones(the rest of the flats in the street have UPVC so at least it will blend.)
There is a small kitchen window(60cm by 80cm) Lounge(180cm by 160 cm) and bedroom(100cm by 160 cm). sizes are approx cos cant find my tape measure I have budgeted about £1200 for this reckon thats enough?

3. I need a new bathroom mine is attractivly avocado yuk will just be putting in a plain white suite and redoing tiles. I'm budgeting £1000 for this if I get a suite for around£400 tiles for £100 would £500 be enough for labour?

4. I need to fit gas central heating(got electric storage just now) I got a quote from british gas when I moved in and they quoted £5500 for 3 radiators, a shower and boiler plus piping and labour is it really this expensive???

Sorry for all these questions just want to get an idea of how much I need to save before I start getting quotes and getting too excited about it.

Thanks for any help.

John_M_Business

Quick answers:
1. Yes and Yes. Although you'll have to hope that the standard ceiling roses in B&Q / Homebase suit your new place.
2. That's about right, but not sure whether there would be fitting on top of that. If you shop around you could get it for £1,200 all in (although be careful of the ex. VAT trick!)
3. I think this is too low... unless you go really cheap (i.e. cheapest suite from B&Q / Homebase and boring tiles). I'd budget £1,500 and get a better job. For the tiling, it depends on the space - if it's just the area around the bath / shower (and not the floor or entire room) then £500 is reasonable.
4. First question: only three radiators? I'm assuming that this is a small flat, then. As for what you've been quoted, it's a shade expensive, you could find someone to do it for as little as £3,000, but make sure that the supplier is trustworthy and will 'hide' all the piping properly, and is, of course, CORGI registered.

sparklewing

thanks for the info

yes its a titchy tiny flat just need radiators in bathroom, lounge and bedroom, my kitchen is basically a cupboard so don't need one there.

dooj

Hi sparklewing oooh its proper exciting moving and getting house/flat done up... glad to see you are budgeting.. you can actually buy lots of stuff yourself and get someone to fit it e.g buy your own windows thats what we did with our bathroom window then just paid someone to fit it, but be careful measuring it.. get help off internet or pick up a leaflet. Whickes DIY sell everything you need to build a house including windows (double glazed) and radiators so you might want to try there, also you might want to try tiling bathroom yourself... ive just had my first go of plastering a wall that had big chunks of plaster missing from it and i was suprised how simple and theraputic it actually was, will be having first go at tiling next weekend, so never be too scared to try it yourself. As for a ceiling rose you can actually get polystyrene ones which if you have high ceilings will not look any different to a plaster one. The plaster one will have to be screwed to your ceiling, we put one up last year and used screws and liquid nails, it helped that we could bolt screws on the other side through upstairs floorboards but in a flat you wont be able to do that. I would say polystyrene would look fine and you just no nails it to ceiling (but its up to you).
Hope this is of use to you.

coolagarry

Regarding the bathroom I prefer steel baths to plastic ones. The steel ones don't need a frame and are a lot easier to fit.
I changed my bathroom recently and just tiled over the original tiles, which worked very well. I got a fairly cheap white bathroom suite from wickes which I am pleased with.
The only thing I wish I had done is to replace the gold effect fittings which came with the path and washbasin for more expensive ones bought seperately. They are tarnished now and it's a lot of hassle getting to them to replace them.
I also fitted a modern radiator (which was in a sale) which looks really good and works well