First-time house renovation

helping_hubby

jamtart6 wrote: »

I wish we had the money for a spending spree in B&Q. Just made a list of everything we need to do to get the basics finished *gulp* before any furniture or real decoration.

I actually feel temporarily sick and hoping I've severely overestimated the prices.

Can anyone help me out on 2 approximate costs

(1) wiring a room 3m by 8m - plug sockets, light fittings etc. nothing fancy.

(2) a roof for 3m by 8m part of it is pitched - i know it is really vague - but I have not even got a ball park figure for it. Don't know if it is like £10k £2k £500 (ha!)

Anyway in other less sickening news, we are having our gutters done today! Hopefully they will be looking beautiful soon enough!

We got charged £65 per light fitting (it was a rewire)
£43 per new double plug socket.
We're based in Surrey. And that was the cheapest of 3 quotes.

jamtart6

helping_hubby wrote: »

We got charged £65 per light fitting (it was a rewire)
£43 per new double plug socket.
We're based in Surrey. And that was the cheapest of 3 quotes.

Thanks helping_hubby. I'm hoping we'll do OK from it as Mr JT has an electrician friend who charged £30 for fitting a new fuse box and £40 for the actual box. I hope my estimate of £1000 is way over but I know re-wires are expensive so didn't know what the price would be like from scratch.

helping_hubby

jimbugalee wrote: »

Have you seen those white 6 panel doors which will be £10? with another 15% off that's a bargain. I didn't know whether you got 'cheap' doors and could tell if the quality was poor?

We have really annoying firedoors everywhere on chains which are all propped open with some tool or another!

I think we're going for £25 moulded doors. My dad has given us some money towards them on the condition that we didn't buy the cheapest ones. But the kitchen one will probably be £60 - 100. They seem to be much more expensive with the glass in. I'm hoping I'm going to like the £60 one

Can't decide on a bathroom lock. I hate the thumb turner ones. (like these: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9277173&fh_view_size=10&fh_location=%2f%2fcatal!!!1%2fen_GB&fh_search=bathroom+lock&fh_eds=%C3%9F&fh_refview=search&ts=1250678558555&isSearch=true)
I always think I might get locked in. Anyone have them and can put my mind at rest?

I'd rather have a bolt type thing, but it'll mean chipping out part of the door frame to fit it.

jimbugalee

Ah so maybe you can tell if you get cheaper doors? I absolutely love the ones TomsMom has - I'm not sure if they'll go in our house. hmmmmmmm

Oh gosh I haven't even got as far as looking at door handles. My parents have a similar lock HH and haven't had any problems. Although previously they had a key which snapped off when my brother was in there and no one home. He managed to un-do the double glazing window at the top with tweezers and escape!! Yes he was naked pmsl ... hilarious

dottiepeas

Hello!
Have been reading this forum for awhile now!...and we're now currently buying a bungalow that needs total refurbishment! We would like to move the kitchen to the back of the house- does anybody know roughly how much it would cost to have a plumber come and add pipes (for creating sink/washing machine etc) and new electrics? Would £3k for the works be too optimistic?...(not to include kitchen cabinets etc-just plumbing/electrics/installing new combi boiler!)

Any info and advice for moving kitchens would be much appreciated!! :cheesy:

maggie111

jimbugalee wrote: »

Have you seen those white 6 panel doors which will be £10? with another 15% off that's a bargain. I didn't know whether you got 'cheap' doors and could tell if the quality was poor?

We have really annoying firedoors everywhere on chains which are all propped open with some tool or another!

I've just had a look on B&Q online... the cheapest interior door is £20? Am I being blonde and missing something? They sound like a bargain!

About to buy first house and am thinking this is a bargain too good to miss!

jimbugalee

Hi dottiepeas .....welcome!!!

How exciting for you at the moment!!

We are doing most of our work on the house ourselves so I can't be much help with the costs but I can give you some advice re boiler.
We spent about £1,000 on our new boiler. It was the most expensive Worcester Bosch one there is but completely worth it (http://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/homeowner/products/gas-boilers/greenstar-42cdi). Our water is boiling (we can turn it down) and has really good pressure all around the house even with several things running (i.e. washing up and having a bath/shower). I'm glad we spent the extra money. It's also really economical. We've had it a month and a half and only used about 30 units (about £2!!). I am sure this is extreme and bear in mind we haven't got heating and no shower so it's only really for washing up and 3 of us having baths (mind you, then men don't have very many!!).

The real cost we had was on the plumbing because adding a new boiler meant re-running the gas pipes. There are such strict regulations on this now we used all different sizes, lengths, different routes etc etc. What a pain!! Then to have the final sign off/boiler installation I think was about £400. I have no idea if this is a good price or not.

We have moved all of our own pipes for the sink, washing machine, dishwasher etc but it didn't seem to take us too long. I am sure we'll do it again when we properly do the kitchen. Really don't know anything re electrics - maybe see above post.

Hope that was a little help. Sure everyone else on here can provide some better advice

Gemma

jimbugalee

maggie111 wrote: »

I've just had a look on B&Q online... the cheapest interior door is £20? Am I being blonde and missing something? They sound like a bargain!

About to buy first house and am thinking this is a bargain too good to miss!

Hi Maggie,
I had another email prior to the 15% one that said 'Big weekend deals' or something along those lines. I clicked on the link for the door but must apologise as also found it was full price atm (I guess until the deal kicks in at the weekend).

I think it's this door:
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&amp;fh_secondid=9274071&amp;fh_view_size=10&amp;fh_eds=?&amp;fh_location=//catal!!!1/en_GB/categories<{9392104}&amp;fh_search=6+panel&amp;fh_refview=search&amp;ts=1250683116961&amp;isSearch=false

Check back at the weekend (maybe Friday?) and it should have come down in price. I would check the other doors also as there was a few. Sorry I can't find the original email which isn't very helpful!

suisidevw

Hi guys, thanks for the encouragement. Haven't set up a blog etc so here is a bit of spiel I just wrote with some pics

So this is our first house. It’s in a lovely area of Cardiff called Rhiwbina. I’m English and my wife is Welsh, I work in projects/building admin for the Harbour Authority and she is a business officer for Housing! We got married in Sept last yr (25yrs old) and rented for our first 10 months or marriage before completing on this house at the end of July. We managed to haggle nearly £25k off asking. We’ve been away as well so the below is a sort of timeline of how it has gone through……

The house was previously lived in by an old lady for 50 years before passing away. Therefore it was obviously old fashioned so needs updating, new wiring, new bathroom. Luckily the kitchen is relatively modern but in the future will redo it and knock through into the large laundry room that backs on.

This laundry room is only single skinned so we will ‘double skin it’ and aim to do as much of this ourselves as possible (other than plastering/electrical work). The electrical work has been done, new fuseboard, full test, new sockets throughout (only 1 in each room before!). We have now stripped the upstairs and redecorated and have to finish our final room tonight before our carpets arrive tomorrow afternoon which is super exciting times!

We lifted up the carpet on our first viewing to note the floor and the day we moved in it was out and stripped back to the original woodblock, pine and oak in the hallway. A good pal of mine and I spent 2 FULL days sanding the 2 reception rooms and hallway before loading on 2 coats of Osmo Polyx Oil and we are over the moon with the results. I think you’ll agree it looks pretty good! The photos below are up until about 1 ½ weeks ago starting from when we looked around the house. We’ve now finished the ‘small’ room and our room. Been hard work but definitely worth it.

Will stick some more pics up at the weekend of how it looks then as there are boxes EVERYWHERE as obviously we have stripped upstairs.


Hope you like, obviously it’s not a mega structural job etc but we are learning lots and doing a good job I think! Enjoy the pics, sorry there are so many! J

Sam














This is the room that had the blue carpet


Our room, painted apple white and aged white skirting etc.

lisal0u

Hi Everyone!

Speaking of door handles... we got ours from screwfix, they seemed lot cheaper then anywhere else and also better quality! Also the latches and hinges are cheap!

We got some lovely satin nickle handles half price in the sale but they all seem to have gone now!

Stuarts back from America so we can get back on with DIY now! He brought me back loads of reeses peanut butter cups mmm my favourite!

Wish we'd waited a bit now to get 15% off our doors :rolleyes: