doing up a house - money saving ideas

ds1980

Good morning,

We are currently in the process of buying a house to do up. Itll be our first time as such doing anything like this so just wanted a few heads up.

Our lasses dad is a builder and all her family are pretty much tradesmen.

I will have a go at anything and then get some advice as i go.

Just wanted to see if we were being realistic of about £20k to do new kitchen, bathroom possibly an en suite. Complete decoration, damp proofing maybe, carpwetting and flooring.......pretty much everything. I know you get what you pay for but any tips or advice for best practice and money saving would be great!

thanks,

Doozergirl

It really depends on how you're looking to break that £20k down. You can't just look at the house and put a number of £20k on it. You need to allocate the budget

Id there are any original features that you don't want to keep then I'd sell them on ebay. In my complete naevity I laid quarry tiles from one house in the garden to edge the lawn thinking I was clever reusing them. I gave a load from another house away on freecycle. :wall:

In this house, I thought I'd Ebay them. They went for £975 :eek:

Even the old bath I sold for £53!

booty40uk

Hi ds1980

I agree with Doozergirl in that you need to break it down and list exactly the projects you need to do. Also, it depends on whether you are planning to live in it, rent it or sell it once its done. If you are staying there you would probably spend more than if you were renting.

£20k does sound as if it would achieve what you want even if your staying there. I,m sure you could cut a chunk off of that price if your renting or selling on though.

Andy

littlejaffa

Sounds like a bit of a clone in our house, everything needs doing and £20k budget, i think if you budget for the big things and add 10-20% as a contingency your sorted.

you should be able to get trade prices for alot from your gf's family and in alot of cases it's the tradesmen that cost so you should save a bomb, i'm preparing to pay for a few tradesmen and have the same budget as you, so you should be fine.

ds1980

THanks all,

I was a little ambiguous when i asked but all the points made are great. We are going to be doing it up and then moving straight on thanks for the point. I have done up houses before but rented them so didnt really do anything apart from clean and a couple of minor jobs.

I pretty much sell everything on ebay so have no worries on that. All the windows ill take out doors etc etc. Theres actually not a lot of stuff to get rid of really but any rubble ill look to get someone round to pick t up and advertise as free hardcore etc.

I will of course be allocating money but we'll have to wait until we get in until i can start measuring up. I am wanting to spend about £2k on a kitchen (probably from jewsons at trade price!) £1k on bathroom. £4k on decoration and plastering. £1k on en suite. £3k on double glazing......now it has double glazing but is the old aluminium ones....had 2 surveyors in 1 has said there fine one has said they need replaing! This will really only be for decoration purposes and to increase saleability as oppsoed to value. What would you say to just getting the front of the house changed?

other bits and bobs like flooring electrics and stuff will obviously cost, appliances worktops etc but like said we can get this all cheap....well cheap compared to others maybe!

thanks again

robnye

when it comes to carpetting, by the underlay and gripper rods at a hardware store ie BnQ or homebase..... a good 50% cheaper than carpet shops