📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

Cost of refurbishing a 3 bed home from scratch

24

Comments

  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    And skips.... any garden work?
  • paulmapp8306
    paulmapp8306 Posts: 1,352 Forumite
    Blimey - My bathroom is going to cost £750 for the bath/toilet/sink/show alone - no labour, tiling (floor or wall) included.

    Im budgeting £3k-£4k for a small bathroom fitted - and its at the cheaper end of materials (though there not trade prices).

    Kitchen - £1500 just for the appliances (hob/cooker/sink/taps) - looking at £5-£8k for our kitchen fitted (though same deal as bathroom - and were having new flooring as well, which is circa £3.5-6k without the appliances). Its not big (no room for an island or kitchen table for instance) but its a fair size I guess.

    No idea on the rest of the costs.
  • osian
    osian Posts: 455 Forumite
    Just had a fair bit of work done on our 3 bed house.

    I think you've underestimated the cost of plastering. £1500 recently got me the hall, stairs and landing done, two largish bedrooms and a kitchen ceiling plastered. So I would imagine it would be more than that to plaster a whole house.

    Kitchen - I reckon you could maybe get the kitchen for £2500 with fairly basic units and keeping the plumbing/ electrics/ gas in the same place. I think appliances will add at least another £1k onto the bill along with more for tiling/ flooring etc. Obviously this would depend on the size of the kitchen too. You can play around with plans and get a price for units/ appliances on the Ikea website. Also B&Q will let you do this too.

    Carpets - If you take measurements of your rooms, you can estimate the cost on the carpetright website.

    We've spent around £12K in the last few months, mostly cosmetic stuff, mainly mid range, not basic but not fancy either, been fairly careful with costs:

    This includes:
    New ikea kitchen /basic appliances/ fitting/ flooring/ tiling/ plastering/ moving gas pipes and plumbing/ new sockets.
    Quickstep laminate on ground floor with fitting and skirting.
    New carpets upstairs and on stairs.
    Plastering 2 bedrooms, stairs and kitchen ceiling.
    New consumer unit and new sockets fitted where we were short of them (no new rewiring as it was ok).
  • andy.m_2
    andy.m_2 Posts: 1,521 Forumite
    our bathroom, (small victorian, std semi sized) was £1000 for the saniware and fix/fits and £1200 to fit it and flooring etc

    We sourced it all on the web and bought pretty shrewdly so I'd like to think there wasnt much coming off the supply side.
    For installation, this time, I decided to get someone in and have a break from it. I could have taken more on, certainly the tiling and flooring and could have saved £300 or so but while he was plumbing and fitting I was at work earning so it would have costs me more to take the time off to do it!
    Sealed pot challange no: 339
  • Jaynne
    Jaynne Posts: 552 Forumite
    How longs a piece of string? I think you're being way too conservative on kitchen and bathroom unless you're replacing it with the most basic stuff you can get. I also assume you're doing most of the work yourself but I can't see how you can trim 50% off your price.

    Unless you're going to do the plastering and all the chasing for the leccy yourself I'd add a 3k contingency onto your 15k for all the problems that will invariably pop up.
  • katejo
    katejo Posts: 4,282 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Jaynne wrote: »
    How longs a piece of string? I think you're being way too conservative on kitchen and bathroom unless you're replacing it with the most basic stuff you can get. I also assume you're doing most of the work yourself but I can't see how you can trim 50% off your price.

    Unless you're going to do the plastering and all the chasing for the leccy yourself I'd add a 3k contingency onto your 15k for all the problems that will invariably pop up.

    Are your kitchen and bathroom so bad that they have to be done immediately? I have been in my house for 6.5 years but have managed with a old but functional kitchen until now. It might be better to save and invest in a better quality product.
  • I have spent almost £5000 on refurbishing my three bed house so far. We are in a cheap area of the North West. That includes: new carpets to first floor (three beds), laminate flooring to hall, lounge and dining room, new small kitchen (complete refit including new electrics/tiling/flooring/plastering etc), repainting throughout all rooms and woodwork, external painting and lanscaping/turfing of rear garden (small) and new front path.

    Obviously, we have done most of the work ourselves with the exception of the kitchen refit. Most of your costs are likely to come from labour, and this varies massively.

    Have you had your roof checked? Is it likely to need any repair/replacement?

    Of your list, I would suggest the following are under-budgeted for:

    • Damp proofing downstairs - £1,000
    • Replace water tank with new combi boiler & power flush system - £2,000 (depends if need new radiators as well)
    • Plastering whole house- £1,500
    • New bathroom fitted- £750 (depends on cost of suite)
    • New kitchen fitted - £2,500 (depends on size)
  • where has the OP gone??
  • paulmapp8306
    paulmapp8306 Posts: 1,352 Forumite
    Crying in a corner??

    Given most here think £15k is an underestimate, and the OP was hoping to keep things between £10k and £12k - they may be feeling a little sick right now.
  • lucyeve
    lucyeve Posts: 11 Forumite
    Our 3 bed (we're in the north west) we've been working on as we go along for the last 5 months, at the moment there's nothing in it other than central heating, we've ripped everything out. Everyone who's come to do work on it has said it's easier with us not living there.

    An ever increasing list of things which have to be done include:

    Things we've had to pay for:

    Central heating, including 7 radiators - £2650
    Fixing the guttering, removing an asbestos pipe and it's replacement, and sorting out a few roof tiles - £500
    Electrics - £510
    Loft/ Cavity Wall Insulation - £150
    Bathroom fitting and suite including flooring (no tiling) - £650
    Kitchen including flooring (without appliances and fitting)- £630
    Plastering 3 rooms, 2 ceilings - £1000
    Skips x 2 - £180

    Things we've done ourselves to keep costs down:

    Knocked the bathroom wall through to join the toilet
    Knocked the plaster off the walls in 3 rooms
    Taken the ceilings down in 2 rooms
    Stripped all the wallpaper and taken off the ceiling tiles
    Replaced the waste pipe and moved it outside
    Ripped out the kitchen and bathroom
    Painting/decorating
    Taken out the fire place and bricked it up

    So far we've probably spent about £7000 so far, including all the little bits and pieces you don't expect, and we've still got lots to do and we're doing it cheaply as we've had lots of help from friends and lots of work done cheap by friends of our families
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 351.3K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 453.8K Spending & Discounts
  • 244.3K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 599.5K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 177.1K Life & Family
  • 257.8K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.