Cost of refurbishing a 3 bed home from scratch

ricky._2

Wow so many replies not sure where to begin.

I'm based in London so might be difficult but I'm still going to try hard to stick to my £10k-£12k budget.

Are you going to be doing the painting/decorating yourself?

I intend on doing all the painting and decorating myself and have friends who will help out.

first question is are you living there while work is being done.

I won't be living in the property while it's being refurbished, so even if it takes a few more months to save a bit more money to finish the project it shouldn't matter.

And skips.... any garden work?

That's a very good point, I hadn't taken any garden work into consideration. Although the garden is in an ok state I probably won't be spending anything on it this time around.

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.

That's a very good point. I've been considering this while reading replies on this thread. The kitchen was custom built for the previous owner who was very short (all kitchen units are tiny) so this definitely needs replacing before we move in. I would probably have to leave doing the bathroom for now as it looks like I've severely underestimated the cost.

We won't need any new radiators so that should save a few bob.

Crying in a corner??

Precisely!

I will be able to get all electrical fixtures and fittings at trade prices which should help keeps costs down.

I also hadn't taken appliances into consideration - Oven, microwave, fridgefreezer!

I have relatives who are in the building trade so will be able to get the following done fairly cheaply:

• Electrics inc lighting
• Plastering
• Cost of double glazing
• Carpet

I'm picking up the keys to the house on Tuesday so will get a much better picture of the work involved.

drummer_666

eek London. Add a couple of grand at least then

Leif

keystone wrote: »

Agree with Evo. My next door neighbour did his for around £12k but all the labour was his own or his mates helping out (they all work for the same council maintaining council housing stock). It was a tip too when he bought it.

Practically if you are hiring people in to to the work a more realistic overall budget is £25 - 30k and then be thankful for any savings you make which you will be able to do but you must have a realistic pot of money set aside in the first instance.

Cheers

Having done up a house built in 1969, with 'original features', that is roughly what I paid, with a 'luxury kitchen' and decent but simple bathroom. Coving, door hanging and painting including prep done by me as a) don't trust someone else and b) tight.

Extras: window boards, ceilings, coving (easy-ish to do oneself), doors, skirting and architraves, flooring (removal of old vinyl tiles if present, perhaps under carpet), consumer unit (fusebox), fireplaces (what to do with) etc.

mignon_2

Hello,

We have been steadily refurbishing a two bedroom, two bathroom Victorian semi with basement. We were originally going to just tidy it up and then decided to go the whole hog. I am afraid to say you are totally underestimating! Sorry!

We are currently on about £24k and we still have to have the main bathroom done (tiled and fitted), fit skirts, buy carpets and curtains and other tidy up jobs.

Some things we were a bit extravagant on, but we also got a lot of things done at mates rates, so it wasn't as expensive as it should have been.

The most expensive things were:

electrics (total rewire, with alarm and sound system) £4500 + (still going!)
Plumbing £3000+ (still going!)
Rads £1500
Kitchen inc appliances £7000 (this is an ikea kitchen, but with very snazzy appliances)
plastering £3300
Refurbing original sash windows £3200

other misc costs involved too. Also, I work in the kitchen/bathroom industry, so all bathroom fittings were either free or very cheap...but the whole thing is still expensive!

We are doing nearly everything ourselves apart from plumbing, elec and plastering. It's a BIG job, know what you are getting into!

Good Luck!

GrowingUp

my two peneth worth...

i bought a 3 bed end of terrace with some work required (the typical kind that gets worse before it gets better)

anyhow... ended up carrying out the following:

Re wired / added lights and sockets @ £100
Re Plastered downstairs (profesionally) @ £1000
Re Plastered upstairs (Myself and a friend) @ £100 (Materials and a few beers)
New Skirting @ £150
New Picture rail (Downstairs only) @ £100
CH (Already new) service after drained to allow for paint £50
Carpeting £1100
Tiling £155
Bathroom £400
Plumbing £100 and a beer (Cousin is a plumber)

the trick we used was to procure items thriftily. not all offers are "offers", where as some tradesmen (the good ones) if you ask them, will let you use their discount for iterms such as skirting and plaster, which can in some cases be miles more than expected...

For example, Topps tiles, £290 we were quoted for the tiles, grout, sealant and adhesive for a 3.5x3.5m room.

after uming and ahing, we knocked it to £250. then upon discussion that we had a trade card, it allowed us to buy a "tradesmans" size adhesive for the same unit price, knocking the job price down to £155.60 (BARGAIN)

also helps if you keep an eye open at carboot sales etc, as all of our additional lighting and re-wiring came from there. end of Reels and overpurchased switches etc... as long as its sealed it will be fine (check first)

mignon_2

Did you do the wiring yourself? This isn't always possible...this was a huge cost for me that got way out of hand (TBF, it was a TOTAL rewire with new consumer unit, 100+ LEDs etc, the works, it wouldn't need to be so over the top)

DevCoder

Also unless you are a competent person (normally means registered with one of the scheme, NICEIC etc) then you cant do any electrical work in the kitchen or bathroom as its a notifable area (well you can but youd probably be spending £400 on notifying the LABC and them inspecting it).

Also you need to be competent to test the new wiring, its a bit more than switch it on and if it works its ok, agains you'd need LABC to inspect your work before you covered the wiring up and also prove tests for an Eletrical Certificate. You would expect to pay around £300 for the tester and then youd need to know how to measure Zs, Ze, R1+R2 amongst other things.

GrowingUp

mignon wrote: »

Did you do the wiring yourself? This isn't always possible...this was a huge cost for me that got way out of hand (TBF, it was a TOTAL rewire with new consumer unit, 100+ LEDs etc, the works, it wouldn't need to be so over the top)

not sure if this was in question of my previous post? if it was, then Yes.

im lucky enough to have a brother in law who made all connections after i ran all the wiring for him.

mignon_2

Ho did you manage this for £100? Surely the wire cost more than that? Pretty impressive! I have all the receipts from my electrician and it added up very very quickly. It's not a big house either, 120ish m2...
xxx

wrighty0__3

im in the process of completely renovation a 3 bed semi detached house, and i reckon its going to cost me around £7k.

breakdown of what weve done:

taken all walls back to brickwork, re boarded including ceilings and re skimmed full house

completely rewired the house, including 25 spotlights throughout, also LEDs in stair case. (im an electrician so quite lucky that 1 of the big costs i didnt need to pay) i have had to buy all the materials for the rewire though



ripped old loft conversion out and installed a drop down hatch with ladder

fitted new pvc doors on the front and back.

new fireplace

new skirting and architrave throughout

all carpets

ripped bathroom out,

knocked internal wall down between bathroom and 2nd bedroom and rebuilt it a foot into the bedroom to widen the bathroom.

new bathroom suite: toilet, sink, l shaped shower bath, shower, floor and walls tiled.

new radiators throughout

new carpets and underlay throughout.



the only room i havnt touched apart from rewiring is the kitchen that will be next years job as it wasnt that old and in good condition.

its been a long hard slog and ive done all the labour myself apart from the plastering and the tiling.


but ive got mates that are plasterers and a tiler and the total labour costs so far is £1800. will be abit more when the carpets get fitted, but again its my mate thats doing that for me.