how much to partition off stairs in living room

wort

hi Can anyone provide a rough cost of putting up a stud wall in living room to block off the stairs? The draught coming from upstairs (possibly the window there) is huge.The wall would need to have a door,and at the moment has a cupboard under the stairs which I need to keep.It would need plastering and skirting and coving.I would paint it myself.The window is dg and has a curtain!! we have cavity and loft insulation and always close the doors upstairs! The house is around 10 yrs old. Thanks in advance for any replies.

Eejay

There are so many things to consider that I think it'd be impossible to tell. You'd be better off ringing around and getting a few people in to give a quote.

At the end of our hallway was our kitchen door, and to the right (but inside the kitchen so not actually visible from the hallway) was a full-sized door to under half of the stairs. We had a stud wall put in instead and the whole of the understairs cupboard opened up into the hallway, with a small cupboard built up to the windowsill (no idea why there's a window half covered by our stairs) to cover the fuse box or whatever it's called. It cost us about £280 and the plastering would have been included in the rest of the cost (£1,440 for a 3-bed semi, walls and ceilings). So probably about £350 in total for us. Our house was practically turned upside down but we weren't living there at the time and so there was little need to be clean and tidy, which may have reduced the cost a little.

I don't know if that helps at all but it might give you a very rough idea of a cost. We're in Leeds so prices may be different based on location, too.

wort

thanks eejay.I'm in the northwest,and hoped to get a figure so I know i'm not getting ripped off! I realise it will vary the wall is probably 10ft then a doorway to fit a 32" door.

Eejay

If you have Facebook and plenty of 'friends' in the area, ask for some recommendations - that's what I did, and I got quite a few responses (I needed a builder, plasterer, electrician etc but the plasterer ended up being able to do a lot of the work and he knew an electrician who did the rewiring for a great price!).

Also, if you take a photo and email a few different people who have good online reviews (I found our tiler on 'Free Index' I think, or something like that), just give them a quick idea of what you want and ask if they can give some sort of idea how much you'd be looking at. Just tell them you've got a strict budget and it's just an idea you had so you don't want to have them coming round to give a quote as you don't want to waste their time if it's out of your price range. Maybe ask for a few pictures of their work too. It saves them turning up and sweet-talking you into anything you're not sure about!