Refurbishment on a budget

bambos

We have £25,000 to totally refurb our home inside and outside. I wonder if anyone can offer hints, tips or pointers in how to do this (we are NEVER moving so want to get it right. This is what we want to accomplish:

Garden room built creating a dining area and snug £12,400

Wood burning stove and installation £3,000

New kitchen as we will be making the old dining area into a bigger kitchen - cost??? It's looking to be mega bucks

New front door £600-£700 and £100 to fit from our builder

Front garden cleared and small wall built with iron railings on three sides and gate, weed membrane and gravel laid - cost??? Awaiting quotes

Bricking up a doorway in the kitchen and knocking through to create a new doorway in the lounge - cost???

Wallpapering hall stairs and landing - cost???

Taking up turf in garden and laying weed membrane and gravel - cost???

Ideally a new bathroom but I'm not sure it will be possible.

I can't see the wood for the trees at the moment as I feel like there's a huge amount to do and I'm worried our budget won't stretch.

Doozergirl

How big is the garden room and what is it made of?

I can't see your budget stretching, especially not to 'forever' standards.

I would personally concentrate on either getting the existing structure right or building that room. Then save for the next phase. It sounds like far too much compromise to me - beyond moneysaving tips, you need damage limitation.

Exterior walls and railings are certainly a luxury when you're saying you've got £9,500 to do everything to the existing house.

Gravel as a permanent solution in the garden - really? You'll be the local cat litter tray!

Electrics and plumbing okay? Plastering okay?

You'll want flooring in the house?

Dan-Dan

I would have thought a fully kitted out garden room on its own is at least 3/4 of that budget ?

bambos

Doozergirl wrote: »

How big is the garden room and what is it made of?

I can't see your budget stretching, especially not to 'forever' standards.

I would personally concentrate on either getting the existing structure right or building that room. Then save for the next phase. It sounds like far too much compromise to me - beyond moneysaving tips, you need damage limitation.

Exterior walls and railings are certainly a luxury when you're saying you've got £9,500 to do everything to the existing house.

Gravel as a permanent solution in the garden - really? You'll be the local cat litter tray!

Electrics and plumbing okay? Plastering okay?

You'll want flooring in the house?

Thanks for your pointers. I thought as much, I hope we can achieve a few things, we have flooring throughout the main house so only flooring for the garden room. The garden room is 90% brick built but open plan to the main house. Electrics and plumbing free as my dad is doing it, plastering is included in the cost of the build as I negotiated this.

We considered having lawn again but it's too much to manage and as we are halving the size of our garden its planned as a courtyard garden so gravel seemed the logical option.

We have looked into DIY kitchen which seem good and provide ridgid units so we could fit and my best friends dad does tiling so wouldn't charge a great deal for us, looks to be £4,200 for th units and then we would need tiling but the flooring was done last year.

bambos

Dan-Dan wrote: »

I would have thought a fully kitted out garden room on its own is at least 3/4 of that budget ?

We have managed to get it for £12,500 as we know the team doing it they are family friends.

System

with that budget I would most definitely ditch the garden room until later - I would also consider doing the external works myself if capable...
what you should do is make a priority list and then work the budget to deliver in order of priority

Jonesya

I think you need to prioritise and personally I'd do the things that are the most disruptive and destructive first, get them out of the way so they won't damage any of your other improvements, then pick off the smaller stuff, or the jobs that sit on their own.

So I'd do all the building works first, then new kitchen, decorating and leave things like the garden until later.

Smiley_Dan

"Fabric first" - nothing is more important than the fabric of the building - it is what should keep you warm and healthy. But £25k is not a lot for a retrofit, depending on the amount of glazing and exterior wall space.