Estimating redecorating costs?

bitsandpieces

I'm looking at an estate sale property, which is mostly in good nick but has very dated fixtures and internal decoration. Any good rule of thumb to estimate costs of redecorating? Would need new kitchen, bathroom, all rooms repapered, probably new floor coverings too? I'd be looking at mid-range or better products (a bit better than you'd get in a typical rented property).

Boiler and heating look fine, though it might need a gas fire taken out. It's got 2 bedrooms, one sitting room/office, one dining room. I'm be getting professionals to do it (I know DIYing would be more money saving, but I'm particularly terrible at it and working long hours at the moment). I'm in Dundee.

If the numbers add up I'll get quotes, of course, but I'm trying to get an idea of how much it would cost before taking up people's time.

LEJC

It is a little like a piece of string type scenario...you could be looking at £5000-10000 but it all depends on what you want and room sizes etc.

It could of course cost a lot more too...the beauty of estate houses is they havent usually been upgraded for some years.

We upgraded a house a couple of years back...it cost around £40k...nothing fancy but once you do one thing it can lead easily to another...that was a mixure of pros' and Diying

one thing worth thinking about is the possible renovation work you cant see....if the kitchen/bathroom/decor is old chances you might want to also investigate electrics....if they need upgrading before decoration and installation of new kitchen is a good time.

some re patching and plastering might also be needed once you start to uncover the old.....
bringing in professionals is likely to add to the cost so if there are things like stripping wallpaper that you can do it will help your budgeting greatly
Paticularly wallpaper stripping can be time consuming....its easy but tedious so
getting it to a state for the decorators will certainly help

AnotherJoe

A new kitchen and bathroom are not "redecorating" and you could spend £5k to £50k on a kitchen,so its more a case of deciding what your budget is.And add 30% because its always more than you think or would think is reasonable..

student100

Yes firstly consider the plumbing and electrics. If you need those replacing/upgrading it should definitely be done before any other redecoration work as there will be walls to patch up etc. And probably should be done at the same time as the kitchen and bathroom.

You can spend as much as you want on kitchen or bathroom depending on the standard you want, so you really do need to talk to a few suppliers to see what you can get for your budget or conversely what a level you would be happy with will cost.

The big expenses in a rough descending order of cost will probably be kitchen, bathroom, electrics, plumbing/gas work (unless you need a new boiler and significant plumbing in which case that is probably more than electrics), and finally carpets/flooring and general redecoration (the last one the cost will vary greatly depending on the level of preparation required, i.e. the state of the existing walls and woodwork - painting or papering walls in good condition is relatively cheap; plastering and fitting new skirting boards first will add a lot to the cost).

bitsandpieces

Thanks for the replies! Someone else clearly thought the place was worth the investment - it sold overnight. I'll bear this in mind when looking at future houses, though.

bris

10k........................

theartfullodger

Twice what you thought it would cost, taking 3 times as long... Or is that the other way round....