Renovation of a 3 bedroom Victorian House in London

MaireMarieMarie

Rambosmum wrote: »

We have just renovated a 3 bed semi (which we were planning on living in), and are currently doing our Victorian end terrace. These are the
actual prices we paid.
- reroof - £2900
- damp proof (the damp survey stated 3 800+VAT, is that possible?) £3200 + vat + replastering
- completely replumb the house - only needed some plubing, about £400 worth, did some of it ourself, under the supervision of plumber father in law. The new radiators cost £600 (for 3).
- just bought 3 new radiators for the Victorian house at a cost of £890.
- rewire the house - £3.5k - This was for a large 4 bed Victorian house, USB sockets, double LAN ports to all room and TV aerials to all rooms.
- replace 3 windows - Wooden sash or UPV? Wooden sash much more pricey.
- refit bathroom and kitchen - we spent 3.5k on units in the 3 bed, we fitted it ourselves. 2k for sink & appliances. plus tiles (did the tiling myself), blind, paint and wallpaper and pictures ~ £300
- replaster assume - Back to brick or float & reskim? We've had one room taken back to brick at a cost of £860 and one floated and skimmed inc ceiling & Victorian Cornicing £220 (rooms are 4m x 4.5m)
- renovate the damaged victorian flooring - tile? or wood? Wood obviously much cheaper. We bought replacement pine floor boards and hired a sander cost around £280 for 2 rooms & hall. We need to stain, oil and varnish still, which will cost about £150 we did this ourselves though.
- and ideally renovate two fireplaces which have been taken out - just agreed on £3038 for two new liners, a wood burning stove and an open fire including parts and install.
- and another plus would be to knock down the ceiling of the bathroom to make it higher, as a secondary roof is above it. - was £500 when we did this in the small bathroom (2mx2m) this was to remove the suspended ceiling, board and skim.


On top of this was the hire of a couple of skips (£180 each) and then paint, curtains, soft furnishings etc. We've also repointed the front (£480) and repointed and repaired a small areas at the back (£160)


The 3 bed semi cost £12k, but we didn't replace the bathroom (that would have been £3k as it was small, so nothing fancy could fit in!)


The Victorian we are still working on and are at £8300 but it's a labour of love and we expect it to top £100k - the house will be worth much much more once finished though.


We are however North West, which does make it cheaper. And in terms of cheap but good kitchens - I recommend DIYkitchens.com

Thank you for sharing the prices. In London everything will probably be more expensive, but I can still take them as a reference. WIll have a look at DIYkitchens, once the other things are finished . If it only costs 500GBP to knock down the ceiling in the bathroom, I'll definitely do it.

MaireMarieMarie

AFF8879 wrote: »

If you are not going to do any work yourself then 4K might get you a basic B&Q kitchen in a small flat. You will probably be spending 15-20k just on the kitchen - assuming you need electrical work, tiling as well etc. And that is nowhere near top spec. Installation is incredibly expensive.

I am really hoping we can get the kitchen for a bit less than 15k (including electrics, tiling, appliances, etc.) Anyways, if the budget doesn't allow for it, we will need to go for cheaper options. Maybe in a couple of years we will win at the lottey and can change things to higher specs

Waterlily24

It cost us a lot more than £20K and my hubby did most of the work, the things we paid for were the electrics (complete rewire), the central heating (hubby put all the pipes in and fitted the radiators himself). He did all the plastering, fitted the kitchen and the bathrooms, fitted all the doors including the going outside ones. Fitted new windows too. Ours is a bigger house but we aren't near London now. This is going back about 8 years too.

westernpromise

If you look at what goes into a kitchen you need an oven or two (£1000), a hob (£200), a fridge (£1000), a dishwasher (£500), a washing machine (£500) and possibly a tumble drier (£500). Add the sink and a waste disposal and you're over £4k already before you've paid for a single unit, or a tap, or the floor, or the worktop, or the splashbacks, or the electrics, or the plumbing. Or of course before you've moved any doors or whatever.

£15k is very optimistic IMHO. You are probably looking at £5k just for a tiled floor. It's not the tiles, it's the screeding and the cutting.

nubbins

This was 3 years ago!

LadyOrangutan Sun 31-May-15 21:25:38
We are in SW london. Bought a 3 bed 30s semi d last August.
We have installed central heating, changed sockets and switches, new circuits for upstairs bedrooms as there was only one socket per room for two bedrooms as they had been spurred off of the main bedroom. New bathroom, new boiler, new water tank
New carpets (budget end of prices)
New cheap kitchen (3.5k from B&Q not incl fitting)
And have stripped 70s wallpaper and done as much of the decorating as we can ourselves to keep costs down.
We have easily spent over 60k.
And this was with hiring contractors ourselves, project managing by ourselves and doing as much ourselves as possible.

westernpromise

nubbins wrote: »

This was 3 years ago!

LadyOrangutan Sun 31-May-15 21:25:38
We are in SW london. Bought a 3 bed 30s semi d last August.
We have installed central heating, changed sockets and switches, new circuits for upstairs bedrooms as there was only one socket per room for two bedrooms as they had been spurred off of the main bedroom. New bathroom, new boiler, new water tank
New carpets (budget end of prices)
New cheap kitchen (3.5k from B&Q not incl fitting)
And have stripped 70s wallpaper and done as much of the decorating as we can ourselves to keep costs down.
We have easily spent over 60k.
And this was with hiring contractors ourselves, project managing by ourselves and doing as much ourselves as possible.

So a very basic spec 3 years ago was £60k, which rather suggests my £100k might be about right...by way of comparison we are having just some painting and fettling done in the kitchen at the mo and it's £4,000 not including the paint.

gaz2613

If its an old house dont waste money on damp proofing, sealing up the walls is only going to cause more issues further down the line. You need to use lime based mortar not sand and cement because the walls need to breathe. This is what most dont understand about period properties and is usually the cause of damp in old houses. I have just bought my first house which is a period property and I am going to have the render removed, bricks repointed with lime based mortar and then a limewash over the brickwork. The damp will disappear and the walls will be able to breathe again. Check out heritage-house.org as I have learnt alot from there and other sources about old houses. Hope this helps and will also save you alot of money too.

MaireMarieMarie

gaz2613 wrote: »

If its an old house dont waste money on damp proofing, sealing up the walls is only going to cause more issues further down the line. You need to use lime based mortar not sand and cement because the walls need to breathe. This is what most dont understand about period properties and is usually the cause of damp in old houses. I have just bought my first house which is a period property and I am going to have the render removed, bricks repointed with lime based mortar and then a limewash over the brickwork. The damp will disappear and the walls will be able to breathe again. Check out heritage-house.org as I have learnt alot from there and other sources about old houses. Hope this helps and will also save you alot of money too.

Thank you, I've now booked an independant damp survey, which we should have done before!

Thank you also to all others who replied to my message. We will start getting some quotes next week and compare them with what you guys said...