Cost to renovate 3 bedroom 1930's house?

FreeBear

need_an_answer said: A few years back we did an extensive renovation it came in a little under £40k and took around 6 months to complete although we did some of the work ourselves and were not living in the property at the time sop it was a weekend and evenings job once the main bits of the shell had been completed.

Another 1930s (well, 1928ish) semi owner here. Part way through renovating as/when funds allow. I've not spent anywhere near £40K yet. Having to do all the work myself to keep costs down. Even small jobs can turn in to major works - i.e. "Just take the wallpaper off and slap a bit of paint on the walls".... "Oh !!!!!!, plaster has fallen off most of the wall and the ceiling is all cracked"... Three months later, and £500 on materials & plasterer, the room is insulated, plastered, and painted - Still haven't plumbed in the radiator, but that is another story.

If you want a quick renovation of a good standard, £40K won't be anywhere near enough for the OP. And don't forget - Taking out a fireplace & chimney breast and knocking through walls will require building control approval. Not a huge expense, but if any builder tells you that it isn't required, kick them out of the door and find another.

tizerbelle

I have to ask if the house is in such need of renovation, what is the roof like?  Does it need re-roofing?  What is the brickwork like, does it need repointing?  Hopefully they are good and don't need doing now nor in the next few years but if you haven't considered these areas then you need to do so (especially the roof) - no point spending money on the interior if the house isn't water-tight.

ironmanjason

Mine is a 1930’s too and in SW London .. the master bedroom , hallway and living room were all wall papered and later painted over by previous owners.. we had a guy strip it all out including in the ceiling and replaster the area and prime and paint it white.. this was about £1400 including labour and materials.. we then painted the living room, hallway and all the bedrooms ourselves over the year.. we stocked up on paint when there were deals so ended up using great quality paints as well.. I’d say we spent about 250 on these paints.. I stripped out the carpet in stairs and landing and exposed the wood underneath.. but it was getting a lot of draught through them and we had amtico lvt installed which costed us about £2500.. this was for living room, hallway and landing and all done in herringbone style.. as for the stairs under the stripped carpets was painted stairs which we stripped ourselves for a few weeks using a heat gun (mostly at night during winter making it warm for us to work). We then sanded it out completely (about 20 hours of work!) and filled and varnished it exposing the wood in a nice walnut finish.. I changed all sockets around the house to a screw less one myself as well.. I am now doing alcove shelving myself during the lockdown for living room which would have probably costed us 2k had we gone with a carpenter.. Obviously we took our own time and didn’t have to do any large building works such as plumbing. As for the kitchen we decided not to touch it until we saved enough for an extension later this year and hopefully the house will look refurbished then !