Cost of renovating a 1930's 3 bedroom semi

hemsk

Doozergirl wrote: »

I wouldn't use Homes Under the Hammer as any kind of guide to quality or reality, in most circumstances.

But I'd agree that your idea of budget is more realistic. Just the cosmetic touches that someone's listed above all add up, and that's before you've ended up knocking the whole place back to brick because the plaster comes off with the wallpaper - which, if you have any kind of inkling that it's old enough that it might - it will!

I'm relatively 'handy' but mostly with odd jobs and repairs around the house. I've generally picked things up quickly so far and we're thinking of doing up our place

Where would you suggest to go for DIY tips, tutorials or advice?

hjghg5

I did a 1925 3 bed semi last year. New windows, rewire, central heating, boiler, knocking an internal wall down, replastering, new kitchen, bathroom, flooring and a bit of work on the roof. Spent about £60k (but didn't go for the cheapest stuff).

-taff

hemsk wrote: »

I'm relatively 'handy' but mostly with odd jobs and repairs around the house. I've generally picked things up quickly so far and we're thinking of doing up our place

Where would you suggest to go for DIY tips, tutorials or advice?

Youtube, and DIY forums.
In the former you can pretty much find anything you need to know, in the latter, answers to more specific questions.

DeeDee87

We bought our three bed terraced house at the end of August 2018, we stayed in our rented for the first month to get the messy work done without living there, our current outlay stands at 18k with a new bathroom booked at the beginning of June , this is what we have had done.


Full rewire
Removal of three internal non load bearing walls.*
Re plaster kitchen diner walls and ceiling, *
Board & plaster store room tuned into utility walls and ceiling*
Board and re plaster living room ceiling and two walls* (blocked up additional doorway)
Board and re plaster ceiling over stairs*
Re plaster bathroom ceiling and one wall *(blocked up separate loo door.)
Skimmed 2 bedroom ceilings*
Painted all ceilings and walls white
Put water and waste into store room to create utility*
Moved gas from one side of kitchen to the other*
Whole new kitchen appliances (washer, dryer, range cooker, fridge freezer), units, oak work tops, Belfast sink, flooring.
New units and work tops in utility - same as kitchen and small Belfast, flooring.
Finished 2 bedrooms - furniture, flooring, paint, wallpaper.
Tiles bought for kitchen utility walls and hallway floor.
Got tiles , loo, sink, units, bath and shower etc ready for the bathroom refit. we wanted a specific look, we could have gone with generic cheaper bathroom suite but decided to get what we wanted rather than settle (1600 for the lot)


Are we finished? hell no! not even close but we feel its money well spent as the whole house had to be gutted. there are more things on our to do list but needs to wait for the bathroom to be done.


The heating system was inspected and all is good so saved some pennies there, our boiler is already in our loft and the loft boarded and has lighting.


that's literally all the tools and bits we needed to buy coming form rental too, we did a lot of it ourselves


the stuff above with an asterisk are what we got people in to do but everything else we've done ourselves including the kitchen and utility fitting, professionals are coming in to do the bathroom and everything we are having done in there, I've probably left half of it out but you get the idea.


1950/60 house in Hertfordshire for reference.

motherofstudents

We spent around £40k when we renovated our bungalow. You always budget for the obvious - new kitchen, bathroom etc but what really creeps up is the trips to B&Q for paint/screws/sandpaper etc etc, all those small items add up more than we realised. We did everything that we could ourselves but in stripping wallpaper of course the plaster comes off....

Bambeano7

Thanks for all the quick replies. I think over time we would be looking to spend at least the £30-£40k that everyone is talking about, probably more, but this would be over a period of a few years. I wasn't particularly clear in my original question, but as this is a long term project things like the bathroom and kitchen would be done at the cheapest possible price to make it liveable for the time being and then we will do it properly when we have the funds.

vw100

Don't forget the extra's that crop up as you open and reveal things in the house - 'its like might as well get that fixed now that everything has been opened up, otherwise if we do it later got to re-decorate the whole room' and all the hassle and cost that goes with it. These will be all unexpected costs.


As someone mentioned don't forget the sundries and essentials - they soon add up considerably.

If you boiler breaks down, all the big company engineers may not enter your loft unless it safe to do so, i.e fixed loft ladder, boarding, lighting. So if your boiler is under warranty, without the above the warranty will be useless.

naf123

Bambeano7 wrote: »

Thanks for all the quick replies. I think over time we would be looking to spend at least the £30-£40k that everyone is talking about, probably more, but this would be over a period of a few years. I wasn't particularly clear in my original question, but as this is a long term project things like the bathroom and kitchen would be done at the cheapest possible price to make it liveable for the time being and then we will do it properly when we have the funds.

So don't waste money - the labour probably not much different installing a cheap or expensive bathroom . Can't you get away with just replacing the toilet ?

Bambeano7

naf123 wrote: »

So don't waste money - the labour probably not much different installing a cheap or expensive bathroom . Can't you get away with just replacing the toilet ?

This is exactly what we would be doing. The bath is unusable and and the tiling is cracked and falling off so all we would do is is replace the bath, tiling and install an over bath shower in the meantime until we can afford to to get the whole suite replaced.

It sounds like boiler in the loft isn't the best idea I've ever had, may be best thing to keep it in the kitchen and make do with the space. It also seems I might have been a bit optimistic with the budget, but I did have a contingency fund (not huge a few grand) for these "unexpected cost"

Thanks again for all the replies, the advice has been really helpful

happypie

i have just got my 3 bed semi detached house refurbished, which included:

rewiring
central heating/replumbing/new boiler
plaster
paint
flooring
fireplaces, chimney breast removal
new bathroom
an extra shower room and small utility room on ground floor
small kitchen
new doors
dpc
loft insulation and boarding
underfloor insulation

i have done nothing from my hand.

builder labor - 30k approx.
materials - 30k approx.

i am in london north west. hope it helps.

i have probably spent 10 to 15k extra because i left everything on builder including shopping for materials and my builder wasn't good.