Moved in new house - order to do work in

lm1981

Have recently bought a 4 bed house which is 20 years old. A lot of the stuff like boiler , radiators , windows , doors etc are the original.

bathrooms/ kitchen are about 5 years old.

I am making a list of improvements to make 

smooth ceilings 
replace doors and windows 
switch boiler to combi and replace rads
New carpets 
light fixtures and fittings swap for chrome plated ones
decorate 

what order would you do these things in?

koalakoala

Personally I would do the ceilings first. It was a much messier job than I anticipated!
Then I would do the windows and doors.
Then boiler and rads.
Sockets and switches
Decorate
Carpets

i have just done all these things, and more,but I had to get my carpets laid long before everything was done, as I was moving my furniture in. Managed to keep them clean during work with dust sheets and bits of spare carpet laid down.

Good luck!
It’s stressful, mainly due to workmen imo, but worth it to get what you want

Rosa_Damascena

Are the ceilings a must? I would concentrate on the day-to-day functional things that bother you.

Carpets: always last when the other trades have gone.

lm1981

Thank you both , yeah ceilings have that swirl effect on them so would like to get them over-boarded. I found this good in my last place as it also eliminated some clicking and creaky sounds. Seemed less messy too.

Quite a lot of work to get done , with switching to a combi I would need to get showers replaced as they work off a pump

Rosa_Damascena

lm1981 said:

Thank you both , yeah ceilings have that swirl effect on them so would like to get them over-boarded. I found this good in my last place as it also eliminated some clicking and creaky sounds. Seemed less messy too.

Quite a lot of work to get done , with switching to a combi I would need to get showers replaced as they work off a pump

Why a combi? I have never liked them, they come with the same problems as energy efficient lightbulbs.

casper_gutman

Rosa_Damascena said:

lm1981 said:

Thank you both , yeah ceilings have that swirl effect on them so would like to get them over-boarded. I found this good in my last place as it also eliminated some clicking and creaky sounds. Seemed less messy too.

Quite a lot of work to get done , with switching to a combi I would need to get showers replaced as they work off a pump

Why a combi? I have never liked them, they come with the same problems as energy efficient lightbulbs.

They come with problems. But the same ones as energy efficient lightbulbs? I've never installed an LED bulb that stopped me from getting decent water pressure in two showers at once, or made some of the taps take an age to run hot.

koalakoala

Haha very true

FaceHead

<any order> 
Decorate

Light fittings 
Carpets

Personally I like to get a room or an area all done at a time, rather than, say, do all the ceilings at once. It's helps me feel the progress and get satisfaction of having something fully finished, rather than feeling everything is halfway there. 

I think the order of rooms is the most important - you don't want to decorate your hall, then have a mishap moving materials though it for some job in a different room. 

theoretica

I would add early on getting a full electric check - if anything needs doing, or you want to add or move sockets that is another messy job to do up the top of the list.

DD265

theoretica said:

I would add early on getting a full electric check - if anything needs doing, or you want to add or move sockets that is another messy job to do up the top of the list.

Yep. Turns out some of the electrics in our home were bodged (by the original electrician when the house was built 15 years ago, it seems) which has prevented us adding new sockets. If we'd known the extent, we could've had the electrics sorted before decorating.
We're going room by room rather than all at once, but I would:

1. replace doors and windows 
2. switch boiler to combi and replace rads
3. smooth ceilings 
4. decorate 
5. light fixtures and fittings swap for chrome plated ones
6. New carpets 

Reason being, if there's any damage to the walls whilst the doors/windows/radiators are being replaced, you can ask the plasterer to skim whilst doing the ceiling. The only thing I'd say about fittings, particularly lights, is have them before decorating, so you can be sure you paint enough wall/ceiling for the rose if there is one. We had a ceiling skimmed, painted it, then finally chose a light fitting and I had to fill/paint around it as the original fitting had a larger rose.
If you can't afford to do the work in that order but you have a room you can't look at any more, it may be worth decorating what you can in the mean time. I just painted our bathroom walls, resealed the bath, replaced the toilet seat and my husband put a new handle on the door. It still has the popcorn ceiling, a tired suite and a floor I'm not keen on, but it looks a million times fresher.