How much can I do for my money?

BalanceBy50

Please bear with me as I have lots of questions.  I want to do some internal renovations in my house and have a budget of £45k.  This includes a new bathroom and kitchen as well as some building work. 

The work includes & these are my complete guesses at how much it will cost!
Converting conservatory into an all year round live able room including a wood burning stove - £15k
Reinstating a wall and building a downstairs toilet, putting a door in from the kitchen to garage, knocking the wall down between kitchen and dinning room and moving combi boiler from this wall .  Blocking up double doors from lounge to the dinning room- £7k
New kitchen and appliances - £12k
New flooring throughout the house (3bed detached) - £3k
New staircase spindles and balustrade as awful 1960's design plus adding pullout cupboards underneath - £3k
New bathroom including bath and walk in shower, tiling and floor plus toilet & sink for downstairs -£7k

Hmmm already bust my budget....

I was hoping to knock down the conservatory and replace it with a single story extension but a builder has said this will be at least £30 - £35k which means there isn't enough money to do everything else!  The conservatory is about 2.5m by 4m and is a single brick at the bottom and glazed at the top with a plastic corrugated type roof.  Is there anyway I can make this use able all year round?  It is about 15 years old and has no heating in.  It is accessed from our dinning room through aluminium (or some other metal from the late 60's) sliding doors.  It would be good to have the doors taken out and it be open plan from the dinning room.  I want to create a L shaped kitchen/dining/living room at the back of my house and a complete standalone lounge.

I do have a sketch pdf but I couldn't work out if I could upload this.

The whole house will then need decorating and some new furniture but I am doing this from a different budget...I hope!

Thank you if you have got this far!

theoretica

About 40 years ago my parents built their own kitchen - bought some wood and door fittings. And a sturdy old freestanding cabinet that they painted and changed the handles on (I don't think upcycling was yet trendy!)  They got someone in to do the wiring and plumbing etc.  But how much you can do will be strongly influenced by how much can you do - both practically and managing/finding the perfect tradesperson.

And what is the house like?  Changing internal walls can be trivial or major depending on if they are loadbearing or not.  Thinking of conservatories I have known your plan there sounds ambitious!

FreeBear

BalanceBy50 said: The conservatory is about 2.5m by 4m and is a single brick at the bottom and glazed at the top with a plastic corrugated type roof.  Is there anyway I can make this use able all year round?  It is about 15 years old and has no heating in.  It is accessed from our dinning room through aluminium (or some other metal from the late 60's) sliding doors.  It would be good to have the doors taken out and it be open plan from the dinning room.

To be honest, you really need to demolish the existing conservatory and build a proper extension if you want a habitable space that is usable all year round (and be compliant with building regulations). Whacking a lightweight roof on and removing the sliding door will diminish the value of your property and increase your heating bill substantially. And if you were to bung a stove in there, the flue would need to terminate above the roof line if closer than 2.3m to the main building.

Even if you were to cut corners, I have a feeling your £15K budget for the conversion is on the low side.

Gavin83

Assuming you aren't looking to do the work yourself....

I hate to say this but I think your budget is low on most of the points. Realistically to convert the conservatory to an all year round habitable space you'll need to demolish it and start again with a proper extension. It seems you've already had a quote for this so you've an idea what this'll cost. Open plan with a conservatory is a bad idea and it'll be a bodge job to attempt to make it suitable without demolishing it, a job you'll probably never be satisfied.

In terms of the bathroom we've had a few threads on here recently with people being quoted £14k for a relatively small bathroom and that wasn't high end either. You could argue that's high but I think you'll really struggle to get a bathroom, plus a downstairs toilet done for £7k. 

Flooring will depend on what type of flooring you want, the quality and the size of the house. I don't think £3k is unrealistic for a small 3 bed though assuming you aren't going high end.

As for the kitchen it will again depend somewhat on the size and how much you wish to change the layout. However unless you're looking to go super cheap I think you'll struggle to get a standard size kitchen done for £12k.

MikeJXE

Regarding you conservatory 

If it is made of plastic with a polycarbonate roof it is not strong enough to carry glass 

SadieO

I believe with a conservatory you have to have an external standard door between it and the room it's attached to. So I think if you wanted to open it up you'd have to make it a proper extension. (Plus if you did have a conservatory open to your house I think it'd suck all the heat out!)

GDB2222

I’d love to see a picture of the dreadful 1960s balustrade, please.