Refurbishing a small 1br in London
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philthetall
Posts: 3 Newbie
Hi everyone,
and thanks in advance for all your thoughts and comments. While I often follow threads on MSE, this is actually my first post and hopefully not my last. I was recently fortunate enough to buy a small one bedroom apartment (340sqft, 31m2) in a central London location (Grade 2 listed building). I had a surveyor look at it and while he suggested it is a good purchase, he acknowledged that it is most definitely 'dated'. Basically, while its 'livable' I'm really hoping to:
- replace the old damaged hardwood floors with new ones in the entire flat
- Replace the bath room in its entirety - including new tiling on the floors, etc.
- Get a new Kitchen
- replace the electrical heating with a central heating system
- replace the hot water cylinder heater with a combi-boiler
- re-paint and re-decorate
- new insulation (it's a period conversion and the acoustics are horrible)
Generally-speaking, I'd like to do this to a high-standard, meaning not designer appliances, etc., but decent quality ones. What are your best guesses of where I should come out in terms of cost? Any advice on how I should go about this?
I've kind of tried to look at the material costs and labour costs separately (as quoted for London on different forums) and came out with the below (~£25k total)
Insulation : Materials: 5,599; Labour: 720; Total 6,319
Floors: Materials: 1,261; Labour: 559; Total: 1,820
Central Heating: Materials: 2,234; Labour:1,200; Total: 3,434
Bathroom: Materials: 1,740; Labour: 2,556; Total: 4,296
Decorating Total: 3,000
Kitchen Total: 6,500 (just guessing here)
and thanks in advance for all your thoughts and comments. While I often follow threads on MSE, this is actually my first post and hopefully not my last. I was recently fortunate enough to buy a small one bedroom apartment (340sqft, 31m2) in a central London location (Grade 2 listed building). I had a surveyor look at it and while he suggested it is a good purchase, he acknowledged that it is most definitely 'dated'. Basically, while its 'livable' I'm really hoping to:
- replace the old damaged hardwood floors with new ones in the entire flat
- Replace the bath room in its entirety - including new tiling on the floors, etc.
- Get a new Kitchen
- replace the electrical heating with a central heating system
- replace the hot water cylinder heater with a combi-boiler
- re-paint and re-decorate
- new insulation (it's a period conversion and the acoustics are horrible)
Generally-speaking, I'd like to do this to a high-standard, meaning not designer appliances, etc., but decent quality ones. What are your best guesses of where I should come out in terms of cost? Any advice on how I should go about this?
I've kind of tried to look at the material costs and labour costs separately (as quoted for London on different forums) and came out with the below (~£25k total)
Insulation : Materials: 5,599; Labour: 720; Total 6,319
Floors: Materials: 1,261; Labour: 559; Total: 1,820
Central Heating: Materials: 2,234; Labour:1,200; Total: 3,434
Bathroom: Materials: 1,740; Labour: 2,556; Total: 4,296
Decorating Total: 3,000
Kitchen Total: 6,500 (just guessing here)
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Comments
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Do your costings, and designs, take into account the grade 2 listing ? https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/your-home/owning-historic-property/listed-building/0
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Hi Molerat,
of course - I will attend a surgery at my local council from the planning department and hopefully get to understand this process a bit better. The above kind of represents my costing but I always get the impression that these sort of 'costing exercises' don't add up with builders obviously charging above this to project manage and carrying certain risks. Appreciate any thoughts!0 -
£25k in central London?
I spent more than that in Reading 6 years ago.0 -
Hi jko,
that's interesting - was the scope you did larger than for my flat? How large was your place? Sorry, I'm just trying to really get on top of this - or do you think I'm completely under-estimating here?
I read that you should think of refurbishment cost around £800 to £1000 per m2 in the South East - so for London I figure we could go to £1200-1300. That would of course put me a little higher (£40,300).0 -
Welcome to MSE.
Factor in costs (direct fees and/ indirect time delays) of liaising with/ getting the consent of the freeholder or their managing agent and/ or Building Control at the local council.
If you are unlucky you could spend months bouncing between your contractors, the freeholder, Building Control and Planning trying to find solutions that are acceptable to all parties.
Any structural work within the flat, or anything affecting the outer envelope of your flat (external walls/ in the ceiling/ under the floor) may well need the written consent of the freeholder. Read your long lease carefully before you begin.
HTH!Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️0 -
Your prices simply for kitchens and bathrooms are low spec, not high at all.
Last 1 bed in Central London we did came to £38k. 6/7 years ago?
You would need Listed Building Consent to change the floorboards. I'm fairly certain they'd ask you to only replace the broken ones. It would be simper to install a floating floor over the existing one. It takes forever to get LBC and they may well not be that amenable when a floating floor is a reasonable alternative.Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
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