Me and my partner and our five month old daughter have recently been given a council house which isn’t built yet, it’s going to be finished by the end of this month (November 2017) and I had some queries:
What should I expect decorating wise? Will any be done? If not, what is the average cost of decorating? We have a two bedroom apartment by the way.
Basically, we want to give ourselves an overview of what to expect and on average the time span we should expect it to take to be in liveable condition.
I expect as with all new builds it will be magnolia or white throughout. Not sure about flooring though. As it is a new build of course it will be in a liveable condition from day one! Can you speak to your contact at the council and ask them about this? They seem the most obvious person to ask.
How lovely! We looked round a newly built council house. No carpets, but lino in kitchen. Everything was painted magnolia, and we were told you couldn't paint / put up picture hooks or fix blinds up or anything for the first 12 months, in case there were any issues which the developer would need to sort.
Thank you to everybody who has advised however, to those who answered regarding asking the council, they’ve been fairly confusing as well as contradictory with their replies to us.
I came on here for advice and people’s personal experiences, not for abuse or being insinuated as silly for not doing the obvious.
My main question was for people to comment their experiences for us to get an insight and generally see what we should expect as it’s our first home and we have been fairly lucky to get a new build but I wondered whether somebody was in a similarly sized property which was also new build or somebody who had experience in the situation could give us an estimate of what work needed doing.
Completely varies between councils as they are allowed to write their own policies so if someone says all the walls were painted white unless they lived in the same area it would be meaningless to you.
Could be just plaster or basic magnolia.
Ignore the council house jealousy OP, your entitled to affordable housing.
Let me guess, you think she wants to know where to put her 60inch plasma and what her goat will eat if there’s no grass yet
It will be magnolia OP, as PP said no decorating or anything on the walls until the place has settled. You may or may not need carpets. Enjoy your new home. Ignore the sarcasm up thread.
No experience of Council House, but experience of new-builds. As other people have said they will be finished in "Builders Finish" which is usually magnolia walls and white gloss woodwork throughout. Sometimes it is white instead of magnolia, but that is rarer.
You're not advised to decorate for 12 months because the builders are still responsible for any faults or cracks that may appear. Cracks will appear as the whole house dries out, and the builders will perform "snagging" at anytime between 6 and 12 months after build. Snagging can involve just minor repairs, or complete re-plastering of a wall if it cracks badly. These things don't reflect on the quality of the build, just that different weather conditions can mean that buildings dry out at different rates, resulting sometimes in minimal cracking/shrinking, and sometimes much more.
The floors will be finished either in vinyl tiles, or a bitumen finish (that looks like vinyl/lino) which gives a good flat surface ready for carpet and or tiles to be laid on top. Again it is preferable just to use rugs until the snagging has been performed, but the council and/or builders will give you information on this as floor coverings vary much more than walls/woodwork.
can you quote the abusive posts please?
