To ask how do people pay for home improvements?

[Wishful25]

We're looking at buying an old but beautiful property that needs a hell of a lot of modernisation. Prob 100k absolute minimum for the improvements. It is habitable now, and we would be happy to do a room / area at a time. The mortgage would be 1k a month and our net household monthly income is just short of 5k a month. If we need 20k minimum for the kitchen, 20k minimum to do a bathroom / bedroom, 20k minimum to do the outside / outbuildings, how would you approach that? I think yes we have disposable income but how do we best translate that into home improvements? Do we save each month and do one project every couple of years? Or get a loan for a project at a time and renew the loan every couple of years? I'm genuinely looking for advice! We'll be buying the property at 220k with a ten percent deposit. Thanks in advance.

[NuckyS]

Most basic jobs are easy to learn yourself, but when you have DCs the big hurdle is TIME!

[maddening]

If you can save enough for the work on the fabric of the building and extension then you would have increased the value of the house enough to create equity to finish the rest?

[teacherwith2kids]

Oh, yes - decorate yourself, always. It's entirely straightforward (DD, then 11, and DS, then 13 did their bedrooms with me last year, and I learned when I was younger than that) and MUCH cheaper. External painting is fine as well unless you're unhappy up a tall ladder.

Re-plumbing, re-wiring, plastering large areas we have used 3rd parties.

[NuckyS]

Every room in our house needed redecorating, plus a lot of external work.

We managed to afford it by me doing all the work myself, purchasing the materials. Had a couple of minor disasters but by and large went well.

We financed it from savings and short term loans. For a larger external project (which did require a contractor) we remortgaged.

[MaxieMouse]

We wanted to replace both kitchen and bathroom, but only had enough money for one of them. We got the kitchen done on a 0% finance deal for 2 years, there were plenty around, which meant we could afford the bathroom straight away.

[chrome100]

We bought a house that was pretty run down. We decided just to keep it as it was. Still got a minging bathroom and kitchen, but you know what? It really doesn't matter, both are functional and we would far rather have the cash to live life and enjoy ourselves.

[teacherwith2kids]

(I would also say that doing the 'whole house things' - water, electricity, heating - all at once was a HUGE saving, and we did those in the first few months by staying in rented for an extra period, the cost of which was paid for many times over by the reduction in cost for the work. We moved into a wreck as a result - lots of bare plaster, completely bare floors etc - but it meant we never had to go 'back' and re-lift a carpet or re-paint a wall.

[teacherwith2kids]

What we did - sounds like a similar property in that it needed re-writing, complete re-plumbing (water and heating), and new windows before we even began on new bathrooms and kitchen (latter needed building) - was take out an offset mortgage.

Basically that allowed us to go for a single 'mortgage process' for all the money we needed to buy the house and do the basic 'whole house' works. However, as that money was actually spent in stages over a period of time, the extra money sat in a dedicated savings account linked to the offset, into which we also 'swept' all spare money from the current account every month. The current account is also linked to the offset, but the 'two separate accounts' for house and everyday money really focused our minds in terms of 'saving up' / what we could afford / how day to day economies could quickly translate into paintpots and tiles.

The beauty of the offset meant that the 'not yet spent' refurbishment money brought down the interest payments each month. We chose to use that extra to overpay our (initially frighteningly large) mortgage, but an alternative would have been to pay less on the mortgage each month and plough the savings into the 'refurbishment savings account'.

We managed the whole thing without taking out any other loans or mortgages or overdrafts - though we continue to use that savings account for 'house', as a way of squirreling away money for new roof (next 5 years or so) or other projects (garage into granny annexe is next project, planning permission willing)

[Spartans]

Glad you have revised the figure OP.

It does sound like a lot. We are knocking through 2 rooms into one, new kitchen, then knocking 2 small bedrooms into 1. Then doing what is the current kitchen out into a bedroom. That's only costing 25k including a a good kitchen. But we don't have any rewiring etc to do.

[OublietteBravo]

We've just got used to the granny-chic look

We're supposed to be saving to start tackling the house, but the money keeps getting spent on holidays...

[LunchpackOfNotreDame]

20k for a bathroom?! We are planning 5-6k and that's fairly high spec!

We only do what we can afford to do from savings. I hate credit and debt.

[Wishful25]

Thanks all! So helpful as I have now started to look properly at kitchen / bathroom prices and yes I had way over-estimated! We will still have some structural expense (mainly one wall to knock through and one extension to build), but the rest should cost far less than I initially anticipated. I now think 50k but the next plan now is to work out exactly what we'd like to do and then cost it up properly.

[Fairylea]

There's no way you need to spend £20k each on a bathroom and a kitchen. Our kitchen cost £10k and that included building it from scratch!! (Huge extension at the rear of house). We measured the space ourselves and ordered units from wickes and got the builders to install it. We spent about £3k on the units themselves. Still going strong nearly 7 years on.....! We paid for that out of the equity difference.

We got out a loan to retile and refelt our roof. That was £5k. We used a 0% credit card to do lots of other little bits and bobs.

Don't spend £100k unless it makes your house worth more than that in the end!

[Whathaveilost]

Over the last few years we've had a kitchen extension, a new bathroom and a loft conversion. It cost around 60k. We saved and paid as we went along. I didn't want to re mortgage or take out of my main savings. It took us 2 and half years but was worth it.

[KathyBeale]

We've done a mixture of equity from our flat and remortgaging. However in the five years we've lived here we have: fitted a complete new kitchen (there was basically just an empty room!), knocked the dining room and living room through, knocked out fireplaces, knocked out old cupboards in the bedrooms and fitted wardrobes, refloored the hall and downstairs spare room, redone the bathroom and knocked it into one room, had a driveway laid, completely redone the garden, relaid the lawn and had a patio laid. In total we have spent about £35k. So £100k on all that seems extremely expensive!

[Whoknewitcouldbeso]

• mortgage is new

[Whoknewitcouldbeso]

Remortgage or if like us the portage is new and there is no equity, do things very very s l o w l y.

[Bearbehind]

hackedoff I've assumed the OP is going to be rewiring the house given the level of modernisation required, therefore not working from existing circuits.

Also, it's an offence to work on an existing circuit in a 'dangerous area' like a bathroom unless the work is certified.

I think a lot of pp's are very relevant though- is the house really worth this level of investment?

[backwardpossom]

We had saved £15k and remortgaged to come up with the rest of the money for the extension we're building. We've been doing up every room one by one as we go up until this point, watching the pennies because we were saving for the extension!

[poocatcherchampion]

£100kseems a lot.

If it need rewireing, new plug sockets, new radiators etc do them first - not on a room by room basis. We've spent about £15k so far on windows, kitchen, one bathroom, boiler, plastered ceilings and carpets and paint for 4 bedrooms. 1 bedroom and two bathrooms to go. Taken 2 years so far.

It's been fun!!!

[sproketmx]

We do most of ours ourselves. We got a 3 bed house for 60 grand so you can imagine what needs doing. Buy the kit cheap or second hand, watch you tube videos and do it yourself. I'm better with plumbing, hubby's the better sparky, he plasters I tile, he paints I paper, he does the flooring and I walk in on it and shout at him that he's missed bits

[HicDraconis]

We built rather than renovated so situation slightly different, but we moved into a shell (walls mostly in but not all, no kitchen, one flushing toilet, two sinks, no carpet / curtains).

Our mortgage is split into two loans - one is a standard repayment and the other is revolving credit. All income goes into the revolving credit loan, which offsets the interest. When there's enough available in that loan, we take it out again and use it on whatever needs doing next. We did kitchen first (after 6 months), then bathrooms (showers, sinks, bath, more loos, tiling) and finally carpets / curtains. Last thing to finish was building/plastering and painting a non essential internal wall. Took us 3 years and now we're using the same system to sort the garden out piecemeal.

All monthly spending goes on a credit card (to maximise the time the funds are in the offset loan account) which is cleared at the end of each month. It works but you have to be fairly strict with budgeting and spending. Ultimately when we've finished we'll pay down the offset loan then use that to pay a chunk of the repayment loan (different interest rates) until it's all gone.

Then we'll start again with repairs / repainting / redoing :)

[Notasinglefuckwasgiven]

Mine needed upgrading. Bathroom was awful. Ripped out the 60s suite.....just in time for it to come back into fashion

[hackedoffnow]

Depends if you can afford it. You would be pretty silly to buy a Gucci bag on a credit card if your roof was leaking.

[XCChamps]

I don't understand why all spending on renovations has to be an good investment. We spend money, when we can, on nice cars, holidays,shoes, just because we like and want them. Why not spend it on your dream kitchen, that you'll use everyday, just because you want to,even if it doesn't make sense financially?