To ask about work you've had done on your house?

[Pigface1]

We're looking at buying a house that needs a load of work doing. The first part of the project would involve tearing out the existing kitchen, knocking down a wall between the kitchen and dining room, installing a new kitchen to make an open plan kitchen/dining area, installing a downstairs WC, and reinstating a back door into the garden.

We don't think we're going to extend but we haven't ruled it out.

Obviously I know no one on MN can give me a quote for this work but I'd be really interested to hear about work you've had done on your house, how much you paid, and any tips you'd pass on from the experience - e.g. About choosing builders.

Thanks!

New flat roofs
Rewiring
New bathroom/kitchen
Redecorating
Flooring
New boiler
Skimming over artex ceilings
Garden over haul with new patio
New windows/doors
Internal doors

The memories of having that all done while living in the house bring me out in a cold sweat,NEVER again!

Crikey dame you're brave - how much did that little lot set you back?

Confirm in writing/email any decisions you have made in conversation with builders...

We're planning a very similar project, and we're also undecided about extending. The issue for us is the cost of the extension vs. the actual square meterage we'd get in return. Too big and we'd lose garden space, too small and it's not worth it. There's been a building warrant granted in the past to knock down a wall, so that should be simple to renew.

We will be doing as much ourselves as possible. My dad is a retired building contractor so he will be doing the actual knocking down of walls and removing rubble so that hired builders can just get started.

Your architect should be able to give you a ballpark figure and will manage the build for you, but this can cost a few thousand alone. So consider managing it yourself if you feel able.

We haven't got actual quotes yet, sorry. But I can tell you you should always get at least 3 and also ask to speak to previous clients for testimonials.

A basic fitted kitchen with labour will be around 10k. Thats without walls knocked out. Without sizes it's hard to say but 30k at least?

Get lots of quotes,don't rush into anything. Try and use recommended trades people.

DO NOT PAY UP FRONT for labour

We had new kitchen, bathroom, Windows, carpet throughout, new wall up in large back room and one of the bedrooms to make it a 3 bedder.

In all cost around £25k. We borrowed half off the mortgage the rest either spread over interest free monthly payments (kitchen and Windows) and savings.

Spend lots of time getting quotes and speaking to professionals you will get a feel for who you can trust and who understands what you want. We had some ridiculous quotes from people thinking we wanted something really grand but we wanted it as basic as possible.

Since had the house valued and have added £50k so was worth doing but I was worried at times whether all the hard work would be worth it.

We moved into a house that was a hole but the space was phenomenal. We got it for about £20k less than it should've gone for because people couldn't see past the hideous decor.

1. Replaced 25 year old carpet downstairs with high quality laminate - £1000 (we fit it ourselves

1. Replaced falling apart 80s kitchen which was about £12k - got cheap units from DIY kitchens which was the best decision ever and high-end 5 burner hob. I have a relatively large kitchen so this price is quite low considering.

1. Redecorated living room which was only about £100 for wallpaper and paint and muslin curtains.

1. New boiler - went from conventional to combi which cost about £4K but the boiler is phenomenal.

1. Had hallway, stairs and landing professionally redecorated £900

We still need to:

Redecorate upstairs
New driveway
New front garden fence
Returf and level garden
Garden patio
New porch

We have to do it bit by bit as we don't have much spare cash at the moment.

I've done :

• Rewire
• Central heating installation
• Plaster repair and skim walls and ceilings
• New floor boards upstairs
• Skirting throughout
• New bathroom suite and tiles

-new Spindles and newal post on srairs

• Moved a stud wall to open up kitchen and create a study
• Installed new kitchen and tiled
• New windows installed

8 years on and still two rooms to go! done the majority myself with my dad and uncle who are both semi retired

Oh that also included having central heating installed.

New kitchen, patio, landscaping, decorating, floors sanded. It's a pain in the ass having people in your home, but worth it in the end. Just don't rush at it, take your time to live in the house and decide what you really want it to look like.

Just coming to the end of a five month renovation and we have: converted the garage and enlarged a small study to create two large, square rooms off our lounge; replaced flooring in receptions rooms and bedrooms with oak; tiled the bathrooms; tiled the floor of the kitchen diner and utility with slate; took a wall down and put a wall up, blocked doorway and extended another wall and shifted a doorway along to create the kitchen diner and to give us a big utility room that ran the length of the kitchen diner, rather than the cupboard that only housed a washing machine that was there before; had bookcases built in for my vast book collection! My advice? Get a bloody good joiner in, there wasn't a bit of the house he didn't have to work on! And joiners know everyone, they have a book of contacts if someone doesn't turn up. He also saved me a fortune by refitting the existing shaker-style kitchen to fit the new layout - we just painted the pine doors the colour we wanted and put on new chrome handles. It meant I could go mad with very expensive Corian worktops, which I love. We are also painting every inch of this house, ceilings walls and woodwork but we are doing it ourselves as we are running out of money and can't afford to get a painter and decorator in.

Redecorated every room and hallway top to bottom

• new or restored furniture in each one
• walls stripped, sanded, sized, papered (lining paper) and painted
• new lights and electrical fittings
• new heaters

Replaced every interior and exterior door and doorframe New carpets in bedrooms; Hardwood flooring in living room, hallways and inner porch New porch New bathroom External patio

We got contractors in to do the construction and/or fitting work for the porch and bathroom, but everything else I did myself. If you're planning on doing stuff yourself make sure you get a good split of tasks - it's pretty shit/exhausting when one person gets landed with everything.

Landscaped garden & planted up - £6k
Decorated throughout - £4K
New flooring to downstairs - £2.5k
New furniture - £4K
Bits of tiling/electrical/gas - £2k

Frightening when you add it all up but done over 3 years. House has gone up in value by about £40k (market rate rather than because of the work I've done) and there's about £100k capital in the house so comfortable that if I had to sell because my life fell apart it would sell quickly.

So far we've had:
DDs room new plugs put in and a hang down light pull removed, new ceiling light installed.
DDs room skimmed after we stripped about 8 layers of wallpaper off.
Floor board in that room repaired and new carpet.

Hall way and stair way carpet replaced.

Artex in dining room boarded over and skimmed.
Dining room wallpaper (again about 8 layers) stripped and the walls repaired and painted.

Living room just a basic repaint.

We've done all this (barring the electrics ourselves on a budget so far).

When the moneys raised over the years we plan to:

Have all the rooms skimmed and redecorated.
New wood floor in the downstairs hallway.
Kitchen knocked through into a kitchen diner.
Attic converted (although with just a pull down ladder, not a stair case building in).
Garden renovated.
House doors replaced and internal doors sanded, primed and reglossed (they're the lovely solid wood doors).
Bathroom replaced and retiled, stand alone shower added where the water tank is.
Water tank ripped out and boiler and central heating installed, which to have a combination boiler also includes having the water pressure fixed via the pipes under the main road.

Forgot to say, our electrician and plasterer were both friends of DP so work was done slightly cheaper. For everything we've had done and done so far I'd say we've spent about £2000 all in over the course of 2 years just about.
For everything that needs doing we've roughly estimated about £20k give or take.

We did something similar. Except that we did extend, we installed a new bathroom upstairs, rewired the entire house, repainted, re-carpeted.

It is painful, but totally worth it.

I won't tell you what we paid, because it would make you weep. But we are in Ireland, where building prices are gobsmackingly high.

Tips

Get the architect to manage as much of the project as possible
particularly the contractors (builders/plumbers).

Move out if you can. We stayed with parents in law, which was hideous, but actually better than the alternative.

Get lots of quotes/take your time. The builder was the most important contractor for us, so it was important to get that right. Luckily he was fabulous. The plumber on the other hand was a disaster. He quit/was fired mid job.

Investigate interest free credit cards and make good use of them. Good for paying for things like Kitchens.

Prioritise ruthlessly. Have a spreadsheet of money available and all out goings. Pay for what's important to you. We paid a lot of money for our flooring, which meant that we couldn't do some of the other things we wanted. I bloody love that floor though.

Agree a contract and payment terms. Pay in installments throughout the job. Brief your team to update on a weekly basis if anything is going over budget. Be clear that you hate surprises and need your expectations to be managed on an ongoing basis.

It's probably added about €100,000 to the value of our house. But we're in Dublin, which is a skewy market, so it's hard to work out how much comes down to the work we've done and how much is just inflation.

We've been in this house 10+ years and have slowly redecorated. It wasn't too bad though when we moved in.
We've changed all the windows, sunroom roof and new patio and front doors. New carpets in three bedrooms, mine still to be done; new flooring stairs, hall and landing. New wiring in dining room and got rid of artexed walls and ceilings and pretend beams. Wallpapered and painted hall, living room, dining room, kids bedrooms. Re-painted kitchen units three times! New flooring in kitchen. Downstairs loo's had a new toilet and re-decorated - lino for this room was £5. And we're half way through doing the garden. It's cost £2500+ up to now and will take that much and then some to finish, we're taking our time.

Yet to do: new boiler and radiators.
Painting exterior and spruce up front garden.
Our bedroom
New bathroom
Eventually, new kitchen.

Doubt very much that we have added any value to our home though. It's all about investing in a comfortable home that we love.

Have built large shed in garden instead of extending, landscaped garden, decorated whole house, replaced carpet with laminate, new kitchens, replaced open fire with wood burner, new windows. It's cheaper if you do the work yourself and if you source the materials yourself. All of this takes time and effort. Currently doing up another property....

Forgot to add costs money too, do your research first

Currently have a 24ft by 19ft extension on the back, downstairs toilet and new kitchen, exsisting kitchen being removed, gas pipes moved etc £35,000 complete with IKEA kitchen units. I love having building work done, plans etc but it's not for everyone. You have to fully embrace the mess, chaos etc for it not to drove you bonkers

Sorry should also say had loft dormer room with shower room, £35,000 complete including all decorating tiling etc.
Whole house needed replastering ceilings, walls, news doors and doorframes etc. Every room redone. Was empty for years before we moved in. Had for 8 years. Got for £310, now worth £800 however the London housing market has risen in general heaps but we have definitely added value in what we've done.

So far ..
-Fitted new boiler and central heating system
-Fixed urgent issue with roof
-Woodworm treatment, damp dealt with, inc rotten wood & plaster removed new fitted and skimmed
-Dining room redecorated inc new flooring, paper, paint, curtains & furniture
-Joiner built drawers, shelves, wardrobe to both attic bedroom plus full redecoration
-Have dug out very overgrown side garden levelled, found the paths and an extra foot of wall that was hiding behind the far too high flower beds, replanted and gravelled the paths
-Dug out area at back door, fixed broken sewer pipes added drainage and wood framing (will add a roof soon so we can get to the bins without getting soaked)
-Part way through a complete redecoration of DC3s room

Still to do
-Complete gut of living room, if budget allows will inc removing fireplace and installing log burner
-New floor in hall way, redecorate, carpet stairs and landings
-Redecorate both bathrooms, fit shower over bath in one or if lottery win replace fitting with separate bath and shower & change shower room to a wet room
-Decorate spare room as combo media centre/teenage computer/friend hangout space
-Decorate our room, including new built in wardrobes and drawers
-Decorate small man cave/PC room
Floor kitchen and utility, paint walls and tile, fit new (smaller) sink in downstairs toilet, redo shelves in storage cupboard to something I can use
-Remove derelict (3 car sized) shed and replace
-Remove dying 15 metre conifer hedge and fence garden, add decking/barbecue area, add in more 'French' drains at key spots to absorb run off water
-Re-render, remove excess plumbing pipes, repainted exterior
-Update porch, change front door, re roof to a slate slope rather than flat
-Remove gravel from front of house, increase drainage, put down cobble mats
-Get roofer in to deal with sag in ridge line

Closing my eyes to cost, doing as much as we can ourselves, loving my very handy BIL and forgiving SIL and reminding myself we got a bargain of a house and it's going to look great at the end of our 10 year plan (2/10 so far)

Watch "Big House/Little House" it's all about changing and extending two houses.

Homes under the hammer is good as well.

I'm planning changes next year and it's opened my thinking on what can be done.

Umm new carpets, new heating system, 'new bathroom' (tiling, new sealant, toilet seat etc), painted the bedroom, changed the oven. About to get new worktops and floor for the kitchen.

Still a lot to do! 😩