To think you can refurb a central London flat for £100k?

[Madhatterhouse]

Hi - I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of whether £100k (breakdown below) for the complete renovation of this prime central London (South Kensington) 2 bedroom, 850 sq ft flat is realistic? Anything I’ve missed? It needs a complete refurb, but in terms of structural changes only the removal of one stud wall. Due to location needs to be a fairly high end finish. I’ve sort of built trades/installation into the estimate below and am working on basis that these prices include VAT. Would love to hear from someone who has done similar in this part of town!

Kitchen inc tiling and appliances £35k
Bathroom inc tiling £13k
Cloakroom inc tiling £5k
Engineered Flooring in kitchen/living and two bedrooms £5k
Paininting and decorating £5k
Lighting £5k
Boiler £5k
Rewiring £5k
Overboarding and plastering £5k
Joinery for built in wardrobes/tv unit - £10k
Solid wood internal doors x 8 - £3.5k
Cast iron Radiators x 7 - £3.5k

Aware that windows and doors plus garden need looking at but have excluded for now.

Looks about right to me.
Price of flat is good too.

@trebla thanks for replying - I think I’ve been fairly comprehensive but will be first refurb (not even done DIY before! ) so I’m just keen to avoid any common pitfalls!

The only thing that stands out for me is the estimate for the engineered wood floor. I've just had a quote for my house for two rooms (living room 10x12ft and living/dining room 10x24ft) and that was £11K. Beautiful quality, though.

All of your other figures look to be what I'd expect for a good quality finish.

What do you plan to do with it after? Sell? Rent out? Live in it? Have you done your research re the figures? Is it worth spending this money? Will you recoup?

I am not sure if the finish you are going for, what part of Kensington it is in or what type of flat it is (ex housing association, mansion block or conversion for example) but you may need to factor in freeholder permission, building control, local council parking fees etc. The last one I did in that area which was around 10% larger in size but back in 2010 cost just over £120k and I was being very creative with my budget. I have done a couple more since and a fair few prior. I think you might need to allocate another £25-£40k. Sorry.

Flooring looks low, lighting looks low depending on what you mean by high-end, painting and decorating may also be low depending on how much work needs doing - one living room and two staircases just cost us £2.5k, but there was a lot of filling and prep work to do.

I have recently refurbished a flat in Essex and spent
£20k creating an extra bedroom
12k kitchen
£12k bathroom
£5k electrics
£7k lease extension
And gave been quoted a further £10k for plastering and redecoration of hallway.

I would add 20% of leeway if you are trying to assess what you can afford or how much you can spend to make the investment work. Not uncommon to start ripping out a kitchen or bathroom & find some plumbing issues that are costly to fix, or start on the walls and find they are in poor condition & the plaster needs a skim or even redoing etc. Also have you actually got your tradesmen lined up & agreed on price? Recently there seems to be a huge shortage and as a result they can charge whatever they want. Lots of friends have had a quote then 2 months later before work starts it's gone up 20+%. Also architects seem completely out of touch on what a builder will actually charge etc.

Ps anything where the estate agent openly states "would benefit being completed modernised" is usually a complete wreck/moneypit imho.

The property will be worth less than a million whatever you spend. An 850sq ft flat does not need a 5k boiler. I'd venture that you cd install a good John Lewis kitchen for closer to £20 and the bathroom for £10k BUT I agree with another poster - the flooring may cost more but whether a sub £1m flat needs top end engineered wood flooring I question. Have a look at JL again- they lay incredibly well.

Also question £10k for fitted wardrobes. I've a London carpenter who would do it for half that.

How will you fund the windows? They are essential. I'd get quotes for that and again ypu may find specialist joiners/glazers your best bet rather than sash window companies. The garden doors will be a pretty penny. You will also need pretty exquisite curtains op to show off that main window. A reasonable plain fabric perfectly made will set you back a minimum of £6k imo.

PS: I don't think Marloes Rd is South Ken. Might be worth taking windows into account and negotiating another £40-50k off. In SW London terms it's a starter flat OP and it needs to be contemporary and bright but it doesn't need to be top top end.

Why aren't you doing windows and doors yet? The garden doors look like single paned wooden doors so replacing with double glazing will help with heat retention. Will the replacements have to be wood? And will you replace the security bars or get grilles? Are you looking at tens of thousands of pounds for all that?

Presumably you'll need freeholder permission and planning permission so that will take time. And the walls around the frames will need redoing after the work is done.

Thanks for all the responses - I had a feeling it sounded kind of low but good to know what we need to revisit - thanks for the tips. It’s not an investment flat in that we plan to live in it, but obviously don’t want to pour money in that we won’t be able to recoup.

Check the lease terms - it may prohibit wooden floors, but if it doesn't then I think your flooring estimate is light.

Definitely in ball park
Flooring too low though

Something I think is essential for a basement flat in that location is an alarm!
Do bear in mind too that London Prime is not at the bottom yet and that flat has hung around from what I can see. What are you actually paying op?

It's a case of how long is a piece of string. The cloakroom cost seems high but if you are installing appliances into the kitchen that's tight for high spec, the flooring seems tight, you need higher spec than that will buy and I would put stone in the kitchen area. You could save on the radiators because even high end won't worry as long as they look good (I got lovely ones for £150 each)

It has an energy rating of E so likely needs insulation. Have you visited the flat? There looks like damp and mould in some rooms although hard to tell for sure on my phone.

I think that the rewiring might be a bit low as is the lighting and floors. You can go a bit lower on a kitchen - somewhere like Schmidt or some of the Hacker kitchens will come in a bit lower and depending on the size of kitchen I think you could do it for about £25k.

Flooring is a bit low, I think you’d be looking at a Quickstep at that price so add a bit more.

I think you need to deal with that door too. You can’t do a full refurb and leave that and you’ll need to spend a bit on getting the windows up to a decent standard even if you don’t do a full job on them.

You haven’t put anything into plumbing - you may need to replace some pipes and move pipes too so Have some contingency for that.

It says SSTC on the ad, is that you OP?

You will also need pretty exquisite curtains op to show off that main window. A reasonable plain fabric perfectly made will set you back a minimum of £6k imo.

Where are you getting curtains made

I have HUGE windows and got bespoke curtains made fully lined with thermal blackout for < £500 a pair. I’m not in London though.
My 2 living room windows needed 31 metres of fabric.

As others have said your budgeting is a little off

If you want to ultimately “turn it” (which you despite living in it) def don’t waste £10k on fitted wardrobes...
While it depends on the finish flooring looks low and you haven’t factored contingency funds for “surprises”

tradesmen are in short supply in London I just got a quote for some work I thought would cost £20-30k the quotes back were £35-55k

Your painting and decorating seems way too low. Last year in London I paid £2.5k for a single (large) room to be repainted, including woodwork. I also don’t think you’ll get a high-end kitchen for 35k.

It's hard to tell from those pics but are those old acoustic tiles on the ceilings? If they are and you're planning on removing them be aware they may contain asbestos. Getting asbestos removed can be very expensive. When I sold my flat the buyer asked us to get an asbestos survey done, might be worth asking if the flat has had one.

^ I was also going to say about asbestos - costs can massively increase for asbestos as special precautions for handling and disposal need to be made.

Also check plastering? We’re south not London and paid about that for plastering a 3 bed house (so bigger, but it was 8 years ago and we did lots of prep work ourselves). I’d be surprised if you can get a plasterer to do it all for what you’ve budgeted. We did go back to bare brick but you don’t know what you’ll find in a lot of places!

That said I think you can go lower end for some other bits - bottom end kitchens and bathrooms look rubbish but middle end can look great if you pick the right ones. Same with 10 k for fitted cupboards? That’s a lot!

Also if you’re willing to do a bit of work yourself then you can reduce the decorating budget. My finish looks good and I’m no decorator (but I am very careful and get someone in for tricky jobs). Or save time by prepping surfaces yourself - eg put the first wash coat on a newly plastered walls and pay someone to do the finish, or pva bare brick yourself rather than paying a plasterer to do it.

If you’re living there and not doing it up to sell, I would scrap the built in wardrobes and TV unit. I would lower the kitchen price but get high-end worktops/taps/fitting. Cloakroom for 5k?? I wouldn’t be spending 3.5k on doors either! Have you looked on eBay for original doors? If you ‘only’ have a budget of 100k to redo your entire home, I would reconsider your plan to pay out 35% of your budget in the kitchen.

Please bear in mind with my answers that we are about to move somewhere much bigger and needing same type of work, budget total will be about 35k. Lots of eBay, ex display, DIY, comparing quotes etc but still hoping for a high standard. Hoping to pull it off!