To think I can do all this for £10,000?

[Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]

My house desperately needs a revamp, to the extent that it's causing my depression to rear it's ugly head just living in it.

(I realise I sound horrible and entitled...at least I have a house etc)

I was hoping to get additional borrowing on our mortgage and do a renovation for about £45,000 knocking through some walls etc but OH says we can't afford the payments.

So I've been looking at what the minimum we would need doing to make the house feel nice and this is my list.

Laminate floor in living room and kitchen/dining room

're paint downstairs

Get kitchen cupboards sprayed and over professionally cleaned

New sofas

Coffee table/tv stand

New interior doors

Carpet upstairs

Paint 3 bedrooms

New floor in bathroom

're tile ensuite
New floor ensuite (more like a cupboard, very tiny)

New bed x2

New garden fence on one side

I've spent the day on Pinterest and looking for ideas of costs and I reckon we could do it for £10,000 if we are careful.

Both of us are shit at DIY so would have to pay for everything except the painting which we can do ourselves.

Are we kidding ourselves that it can be done for 10 grand?

Depending on if you have corners, tiling can be done yourself. I’ve done it and had no experience! If you’re painting yourself (recommended to save money), don’t be tempted to cut costs on the paint- it’s worth more money for a more durable paint for example in the kitchen. I second the advice to do one room at once- living in a half finished renovation can be a bit demoralising, but finishing a room is so satisfying.

Depends where you live. Up North - easily could finance the work with £10k. London - the £10k might just about cover the Decorating and Internal Doors.

You've just reminded me about vinyl wood effect flooring. I would be tempted to go for that.

This is how I've budgeted for the big items:

Floors downstairs - £2000
Kitchen re spray - £1000
Interior doors - £500
New sofas - £1500
Upstairs carpets - £1000
Beds x2 - £1000
Bathroom floor x2 -£500 (vinyl)
're tile ensuite - £500
Fence - £1000

That is Over estimating on everything/rounding up so should leave us with enough for furniture and paint we can just buy out of our wages.

Doing one room at a time wouldn't work due to the layout of the house. Would look very mismatched and probably piss me off even more.

We would still be using additional borrowing on the mortgage but obviously 10,000 would be far lower in terms of monthly repayments than £40,000 so we could afford it.

The other option is to move but a lot of this work would need doing in order to sell the house/get a decent offer, and by the time the work was done I wouldn't want to move. Catch 22!

We would probably have to do the same thing in 5/10 years but I wouldn't be surprised if we had moved by that point for other reasons.

The house has increased in value since we bought it by about 100,000 so I'm not worried about losing money in a big way long term by borrowing additional mortgage.

I'm thinking if we borrow £15,000 we can definitely do it all and maybe get a couple of other jobs done too.

Oh I'm up north by the way. Cheap as chips up ere with our whippets and flat caps

I rent a hovel so am limited with what I can do, but I just wanted to sympathise with the way that living somewhere which needs a lot of work can affect your mental health.

I do think doing one room at a time would be a better plan, and I'd be inclined to do the living room first, then any painting jobs, then new beds and then move on to other things on your list.

The sofas I covet seem to come in around £1,200 or more, and I have definitely recently appreciated how expensive a good mattress can be. I think if you pick a room and do that, it will help your mental health a lot. Sometimes the scattergun approach is tempting is you're feeling a bit low, but it doesn't always work. Slow and steady wins the race. I look around my rented house and despair a lot, but I'd jump at the chance to own it (though it's unlikely I'll ever own a home) and have even the chance to do all the millions of major jobs that need doing to make it less of a shithole, so I suppose It's about perspective.
Good luck.

I think it's doable. We've been carrying out similar works and it cost us in the mid thousands. It has been so, so worth it. Made a huge difference to our mood, being in a nicer environment. I would start off getting some quotes, costs might vary depending on where you are in the UK. We've had lino fitted in the living room and it actually looks really good with a nice rug. Lino in living room and kitchen and carpet up 2 flights of stairs plus 2 landings came to £1300. IKEA table and chairs £170, sofas £1000 (Stocksund, very comfy), bookcase/small tables/tv stand £500 from oak furniture land. Looking at getting kitchen re wrapped with vinyl, small kitchen quoted £700. We're in Yorkshire. I've been happy to spend the money because it really feels worth it.

Thanks @RhubarbTea for you too.

To try and illustrate why one room at a time wouldn't work.

Downstairs, floor runs through living room to dining room/kitchen and the bit in the kitchen has a big section missing thanks to a flooded dishwasher. It's been like that for 2 years.

Very dark wood skirting boards also run through all 3 rooms so doing 1 and leaving the others would look awful.

Can't replace interior doors without doing the skirting boards due to same dark wood issue and vice versa.

Plus as we are borrowing the whole amount there's really no need to do one room and then save in the meantime. It's probably going to take a couple of months to get everything done during which time I can throw myself into painting and wallpaper scraping like a lunatic!

If my experience is anything to go by, the biggest challenge will be finding people to do the work. The building/decorating trade is massively busy at the moment.

I’d do a fair bit of that myself.

And I’d do the cupboards using Frenchic paint. Will save a fortune.

I did vinyl floor myself due the first time and it was easy. Less than £150

I painted tiles using Frenchic and it’s been amazing - I thought it would be really shit.

Laminate is DIY-able but tricky and hard physical work.

It depends on what’s there. Do you need fence panels only? Or new posts too?

pumpkin - can I have your decorator’s number please?! That is insanely cheap!

You won’t do all that on 10k. I was quoted 4K for repairing my kitchen cupboards and new top, I bought a new kitchen cheaper. Tiling is expensive depending on how much you want doing

Laminate depends on the quality

Doors, I have had 11 replaced £2k and they were not the expensive ones

I suppose sofas and beds could be buy now pay later or take finance, but they won’t be cheap

I simply don’t think you will do it on that budget

Not possible unless done to a very cheap standard.

I think you’re pricing up the wrong activity here. It does rather sound as if you wanted to spend £45K to buy your way out of depression. £45K is a fuck of a lot of money - and shouldn’t have needed your husband to tell you that it was unaffordable.

So Plan B is £10K.

But you’re coming up with excuses about how you can’t do one room at a time. Sorry - that’s nonsense. Of course you can. It does often make sense to do one job at a time - for example, all interior doors whilst you’ve got the tools out for that, or all carpets if getting “free” (included in the price, really) fitting. But I don’t believe you can’t do this in sensible stages.

Of course environment affects mental health - but that’s a hell of a long list that you need, and I’d be concerned that you’d have your clean new paintwork and still have a bout of depression.

You can do all that for £10K, but it’s all then going to wear out / look tired at the same time. Far better to have a rolling programme or you’ll just have to find £10K (plus interest??) when you “need” sofas and beds and fencing at the same time again.

That just seems a very big list of things... do you really need two new beds AND all new interior doors?

I’d set aside the plans for a week and concentrate and what you can do you help your feelings of oncoming depressing, before you start spending. Fair enough if that includes your home environment - but then prioritise, a room at a time.

Good luck, I hope you stay well

@Foreverinpajamas That seems like a good price for all that work, it gives me hope

OH seems on board with my plan so I've said we will wait until we have both had 2nd jab (CV and paranoid!) And start getting quotes. Then we will know how much we need to borrow. May be able to get it all done over the summer if we are lucky. And then next winter won't be such a depressing prospect!

@pumpkinpie01 that’s ridiculous he must be working for peanuts.

FWIW i live in the north. £1000 for a whole upstairs carpeting? No way.

Is it 2 beds for £500 each? Is that just for frame?

I think you are being quite optimistic tbh. I did that i had downstairs redone first, and am saving up for upstairs refurb.

You won’t do all that on 10k. I was quoted 4K for repairing my kitchen cupboards and new top, I bought a new kitchen cheaper. Tiling is expensive depending on how much you want doing

The kitchen doesn't need replacing though that's my point. The cupboards are fine, the work top is really nice black granite. It's just dated. Therefore having it professionally painted/sprayed is the best idea in my opinion.

Doubtful - even going for low cost, and so quality. Much of you spending will go on labour.

Try doing some of this yourself.

Perhaps prioritise? Get quotes.

Spend some time on You Tube and have a go at a few jobs after researching how to do them. B&Q have help sheets.

Hanging new doors is tricky if you’ve not done them before but renovating one is quite easy - and cheaper.

How big is your house? I think your flooring costs and internal doors costs are too low if they include labour. Internal doors generally need adjusting which takes quite a lot of faffing about. You could easily pay £500 just for the fitting. Unless you know someone and get mates rates labour is usually very costly

We cross posted with some of your reasons why you can’t just do one room... of course you can!

Two options for your skirting boards:

• just do the part in the room you’re working on. Close the door - you won’t see the room behind the door.
• do all the skirting boards as one job, and accept that it matters not a jot is the lounge has lovely fresh skirting + new sofas etc, whilst the kitchen has lovely skirting but is still waiting for cupboards to be painted

Also - stop thinking of it as £10K. Yes, for budgeting the outlay it’s £10K, but what are actually going to pay back? You say there’s no point waiting. Of course there is! Take out a lower loan, and save at the same time, saving to fund the next stage. Much better than wasting money on interest.

So it's flooring, painting and furniture. Buy the furniture nearly new or from Trade Secret. Shop around aggressively for a deal on the floor coverings. If you were confident in DIY it would be possible for a normal size house, I'd try and stretch your budget a bit to make sure things are done properly.

You can buy new kitchen cupboard doors and fit them yourself. Not sure how costs compare but if you don’t have a huge number of doors it could be cheaper

My decorator charged me £1500 for downstairs (3 rooms)
My carpet upstairs was £1000
My flooring downstairs was £1200 (including real wood and tiles)
My sofas were £1500

We didn’t replace doors but they can be done for £100-£150 each

Easily doable

We paid £500 for £14 kitchen cupboards to be professionally spray painted in farrow and ball

We paid £200 for bed frames from feather and black in the sale

The mattress was from the Hypnos factory shop and was a splurge at £700 but was half price at that and we’ve had just as comfy mattresses for £300 before