Do-er upper

[shandydrinker]

Ok, so Ive fallen in love with a house, its perfect for us and just within our budget but needs lots of work before we could live in it. We could never afford to live in this area in a house already done.

So I need advice. I reckon it needs a new central heating system and boiler, then a knockthrough into kitchen/diner and then extended out the back. New kitchen. New bathroom and old shower taken out and new wall put in upstairs.

Thats before floors and decoration...

We need to try and get it for the lowest price.

Where do I start?
What order do you need to do things?
How do I find a builder?
What about planning consents?

Any advice or encouragement would be welcome, I have the vision and am in love but need to persuade dh it will all be worth it. Oh and we have two ds under 3... so am also sleep deprived and possibly deluded?

I'm in a similar position. We've seen a 3 bedroomed house that we'd like to convert to 5 beds/ensuite etc.

We took a builder and an architect to get a price. The builder doesn't need to be the one you use - try to get a recommendation.

If you buy the house, then you need to get an architect on the case. They will draw up plans and you submit them for approval.

It might be a good idea to go to the planning department before you buy the house because there are loads of rules about what you can/can't do.

We had a quote for our do-er upper. It included rewiring, central heating, boiler, windows, extension etc but didnd't include the actual kitchen or bathrooms. The quote came in at 110k so we're thinking £150k in total. You really need to be sure about what you're getting into financially.

Also (I've extended before) you may need to account for storage for at least some of your furniture/belongings (about £100 per month) plus possibly the cost of renting something else for a while when the work is going on (it was extremely stressful for me and we didn't have kids then). It can be hard to find a rental for short-term let. Minimum seems to be 6 months, though with so much property hanging about on the market, you might find a vendor who's willing to let you an empty property.

Good luck!

Pickle thank you.
How did you find your architect? can you just ring the planning dept?
Good idea about budgeting for rental, think we would have to rent while work was being done.
Have you offered on your property yet?

Ask for recommendations from friends for a builder. If none forthcoming, then you could try TrustaTrader website.

It is very stressful, especially with little kids. But can be great to get the house exactly the way you want it.

I only did part of our house and it was a nightmare living in it at that time with a toddler. Do love it now though.

Sometimes the builder can recommend an architect. In our case, we ahd a friend who had recently extended so I used her architect for the quote (I wasn't too hapy with our previous architect so didn't want to go back to him).

The planning dept might well recommend an architect.

With regards to planning, you can just show up in the office and they will discuss your ideas "in principle" - which can be useful or useless depending on which planning officer you get to see.

In our case, we took aerial shots of the house from google maps and a rough drawing of what we wanted to do. We'd already discussed with the architect what they thought would be allowed so we had an idea.

I hope you don't want to buy the same house as we do!

No, we haven't offered yet. We had an offer on ours a couple of weeks ago but it all went a bit pear shaped!

Thanks Doozle. My friend has come up with a good builder for us, however, he is a bit booked up for next few months. Hoping he will be able to come out and have a look at the house with us and give us some advice - Im thinking we should offer to pay him for his time for this?

Im thinking it may be easier to get the knock through and everything but the extension done, move in, then do the extension or conservatory after a year or so. No need for planning permission etc.

Pickle good luck with selling your place, where is the house you have your eye on? ours is N Surrey

Ah no, thankfully it's not the same house

No - don't pay the builder for his time! He's prospecting for work!