Renovation costs: with or without all our furniture

[afussyphase]

We plan to take down an internal, load-bearing wall, and remove some decorative arch things in the sitting room as well as an oddly-placed pantry. We also need to do some rewiring, and put in new floors. We've been acting on the assumption that since this all sounds so much easier to do without all our belongings in the house yet, it will also be cheaper. Does anyone know if builders and floorlayers, and painters, actually charge less for a job when your stuff isn't there being in the way? Thanks!

Interesting question this. We are coming to the end of a massive renovation. Clearly, us not having lived there has been an advantage to the builder on loads of levels - not least not having to bust a gut to get electrics/plumbing up and running and allowing tradesmen to leave the place and lock up without clearing up.

When we got quotes, some builders said they might consider a reduced rate if we didn't live in it. The one we chose didn't.

The renovation was supposed to take 14 weeks and it's actually going to be 19.....

We have had huge works done on our house and we spoke to lots of builders. No one said they'd charge us less if our stuff was in storage.

One builder did have a lock-up and said we'd be able to put our larger items of furniture in there (no charge). But we didn't pick them...

It's obviously better for all if you are not in the home but we couldn't move out. We did stick lots of boxes in friends garages and spare rooms.

It does add time onto the build as they have to plan and organise more. Our build was supposed to be 14 weeks. We are on week 17.

Hm, interesting - I guess I thought it would be more obvious. After all it must be way easier for builders if people and their things aren't in the space - but maybe not. I guess moving all the furniture to the next room doesn't really take that long or something. We have a builder coming tomorrow so I'll ask him...