If you have done major house refurbishment - what worked well, and what do you wish you hadn't bothered to do?

[TheEternalOptimist]

We have bought a small terraced house in Scotland. It is in pretty good condition but does need a fair bit of work.

1. New windows - anyone got a recommendation?

1. New boiler - currently electric storage heaters. Possibly interested in wood burning stove in living room, and gas central heating

1. New flooring - real wood for living room and hall. Tiles for kitchen. Again looking for recommendations.

1. Bathroom and kitchen - any recommendations?

1. Remove wall between dining and living room, make one double door instead of 2 individual doors.

1. Garden - needs completely redone. I would like dry stone walls, but not sure if they are going to be really expensive.

One thing we were wondering about, is whether there are any kind of grants available when installing new windows/gas heating etc (energy saving).

We are hoping to do most of the work next year and then re-mortgage at some point to spread the costs.

If you have already done major work on your house - what do you regret? What works really well, and what was a waste of money?

Feel free to share bright ideas :o

garlic
They are as you describe - along one wall with a landing in the middle. My parents have a similar house but with huuuge hall and stair and then another huge hall upstairs. Makes the house look much smaller and pokier.

going for top notch everything and we may run out of money

My best ever tip for this - Buy B&Q kitchen units and have a carpenter custom-build from them. B&Q are sturdily made and their wood is good, solid stuff. Nobody believed mine wasn't hand-made by craftsmen ... it was fitted by a craftsman, is all :)

Oh, good, the stairs are already out of the way Glad you know what I meant!

No, it was built early 70s.

oooh, I like those worktops.

Merry
What was the problem with the fridge freezer?

We have done quite a bit or work since moving in. We have had to prioritise and do it in stages as money is tight!

The first thing we had to do was the bathroom. It was awful! A horrible green colour and I couldn't stand it! We used a local provider for this but did get a quote from this site www.bathroomquoter.co.uk/

Next we did the windows and back door that led into our garage as I was a bit worried about the security. For this we used www.doubleglazingontheweb.co.uk/ and ended up going with them.

Then we did some general cosmetics on the bedrooms.

After that was the downstairs toilet.

The only thing to do now is the kitchen. I'm dreading this bit. At least when we did the bathroom we could use the downstairs toilet and visa versa,but not sure what we are going to do when the kitchen is being done. Plenty of take-aways I think!

With regards to your question about do you regret anything. The answer is no, just wish we could have done ot over a quicker time frame, but that's because of the cost.

Sheep
We will be living in the house till early next year before we can afford to start on the work, so plenty of time to find out what needs changed.

If you're having a combination boiler get an electric shower, if your boiler breaks down you've still got hot water. Woodburning stoves need a lot of cleaning as the glass blackens, you can get electric ones, although the decent ones are expensive, I would still have a radiator in that room.

Well, it gets beads of water at the back which is very common with fitted fridge freezers I believe as they produce heat to keep the fridge cold, but then there is nowhere for this heat to go (makes sense, just never thought about it). They also therefore use more power. Freestanding ones, the air can just circulate freely into the atmosphere. Also, the cupboard door of the freezer keeps coming off as it gets a lot of use and it's so hard to fit back because the freezer door gets in the way. Never again!

Love those glass worktops. Would second the splashback/ upstand thing. I have a thin line of glass tiles (about 5cm high) all around the worktop and then a splashback behind the sink/ tap (cooker has its own one). I got mine from here in the sale (they do great sale offers) and I love it. To be honest, I wish I'd got it first and designed my whole kitchen around it.

My pull out larders are brill. I have 2 (Ikea kitchen) and they are fine a year later. I have pretty much everything in them food-wise, so they get tons of use and I would say those and my large drawers for pots and pans are my fav kitchen items.

Oh. You are living in the house when the work will be done? Do you have kids? We did upstairs bathroom and extension/ new kitchen/ downstairs bathroom and it was a complete nightmare for 10 weeks. I had no kitchen/ sink for about 8 weeks. I think just leaving the upstairs till another time would have helped a lot.

cuppatea
My mum had an electric shower and you had to run around to get wet. I guess that there have been improvements since then though.

Confused about the tiles, but think I have to go and have a look at them. I know the style I want, but not what they are called.

yes, we will be living in the house but my parents live just minutes away so if need be we can move in there while the worst of it is being done.

I second finding space to put a downstairs loo.

In the main bathroom if you want a towel warmer also add a radiator so you don't have to chose between warm towels or a warm room!

Have downstairs loo and am debating putting shower in.

Will go for radiator

My parents just had their kitchen done and my mum loved having no kitchen as she didn't have to cook!
They lived off microwave meals and takeaways. But now they have a kitchen again she feels obliged has gone back to cooking.

[http://www.mumfordwood.com/ phenomenally good windows].

were really expensive but we haven't regretted them for a minute. in fact we bought cheaper ones for another window and have totally regretted that.

dammit

Downstairs loo - def.

Power points - put in double ones in the kitchen and anywhere else you can. Marginally more expensive, but saves having to unplug stuff when you want to hoover. In bedrooms, don't just put power points behind the bed - put one on a wall thats easily acccessible.

Lastly - (and I know its a way off...) but think where your christmas tree will go. I failed spectacularly to locate any power within 3 metres of where we put our tree, and EVERY christmas it pisses me off!

We have bought a small terraced house in Scotland. It is in pretty good condition but does need a fair bit of work.

1. New windows - anyone got a recommendation? Get double glazed with pilkington energy saving glass, it really does make a difference keeping heat in

1. New boiler - currently electric storage heaters. Possibly interested in wood burning stove in living room, and gas central heating wood burner will mean fire doors which are ugly unless you spend loads. But, it will take over from your boiler, how cheap is a load of wood where you are?

1. New flooring - real wood for living room and hall. Tiles for kitchen. Again looking for recommendations.

engineered wood floors, not solid which can move, bow and split. The engineered stuff have 5mm+ of oak or whatever on top and so can be refinished if necessary.

1. Bathroom and kitchen - any recommendations? Search eBay for bathroom fittings from clearance houses, ditto kitchens. It is far cheaper to buy clearance stuff and hire a joiner to fit than employing a bit kitchen firm. I totally agree on the fitted fridge, mine was the biggest they did and I still have a second one going...

1. Remove wall between dining and living room, make one double door instead of 2 individual doors. Needs a good builder for the rsj but a bigger room will be great with that wood burner.. They chuck out a LOT of heat

1. Garden - needs completely redone. I would like dry stone walls, but not sure if they are going to be really expensive. Monstrously expensive if you get them done properly, if you get a bs gardener they will fall apart in under 2 winters.

One thing we were wondering about, is whether there are any kind of grants available when installing new windows/gas heating etc (energy saving). go and talk to your council, they may have grants for insulation, alternative power etcetc

We are hoping to do most of the work next year and then re-mortgage at some point to spread the costs.

If you have already done major work on your house - what do you regret? I regret going with the arsehole builder we chose out of desperation as nobody wanted our project because we are remote. Got with gut instinct, meet lots of them, and if it means a delay getting started accept it.
We wish we had!

yes - second that. power sockets.

we have 16, yes, 16 in our study. and they are ALL being used. could do with a few more.

i don't think i regret doing anything on my renovation, only the cost cutting exercises. but those were sadly necessary.

Claude
They look fab, but suspect they will blow up our budget.

We do have to be careful that we don't spend too much. Not that we would not want to, but at some point we will come to the break-even point, which would make it impossible to recoup the cost.

Power points - yes, very much want LOADS cause we never have enough.

We used to live in abroad and they had power points connected to the light switches, so that you could come into the room and with one flick of a switch, turn on all the indirect lamps. I hope this will be doable here.

GOsh- I love those worktops! How much are they noddy? £££££ or ££?

I like the appleby kitchen in Essex... very nice.

With the upstand/splashback thingy... do you have to paint behind the splashback first?

WHat I love most about our home is the smooth, straight walls (have always been in houses >100yrs so am used to walls that never properly perpendicular, and with 15 layers of woodchip). Also- get a carpenter to build in as much storage as possible, makes all the difference in a small home.

Bigbird
A fire door? Eek, that sounds expensive.

We are going to check out some local builders, and get some recommendations.

Blue
lol at Xmas tree. Will keep it in mind

Od
There is a lot of storage upstairs, but the cupboards downstairs have been taken out already.

It's the one thing I regret terribly not doing- we could stay in this house another couple of years if we'd done it, but it's bursting at the seams now. Was silly not to really- the ceiling heights are fantastic, and lots of wasted areas (I won't say 'space' as really, we've no space! )