How to work out renovation costs when working out if I can afford a property?

[wildstrawberryplace]

Seen a house I love - would be our forever home. It's grade 2 listed, which I can live with and like the idea of. I don't want to change the exterior at all, but inside it is pretty tired and in need of a refurb and looks like it is being sold after the owner has passed away or moved to a home.

The house is on for 3/4 of my budget. So I have funds available for the works, but how do I know if that is enough? Do I have to do a second viewing with a builder who can give me a rough estimate as we go around?

While I don't mind doing the work in stages, I don't want saddle myself with a money pit!

I think it needs rewiring and new light fittings and fixtures, replastering and painting, new doors/skirtings/staircase (I know it is listed but the woodwork looks like it was done in the 50s or 60s before it was listed) new kitchen/bathrooms, floorings, gutters/pipes and external paint job. Possibly sash windows need work.

I know it's impossible to get an exact figure, but how do I go about getting even a ballpark figure?

You need to take a builder around, who's worked on similar buildings before. You'll also need to find out what you can/can't do to the property and make sure nothing that's been done previously needs to be reinstated or redone. Friends of ours bought a listed building and ended up having to reinstate things the previous owners had taken out or rebuilt. Above all, have a sensible contingency fund for unexpected expenses.

It will depend how "true" you want to be to the house. For example, you say replastering: in a normal house, this would depend how much plaster needs to be removed and then whether a room needs a "full" plaster or you can get away with a skim coat to cover up a bit of unevenness but in a listed house, it might mean going all the way back to the lathe/original wall and then using a lime plaster which has to be built up in layers and is a very expensive and - even by plastering standards - specialised process. The trouble is, if you start asking advice of a conservation officer, they're onto you and demanding all sorts of specialist trades and works (this, at least, was my experience). Are there any similar houses on the same street - can you knock on doors and ask owners how "helpful" (code word) they've found the local conservation officer, what they have been able to do etc?

Thanks, useful info.

The problems that I can foresee include - rooms which have original beams across ceiling and a few exposed beams down two of the walls (obvious these will stay) but which also has 1960s radiators and the radiator pipes running visibly down the wall.

Two of the bedrooms in the oldest part of the house are interconnecting, and look to me to be best used as dressing room leading to bedroom - but could we get a shower room in the dressing room with waste pipes joining those of the existing bathroom which is adjacent? There is already an ensuite added (70s?) to the other bedroom. I know you can't answer that definitively, just throwing it out there.

House was listed in the 80s.

Surely they couldn't make us change bits of work done before they listed it? .

Sigh. The more I list all the things I need to change the more of a huge expensive job it seems...

Such a shame because it's a lovely house with lovely rambling gardens and has such potential.

Conservation groups are very interested in a house's "story" these days so, while to most of us would think the original xxth-century structure was the important part and that most worth preserving, they will argue that any subsequent addition is also worth preserving to show the building's "journey" and the way subsequent generations have used it in different ways so I think you are much more likely to be stuck with some shitty 1950s add-on than being made to reinstate something that has been changed before its listing.

Generally - and officers will change in their approach from those who only care about the integrity of the building as they see it to those who will accept that there may have to be some compromise in order for people to take on such buildings - there isn't a lot of enthusiasm for knocking new holes into walls. But it might depend on, say, the house having a really important facade but being pretty unremarkable at the back whereupon they might be ok about a discreet new pipe at the rear.

It's not so much a question of expense as it is of permission if there are changes you would have to make in order for it to be the way you want it.

It will cost all your money and time. I think that sums it up quite accurately.

More helpfully - you can quite literally spend all your available money on them. As in money comes into the house and you see it as 'oh good, that's the replacement guttering'. Family Christmas presents consist of saying 'why don't we get the front gate mended?'

We bought a house which sounds not unlike what you describe, and budgeted around £80,000 for the works. We've been rather extravagent vis a vis bathrooms, which we could have done more cheaply, so I think we'll come in at around £100,000 for it all.

You also have to allow for the very high running costs, and keep back a sizeable contingency fund at all times. The owners haven't kept it up, so there may well be rotten timbers that need replacing. The costs of this is eyewatering, really.

On the other hand, I think you're currently mixing up what you'd like to do with what really needs doing. The house needs to be secure and warm and water-tight, and anything else is a bonus. Don't worry about changing doors, faffing with radiators, etc etc (honestly, I speak from experience, as this is what I did).

I'm assuming its timber framed? The radiator pipes run visibly down the wall because they have to loop around the timber frame of the building - does that make sense? I wouldn't bother changing that - I did, you still get pipes visible at the top of the room, and it's just expense that you don't need.

It's not so much that I want it a certain way, part of the attraction is that the house has large rooms that are fine as they are - and I do think the frontline position of watertight and warm and "fit" is a great place to start. From what I have seen this is the position the house is in now - I think a lot of the stuff is cosmetic - ie old carpets and not painted for 30 years, formica farm kitchen etc.

I think what I mean is that it is more a refurb than a renovation - no rotten beams, structurally sound etc. You could live in it as it is but it would like being at your great aunts house with the chinz and black beams and faded paintwork and faint smell of old school dinners...

I can live with interconnecting bed rooms as we'd use them as a study, but it would be nice to know what we could and couldn't do if we wanted. We aren't thinking the house would be perfect if only it was different. It needs "doing up" though, and I just need to find out how much its going to cost to get it in good decorative order (assuming structure is OK).

I'm smiling at myself because everybody I have spoken to has been telling me tales of grimness, surely somebody loves their grade 2 listed house and is happy with their journey?

A good rough reckoner is £100 sqft - we drastically underestimated costs for our refurb/renovation but will have spent about this once we've finished. We live in a conservation area and are locally listed but not grade II so free to alter inside but not outide.

We have done pretty much what you have in terms of work and done it to a high standard - oak doors, skirting etc, 4 bathrooms/shower rooms and hi-spec kitchen etc.

I'll have a bit of a guess at some possible costs, then. If you want to PM a link to the house, I'll take a look and make a better guess.

So there are some things that have to be done - re-wiring throughout, followed be re-plastering with appropriate plaster, and re-decorating. I don't know what the house is like or your tastes, but £8-12k?

Then there are some things that are nice to have done, such as the new kitchen (£10-30k), the new bathrooms (between £10-30k), the new carpets (£6k), the new light fittings (say between £25 - £500 per fitting)

Then there are some things that are clearly cosmetic, such as new doors in appropriate style (between £250-1k per door?), new skirting boards made to match original skirting boards by skilled carpenter (£1k?).

However, I'll put my hat in the ring and say there are going to be structural problems, and you need to allow for them.

Half the house is probably rotten

Oh yes, heavy weight curtains for single glazed windows = an absolute fortune.

Yeah don't sugar coat it, Grendel :)

Am I being miserable enough?

TBH, we very much like our house, but there was a Mumsnetter a couple of years back who bought a listed house as a renovation project, had to give up work herself to care for family members, then her DH was made redundant not once but twice, they couldn't afford either to keep paying the bills or finish the work, but the house wouldn't sell. They were quite desperate, and I don't know what happened to them. I think that's worst case scenario, but its worth bearing in mind.

But thanks, I appreciate it and will send you a link. No sniggering though!