How long do house renovations take?

[Celia1978]

I know, I know - I'm sure this is a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but I wondered if any of you had any idea how a few fairly major bits of work would take.

Work is basically:

• Wall coming down between kitchen/dining room, new kitchen installed
• Wall coming down between bathroom/loo and new bathroom suite installed
• new flooring put down on ground floor (old laminate coming up and new floorboards/tiles going down)
• redecoration of all rooms on ground and first floors

Plus a few other bits and pieces if we have the money (like a fireplace installed, maybe changing front door, but the above are the major things.)

I have literally no idea if we're looking at weeks, months...

Also, how quickly can builders generally start work once you've chosen one? I guess good ones have work booked in quite a long time in advance so it's probably not a case of 'We'll start next week!' but more 'We'll start in a couple of months'. Is that right?

Thanks for any help!

Most good builders will be looking at jobs to start in October now ! Have you checked if the walls are load bearing or not ?! Is if not standard size you will need to order lintels too ... Some kitchen companies have a 12 week lead time A have you started making an ideas scrap book ?!
Bathroom companies tend to be a little faster ...
There's a worldwide home improvement and design site called Houzz that might inspire you. Here's a link to my pro page on there - you can then navigate off to look at all the millions of pics and the design dilemmas are interesting too !! The key to all home improvement stuff, in my opinion, is to workout exactly what you want and try not to deviate from this - as that's when the prices go up and the delays start !
Have fun looking at the millions of fab photos :-)
www.houzz.com/pro/oneplan/oneplan

Oh a meant to add - flooring needs to season a bit in your home too before you start to lay it ! So it gets used to your moisture content in the house ! 10 days min !!!

Oh, great advice - thanks! Have definitely started the ideas scrapbook…

Very roughly 8 week should be long enough for what you describe.
And any builder who is available to start in less than at least 8 weeks time should be avoided!
Lead in time includes exact specification of what you are having as well as sourcing stuff
and liaising with building control.
So get contacting builders at least 4-6 months before you want work to start if possible
(this is exactly the sort of work my company does so I speak from experience).

I should add it takes longer if you are living in the property as work has o go n carefully around you whereas iit can be going on in several rooms at once if you are not there.
You should expect to pay stage payment and make sure builder has completed a reasonable amount of work for each stage.

our builders are really good and you have to wait 4/5 months for them.

We have done all the above and more within 3 years. (there was no rush)

If your like me i takes ages to choose the flooring, kitchen and paint colours. i dont like to rush. from watching "homes under the hammer" they would have this all done within 4 months.

and i love to use www.pinterest.com for all my home ideas :-)