Quote for renovating front garden of Victorian terraced flat

[crankypants]

Received a quote today and it seems v high. Was hoping for advice as to whether it's about right or the builder is trying to take advantage....

We Iive in a mid-terrace Victorian flat, ground floor. We are in north - west London. The quote is to lay a path of Victorian tiles, level the ground and lay slate, remove a big hedge and replace with a brick wall. The space is about 4mx 3m. The quote is £15,000. What do you think?

Many thanks

neighbours are planning similar, the quote seems ok.
just the mosaic tiles come in at 1000£.
it's a lot of work and expensive materials.

I'm about to have almost exactly the same done in Balham, but your quote seems 30% or so too high to me, although that may be because of your tiles or the height of your wall or the choice of planting.

If you're living in a flat, surely the front garden is a communal facility? If so, the other residents should contribute. Examine your lease, you'll have one even if you have share of freehold.

Try to save on materials, even bricks, by buying them yourself in a sale or with a discount code. A lot of builders tell you they pass on trade discounts but they don't, they give you the inflated retail price and pocket the difference.

Yes, mousmous, the tiles are so expensive!

Thanks, theasaurusgirl. We own the whole freehold, it's not shared so improving the front garden is all down to us! I like the idea of getting the materials etc on sale. Will google.

Thanks. Helpful to know that the quote is in the ballpark. Bloody expensive though!

Bloody hell! You can almost buy a whole house for that in some parts of the country!

That seems expensive!

We had similar work done to our modest size Victorian mid-terrace in Dulwich and this was the cost of the work:

• Circa 3k for laying a new Victorian tiled path including tiles and labour. We sourced it from London mosaic and did a simple small black and white pattern. Fancier tiles definitely could push this up to 4k *We had slate laid for most of the rest of the garden and that was circa 1k including materials. We sourced the slate from London Stone
• We had our gardener build us a new brick wall andthat was circa 900 GBP. We did something that looks like reclaimed London stock brick but is not. We were able to reuse the old foundations though so that might have kept the cost down. Using actual London stock would have maybe increased the cost to circa 1,200 GBP. *We replaced all our railings and front gate and that was circa 1,400 GBP but we went for a fairly simple design. That could have been more expensive. We used Art of Cast to do the railings work.
• We had a hedge removed from the front gardenas we were having other gardening work done, they just added it to the hourly rate so I do not think it cost us more than 20 quid.
• We are having new roses planted to replace the bush and setting up the wires for the climber to cling to a bin storage shed we had built. For the plant and labour, we have been quoted 150 GBP.

Our front garden is very similar sized to yours and if anything its slightly larger so 15k seems outrageous to me! We spent just over 6K and I cant see how anyone could charge more than 10k for the work you describe even for the fanciest of tiles and bricks.

If you go for high spec and need foundations, I still think your quote is at least 30% too high. It can be cheaper to source the materials yourself and hire people to do the individual bits rather than going to a builder to do everything. I suggest you get some more quotes.

London girl, that's a really helpful post, thanks so much. Sounds like we are doing very similar things. Helpful to have it itemized, this fellow just gave me a round figure.

Brilliant. Thanks all. Looks like we need to seek out a few more quotes.

Seconded. Incredibly helpful post Londongirl, thank you so much for breaking it down.

We had a very similar job done on a slightly larger front garden - black and white tiled path, slate, 'rope' edging tiles, London stock brick wall, hedge removal and planting. Londongirl's estimate is much closer to what we paid too!

We are having our front garden redone at the moment, it is 5 x 2m, nothing period but simple brick paving and new brickwall. Quoted at 2250. South East London. OP yout price sounds steep.

No problem! I'm in Dulwich but if anyone wants any recommendations I am happy to oblige regarding tradesmen.