We've been working for three years on a 2 bed house that needed full redecorating, plumbing, wiring, new kitchen and new bathroom. No structural or roof stuff.
Our savings have been in labour, because bar ceiling plastering and major plumbing/electrics, we've done it ourselves. When it's all done, we'll probably have spent £15k or so, which would've been 20 had DH not built our kitchen himself. Jury's out on whether that was a good idea. It works and looks nice, and since we're not selling the place that's fine - but for resale we would probably have a new 'proper' kitchen put in.
The main things I've learned:
- You can do most things yourself. Youtube tutorials can tell you how to do pretty much anything.
- However, doing it yourself adds a lot of time. Both in the time it'll take you to do a particular job and the amount of time you have to spend on the house in general. It also allows you to be a bit lazy. We'll be finished probably late next year, but if we'd really gone for it we'd easily be done by now.
- On the walls, we stripped a lot of wallpaper (easy, but a faff), and then filled any rough parts and used good quality paint and they look great. It's time consuming as you end up doing multiple fills, but much, much cheaper than replastering. Don't know if a builder would advise or allow this but it's worked for us!
- Ceilings, however, are worth getting a pro to do in my opinion. Both for the finish and for the faff.
- We've spent money on things like radiators, light fittings, fancy paint. Nothing crazy but not the cheapest versions, and ones we found pleasant to look at. Very glad we did this.
- Painting is really, really easy and a good place to save money. Get decent brushes, good paint and some good edging tape.
- We do a fair amount of 'repair instead of replace', though it helps that our house was quite well made to begin with. Eg our front door was horrifying. A weekend with sandpaper, wood filler, paint and some new door jewellery made it gorgeous, and it cost probably £50 instead of £250.
- We buy most things for the house on ebay. It does mean waiting around for the thing you want to come along, but we've saved a lot.
- Your taste in decor makes a difference. If you're hoping to do a super minimal extreme clean lines thing then it needs more professional attention to detail. A more casual look is much more forgiving!
- Sanding and repainting things is magic. As is the power of a serious clean. Also: steel wool.
- Obvious, but removing stuff is easier and cheaper than adding. Eg, lift carpets, expose the wood, sand and polish, easy. If we'd wanted to add carpet back on then that would've been much more expensive.
Overall, I've also found that doing it ourselves, since it's taking ages, has given us time to change our minds. If we'd done everything at once I think we'd have thought we 'needed' to do a bunch of things that weren't really necessary and wasted quite a lot of money there. Also, living in the house has given us a much better idea of what we really need from it and that's informed our decisions about what to do as we go.
Oh - definitely do the thing of getting one room (we did our bedroom) relatively decent from top to bottom straight away. It sounds silly but having a good looking place to escape to really makes you feel better, and motivates you to do the rest as well.