Cost to revamp a home completely?

[schopenhauer]

We have been offered the chance to do up a bungalow, which is in the family, for us to live in (me, dh and dd). We would need to basically gut it and start again. Although it's structurally sound I believe, it has been lived in by an elderly relative and it's not in good decorative condition. We would also want to covert the loft in to probably two beds and a bathroom. Has anyone got a idea how much this might cost? I think we could end £50k on it but is this enough?

I realise this will be a rough estimate

How exciting and what a lovely offer! I don't know where you live and I think this has a large impact on what it would cost. However we're South East and just going through the process of doing costings for "doing up a house". I think for a bungalow 2 beds and a bathroom you could be looking at the best part of the £50k just for the loft conversion. Bungalows also don't have a staircase to continue for a loft conversion so you might need to think about whether you'd need to move other rooms around to make room for them. We are hoping to do a loft conversion and have put aside £40k for that and another £20k for redoing the rest in total (3k for bathrooms, 7k for kitchen). Is it possible you could do the existing bungalow up and that would do for now whilst you saved for the loft conversion, apparently they are much less disruptive these days? What a lovely position to be in though, I would go for it if it was in anyway possible. Good luck.

Thanks for your reply, that's really useful. We're also in the South East. It's possible that we could wait to do the loft, it would be big enough now for the three of us, good idea. Yes I'm not sure where the stairs would go but next door have done it so might try to find out where they put them! Yes it's a great position to be in, we do still have to buy the house but normally developers jump on these types of properties so I think we're lucky.

We have just rewired, new boiler, loft extension and rear extension. Not quite the same. Re plastered most rooms, new kitchen and utility. Spent an eye watering £180,000. I would say you need at least £100,000

Ooh that's a bit worrying but thanks. We wouldn't need to rewire and I'm pretty sure the boiler was replaced fairly recently but there is some pebble dashing stuff on some walls so we would need to do some replastering at least. We might like to do a rear extension actually to make a kitchen diner so that's interesting that we may need more funds or do things gradually...

We're doing a house refurb and extension for about £90k.

We've just re-vamped a 2100 square foot house and added a small extension to make the total area 2500 square feet. Our total cost is coming out at about £200,000. We've gone for the cheapest of the best of everything if you know what I mean - really shopped around to get the best deals on everything - while still going for top quality. So much does depend on your quality of finishes - and the size of the house.

Good luck - it can be a really fun project - but also quite stressful!

We did a rear extension last year to make a big open plan kitchen/diner/utility/study/snug and we spent about £90k including everything. The estate agent has estimated it has added about £100k to the value of the house which is nice. Loft conversions round here cost about £45k.

Thanks all, food for thought. We could put our £50k towards a house in better condition but ime you always want to change something when you move. So maybe we will do this gradually and there might be more money to play with as well, which it seems we will need

I'm reading this with interest. Can you give a vague idea where you are located? I'm guessing an extension in Surrey is going to cost a lot more than one in Durham.

OP. You'd add serious value with a loft conversion and extension. As well as doing it up. Provided that you were getting it all for the right price and not over paying for the house in the first place.

That's probably the most important factor.

We also recently renovated a house - including extending from 2000 to 2500 sq ft - doing full rewire, three new bath/shower rooms, new kitchen (there wasn't one at when we purchased!), new cast iron rads, replastering, garden landscaping and full redecoration including flooring and spent around £100k. This was in the SW (Wilts) - a period (thatched - thank god the PO replaced that!) house over three storeys.

The price would have been way higher, but we did an awful lot ourselves - it being our sixth project - and we could have saved some £££ had we not opted for FE tiles, oak flooring and Hansgrohe taps etc.

When we sold in October we got our money back plus only around £35k profit......

If you are handy and/or prepared to rough it pick up some new skills, you can have a lot of fun whilst saving a fortune.....and we've done it with very young DC!

However, despite it being a very kind offer you should be aware that if you throw all your cash at it you could be doing the owners a favour - unless of course you mean the house is being gifted to you, I wasn't sure if that's what you meant?

Years ago when we were struggling my parents owned a house that they let DH and me live in. We did all the maintenance work to the house (and it was a biggie) and paid them 'rent' as well. We borrowed money to re-roof etc (£11k+) and also fitted new kitchen, bathrooms and double glazing and soon the house was worth rather more than my parents paid for it when it was a crumbling wreck, although this was academic as they gifted it to us eventually, but in theory they could have kicked us out and been quids in ;@)

GL with it anyway!

Our renovation and extension will cost £300k plus. But we are going from 1300 to 2200 sq ft and in zone 2/3 london so very likely to make the whole amount back. A v similar unextended house on market now for £750k (though I think that's a bit optimistic!) and we paid significantly less. In the right place, you will make your money back.

Frankly, I don't care if we don't make it back as we will be staying here a long time.

Is the house "in the family" or do you own it yourself? If you own it, spend some money and make it yours!

We've just finished revamping a 2 bed bungalow - new bathroom, kitchen, fencing, garage roof, complete garden revamp, carpet curtains etc but no extensions or rewiring. We spent nothing like the figures on here but had it valued last week and it's a good bit more than our total spend so we're happy.

Good to read all this, very interesting! Mrs Florrick yes we would add value hopefully, but we would want to stay fairly long term as well.

Raphaella, my op wasn't that clear but it currently belongs to my parents and we would need to buy it from them (but they wouldn't put it on the open market iykwim) although there might be slight mates rates! We own a house currently where we probably have a fair bit of equity which we would sell because we want to relocate. We aren't particularly handy unfortunately but we could learn with certain things. We also have a baby dd but just the one so I think it would be doable but I'm sure stressful at times.

At the moment it's just a standard 2 bed bungalow so sounds quite a bit smaller than some of the properties being discussed, though I'm not sure on square footage.

We are in Home Counties and prices seem to be going up in the area so would hopefully make money from that also.

In London so not cheap

I think loft conversions (with dormers/ensuites) cost about £45k round here and add more than that to the value of the house. Haven't heard of a lift costing any where near £100k

*loft

Schopenhauer. It's a no brainer then!

If you're adding value and staying longer term, it makes much more sense than ploughing money into a ready made place.

You can start small by doing one item/room at a time.

Plan and research. Look at starting with rewire replumbing and new central heating. Followed by plastering or dry lining any walls needing it.

Then look at new kitchen and bathrooms.

Do the loft last if you're a bit short of cash just now.

Or if you're able and can afford it then possibly borrow towards the loft conversion? If you're staying long term it makes sense.

It sounds like a really good project.

If you're finding yourself short of cash during the project look at perhaps ex display or second hand kitchens. Well worth considering. You could save a packet!

Price compare bathroom stuff on eBay before buying

And during January and June and August most bathroom and kitchen places have massive sales. 25% off. Really works well when you need tiles and flooring too.

And as someone else said, haggle where you can.

Bear in mind that the labour costs for doing the works to a good standard can't be minimised. If someone offers it too cheap then you may get awful quality and finishes.
Your savings are in materials and fittings you put in.

Good luck. Have fun with it.

If you are talking rewiring central heating, new kitchen and bathroom, possibly new windows with careful shopping should be around 25-40k depending on what you chose b& q how dens kitchen nice but average white suite and shower will make it lower end wallpaper at£50 a roll will obviously push price up

Nice kitchen about 5k, bathroom with tiles 2k central heating3-5 k depending on existing pipe work rewiring Max 3k so that's 15k new windows doors maybe another 5k fitted, ree edecoring new soft furnishing curtains can be anything from 2-10k depending on whether just paint and blinds or exotic wallpaper and bespoke curtains

Labour ius more in SE than elsewhere, can workers park outside house can you park a skip

If you are cash strapped can you paint magnolia and do it slowly as probably liveable in?

I think it entirely depends on your budget, timescale and the level of materials/quality you want. It's an open ended budget really.