Costs of refurbishing a small house in london

[Acer77]

Hi all,

We are in the process of buying a 3 bed house in London. It currently has 3 beds upstairs and the bathroom in downstairs at the back.

We want to move the bathroom upstairs into the back bedroom, convert the loft to put a master bed with en-suite in the main part and in the back part (above new bathroom) put another bedroom. This would mean 2 dormers at the back and velux skylights at the front.

On top of that it needs a new kitchen and we'd like bifold doors. Plus it needs new windows (a 3 part bay at the front and 3 sash windows elsewhere)

Here is what I am estimating:

Loft all in - £40,000
Windows - £10k
Bathroom move - £7k
New bathroom suite - £5k
New kitchen inc bifold doors - £10k
Shutters for front windows -£3k
Decorating and finishing (new shelving, fireplaces etc) - £2k
New garden fences and shed - £1k
Contingency - £2k

Our budget is £80k hence the low contingency! Am I way off? This needs to include the VAT....

The house is small - currently 900sq ft and will be approx 1150sq ft when finished.....

Any thoughts appreciated! Also any recommendations for London builders!!

I think that's low for the loft and the kitchen and the redecorating (unless that's materials only and you will be doing redecorating yourself). Depends how much fencing you need but I'm always amazed how expensive that is.

For the kitchen I was planning ikea units with wooden doors made by a mate and painted by us... We'd like granite worktops though! And the bifolds will be expensive...plus they need to knock though and remove old bathroom of course... So yes you are prob right I'm underestimating!

Decorating is just materials - we would paint ourselves...

I'd add a line for scaffolding at £8k for the loft. We are renovating atm and absolutely gutting a larger place than yours. It's a lot more than double your £80k though.

I'd add another 10-20k for the loft and another 5-8k for the kitchen. We've just done these (within the last year) and they mount up. Especially if you want a good job and quality materials.

I also think the garden fence and shed costs are low, unless you're just buying the materials from B&Q and installing yourself.

Will you really get decorating materials and fireplaces for 2k? We found simple period style fireplaces for £900 a pop. Plus 2k for chimneys to be lined (each). We changed our minds and just filled the existing old fireplaces with fairy lights and candles for atmosphere!

Doing up a house in London is fun but spendy!

You will also need steels for a wide opening for the bi-folds plus engineer to do the calculations. If the house is terraced you will potentially need two sets of party wall awards... You will need planning consent for the extra bedroom above the relocated bathroom so more fees including architect's planning and building regs. Sorry, it is all adding up.

Thanks all.
Lala - you are right, I need to add on architects fees! No need for steels at back of kitchen though as that part of the house is single storey so nothing above it...so I think that's ok?
Yoni - I've found fireplaces on eBay and gum tree for £200-£400 each and then our mate who is a chippy will do the shelves for about £700. Other than that it's just paint...we will be doing painting ourselves. Floors already sanded so no carpets needed apart from maybe the loft...
Jaffa - was hoping builders costs for loft would include scaffolding but it sounds like I've underestimated the loft costs anyway!

Hoping to go round with a builder this week to get quotes.... It is a small house but we do want to do it to a good spec so we have prob underestimated....

Watching in interest as I'm planning almost the same for the house imsearching for. I also want to do a side return and was hoping to get it all done for £175,000.

Now I'm questioning that!

dyne - my friend did more or less that work with a side return (bathroom wasn't downstairs, only added a half-length extension on top of the back addition) for about that amount a couple of years ago. In her case, they knocked down the whole of the back addition and rebuilt it incorporating a side return extension on the ground floor rather than support what was there and then build on top. It worked out really well.

This is the layout we'd be hoping to achieve. The house we are looking to buy has a single story kitchen extension already (where current bathroom is) so our kitchen would be a bit bigger than this one...
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/fullscreen/view-floorplan.html?propertyId=34576605

I'm having a loft extension and 3 bathrooms done at the moment. I showed our builder this thread as, although we are in Cheshire, his brother is a builder in London

He says 65k for the loft extension and minimum 17k for the kitchen (with an ikea finish). Do you need to lower any ceiling for the loft or remove chimney breasts?

What have you budgeted for flooring?

You could get the bathroom suite a bit cheaper with still decent stuff if you're willing to go out to the suburbs to look. Don't order from Victoria Plumb - apparently they are terrible if anything goes wrong. Our builder let us have his trade discount at the local bathroom suppliers and we got more off for ordering in bulk so worth asking the builder if they would pass on that saving to you. Could also work for the kitchen if you go for eg Howdens

Thanks Gobbo that's really useful! We don't need to lower ceilings or remove chimney breasts I don't think....
Beginning to think this is all going to be way over our budget!! ????

Would you be better off extending first floor over the entire length of the kitchen and having a small bathroom with corridor down the side to a third bedroom which would be over your the far end of your kitchen. You could then decide if you want to have another bedroom on top of that (again, with option of another bathroom or you could just do a half extension across that). I don't know how closely you are following the layout on rightmove but I think it would be a mistake to have the shower room in the only position you can put a conventional window in the loft.

And, yes, I agre with Gobbolino that lofts can easily cost £65k in London, although if you shop around, you can get them less than that but sadly not £40k...

No probs - I think I may have converted builder to mumsnet!

We've lowered two ceilings for ours and removed two chimney breasts. Builder has pointed out that often there can be rogue chimney breasts left in the loft and you really want to get them out to make best use of the space. Have a look and see what is what externally re chimneys and that will help work out. My DH is 6 foot 6 and a bit so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of head room. Fortunately the rooms below had very high ceilings so we lowered them. It is worth considering doing if you want to use it as a master

Also - don't forget that you will (if doing things properly) need a party wall agreement drawn up. The architect can help.

Lala - completely agree about the layout of the bathroom in the example I attached. I'd love to have a proper window on that side instead. Need to get up there with builder and discuss best place for bathroom.... Only needs to be a small ensuite.... I wondered if it might fit at front on the left side instead but depends on the plumbing and staircase.... My sister has hers there - so sloping roof in bathroom but it works ok. She has a floor length window at the back and it is lovely! Her loft was £60k but she had the whole roof replaced as part of that and it is a much bigger space than ours...she's in South East not London though!!

How much roughly for architects fees do you think?

We had a lovely architect who was quite junior but recommended by the builder as we weren't doing anything mega fancy

We were only charged £500 plus VAT which was very reasonable. I'd say more where you are - minimum £1,000. Plus don't forget all the building reg fees. Ours are around £400 again

Thanks Gobbolino!

A little update.... Just had first quote back for the loft conversion alone. From a very reputable company who i have seen does work all over north London. He says £39,000 including Vat and bathroom fitting but excluding bathroom suite. So it looks like my estimate wasn't far off.... For our last bathroom I spent £2500 on the suite and tiles and that was fairly high end fixtures and fittings (I shopped around online and bought from trade stores)
Looking more positive....! I have another builder quoting later in the week...

acer unfortunately it's been my experience that you need to budget on your worst case scenario and then some.

Anyone worth their salt will be expensive and you don't want someone who has no other work so comes in with cheap quotes.

Add to that the things that crop up during the works which you never thought of but which you don't want to compromise on, having spent so much already, and it's a bloody expensive process- but worth it.

We are outside London and restoring sash windows even here costs £2k-£4k per window depending on the size. I think at London prices for a whole house you should budget more like £20k on windows.

£40k is also very low for loft conversion, especially if that includes an ensuite.

Well I will see what the other builder comes up with but this guy has a good rep and isn't available til April so he must be popular.... The house is pretty small so maybe that's why it isn't so pricey...

That is an amazing price. I salute you

Amazing price on your loft conversion! Are you able to PM me the name of the company? Good luck with your house refurb!