To those who have redecorated a whole house, and done a bit of work to the kitchen and bathroom...

[Boobz]

...could I ask you guesstimate how much it would cost to:

• strip back this whole house back to basics, ready to re-paint and redecorate throughout?
• knock through a wall in the kitchen into the current toilet next to it, and then fit a nice-ish kitchen?
• Put in a new bathroom suite upstairs
• Redecorate (with curtains) throughout.

And how long you think it would take to do?

Chantrey Road

It's about 1700 sq foot.

£5k bathroom
£20k kitchen

Decorating - finger in the wind guess £15k it's a huge house with a lot of wall paper and the hall ways are going to be tough going.

Curtains cost a fortune and you need loads so you'll need thousands of pounds for those too. Impossible to guess that as it depends on what fabric, how gathered etc.

I would keep the downstairs loo, always useful, and the kitchen looks fine. Love the William Morrisey type dark wallpaper on the landings too. What is wrong with the bathroom suite?

That's a "how long is a bit of string?" question. As well as the size of house, it will depend on whether there is any evidence of damp or mould, whether the wall you want gone is load-bearing, and how luxurious you want your new kitchen and bathroom to be. You could spend anything between £10k and £100k.

Spent about 13k knocking through rooms to make a bigger kitchen and fitting it out.

Bathroom was about 6k.

Agree with how long is a piece of string?

Knocking through wall and new kitchen including new floor and walls replastering was 15K

New bathroom including walls, floor and ceiling was 3K

Stripping wall paper in all rooms, filling holes and sanding paintwork done by me. Cost a few quid for sandpaper, filler and electricity.

Repainting walls and woodwork done by me. Cost about 30 quid per room.

Kitchen fitters took 4 weeks, bathroom fitters took 2. Decorating took me 6 months while working FT.

Curtains for bay windows £90 (Ikea).

Is the kitchen not to your taste? I like the kitchen it needs a bit of zuzzing as it is a little bland but with the right accessories and curtains or a blind I would keep it. I agree some of the house needs an uplift. Like others have said it depends on your taste and budget. Source fabric at factories instead of the likes of John Lewis and find someone to run them up for you. If you get someone from out of London they will probably be cheaper. Negotiate for carpets as they will often do a deal for a whole house...you can haggle. Bathroom looks an awkward shape so I can understand why you want to change it.
The garden is small for a house that size and price. I guess that is London for you. Up here you could buy a beautiful house for that with a couple of acres!

I think it looks fab as it is, except maybe the bathroom and yellow room. Not helpful, sorry.

Don't get rid of the downstairs loo!

You need to get quotes in, there's no way you could gauge how much it'll be.

Lovely house.

Houses like that in London have small gardens.

We just finished doing ours (bit bigger than that one) and the total cost was £150k (Beds/Cambs border). But that included a fair bit if exterior repointing, rebuilding two of the chimney stacks, lining several chimneys/installing wood burners, replastering everywhere, rewiring, new lights, boiler and radiators and repairs to 12 sash windows. I did the painting and made the curtains or it would probably have been another £15-20k. Not sure if that helps at all.

I agree- you need quotes. The kitchen looks an add on so it's likely that you will need an RSJ/building control etc when knocking through. You need to add the cost of structural engineer report etc to that. Kitchen - is entirely dependant on what you wAnt. Howden's kitchens are pretty good - you could ask the builder to pass on his discount to you. Same with supplying the bathroom fittings - any decent builder will have an account with the local plumbing merchants. They can normally source whatever you want. Lot better than using Victoria plumb etc as if anything is faulty etc, it can be changed that day

Painting and decorating, depends on finish/how much prep is needed. Are you doing all the window frames too?

I would not get rid of the downstairs loo. I think it is really useful and most people I know (including me) wouldn't buy a house without one - particularly if it can't be reinstated.

Also - when you speak to the builder, most add on things like plug sockets etc as incidentals as they wont know how many you want for the quote. It's around £50 a spotlight where I am and £35 for a plug socket so that all adds up

We have just finished doing this, but also added a first floor extension to create a larger third bedroom
We have spent roughly £37k all in. Ours is a 3 bed terraced cottage in a pricey area.

Oh and time wise it was supposed to be 6 weeks... turned into 4 months.

Thought a bit more...

If you have curtains made, I'd budget £250-£500 per large bay window for materials depending on how rich/extravagant you are plus labour costs (£400-ish for a big window). So a conservative estimate if £1000 for big and £500 for average windows. So maybe £5K all in.

To strip all the wallpaper amd prepare for decorating, I'd estimate average 3 man days per room, treating the hall as a room per floor and the reception as two rooms. At £150/day I make that about 30 man days so £4500. Then add decorating to that - rough guess £1000 per room average including materials - that's about £10000.

The sky's the limit with kitchens mreally but for a high spec bathroom expect to pay £8-£15k woth someone else managing the job for you.

So excluding kitchen and assuming the house has no plumbing, wiring, repointing or structural issues or scaffolding I'd say around £35k to get the interior looking nice. Add 10% contingency to that and whatever you want to spend on the kitchen (£15-25k?) and I think you're looking around the £60k mark for the decorating. Add £15k for the knocking through and assuming some plastering work once wallpaper stripped and maybe £80k total? NB this is based on my experience of tradesman rates in the Shires, London may be more expensive.

This all assumes if you're dropping seven figures on a house you'll want the decor done nicely and probably don't have much time for DIY.

Amazing - thanks for all your replies!

We'd keep a downstairs loo but move to under the stairs. The kitchen looks bigger than it is in that photo - it's currently too small for a family of plus au pair plus dog. We want to avoid going into the side return if we can help it (for money and losing garden space purposes) so hope that knocking through to the end will give us the space we want/need.

The whole thing looks lovely in the photos I know, almost like it has been recently decorated in a vintage/retro style, but up close it's actually not been touched since about 1972 and everything is peeling, a bit brown etc, so it does need taking back to its roots and re-doing.

Survey came back saying there is a little bit of damp but nothing major and should be covered by the current owners damp guarantee (we are investigating through solicitors).

I realise the garden in tiny, but it was a lot better than most of the others we looked at in the area! London gardens are just so hard to get without compromising on other areas of the house/location. I know 1.15m could buy you acres and a manor house in other parts of the country but we can't work there (and the kids' school is London based as well, so the commute wouldn't work)

Yes I know it's a how long is a piece of string question - I just like hearing people's ideas and approx costs for what they have done. I would say we have middling taste values/costs - not Ikea but not a 40k bespoke kitchen either.

I think we will have about 50k in our total budget and just wanted to see whether I was dreaming to do all of the above within that amount but obviously without knowing things like load-bearing walls etc., it is all finger in the air stuff.

Appreciate the replies though, thanks.

We're currently going through the same process, so far we've spent approximately £25k and for that we've got a new bathroom (hansgrohe taps and shower, duravit units, porcelain tiles and full room), new central heating system (including moving tank from ground floor to loft), plastering whole house, electrics, decorating (all being done by me). We haven't started looking at flooring, curtains, kitchen, downstairs toilet, etc yet so this is really the tip of the iceberg.

So it hasn't been touched since the 70s? That puts a slightly different complexion on it - from the pics I'd assumed it had been done more recently by someone with very retro taste!

But if it's all older decor and amenities I would work on the assumption that you need to replace the boiler (c. £2K) possibly fit an RCD (about £500) and add some plumbing and wiring works to your repair budget if you need to move lights, replace sockets etc. Budget c. £500 per room to replace radiators. I'd also take a very close look at the windows - if they are not in good condition that's totally fixable but pricey: guess £1000 per window.

NB what we spent on restoring our place was over 3 years, and the bulk of it came out of cashflow. But that was with two of us living in different bits of a 5-bedroom house and tolerating the rest being a building site much of the time. If you'd be occupying all the bedrooms from the word go that's a different story. It's hard to say without knowing your situation but I'd say it's very doable with the savings you have but you would almost certainly end up having to live with a work-in-progress for some time to get it done.

There's a cellar - how are you going to put a loo under the stairs if that's where the access to the basement is?

Good point wow.

I would think that is doable on that budget. If you have time to source items you can often save money there.

Didn't mean to be critical about garden size just not used to London. My garden is about twice the size and only worth about £250,000.
I imagine you are lucky to have a garden in London as I guess many have been built on. I haven't been to any houses in London. In fact I haven't been there for 20years. Too many people for me.
It is a lovely house and could be improved and become a lovely family home. Good luck with your decision.

We have a similar sized house and similar dated decor! We spent £35k on it without even touching the sides really, that was just rewiring, replacing all the flooring/carpet and a bit of replumbing. We still haven't replaced the boiler or the pitifully lagged hot water tank. The materials cost in a big house is astronomical! We ran out of cash so still have a massive list of things that need doing, I'd estimate we will easily spend £80-£100k more by the time it's all done. We need umpteen windows replacing at around £1k per window, 2 new bathrooms, new kitchen (also want to knock through to make a kitchen diner). I'm pricing up fabric for our lounge curtains now, which I will make myself and just materials for that is around £600.
I'd say you would probably need double your savings amount, but if you are ok with living there are doing bits as and when you can, you've got a good amount to get started with.

We have a 4 bedroom house with 1990s era dated decor and we spent about £20k just on cosmetic redecoration when we moved in (re-paint everything inside and out, re-carpet, replace door and window hardware, replace light fittings, new fridge/washing machine/dishwasher). Similar price point to you, not bargain basement but not Farrow and Ball everywhere either. South East, so should be comparable.