Arts and crafts house or detached 1930's 3000sqft project?

[bagpussboots]

Which one would you go for?

Arts and crafts house which is lovely and only needs minor bits doing to it, perhaps new bathrooms in a couple of years, its not quite the right side of town so we'd be compromising on that. Not quite close enough to school to walk or the station. Plus points is that it's big, not overlooked, it comes with outbuildings and huge garden/paddock, down a lovely little lane. It's also at the top end of our budget!

House number two. Is not really a house yet, but would be lovely once done. It needs gutting and starting again. Planning for change of use C2 to C3 or something which I've been told is pretty straight forward. Large plot on a quiet residential street overlooking playing fields and allotments. Closer-ish to school, well at least there are footpaths to walk on, it's on the right side of town. It's not listed but it will be at least 12 months of building work. Wiring, plumbing, re-designing the whole internal layout, new kitchen bathrooms, windows and probably new roof and re-rendering the exterior. It's asking price is within budget leaving around 150k to do the refurb.

I'm not sure if we'd be bitting off more than we can chew with the second. But it's the only one that ticks most of the boxes. There's only 5 houses on the market in our price bracket and none of them are quite what we're after for one reason or another. We've leafleted 80+ houses and nothing has come of it. Apart from one which was too small and anither that is not ready to move but will be at some point next year. Meanwhile we've received 5 offers on our house in the last 3 week and the agents are putting us under pressure to accept. I don't want to sell without somewhere to go to. Gah!

IMHO and I've renovated two properties in the last four years and wiring/plumbing windows were ok, 3000 square feet will take more than £150000. Unless you can do most of the work yourselves.

Get an architect/builder to cost it for you. We are presently in 3500 sq feet. Quotes to replace boiler, water tank, thermostat (without rads) are close to £8k if that helps put it in perspective. Then add on rewiring 6500, windows - £30k minimum, carpentry, plastering, bathrooms, kitchen - bet there's a drive to relay and a tree to take down. Haven't mentioned damp, roof or any structural alterations.

I also don't think the 150k will stretch unless you do most yourself.
So I'd say house 1 or wait until something else pops up if you can.

I'd go for the 30's house. You can make it nice but you can't magically move the Arts and Craft one to the right location.

As it happens, we've been in a 20's fixer upper of the same size for the last year. I think your budget is doable as long as you shop around and employ individual trades. If you're super organized and find hard working builders, you could be in less than 6 months. With your budget, I'd imagine you'd have to stick to a mixture of midrange and budget finishes. E.g. We've only had our manky render repainted and patched up where needed instead of taking it off and doing again. The front door got a lick of paint only too. We've also gone for laminate flooring in the gym and laundry room. However, the bathrooms are done in marble and so is a lot of the downstairs flooring, we got a very fancy bespoke fireplace and high quality wide oak planks downstairs too. If you'd be happy with that sort of refurb then I think you'll be ok with the budget. The only things we've done ourselves is designing and managing the tradesmen. We've even paid for things such as assembling furniture or putting curtains and pictures up. Our spent has bit a fair bit less then yours but we haven't replaced the roof and we were able to keep the windows. If I added those costs onto what we have spent then you're still under 150k.

Qwebec the problem is this area we want to be in is so sought after. Houses of this size rarely come up. And when they do there's a bidding war. We looked at some new builds which are due to be completed in the spring and they want 1.45 for 3000sqft with a tiny garden within touching distance of the house Next door!

This building is fugly. We couldn't not change windows and render etc. I also want to centralise the front door. Most of the downstairs walls will be coming down. Upstairs needs a complete rethink, we'll definitely need an architect. We'd also want to have an extension of sorts to the rear with sliding doors onto the patio. We don't want to do a budget job. It's not cost effective in the long run.

It's been on the market for months without much interest. We're not offering asking price even though it's within budget. And finance-wise we could release at least 100k equity from elsewhere as a last resort.

jojo marble floors sound lovely, not sure DH would agree to it.

if the house has been on the market for ages then you might be able to get the price down a fair bit. If does sound like you are planning massive changes + you'd want an extension - I think you'd need to release the additional equity to afford that too. On the plus side, you'd get the perfect house in the right location ;)

It doesn't sound as though you could live in the 1930s property while it was being renovated?

Though I would go for the one which makes traveling the easiest.

150k won't do it (or be anywhere near) if you want to extend or reconfigure. If you can get the extra 100k and you don't extend/do any big knock through it might be more feasible. Look carefully if you have budget constraints. Renovation can be more expensive that just knocking it down and rebuilding if you need to absolutely everything. how is the plaster? Any damp? What about stairs? Are they still usable? Are you moving/creating bathrooms? It all adds up.

From what you have posted, honestly, I think you need £300k minimum. If renovations push the house into the £1.5m market, future buyers will want high quality finishes.

Hm... Could you take the floor plans and meet with an architect or interior designer to let for a consultation? You could tell them what your wish list is and they could see how that can be achieved efficiently to give you an idea of what's feasible on your budget. Don't get put of by knock throughs - we did 3 structural + a lot of non structural reconfiguration that involved moving pipes and electrics. The 3 structural ones were 2.5k + about 1k for the structural engineer and building regs (in total for all 3). Don't scare the poor woman... and in the budget I was talking about above, we also had to strengthen and unbotch half of the first floor joists following some massive corners being cut in the past. I'm not sure where people are getting the scary budgets from...

The fixer-upper sounds expensive. Where will you live while you're doing the work?

I live in an arts and crafts house though so I'm a bit biased :)

Will name change after this as it is fairly outing but have just gone through an exercise looking at rebuilding vs renovating for our 3000 sqm house. Cost of rebuild - 550k (lower VAT for new builds) Renovation (including 30 sqm extension) 575k plus VAT. All done through local builders and our excellent local architect. We are in SE. Admittedly our taste/spec is not cheap and you could do it a bit more cheaply. We want professional management as we will be out while it is done and can't take on much ourselves. Prices are in line with figures quoted by homebuilding and renovation magazine for rebuild but had been scoped in more detail by builder. We needed roof replacing, rewire, replumbing, new heating, internal layout reconfiguration (including moving stairs), rerender and every wall replastering due to Wood chip as well as new fixtures and fittings. It was everything. If something can be saved like heating system or plaster then that obviously helps. Rebuild price is also less risky as less chances of surprises.

And again - those are shocking prices... I'd expect to do up half a street for that... If you don't mind me asking - what sort of spec were you expecting? Were you going to put in remote controlled everything, air con, fancy windows (e.g. aluminum) etc. Bespoke hand-painted fitted wardrobes to every room, gold-leaf mosaics in the bathrooms etc? I'm just wondering how that much money could possibly be spent...

JoJo, because 3000 sq feet is quite big. Roofs are bigger and higher, as are ceilings, powerful heating systems are required and it all adds up. Also the op has indicated house will be worth well over a million and people will want high specs for that. A good quality bespoke kitchen is easily £60k plus the structural work. Imagine a large space with utility adjoining and Miele appliances, boiling water tap, drinks fridge built in, etc.

OhTheRoses, I know 3000sq is a bit house - My house is 2970sq ft and was built in 1928 + it needed a complete overhaul when we got it a year ago. We live in outer London and I love nice finishes. I've got tons of marble in the house, a bit of fine mosaics from fired earth at 1k/metre, column radiators and some underfloor hearing, I had chandeliers shipped from Venice etc my kitchen is a bit more average with Bosch and Siemens appliances, stone worktops, no hot water tap or wine fridge ( trying to drink less). However, even with the roof and a fancy extension I can't see spending more than 250k on a house that size and over half a million sounds insane...

I thought we'd be clearer on which to go for but we're even more confused...We saw arts and crafts place this morning, it's still a contender, however it's quite noisy. By a railway line and closer to the airport so some plane noise depending on the direction of landing/take off etc. I've totally outed myself now

Doer-uper was a bit overwhelming as its a big project. Structurally it's sound, it was still in use up to 12 months ago. No damp that we noticed. But it will need complete reconfiguring internally. Creating bathrooms & toilets upstairs, getting rid of both sets of stairs in favour of one some where off the new hall way. It's not really in a state where you can move in and make do. And we're absolutely not living in it whilst the work is being done, two under 5's on a building site does not sound like much fun. Re-rendering isn't essential although resiting the front door will be. It has cheap upvc windows which would need changing. Roof looks ok. New internal doors.

We'll look at the figures closely and see if it's doable. Then i'll contact an architect friend next week and see what he thinks. Even if it's just to give us a rough idea budget wise.

575k for a renovation! I have actually said to DH that it may be easier and far simpler to knock the whole thing down and start again.

In terms of spec, its difficult to say, probably midrange fixtures and fittings with a higher range (neptune) kitchen and bathrooms. Under floor heating throughout downstairs. Absolutely no air con, who needs it in the uk! Our current place has pretty good spec some of which we've upgraded to ourselves. No marble though.

Knocking it down wouldn't be a bad idea! And may prove much cheaper in the long run?

I would go with the renovation project, we moved into a 60's property earlier this year, it needs new boiler and wiring, we are also having a kitchen extension and have plans for a 4th bedroom with ensuite ( we can't afford this ATM but once we have planning it can wait). We are completely remodelling downstairs to give a large open plan living area with sliding doors to a patio.

Ultimately We will get the house we want in the area we want ( for a price we can afford) We will however be living on the building site!

I am not denying our renovation figures are high because of some of the specifics. Yes we suggested high spec kitchens and alum windows due to our exposed position. But that really wasn't the bulk of the cost. The stairs moving, the steels for creating the bifolds, Completely replacing roof and replastering everything are alot. Basically if we had renovated we would have been left with external walls, foundations, 50 per cent of internal walls and that was it pretty much. Now, not all houses need that level of stuff doing even if they are in an awful state. If you aren't replacing roof and you are keeping room layouts pretty unchanged I am sure alot you could get that down to a few 100k but 150 still sounds tight. We pretty much bought the house at land price so plenty of room for doing this type of work which will be reflected in the price when we are finished. As I said, figures are consistent with a high spec build from housebuilding and renovation for rebuild. Nothing really crazy but nice finishes consistent with what would be expected in that price range where we live.