£16,500 to redecorate - am I being ripped off? How much were you charged?

[themummyway]

Being quoted the following:

£2.5k for stripping old wallpaper + carpets and clear.
£7k for "complete decorating" (assuming this is painting 3 bedroom, living room, hallway + a installing flooring in said bedrooms)
£7k to plaster all rooms

Based in London. Average 3bed 1930s house. Is this reasonable? Anyone done similar? How much were you charged?

We had our 3 bed town house completely decorated and some pictures and clocks hung for £1500.

I'd tell them where to go.

We supplied materials but seriously, keep looking.

Sorry, but unless there are some luxury materials we don't know about involved, these quotes strike me as absolutely mad, especially those around redecoration and cosmetic work. This one was my particular favourite:

£3.5k new lights in lounge, remove back boiler, new flooring, new lights, remove french doors
'New lights in lounge' - You're supplying your own light fixtures, surely? Any moving the locations or adding new lights should be included in the rewire quote.
'Remove back boiler' - you've already paid for that elsewhere
'New flooring' - already paid for that elsewhere
'New lights' - again?
'Remove french doors' - so 3.5k to remove French doors?

Re wanting to know what others have paid: I have paid one guy £100 and someone else £125 per day to strip wallpaper. It took them 4 days to do the downstairs (everywhere except kitchen), the stairs (which is the difficult bit), and the upstairs hallway. So in total came out at £475 for about half of a 3-bedroom house. In London, this year. A Victorian house, so quite a bit narrower than a 30s one, but on the other hand it was overpainted woodchip wallpaper so comes off very slowly in two separate layers.

As for carpet, by the time you have got someone to quote to pull it up, you could have done it. My council charges £20 to take 5 large bags away, or you can drive it to the dump. I believe carpet fitters will usually take up the old one and dispose of it for a small amount extra.

As for skimming - how do you know it needs it? You haven't seen the plaster yet! I was expecting the worst in our horribly looked-after fixer upper. Our plaster is like glass.

Six months also seems completely ridiculous.

I think you need to decide what kind of renovator you are. Do you want to get one person to quote for everything, hand over the keys, go and live in a rented house and come back at the end to a finished house? If so, then, yes, you will pay a big mark up (not sure if it should be quite this big though!! But I don't know). Or do you want to organise and pay for each job individually and troubleshoot as you go? If so, then you need to find an electrician to do the electrics, a plasterer for the plastering, a builder for the steels, and so on. What you absolutely don't want to be doing is paying a builder builder's rates to strip wallpaper for you.

Meant completely nicely, but it sounds like you don't understand much of what is involved in some of these jobs? I think you should get on youtube and find out. Even if you don't want to DIY any (and lots of them are easy jobs and prime DIY pickings), understanding will help you specify what you want and get a sense of how much you expect them to cost. And obviously you need to be getting more than one quote before you hand over these kind of sums of money.

And also widening/adjusting the doorways slightly so the doors close better? Would that help to explain the price? - do you mean knocking out bricks to widen the opening and then making it all good again? Or do you mean planing/sanding back the door frame a bit to ease a sticking door? If the latter, absolutely not.

@Smallgoon given I’ve done 2 huge renovations in the last 10 years i know what I paid and I know that roof, new walls etc it was that expensive. A higher mid range renovation of a 3 bed semi which has been barely touched since the 1930’s and is managed by a decent building firm with you doing nothing is going to be lucky to come in with change from £100k. Of course you can do a basic job for a lot less but if you’re looking to do a decent job and not bring in the trades yourself it’s expensive.

We renovated a 3 bed victorian cottage in bucks 8 years ago and over the course of 2/3 years spent about £50,000 on the whole thing. Labour charges are huge these days and things always cost more in the london area. I think you would be wise to get at least one other detailed quote but from what you youve said this is not just a decorating job it is complete gutting of the inside of the house And this will cost a lot.

When DH was an electrician his quotes were always detailed so how many sockets, switches etc in each room. What was going to be provided by the customer and what was going to be provided by him. Saved a lot of debate later.

A PP mentioned getting more detail. What exactly is included. It is worth engaging the trades separately and project managing it yourself. That way each trade knows what you are expecting and what has been agreed to.

Oh, and dont get your bath delivered to site until ready to install. You see a lovely bath in which you will relax, sip on a glass of wine. Your builders will see a convenient place to put tools down!

@GinisLife could
You dm me your guys info ? I'll happily pay him to stay in a hotel for that price!

@coronabeer23 I should have stopped reading at this part:

£2.5k for stripping old wallpaper + carpets and clear. ABOUT RIGHT

You've provided us with a laugh if nothing more. Clearly everybody else who is aghast at what OP has been quoted is wrong, but you are right.

OP, I spoke to my brother who is a (London based) landlord and regularly involved in DIY projects. His exact words were 'wow, he saw her coming'. He couldn't believe the quote your builder had given you. Clearly your relative feels the same. Good luck with whatever you decide.

£3k for new bedroom doors wtf are they made of?

we're in London, £1500 per room to strip walls, re plaster and paint, inc woodwork. Old Victorian house also so high ceilings and quite large rooms.

It depends on the size of the house. We have a tiny house not far from London and paid £4k just for flooring so 16k to decorate a 1930s style house plus flooring sounds reasonable to me.

@smallgoon. I'm glad I gave you a laugh. Have you done a renovation on a 30's house which hasn't been touched for decades? The OP may be quoted a bit high, although I don't think that she has been, it sounds a reasonable ballpark.

The house will need everything doing to it and I assume she wants it done properly. She needs to assume that as she pulls out the wallpaper the walls will crumble, that half the floorboards will be rotten so need to be replaced, that the pipes are not of good enough quality to withstand a modern plumbing system. Spotlights will cost more than having a bulb in the middle of the room. When she pulls up the carpet on the stairs are they safe? Are some of the steps going to need replacing. The likelihood of there being damp the survey hasn't identified etc is reasonable. Is the pipework from the house to the external pipes suitable or will the drive need lifting to sort that out. Is there gas where she wants the hob or does that need to be added. What about an extractor system?

The builder may be having a laugh, I don't know that for sure but actually, once he breaks it down for her the likelihood of it costing her £70k or more to renovate a rundown house in london without her doing or sourcing any of the work herself is realistic.

This is a not repaint and tart up of a house which is a bit tired but essentially fine. If the house is as old as she has suggested and she wants a decent finish with mid range fixtures and fittings, which are included in her quote (from what I read her quote includes wooden flooring throughout, all the sanitaryware for the bathrooms, all the radiators, doors etc, she's not planning on buying anything above this apart from kitchen units and appliances) not a landlord finish it is expensive.

OP bear in mind that repainting a house is VERY different to painting from bare plaster

However it’s still pricey. Our 6 bed all wood work, picture rail, walls all from plaster has been quoted at 18k by the expensive builder.

Something that might add time and cost is if there are access issues. Is there room for a skip and vans outside? Are there strict limits in your area for number of hours that can be worked?

Get at least 3 different quotes. 16.5 k seems excessive but until you get other quotes too you have nothing to compare it too.

Wow! The best thing to do is get more quotes. It’s annoying but part of the process of renovating. Seems high to me and most people responding to you, but that is the only way to definitely know. If that is the going rate, and you are able to, you can do most of those things yourself and save about £15,000 or more, worth it! :)

I was once quoted £400 plus the cost of the wallpaper to hang wallpaper up one wall, along one flight of stairs. Guess he didn't want the job.
That is exorbitant OP, so ask around. You'd think it might be a buyers' market right now with lots of companies competing for work.

*Thanks everyone. Clearly I should have done more research and been less impulsive. I have learned my lesson and will be slowing things down to it properly.

Just to reiterate a point made earlier: I stated that the builder told a male relative that he intended to charge me £52k, NOT the £70k that I received.

I was also advised not to discuss the final figure with the relative.*

Some of it seems to much but we don't know all details like plastering all the rooms is that ceilings too and removing old plaster ?
Doors could be expensive
Decorating and flooring as it included solid wood flooring not so bad
But really best way is to get several more quotes from local companies for same work
Just because someone on mn has a boiler fitted for £1500 doesn't mean you will get one same if supplying a better boiler or more work needs doing etc

@WhatIsLife20 a week to paint a 3 bed fully /would be more as a painter will have to prep you can't just paint straight over a plaster wall with fresh paint we also don't know what the woodwork is like , a good painter will take as long to prep as paint in general
The kitchen price makes no sense if purely removing a kitchen and fitting a new one , infact I will send my dh to you for half the price for that
Op get another 2 quotes at least

@Enterthenight £30 a door is cheap though and some doors can take longer to hang my dh was considered cheap when he was self employed but would charge more than £30 for a door as depends on lining etc

Flipping he'll that's expensive!!

You need other quotes to compare as people saying what they have paid they have no context of wether yours is the same As there's not always advisable to get more than one quote
£3000 for doors have you picked a particular door that is like £800 each or is it providing a £40 door without all the information it's hard to tell , on first glance some prices look ok whilst others look way over the top

** it's always advisable to get more than one quote

@smallgoon I'm with @corona at first glance it seems expensive but house could have 30 layers so may be extensive stripping and ceilings may also be papered for all we know ,or worse artex rules
At first glance some seems expensive but other bits not so much as we don't have all the details
I could find a painter that's cheap but the work might not be as good but if I'm happy with a slap dash job like most landlords are that's fine but I might pay more for a better job but I would always have several quotes so I can compare but not always going with the cheapest if I think the work may be lower standard ( maybe would like to see other work they have done etc )

Not only did he see you coming, but I think he popped down to SE this week to quote for me. (£47k for a £20k job) sounds like you have had a lucky escape.