Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Can you upgrade a house for £10k or under?

83 replies

ChochoCrazyCat · 03/12/2020 22:01

New kitchen, bathroom, floors and wallpaper/paint.
Standard sized 3 bed detached, think suburban 80s boxy type house.
Not fussed about what brand things are and kitchen/bathroom can be second hand/ex display/factory surplus stock (any suggestions of good places to get these in Scotland welcome).
Have you or anyone you know done something similar for under £10k? Or is that totally unrealistic?

OP posts:
notdaddycool · 04/12/2020 00:10

Having done some bits on the cheap because of childcare we’re about to do it again. Kind of wish we’d stuck it out longer. Better to do one bit properly I think, it certainly not to overstretch.

tabulahrasa · 04/12/2020 00:15

Hmm...

We’ve just spent a wee bit more than that on a kitchen, boiler, flooring and decorating - but that’s doing most of it ourselves.

The only quotes we could get for fitting the kitchen started at 3k - it’s prebuilt units, not flat pack and we’d already taken out the old ones, and it’s not a large kitchen.

Most of them didn’t even give us a quote, just vanished Confused

MrsMoastyToasty · 04/12/2020 00:19

Will you have a contingency fund in case something happens like you pull out the old kitchen and find out the floorboards are rotten due to an ongoing leaking pipe?

purpletrees16 · 04/12/2020 00:49

Other way of looking at it is - how long do you plan on staying? If it takes 3 years to make it decent, but your staying for 10 then that’s 7 years in a better house.

My parents and parents friends all had ancient avocado suites, interesting carpets - often from wealthier friends/relatives who’d decided to replace them and sell or give away the old ones, and everything was fine. The thought of a detached family home was “this was it” so you’d have 20 years to do it up slowly. Now all the houses look like John Lewis catalogs, but they didn’t when they had childcare costs!

I’m also moving into a house that will look like an old person house for years whilst we fix up more pressing issues.

Yesbutisittouching · 04/12/2020 04:59

Lol at ‘I’ve seen them do it on HUTH’. I do a lot of renovations and I’d love to meet a qualified plumber that charges £50 to install a bathroom or a builder who charges £2k to renovate an entire house including fixtures and fittings 🤣 I’d say £10k is fair if you don’t need a rewire or entire heating system installation, reuse appliances and shop carefully and don’t neglect essential items like the boiler. I’d assess the heating system first, make sure it is sound, maybe powerflush etc before considering cosmetic renovations. Ditto electrics - make sure they are safe and that the property won’t need rewiring in a year’s time after you’ve decorated. Look at entire used kitchens for sale on eBay. There are some great bargains to be had if you are prepared to go and dismantle yourself. Bathroom equipment can be sourced very cheaply on eBay too (including stuff which sellers have ordered and not used/doesn’t fit etc), and once you gave everything on site, hire a plumber to fit. Learn to tile yourself as tilers are expensive. Flooring as a pp said can be expensive to purchase and fit so shop around in January when every retailer will want your custom. Good luck in your new home.

PhilCornwall1 · 04/12/2020 05:18

We've done the bathroom and kitchen and it's cost in total £6k, both professionally fitted. Kitchen is a B&Q job, fitted by them, it looks absolutely fine and exactly what we wanted.

Bathroom has just been finished. We bought everything for it (tiles, shower, screen, etc.), fitter supplied vanity unit and basin. Fitting cost for the bathroom was £1800. He is one picky fitter and the quality of work is fantastic.

If the rest is cosmetic, e.g painting, papering, that's a DIY job. I've got bedrooms to do after Christmas, few tins of paint and some paper for our room, 200 quid, job done.

2GinOrNot2Gin · 04/12/2020 06:17

I renovated a 3 bed semi for 13k inc complete replaster but we didn't pay any labour. My husband and close family had all the skills we needed.

You could do it on 10k yourself if you were really really tight and shopped bargains and second hand fixtures etc but no chance with paying for labour

user1471530109 · 04/12/2020 06:43

OP, it's clear on threads like these that lots of people have very different budgets. £12k for a small bathroom Grin not in my world!
I live in an expensive part of the country (not London expensive) and have spent 3 years doing up a 3 bed semi as a single parent working full time. Every holiday I've done another projects. I've just laid the kitchen floor (with vinyl tiles-looks fab!).
I have spent approximately £15k. But I've also rewired some of the house, had a new boiler, new bathroom, new kitchen, new carpets upstairs and I've done the painting. There is still a list of things to do. The windows need replacing soon, I've currently developed a leak from a radiator in the last couple of days 🤦🏻‍♀️, the fence has blown down....it goes on. So although I think it's doable, just beware that stuff seems to be added constantly. It doesn't help that it's just me and my useless DIY skills (but learning!) and one income.

sosotired1 · 04/12/2020 06:46

I have done just this in the past on a small two bedroom flat, just replacing like for like, buying all bathroom suite, taps, tiles etc. on eBay (other people's leftovers from their projects) and just door fronts and counter from Ikea.

I have also just spent around 100 doing the same to a 4 bed house.

The properties looked more or less the same on the surface but one needed all new plumbing, new electrics, all walls were plastered, other issues.

You really need to know what state everything is in before you start and whether it is safe. What will you do if you need a new boiler etc.?

Caspianberg · 04/12/2020 07:01

A kitchen is actually relatively easy to build and fit yourself. We bought one from IKEA for £1000 ( that included new job also but not the other appliances).
If you can take old kitchen out yourself, and build and assemble all the cabinets then your labour for kitchen would be much cheaper for just plumbing and worktop if you wanted help with those.

ChochoCrazyCat · 04/12/2020 09:12

Thank you all, good to hear different perspectives.
I can see £10k won't go very far. I really wouldn't be confident stripping out kitchens etc in case I accidentally wreck the place. My husband isn't great at DIY either. We can do the decorating ourselves but that's about it.
We'd be in the house for the foreseeable, it may well end up our forever home, all depends on whether we need to move for work in future or if we can get better jobs/promotions in our area (we're still in the jobs we got after uni).
We'd want a house that we could stay in long term if we chose to, rather than knowing that we'd have to move in a few years time.
My dilemma is whether it's better to go for a smaller terrace/semi in move in condition and enjoy our free time with our child or go for a bigger detached but have to spend weekends/holidays doing work to it, for years.

OP posts:
Saz12 · 04/12/2020 09:57

You don’t sound keen on the larger house that needs work, and you should choose whichever suits you all best...but in your shoes I’d go for the larger house.

The smaller house won’t be where you live forever. And after 5 years (probably less!) you’ll have had to redecorate hallway, kids rooms, after 8 years the living room, after 10 years a new kitchen.... then add up conveyencing, LBTT, EA fees (when you sell), and compare that to the cost of doing the fixer-upper.

However... might be as well living with the kitchen and bathroom and doing up the rest of the house properly (which won’t cost anything like £10k unless it needs significant repairs) If you start with living room then youhave somewhere lovely to relax even if the bathroom is avocado green!
Bedrooms are generally easy to do, assuming you just paint and a new carpet they’d not be expensive. If you reckon on £300 per room (paint and carpet, very rough guesstimate without knowing sizes), and £500 for living room then round it all up to say £2k just-in-case. Doesn’t include furniture though, not big costs like sorting damp, replacing windows, wiring, heating, etc!

Bathroom and kitchen will be substantially more, and unlikely you could do them to a robust standard (am looking at you, DC!) and hallway for the remaining £8k.

tabulahrasa · 04/12/2020 10:11

The thing is, kitchens and bathrooms are only easy to do if you’re fairly handy to start with... I’ve helped my DP do the kitchen this week, and the bathroom a few years ago....

I couldn’t do them myself - not a hope.

If neither of you are good at DIY, then yeah, honestly, I think you’ll struggle to get all that done for 10k.

2 of them, yes, but not kitchen, bathroom and flooring.

Could you pick the most important 2?

IfNotNow12 · 04/12/2020 11:40

3 k for fitting a kitchen?? Christ. My joiner fit my floor ( largish area) for £200 a day and quoted the same rate to fit a bog standard kitchen, which doesn't take that long. Some of you are getting gouged by trades!

tabulahrasa · 04/12/2020 11:54

@IfNotNow12

3 k for fitting a kitchen?? Christ. My joiner fit my floor ( largish area) for £200 a day and quoted the same rate to fit a bog standard kitchen, which doesn't take that long. Some of you are getting gouged by trades!
We didn’t use them!! Lol

I’m assuming it’s a recent price hike, because they were all also booked up for about 4 months... apparently this year everyone is doing up houses.

Caspianberg · 04/12/2020 12:04

Well you can’t go wrong taking a kitchen out, it’s just demolishing it. It’s going to be broken and dumped so no harm done

ChochoCrazyCat · 04/12/2020 12:36

@Saz12 I'm keen on it, it's a nice house that will look great once done up. But I'm intimidated by the amount of work needing done.
Have just seen the home report and it has an old immersion heater and old electrics. So that will need done first, then there will be no money left for the anything else.
Roof is old too and will probably need maintenance or replacing at some point.

OP posts:
Bollss · 04/12/2020 12:38

i'm gonna say yes if you're willing to do a lot of diy. our small kitchen cost 2.5k plus fitting, i have stripped walls, filled holes, laid floors, sanded floorboards and it hasn't cost extortionate amounts but it has taken a long long time.

12k for a small bathroom is insane btw - i am in W yorks though so if that poster is in London or whatever there'll obv be a difference but you really do not need to spend that much!

Carrotcakey · 04/12/2020 12:43

We did kitchen bathroom and cloak, decorating (ourselves) and laminate downstairs and carpet upstairs. Oh and a supporting wall knocked down for 20k 5 years ago.
Are the walls ok? A lot of our budget was plastering as once we took the awful wallpaper off the walls were a state.

ChochoCrazyCat · 04/12/2020 12:47

@Carrotcakey Did you paint the walls though? Is it possible to just re-paper without having to replaster? Walls look fine, only one occupant since house was built and the wallpaper looks very old so probably original. Some walls have been painted magnolia.

OP posts:
Carrotcakey · 04/12/2020 12:52

They were just a bit crumbly under the plaster so we went for replastering as much as we could afford. Might not be the case for you obviously. Lining paper is a cheaper option and we did that in two rooms (when we were out of money) it looks ok but is still quite bumpy because of the walls behind.

It was original wallpaper from when the house was built in 1950 with about fifty layers of paint on the top!

Gazelda · 04/12/2020 13:02

I'd go for the bigger house and spend the £10k on wiring and boiler etc.
Get the baby's room sorted - paint over paper, paint ceiling/skirting/doors etc, get some decals, some blackout curtains from dunelm and a fitter to lay some hard wearing carpet. You can make it look lovely for not much money.
The rest can surely be lived with for a while?
Then target 1 or two rooms a year to save hard for and do up to the highest standard you can afford. Better to go for quality finishes that last rather than having to redecorate every few years.

missymousey · 04/12/2020 13:24

Definitely doable if you're okay with basic brands. I did up my 2 bed flat for about £6k, also in Scotland. Bathroom suite from B&Q was about £800, fitting was about £500. Did tiling and painting myself, it was fine. IKEA kitchen including oven and hob was about £3.5k including fitting. However if the layout is okay then you can replace doors and worktops much cheaper and more easily than getting a whole new kitchen. I've used kitchenandbedroomdoors.co.uk/ for this and they were great. Flooring isn't expensive but I've made a real mess of trying to fit it so worth costing that (if you get it from a flooring shop instead of B&Q they can send a fitter).

Good luck!

randomsabreuse · 04/12/2020 13:43

I think it could be doable over time. We bought a house with lots of issues, thought the kitchen would need to be replaced but it was fine with a better choice of wall colour (battleship grey does not go with lime green and should never be used in a long thin room with only 1 window!). Painted walls white as a base/ decision and the kitchen looked good. We also added an extra light fitting which didn't cost much. Could live with a 'tolerable' kitchen for ages.

Laminate is fine to fit yourselves. Fiddly until you get the knack and much better if you can take skirting boards off. DH and I did our entire downstairs when I was 7-9 months pregnant with DC1. Only took so long because we did floors last as rooms were done! Would recommend a circular saw though.

Bathrooms I think we spent about 6k-8k on 3 including turning a single into an upstairs bathroom and making the old downstairs bathroom a utility room, plus replacing walls/flooring to rejig layout of a bad ensuite.

We'll probably end up doing similar to our next house if we ever find one. My biggest bugbear is "wasteful" kitchen designs where there's no storage.

Chumleymouse · 04/12/2020 14:52

Like others have said , I all depends on how much you can do yourselves? Basic materials are surprisingly cheap, it’s the labour where a lot of the money goes especially on time consuming jobs .
Plus it all depends on the level of finish you want. 🔨

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.

Swipe left for the next trending thread