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

[ChochoCrazyCat]

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?

I buy houses that are wrecks and do them up. I usually buy a good quality kitchen on eBay for about £1k which often includes appliances. You have to dismantle and collect but the more you do the quicker you get. You can buy a new bathroom with bath, shower over, washbasin and toilet for less than £1k. We save money on fitting ourselves but you can get a kitchen fitter for about £900 and bathroom fitter £1k. We buy floor tiles and wall tiles for bathroom from B&Q. We use of loot tiles for kitchen again B&Q. We use a good quality laminate for bedrooms, hall, landing and lounge. We use floors direct online as they give long guarantees on life of floor. Paint and wallpaper is cheap to do. Especially if you prepare walls and do work yourselves. Vynal floor in downstairs cloakroom. We pay electrician to put in all new electrics £2600 including new consumer unit, smoke alarms, fan in bathroom and 2 extra double sockets in kitchen and 1 extra double socket in each bedroom and lounge. We buy new doors (pack of 10 from B&Q) and put up ourselves with new door handles, light switches, coat hooks on back of each bedroom door and in hall and new lights and lamps. We also put in new skirtings in most rooms and pay someone to clean guttering and do it all for about £10k including a skip hire. If house needs a new combi boiler then add on another £3k including fitting. Each complete refurb takes time though as do most work ourselves 7 mm months. If we paid trades people to do everything I suspect it would cost £15-16k but get done quicker. When we have completely finished refurb we let them out. We actually enjoy doing them. I have learned over time how to plaster a wall, tile, prep a wall for paint and to hang wallpaper. DH has learned to put down laminate, dismantle and fit a kitchen using jig to cut worktops, put down new skirtings and fix leaking pipes. If you can learn to DIY you can do up a home for £10k to a reasonable standard. We learned it is far better to buy a pre used but good quality kitchen than to buy a cheap new one. I would recommend if you will be living there while you do it up to do one room at a time otherwise it is like living on a building site. Because our houses are empty we do all 4 bedrooms at once stripping off all paper, sanding, filling and sanding again then painting, decorators culk. Then flooring, skirtings, doors including handles and hook on back of doors, painting, blinds and lights.

You can find very helpful YouTube clips showing you how to plaster and tile. That is how I learned to do it. With plastering getting the right consistency of plaster is very important. Also you can get thin metal things, s bit like large sticking plasters to go over holes. Put those on wAit 24 hours then plaster over them. Time spend preparing walls really well will make a nice smooth finish. Fitting laminate flooring is very easy. Watch s YouTube clip before you decide to hire someone. I had no skills whatsoever when I first started and DH is an accountant so had no prior experience either. He can now fit new floor joist as well. We have learned all our skills on YouTube and it did not cost us a penny.

We did up our large 2 bedroom flat for just under 15k. New kitchen and bathroom, replastered, plumbing, wiring and new floors throughout.
We did a lot of the work ourselves though. 10k sounds tight.

[quote ChochoCrazyCat]@C0RA Yes, something like that [/quote]
They all say that - unless the house is less that 10 years old. It’s because electrical regulations change all the time so older installations are never compliant.

It’s only a problem if it’s a 3.

I think if you don’t know what you’re doing, this will be very hard and if you achieve it then it may well look very cheaply done. Personally I’d do what needs doing then work my way round. Room by room as I could afford it.

It is doable if you're prepared to do all of the work yourselves, or OH can payment in kind for sparky etc. and if:

Only change doors and worktops in kitchen.
Skim (OH) and paint rooms.
Basic contract bathroom.
No floor coverings.
Basic lampshades.
Home made curtains.

I've spent about 10k on my house since buying it last year and it's not been a complete overhaul but it definitely looks much better. I stripped woodchip from every room, had some rooms replastered, painted all the walls myself, stripped out old flooring and either replaced or sanded the floorboards underneath, and painted the cabinets.

If you were just painting the kitchen and bathroom then yes, if you are replacing them then no. You could easily decorate for 10k if you aren't doing any major work.