Is this a complete waste of money?

[Rockettrain]

We bought a house that was a good size and good value for money because it was very dated. Structurally sound, a solid 50s house that had been fairly well maintained but just not kept up to date in terms of decor. Since moving in 4 months ago we have decorated all three bedrooms and the lounge ourselves and laid new carpets in those rooms so we have probably spent about £2k so far plus various bits and bobs on furniture (this house is a lot bigger than our old 2 up 2 down).

There is a lot more that we’d like to do. To summarise:

• knock through kitchen and dining to make larger open plan space. Not load bearing wall so fairly cheap
• new kitchen. Move kitchen to where diner was to enable better flow and so can keep an eye on kids from kitchen to lounge
• knock two smaller reception rooms together to make larger lounge. This is probably the least essential part of our plans but it will really open up the space, at the moment our second reception room has no light coming in. Wall is load bearing so need a small steel.
• new downstairs loo and sink, new floor
• create proper utility area in what is currently a kind of weird corridor but was the original kitchen. Install units, washer and dryer etc to have a proper place for washing and general crap.
• new double doors onto garden. Few other windows replaced throughout where it makes sense to
• remove weird interior porch thing and fit new front door
• knock upstairs loo and bathroom together to make one larger bathroom with toilet, new suite etc.
• random repairs to garage that total about £6k
• redo felt roof on the kitchen/diner extension

I will try to post a pic of the current layout and the proposed plans. For the work listed above we have been quoted £65k inc VAT which includes the bathroom suite and fitting but doesn’t include the actual kitchen units, the utility units, flooring, tiles or decorating. The tiling and laying of the floor and fitting of the kitchen and utility is all included but just not the materials. We will paint and decorate ourselves. So we need to add about £10k on top to cover the extra materials. £75k total.

We bought the house for £390k and think that if it was all done up as per the above plans it would go on the market for maybe £450k but obviously it’s not a guarantee. But I feel like we are spending a LOT of money for no extra floor space at all. It’s all of our savings pretty much. We are south east.

Is this just a really stupid plan?

@soundofsilence1 you are an actual genius

(I don’t mean that sarcastically! That does everything I want! Although it might be more expensive as I think it involves moving one more load bearing wall?)

Oh no it doesn’t, I see what you mean. I think it makes the utility too small to be useful though, my drawings make it look bigger than it is. I might be able to include utility area to make a utility/toilet though?

Hopefully only one of the walls you need to remove will be load bearing as they are at right angles so only one should be supporting the beams above. You should also have more usable space in your existing living room as you will be replacing a doorway with a wall.

You could consider putting some of the utility functions into the back of the garage if you are lacking space.

Love that sounds. I’d maybe lose door to outside in utility. That gives you that wall for washing machine etc, and you don’t need a door. It’s okay to walk through kitchen to outside with your washing basket. Gives you more time to admire your kitchen !

Try not to think about it solely in monetary terms if you are not planning to sell anytime soon. Think about your quality of life, with a new layout, how it will affect the way you live in your home, and hopefully improve it.

Definitely not a waste of money. Incorporating that windowless room back into the house is worth the money alone.

I think the plans are great! However, moving the kitchen is adding alot of expense because moving plumbing and wiring is expensive. Could you get a quote for not moving the plumbing?

You may not realise the money you spend should you sell

I think I have come up with a way to sort of implement @soundofsilence1 plans but whereby the toilet area is included in the utility to enable us to have a bigger amount of space/units in the utility. Will try to draw it on the whizzy floor plan app thingy and post it on here.

Also forgot to mention that the quote includes a new boiler too.
At a bare minimum I think we’d have to have a new kitchen and new bathroom, and the new boiler too, plus the new downstairs toilet and sink. Probably the new front and side doors too. All of the above are 30+ years old and the boiler keeps threatening to give up on us already. I’m pretty sure that even if we were only doing that stuff it would be costing £30k.

I would bear in mind how you enter the house from the garage. When you close the garage doors, will you need the side door for convenience? I think I might.

It’s always cheaper to have plumbing along one side of the house. So kitchen and cloakroom should be on one side of the house or the other. I would keep the loo separate and access it from the hall. I’m not a huge fan of combining them and few people I know who started off with this arrangement actually kept it. Cloakrooms have their own personality and charm. You can go to town with decoration and it’s fun. Utility/laundry rooms are functional.

So then make the laundry/utility a bit bigger. It feels too small to be useful and where would a sink and appliances go? If it was bigger you could even incorporate a larder. What about boot storage? It feels like a cupboard at the moment.

@PresentingPercy our current plans do give a really sizeable utility and boot room. The WC is separate but accessed from within the utility if that makes sense, although I can see the benefits of it being accessed off the hall. The cupboard that is before the WC is already a larder type cupboard (and still has the original —hole— air vent from when it was actually a larder!).

Part of the rationale for moving the kitchen (which I haven’t previously said, sorry to drip feed but it’s a lot of info!) is that in the current kitchen almost all of the wall on the left is a window. So we can only have base units on that side, the wall units are on the right hand side. But if we’re losing that middle wall then we’d end up with no wall units at all which would give minimal storage although I know the ‘base units only, plus shelves on walls’ look is quite in at the moment. Blocking up the window would mean we lose a lot of light.

Whereas if we move the kitchen to the right we can make use of that whole right hand wall, as there are no windows there due to it being the adjoining wall with the neighbours. Plus the added benefit of being able to keep an eye on kids.