New bathroom and also carpets - ballpark figures for a novice please!

[WhetherFourCast]

We really need our bathroom redoing - new suite, pipes boxing in, new floor, panels (or tiles) on the wall - basically starting again. I have no idea how long this would take to do - two weeks maybe? This is the first time we will have had a new bathroom .

We also need new carpet in 3 x bedrooms, stairs and landing - typical 1930's semi size. No idea how much carpet that is or how much it costs to fit. I assume we need new underlay too.

I have absolutely no idea of how much this might cost. We are an IKEA+ kind of family, so not Argos budget, but not John Lewis either.

Can anyone who has had this sort of work done recently give me an idea of how much it cost and if that was low, mid, high budget kind of thing? I am really wary of getting people in to quote who are way above our budget, but at the same time, we don't want to do it on the cheap. We are SE if that helps.

Thanks in advance!

5k bathroom
2k carpets

You need to start with what budget you have and work backwards.

How much have you got?

Start looking online to get ideas of prices, make s spreadsheet and at the different things you need, then add possible suppliers and prices, then you can see what it might cost.

You can get toilets from Screwfix for £50 or designer toilets for £400.

Same for carpet. You could spend £16 pm or £400.

Labour is about £150 per day per person.

Thanks @Alexalee - were these figures all in (i.e. labour as well as all materials, suite), and for mid range kind of stuff?

@fitzbilly I suppose without knowing how much it might cost I don't know where to start! Should I look at carpets that cost £20 pm or is that really cheap? I don't know how many metres I'll need, or where mid-range falls iyswim? If I need say 20 metres, then I will be looking at different carpets than if I will need 80 metres.

As for bathrooms, no designer loos here! Just bog standard , decent, average quality you'd put in a standard 3 bed semi!

We are having our en-suite done - new shower sink toilet tiling and flooring and labour. It’s costing £6.5k but we had quotes up to £15k!!
Flooring for a 25m sq bedroom the quote was £500-£800

Yikes @MsAnnFrope! That is a huge variation in budget and is what I am struggling with! Our bathroom isn't big, so might be similar to your en suite - how long have they said it will take? I hope it's going ok!

As for your bedroom - what are your approx room measurements if it is 25m sq? Does your quote include underlay, other things(?) and fitting as well as carpet cost?

Thank you for sharing - this is really helpful

Weve had a new bathroom recently.
Range of quotes from 4k to 11k. One company wanted 2k a day just for labour (team of 2)
Another company didn't even measure the bathroom before quoting us. Others said we cent do it for 12 months as we are so busy.

We went with a quote of 6k. That company were the most professional. We had to wait 5 months for them to do it as apparently home improvements are through the roof at the mo.

20m2 carpet is OK, but once you add fitting and underlay etc that will probably add another 20 per m2... so budget between 40 and 50 per m2 all in
5k is for a basic bathroom with tiles about 20 per m2

Different areas command different prices for trades too. For the bathroom the rule of thumb I was told was however much the bits cost, same to fit - so if your suite, tiles (measure your m2), shower etc come to 3.5k then allow 7k in total.

No idea on carpets as mine are 10y old now, but do look at smaller independents - I got the little room done much higher quality and fraction of the price of carpet right.

If you’re on a budget think about what work you can do yourselves. For example can you take the old tiles off yourself?
Will you source your own suite, taps and shower? If so you can pick up some good bargains. Also do you want one company to come in and do everything or possibly find different tradesmen yourself?

We just had a quote for a small bathroom, just over £7k and they said it would take 7 working days. Friends round the corner with a slightly bigger bathroom had a quote about a month ago for £10k.

I'm in a 30's semi and I had living room (8m long 4m wide) stairs, landing and 3 bedrooms (4mx3m, 3mx3m, 2mx2m) done 11 years ago for £1500. I think we went low-mid budget but as you can see from above - it's been 11 years and only now are they looking like they might need doing. And that's mostly due to naughty cats and the fact they are beige so a bit dated now.

Not had a bathroom done yet.

Our bedroom is roughly square and yes that was underlay and click fit wood floor.
The en-suite should take 7 days to do. I went with the company I liked best too - we got 4 quotes.
If you think there’s a variation in bathroom prices you should see the kitchen quotes we’ve had!!

If you would like some inspiration - have a look here.

3 bedrooms, landing and stairs/passage cost us £1.5k with underlay and fitting. Look out for local firms who offer free underlay etc or deals with chain brands. Our carpet is lovely quality too

We paid £5k for our bathroom about five years ago - which was for everything. Took the whole bathroom basically back to the studs, removed the bath to install a large shower, moved the sink and a full new bathroom suite. That covered all labour etc as well, it was great and worth every penny!

I use those carpet warehouses for carpets, they have end of lines, or part rolls and usually good value. Just had the stairs replaced today for £120 and its a lovely soft carpet and the perfect colour. It’s not 80/20, but it’s fine and was laid to replace one I ruined a week ago by tripping and spilling the contents of two mugs of coffee.

Oh, these are all really helpful insights, thank you. From looking at @FanSpamTastic's link, I think our bathroom qualifies as compact - You'd definitely struggle to get more than two people working in it! We will try to source things ourselves - any suggestions for the right place for middle range?

As for carpets - again these figures are really helpful. @Ivy48 can you recall the appox carpet price per sq m you paid? I am not sure if we could get end of line type thing @SpeakingFranglais as it is quite a big area.

Last question - do we need different carpet type for stairs/hall compared to bedroom, and if so, can you get the same colour but different type. Sorry if this is a stupid question! I really am a total newbie to this

Around £10-£12 per square meter. We then had our living room done by carpet right, including a bay window, works out 35m2 with underlay and fitting for £800. Shop about and you should find lovely carpet at a great price. I’d say £2k max would see you right for your whole upstairs if you’re after decent quality

Also no to the different type it’s don’t get felt backed, invest in heavy wearing underlay and avoid anything with a thick pile of you don’t want to see foot prints etc otherwise anything goes.

We’ve had 3 shower room quotes and all are about £5,500 without changing the toilet and no bath. It’s a tiny room and it’s more than I expected but we want a nice en-suite

I've just had a new bathroom, I'm in a small terraced in the Midlands, it probably came in at just over 4.5K.

New bath, toilet, vanity unit with sink, over bath shower (wasn't one there before). Ceiling re plastered and painted, spotlights and extractor fitted, completely tiled walls and floor, pipes boxed in and a towel radiator fitted.

Everything was just replaced where it was before, no moving of pipework etc. We went for cheapish tiles which kept the cost down, some of the nice ones were really expensive!

It took 8 days in total.

We had our bathroom done last year - everything replaced including tiles, lights and floors. It cost around £1k for all the tiles and furniture and our fitter charged us £5k - it took about 2 weeks to be finished. We had chosen some very fiddly tiles though, so if you went for more straightforward ones it would take less time I'm sure. We also had carpets in the stair, hall and 3 bedrooms replaced in 2019, which cost £1k ish including fitting, we just got fairly cheap but hard wearing carpets from CarpetRight and used their in house fitting service.

This has been so, so helpful. Thank you for all your contributions. I now have an idea of what we are looking at cost-wise which is a great relief!

Any idea how long it takes to fit carpet to stairs/bedrooms - one or two days do you think?

Just a day. The painful bit is moving all the furniture to get rid of the old carpet and then moving it all again for the new carpet to be fitted. Unless you have loads of space of course 🙈.