House Reno before kitchen extension ? Confused !

[yoyoman]

Looking for some advice. Especially form those who have had an extension done.

I'm thinking or renovating the whole house first. Fitted wardrobes/wall paper/ New staircase/plaster/ new doors /new light fittings BUT cheap carpet.( I'll change this after extension)

And then in a years time I will extend the kitchen. Reason being that I will come into some money next year. Can't afford the extension now and don't want to live in dated house for a year and also I can just concentrate on the extension and not worry about rest of house as it'll already have been done and I will have other room to live in whilst the extension is being done.

Will the rest of the house get ruined during the extension ? Am I being unrealistic ?

WWYD?

Thank you !

Depends on the layout. If your kitchen can be blocked off with access from outside then the rest if your house may get some plaster dust, but it won't be ruined.

I would wait. Extension will create a huge amount of dust which will go all over your lovely new decor. Even if they are careful to seal off.

It’s only a year. If it was 5 years till you could do the kitchen I’d say go ahead. But if it’s a year, so much better to get it all done at once.

I would wait. I would think cracks might appear in other parts of the house with work being done to the back of it, and the dust.

We had our upstairs rooms decorated a few months before our side return extension, but in hindsight we should have waited. It's not just the dust and general builder's mess, but structurally all the rooms upstairs developed cracks when the steels went in, and again when the temporary supports were removed. The bedrooms needed the cracks filled and repainted and the bathroom tiles needed to be redone. I'd wait if possible, or be prepared to do some remedial work afterwards.

It really depends on whether your extension can closed off from the rest of the house and can be accessed without going through the house then there is no reason why you shouldn’t renovate first. We did it on our previous house - twice without any damage to the house whatsoever apart from the first time - we went away for 3 weeks and when we came back we discovered the builder had taken down the boarding from the existing house so that he could bring range cooker through and didn’t put it back up - the dust☹️ - up until we went away they managed everything without any disruption - we made sure we didn’t go away the next time!

We renovated the rest of our current property so that we had somewhere to live and we now are just finishing a large kitchen extension - we are still using the old kitchen which will become a utility room and bathroom. There is no disruption to the rest of the rooms as it is a totally new add on which didn’t require any structural change to the existing building and the builders have access from the back. There is a bit of dust that we carry in on our shoes but we leave our shoes at the door.