£100k for renovations. Is this reasonable.

[takethegirloutofwales]

We’ve just had an offer accepted on a 3 bed 1950s detached house. It needs a fair bit of work. We want to
Knock kitchen and dining room into one. Borrow some space off the kitchen to make a utility room
Turn the little downstairs loo into a shower room
New kitchen and relocating of drainage

Upstairs we want to knock out the big fitted cupboards in the two smaller bedrooms and replace with a stud wall making bedrooms equal size, replace bathroom suite, add en-suite and dressing room I. The master bedroom.
Underfloor heating and amtico floor throughout ground floor
Relocating boiler from first floor bedroom to ground floor utility
Plastering throughout
New windows
Knock out the external chimney breast
Insulation and rendering of outside
New internal doors
New front door and back door
Possibly new roof.

Does £100k sound reasonable? Could probably stretch to about £130k. I’d hope given we don’t want any extension this would cover it. We are Greater London, not far from Bromley.

Should add it’s a nice size house but. It massive - about 1400sq ft.

OP, honestly I think just the downstairs will cost you £100k alone. You also need to factor in if the wall you want to take down is a structural wall and therefore will add on significant cost to put in steels elsewhere.
A new kitchen. With plumbing is a lot of money in itself. Also depends on what decor you decide and the quality of it. To do what you are proposing, I think closer to £200-250k is more reasonable for your area.

Honestly I think you'll struggling to do it for £100k. We're on the outskirts of East London; I've added some prices based on what we've done over the last 4.5 years. Bear in mind costs of many materials have gone up a lot recently.

Will you be living there during the work? Does it need rewiring too?

Knock kitchen and dining room into one. - load bearing wall? Do you need steels?
Borrow some space off the kitchen to make a utility room
Turn the little downstairs loo into a shower room - depending on fixtures and tiles you choose etc, and assuming you want someone to fit, tile etc, £5-10k
New kitchen and relocating of drainage depends what you choose, higher end things like quartz worktops or boiling water taps and miele appliances will obviously push it up - you could spend £10k, you could spend £30k

Upstairs we want to knock out the big fitted cupboards in the two smaller bedrooms and replace with a stud wall making bedrooms equal size, replace bathroom suite, add en-suite and dressing room I. The master bedroom. We stole part of a bedroom to create an upstairs shower room 2 years ago; with removing a first floor chimney breast, putting up stud wall, to finished shower room, would have cost around £14k (we saved a bit on labour as FIL kindly fitted the suite). We're replacing an existing bathroom in a couple of months, with mid-range stuff from Drench, tiling, fitting, new extractor etc it'll be about £10k in total
Underfloor heating and amtico floor throughout ground floor dig down and install a wet system, or dry matt? Amtico isn't cheap...
Relocating boiler from first floor bedroom to ground floor utility around £4-5k depending on distance/about of pipework go be moved & assuming you are also having a new good quality boiler
Plastering throughout
New windows we had upvc sash on a 3 bed semi 3 years ago, £10k. Will you also need new curtains / blinds / shutters throughout?
Knock out the external chimney breast not sure - assuming you need scaffolding it could be pricey - would suggest doing this, rendering and rood together so only one scaffolding fee!
Insulation and rendering of outside
New internal doors depends what you choose - relatively basic wood doors, furniture and hanging might be doable for £200 a door, more if you want something special / fire doors etc
New front door and back door
Possibly new roof 3 bed semi 4.5 years ago, slate roof, cost us about £10k onc new guttering

Just to add, you can easily add 25% to our prices from a few years ago, due to materials and labour cost increases.
Those prices were also with us arranging different trades - if you want a company to basically do it all for you and project manage the work, that will be more costly although probably more time efficient.

The chimney could be outrageously expensive.
Amtico isn’t cheap and moving boilers varies? Is it gas?

Structurally we know what needs to be done. My husband is an architect and has drawn up the plans so is aware of where we need rsjs to support any load bearing walls.
Things like kitchen, flooring, soft furnishings don’t need to come out of the £100k budget. The boiler is fairly new - we just want to move it to a different location. Wiring is also relatively new so other than adding in new sockets and taking some of the electrics to areas that there aren’t currently any, there’s not much to do there. We will do all the painting and decorating ourselves. My husband is fairly handy and installed our last kitchen so there are some cost cuttings we could make. We won’t be living there during the work. I’m astounded that it could cost upwards of £200k given we aren’t extending - given the value of the house, I doubt spending that much be reflected in a new asking price. I’m going to get some builders around as the vendor has given me a key and start getting estimates.

If your husband is an architect and has drawn up plans, isn’t he working to your budget - as he would with a client?

I mean, I know architects are notoriously poor with costings and it’s always more expensive than you initially planned but he should have a general ballpark idea?

Yes. To be honest he has just drawn our wish list plans currently. He’ll need to do a much more detailed set of plans and work as you say within budget. But his profession is both a easing and a curse in that he is currently designing our dream home and I’ve said we may need to rein it in depending on costings. He’s used to designing skyscrapers and enormous corporate buildings with massive budgets so to ‘think small’ is quite the challenge. I want to be realistic about it and know while anything is possible it’s all dependent on how much cash you want to throw at it.

@takethegirloutofwales renovations nowadays are not reflected in the asking price. You will very unlikely be able to recoup the costs of renovations with the sale of the property upon completion of them. There is not much of a discount for homes that need renovating compared to those who have had recent work done. Plus the cost of materials are sky high now. It’s only worth it to do the reno if you intend to live in the house long term

We have started a reno, doing all on your list, with a small upstairs extension (dormer so no PP, and 1 more en-suite than you are doing). We have been given an estimate of £300k which includes the bathroom and kitchen fitting (no appliances)

I should add our finishes are more high end for flooring, cabinets and bathroom fittings

I agree with fretfulmum, renovations are worth doing if planning on staying long term to enjoy the benefit. We are embarking on building work now, two storey large extension on our old cottage and various internal works.
I am worried about costs rising but much of our materials and flooring have been pre ordered and paid for so hoping that will help. It’s too late now to worry as it’s started! If we were planning on moving in next few years I absolutely would not be doing this.

I think you would struggle for 100k. My dd just completed a full renovation of a 3 bed semi on the outskirts of Bromley, original budget was 60k, with plenty of delays and material price hikes it has just come in under 100k, her house os 900ft2 so yours is approximately 50% bigger. Luckily she was staying with us as her 16 week project took almost a year!!

Yikes - that’s some overrun. I look at it and think that compared to some renovations, ours isn’t that massive. But perhaps I’m being naive. I’m meeting my first builder at the property tomorrow as the vendor has given me a key to show prospective builders around.

@takethegirloutofwales

Structurally we know what needs to be done. My husband is an architect and has drawn up the plans so is aware of where we need rsjs to support any load bearing walls. Things like kitchen, flooring, soft furnishings don’t need to come out of the £100k budget. The boiler is fairly new - we just want to move it to a different location. Wiring is also relatively new so other than adding in new sockets and taking some of the electrics to areas that there aren’t currently any, there’s not much to do there. We will do all the painting and decorating ourselves. My husband is fairly handy and installed our last kitchen so there are some cost cuttings we could make. We won’t be living there during the work. I’m astounded that it could cost upwards of £200k given we aren’t extending - given the value of the house, I doubt spending that much be reflected in a new asking price. I’m going to get some builders around as the vendor has given me a key and start getting estimates.

In light of the above, I think you could manage £100k but it will be very tight and a very basic finish.

I'd personally design your dream home and, whilst not being stupid, just do it. Do what you can afford for now. I've spent upwards of £100k renovating my 1930s wreck and it's not finished yet. I had 50k to do it 8 years ago and we've done a bit, saved a bit, done a bit more. Moving the kitchen cost double what we'd planned but honestly 7 years later it still lifts my heart I love every millimetre of it and there's no way I'd feel like that if I'd stuck to the original budget. It has taken far longer than we anticipated but I'm really glad we've taken our time.

But and this is a big but we've done a lot ourselves. Dh does all the knocking down walls, rebuilding, digging new drains, plastering, tiling and a lot of the plumbing and we both decorate. We fitted the kitchen ourselves as well and I think your budget is far too small for a total renovation. You need at least £250k to pay other people for all that.

I’m happy that finishes come out of another pocket - the 100k is what we have from the mortgage and if the structural/ building work can be completed with that, then the finishes can be paid for out of monthly income and savings.

We can do all painting and decorating, kitchen installation, knocking down non load baring walls and building stud walls, fitting skirting etc. so hopefully that will help.

This should say - not massive.

If you are doing all of that work yourselves then 200k should be possible

@Alexalee

If you are doing all of that work yourselves then 200k should be possible

£200???

Given the work you will do yourselves, you may just about do it for £100k but it’s going to be v tight. The other aspect you need to consider is that if you need to breakdown the reno in stages/by room, according to budget then it will cost you more overall. Eg if you get underfloor heating then you need all the flooring doing throughout at that time (latter which you said you need to save for out of income), so it’s not a matter of you can do all structural work first with your existing £100k as some of that will need to be spent on finishes and fitting you are doing yourselves.

Fat finger sorry... obviously meant 100k

@takethegirloutofwales

I’m happy that finishes come out of another pocket - the 100k is what we have from the mortgage and if the structural/ building work can be completed with that, then the finishes can be paid for out of monthly income and savings.

If that's the construction/structural budget alone and the finishing is being paid by other means then yes, I think 100k could do it.

Sorry OP, I can’t believe people are misleading you saying that this could be done for £100k. It can’t. Be realistic and listen to those saying you won’t get change out of £200k. That’s the reality of it and it’s how much things cost now.