Renovation /doer upper tips, splurge and saves!

[Giles1008]

About to embark on a house renovation. A remodel of a kitchen/ dinner including new kitchen, new bathroom, w/c flooring etc.

We are a young family any tips, companies you would use/ wouldn’t, splurge and saves! It is quite the minefield.

The house is currently unliveable, it’s a probate and been empty for over a year. It needs a new electrics and has a lot of mould from condensation, nothing structural. Any advice on what could be done at a later date and what you would do immediately. I know a lot of people say live in it first but that isn’t possible there ain’t a working kitchen bathroom etc.

Oh also rooflights - architect recommended that we get two opening and two fixed - fixed are much cheaper. We are getting our fixed ones from Glideline, and our opening ones are almost twice the price and from a local company.

Radiators we got from Best Heating, and the plumber said the prices there are often cheaper than he can get with a trade account elsewhere. We got the columns - they have a BTU calculator so you can get the right size and heat output for your room

Last thing sorry! We got the solid oak flooring from UK Timber - the slimmer boards are half the price of the wide boards. It's £29 m/2 plus VAT, plus delivery, which was cheap against what we found elsewhere

We got ours from Lincolnshire Radiators Direct (https://lincsradsdirect.co.uk/). The radiators look great and the company has very good reviews but they’re not on the wall yet so I can report back on how well they work in a month or so. Our internal builder started yesterday and we need the whole house boarded and plastered before the radiators can be hung - I’ve been working there in thermals since January so glad they’ll be in just in time for summer 😂

We got our valves from plumb galaxy on eBay and went for the ornate ones (antique style one): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374543225082?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=XIjtbWjHRjW&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=OhcJagwET3W&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY they cost so much but I had my heart set on them for months so I made sure we got the best price at least!

Thank you @rrrrrreatt

Anyone got any front door recommendations?

@proppy we got our front door on FB marketplace for £60. Our stained glass has been ripped out at some point so we’d like to replace it eventually (there’s just textured glass in the frame at present) but that’s an expensive job and a second hand one will do for now! When we get it done properly we’re going to go with traditional front doors as they’re near to us and have done a few friend’s doors really nicely.

If you are going for a makeshift kitchen my top tips are...a fridge, microwave, air fryer, camping stove and possibly instant pot will allow you to cook so many meals. Don't worry about not having a proper oven/hob. Search for freestanding kitchen units on ebay/Facebook marketplace - if you can pick some up cheap, these are great and you can sell them on again, so they actually won't cost you anything but will give you a proper kitchen feel until you get your dream kitchen. If you don't have a sink but you can plumb in a dishwasher easy...do it!

My local ikea used to have a section where you could pick up discarded kitchen worktop sections and doors for free. It was outside in the pickup area. We picked up some worktop mid kitchen build when we just had carcasses of units but no surface as we had a delay of a month getting quartz fitted.

I bought a house without a kitchen, and collected up various kitchen cabinets secondhand/ex display cheaply, then just bought new doors to make them all the same - ok some had different colour interiors but didn't matter it was VERY cheap, and new worktop.

Get the wiring checked and rewired if/as needed though. Ditto boiler serviced.

As for bathroom, as everything is white these days it's easy. Buy mix and match secondhand off eg FB Marketplace, eg I can see locally to me a suite new for £150.
You may also be able to buy tiles, my friend bought a good (expensive) brand of floor tiles , she collected them over a year or two by buying any surplus that came up for sale very cheaply, and has them across 4 or 5 or more colours/shades, so they're put down in a random pattern and look pretty cool, and it cost her less than 1/4 the full price.

There are websites for selling/buying surplus building materials eg enviromate, xstrade

@rrrrrreatt I'm going to look at FB marketplace, thanks.