Is this the right order?

[slipofthekeyboard]

Considering making an offer on a house that appears structurally sound but a little tired and a slightly odd layout. We've currently mapped out the following work:

Insulate loft
Skim artex ceilings (downstairs only)
New downstairs lighting
New kitchen
Remove fireplace
New downstairs bathroom (only an upstairs bathroom at the moment)
New downstairs flooring

Does this sound like the right order? How much would you budget for each step? It's a SE London terrace, just over 800 sq feet.

We're also considering the following:
Relocate staircase and move a few internal walls (assuming they are non load bearing...)
Fit water softener
Front porch extension

A bit clueless about the staircase - is this a major task? Would it make sense to do this first if we do decide to go ahead?

All thoughts appreciated, we're fairly new to 'serious' house work and not quite sure where to start!

Moving a few internal walls and relocating a staircase is a big job. What sort of budget do you have for the works because you are wanting to change quite a lot of the real fundamentals

My understanding was non load bearing walls would be quite easy to reposition? Perhaps we’ve got that wrong

Budget pretty open at the moment - we’re fortunate enough that we could stretch ourselves quite a bit if we wanted to (£100k+) but trying to work out what we would get in return and if it’s worth it to us. Would prefer it to be closer to £40k!

Staircase and walls is a huge job. The stairs will be load bearing walls, so any change will need temporary works and beams which will probably blow your £40k ideal before you even look at any of the other things. If you really want to change the stair layout, then do this first. It will impact your first floor too.

Loft can be done at any time. Do ceiling after all the other work is done. You’re looking at way over £100k for all that. Can you post a floor plan?

Definitely not considering a loft conversion! Just improving the existing space and possibly a very small (approx 2x2m)porch extension that others in the street have done.

A quick google gave £3-£6k for moving a staircase which seemed reasonable, much above £10k wouldn’t be worth it for us I don’t think.

Thanks for all the feedback, will share a floor plan from the laptop tomorrow…

Insulate loft
Skim artex ceilings (downstairs only)
New downstairs lighting
New kitchen
Remove fireplace
New downstairs bathroom (only an upstairs bathroom at the moment)
New downstairs flooring

Assuming you are only doing this and not moving the stairs, it should be

remove fireplace

new kitchen and bathroom at the same time, as they use the same trades . Get lights done at this time.

flooring ( I’m assuming you mean carpet so non kitchen and bathroom ) done last, after decorating ) . If it’s hard flooring you might have to remove the skirtings so before decorating.

then plasterwork ( unless you need some replastering when you do the kitchen and bathroom, which is very common ) .

insulate loft at the end after the electricians /plumber

We viewed a house that needed the staircase moving and swerved it due to the cost (any complications rack up quickly) and the fact you can’t easily live there while it’s being done.

We foolishly then bought a Reno and have had a non-load bearing wall replaced recently. It was only a few days work so pretty cheap but it’s very messy so be prepared for dust everywhere!!

When you say new downstairs lighting what do you mean? Changing the lights on the ceiling is easy but moving them is a bit more work (and needs to happen before you skim) and spotlights mean a new false ceiling.

Def not 3-6k to move a staircase.

If that much needs doing either get an architect to workout if you really need to change staircase and walls and layout or it may get be cheaper to add an extra £80k to the budget and get a house that doesn’t need this much work.

Repositioning the stair case might be £3-6k but that is just for the basic stuff it doesn’t take account of all the other changes you have to make when you reposition a staircase. It also doesn’t take account at that price for things like building regs and structural engineers. Etc How many chimney breasts are you taking out because it you are leaving any chimney breasts or remnants of one then they will have to have steels to hold them up or you have to remove the roof part of the chimney down to the ground floor.

i have taken out about 18” of a wall that stuck out in our tiny hall to make the room look bigger and flow better.

In total I had spent £400 before I could remove 1 single brick.

What ever your budget and what ever the time scale you think it will be
Double them both to be nearer the true amounts

Why did you buy this house? Just curious as you want so much changed it'll cost you an arm and a leg.

I think you’ve been watching too many Kirsty and Phil programmes! This is going to cost a small fortune and make one giant mess. I buy House magazines and the most basic of kitchens etc seem to cost about 38k..I always think “how much?”
My advice move in the way it is and carefully work out, or buy new, or already renovated

I have a SE London terrace. Which walls are you thinking of moving? Dividing walls between living room and dining room etc?

You'd probably want to test the artex to make sure it's not got asbestos. Most likely doesn't but best to check. That could be done during the purchase process.

Apologies for the poor quality floor plan, it's the best available on the listing (thinking I might phone the agent since the measurements are too small for my eyesight...)

The blue rectangle is the ugly 70s fireplace - we'd like to rip this out but not remove chimney breast itself.

We'd prefer a more 'traditional' layout with the stairs facing the front door.

The small room at the back is currently a utility which we'd prefer to remove to give more dining space and then allow for more counter space in the kitchen.

If possible, we'd also like to install a loo downstairs. I've seen pictures of under stairs loos which might work well (depending on space, we could use the existing door to the living area to become new loo door and create a new doorway to the right)?

This is the upstairs, if we wouldn't be going ahead with moving the stairs the only change would be opening up the bathroom to a more traditional one room layout (though might rethink this if downstairs loo isn't feasible)

In answer to questions, we haven't bought (yet!), we're currently trying to work out whether to go for it and what to offer. This house is a truly perfect location for us and is one of a kind (other houses are all big and wildly expensive or tiny flats) so this feels like our one chance of living in this location. It would be a long term place for us, so happy to live in it a while and renovate slowly, but equally don't want to do things in the wrong order or get stuck with things that are completely unchangeable.

@TUCKINGFYP0 interested in what you say about the order - we were thinking insulate first (straightforward, one trade) as we're not planning any/much electric changes upstairs. Would you expect there to be much loft disruption from e.g. a new kitchen?

@rrrrrreatt OH is keen on spotlights (I'm not!) so interesting RE the false ceiling. At present the kitchen has 2 standard pendant fittings which isn't much good for task lighting, but we haven't thought that deeply on what to replace with/add.

Definitely test the artex for asbestos before covering it over. Otherwise you are putting the poor electrician at risk when he/she replaces the lights.

Loft insulation is a dirty but very easy DIY job.

@slipofthekeyboard We’re literally about to have our kitchen rewired (I’m going in to finalise the plan today) and having spots put in for better task lighting, they have to recess into something so they batten and make a false ceiling they can sit in.

We bought a major project house for location and it’s been a bit of a nightmare. We didn’t move in so it could be worked on and it’s taking much longer and a lot more money than we expected! So if you can move in and live with it, do. It’s cheaper so you can save and you might find things don’t bother you as much as you thought they would!

The works you'd like to do will be much more expensive than expected. And then, you'll find a host of issues that you haven't even budgeted for, as always is the case for a doer-upper.

In my latest property, for example, I had budgeted to remove the chimney breast and the chimney. Had done that before and trades plus DIY labour, it all came to 3k.
Here, as it turns out, the chimney is massive, shared with neighbours and can't be removed in it's entirety, the remaining chimney would have no supporting walls nearby so the steels would have to span the house, a whole new wall would need to be built in the attic, the making of the house good after the works.... In short, it would be cheaper to extend the house than remove the chimney breast in this situation.
And that's before the stress of finding well concealed dry rot....

Making a Works Plan before moving into /living in a older house, is like making a Birthing Plan. It's interesting... But oh so futile!

I'm getting away from my latest project bankrupting me, by donning protective gear and demolition hammer + shovel where needed.
I went on the roof and that saved me getting scammed out of 10k.
Don't even get me started on dealing with the trades... That's actually the worst part of it all. I'm in the North East and just got a quote for boarding and skimming three bedroom ceilings...4k! Four thousand pounds! Just the two Victorian bedrooms and a box room, just the ceilings. Fecking thieving time wasters! Back to square one.

Good luck with your rewire @rrrrrreatt ! I think 99% of things (apart from the flooring, annoyingly) we'd be happy to live with in the short term, but if we're planning to do the work within e.g. 5 years I get the impression it makes sense to plan it all out from the start (and not fit flooring that needs to be replaced if we redo the kitchen😅). So now trying to work out what would take it to perfect and if we have the stomach/pockets...

I have lived in a Victorian house before which was a nightmare for hidden bodges/new problems, but this is 60/70s so I'd naively hoped it might be better. @QueenCamilla at what point did you work out the chimney project was so significant? This house is currently tenanted and I'm not sure how easy it would be to get builder/surveyor/etc visits before we've actually bought (or at least had offer accepted).