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Minor renovations, not structural-timescale?

6 replies

Edieunion · 02/07/2023 07:53

We have seen a house we'd like to offer on, purely due to location and potential. It does need a new kitchen, new bathroom, new en-suite, new cloakroom, carpets and flooring and painting throughout.

We've looked at places like B&Q who could design and fit the kitchen and bathrooms for us to make it a potentially easier process as it would be a one stop shop but has anyone done this?

To make it more complicated we have 3 kids and an indoor cat! We have already discussed living with family during this time and putting the cat in the Cattery but what would the duration of the work likely be? We could live without a kitchen for a while so bathrooms would be the major factor but I've never done anything like this before...are we mad for considering it? We always said we didn't want a house that needed work!

OP posts:
unlikelychump · 02/07/2023 07:59

Obviously "need" is subjective.

It depends how much money you have and how you like to approach things.
Some people moved out and throw money at tradespeople to get what they want. Others work through things but by bit when they have money to do it.
We've had a temporary kitchen for 18 months with our 3 kids and animals. It's fine, it's just stuff.

If you are going to hate the experience then perhaps it isn't for you, otherwise start researching - there are a million shops out there, many more inspiring than b&q

Edieunion · 02/07/2023 08:20

For us it does 'need' these things before we could move in but like I said, we could live without the kitchen but can you pull up the carpets and just live on bare floor?! The house is under budget for us as otherwise we wouldn't even be considering it!

OP posts:
Dox9 · 02/07/2023 09:14

Of course you can live without carpets. Might need to wear shoes indoors and bare floorboards might not be ideal if you have crawling babies.
We have an indoor cat too and have been through major works (attic conversion and an extension) plus all the smaller renovations like kitchen, bathrooms, decorating, changing windows etc.. Just shut the cat in one of the (bed)rooms with his food water and litterbox and tell tradespeople to not let the cat out of that room.

Seaitoverthere · 02/07/2023 10:56

Without trying to be rude and I know I am, I think if you are asking if you can pull up the carpets and have bare floorboards and have said you originally didn’t want to buy something that needs work , are you absolutely sure this is the house for you?

There are so many threads on here with people regretting buying something that needs doing with the current back drop of expensive building materials amd difficulty of getting trades people that I think you need to go in with your eyes open.

Diyextension · 02/07/2023 16:54

Edieunion · 02/07/2023 08:20

For us it does 'need' these things before we could move in but like I said, we could live without the kitchen but can you pull up the carpets and just live on bare floor?! The house is under budget for us as otherwise we wouldn't even be considering it!

I’ve lived for so many years of my life with no carpets,flooring currently rocking the chipboard flooring look in the living area and underlay in one of the bedrooms , but high quality plywood in the extension. 😀

BlueMongoose · 03/07/2023 11:06

We all tend to say 'need' when we mean 'want'- I do myself. That's fine if you're just talking generally about things, but in my experience, when it comes to hard-nosed financing, with any renovation you need to carefully separate real 'need' from 'want' when drawing up a budget. You can (hopefully) wait for things you want, so if they cost more than you think, you can defer and save up (deferring work can often mean you do it differently and better- covid delayed our kitchen, but we ended up with a better design for it because we'd lived in the house for a year). Not the case if a job is genuinely urgent, of course, but very few people 'need' a new kitchen or bathroom if there is one there that is fit for human habitation, even more so an ensuite. The only exceptions I can think of offhand are where people are also using a kitchen for business purposes, or there being someone in the household who is disabled and needs specific provision.

We get a lot of queries on here about refurbs and renovations. I'd say that those who are clearly destined for trouble or are already in it are often those who seem incapable of differentiating financially between 'need' and 'want', whether it is something like a small new kitchen, or a choice between high end fittings and more modest but perfectly serviceable ones in an extravagant extension. So long as you are clear in your own mind about your priorities, and have a list of what absolutely must be done, and what can wait, and have the patience to wait too, you can usually keep budgets under control. Even though we're getting down to more minor jobs on our renovation, we sit down once a month or so and redo our list of priorities of what's left to do for what we are buying in and what we'll be doing ourselves and when. Some things keep getting shoved to the end of the list 😕others come forward if a tradesperson comes available sooner than we thought🙂.

[I warn you, living without a kitchen is far and away worse than living without a bathroom or ensuite if you have both a bathroom and an ensuite and can do them separately. And if you are getting people in to do the kitchen you don't know are reliable, realistic and competent, only the gods know how long that may take. Prepare for months not weeks- with renovations it's always a case of 'hope for the best but prepare for the worst' when it comes to timings.]

In the end, if you want everything done and done quickly, you'd be better off buying a 'made' house. I'd say taking on a renovation definitely costs more at the moment for a similar result, but you can have things done as you want them. Though of course you can contribute your own time and labour to help bring the costs down, even to the point where it's cheaper than the made house, how much that saves is down to how much time and effort you can spare, and how many skills you have or are willing and able to learn.

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