Can you get a company to do 'everything' with a house renovation?

[houserenovation]

We're struggling to find a house and our buyer is getting itchy feet. We've viewed a house but it needs more or less complete renovation (all floors, all walls, electricity, probably some windows, need to open up between the minimal kitchen and the living room, which includes moving/changing the cooker, sink, all cupboards...) and we have looked for houses with minimal needs. We've done some renovations on current house and every time something has gone wrong and caused massive stress, so wanted to avoid that. If we had a reliable builder we felt we could trust it would be different but we don't.

But since there doesn't seem to be anything else coming up we're thinking. And that's my q: can you find a building company that takes responsibility for 'everything' so that we wouldn't have to coordinate between builders/plumbers/plasterers etc etc which there would be a lot of? If so we'd like one point of contact who would manage most things so to speak. It would obviously be more costly but we'd pay to not have that stress. (Any ideas on how much it might cost? Percentage of total cost?)

And how few decisions would it be possible to make so to speak? How many choices might there be other than colour of walls and kitchen cupboards? A friend renovated their ground floor recently and it felt like there were endless decisions for them to make although they had seemingly reliable builders... I don't think they went for the 'one point contact' though.

Any thoughts very welcome, thank you!

A relative recently purchased a house and while the sale was going through a fire pretty much destroyed couple rooms downstairs/upstairs lots of smoke damage etc and he used a local fella who did all the repairs and decoration (my relative is so unpractical) so yeah they definitely exist although I don't know the details :)

Yes, I used a company for a smaller job who do just this, full renovations with all the trades coordinated by one of their project managers. Even for a smaller scale job they were so easy to deal with - had office staff who dealt with the quotes and invoicing, a project manager who checked in regularly and specialist trades came to do their relevant bits of the job.

You’re talking about a Project Manager. We were going to build from scratch (decided against it) but the architects were going to PM the whole thing.

You'll still need to make decisions about fittings, levels of insulation, boiler capacity, styles of radiators etc.

I had an extension demolished (before it fell down) and a new one built. I found a good local builder who had a team - plumber, electrician, plasterer, decorator, roofer etc. They each invoiced separately to avoid paying VAT but worked as a unit and were familiar with each other's approach.

The builder managed the bookings of the various trades. So they do exist but are usually very busy. I booked in October and they started work in the following April. The result was excellent.

Yep, for our last house we used a design and build company, they did everything from architectural drawings and planning permission all the way through to building regs sign off and decorating. Provided detailed quotes and timescales which were both reasonably accurate.

Design and build company. But you’ll still need to make decisions! And yes? They are endless…

It was when our builder asked us about what type of skirting boards we wanted that I lost my mind (complete renovation and extension taking over a year here)

Project manager.

You can employ independent ones.

They add to the cost (obviously)

Thank you all for these comments and experiences! I think a design and build company might be what we would need (since we would need to rebuild the kitchen). Really nice to hear that it is possible.. and yes, @HippyKayYay , having to make decisions about skirting boards would probably do my head in too... I really don't care.

Will keep thinking. Thanks again :-)