Crazy quotes? Regretting buying your fixer upper? Join me in home renovation rants!

[Yemelade]

Some of you might remember me from my house sprucing (low level, manageable DIY) thread where I was preparing to sell up my old house.

That purchase is now complete, and we are now semi-regretful owners of a run down fixer upper.

I dillegently made a spreadsheet and researched possible prices of work needed. New roof, kitchen, bathrooms, windows. Its essentially a money pit. IIinitially, prior to purchase, thought we had a healthy budget at 62k, but have quickly realised this is nowhere near enough.

Please join me in rants, woes, discoveries and doom. It would be good to hear from anyone in a similar boat so that my colleagues are no longer plagued by this regularly! I am in North East UK.

X

I Would love your insta if you wouldn't mind.

Anyone in the northwest with trade recommendations would also be much appreciated 🫣

https://www.instagram.com/nestled_up_north?igsh=MTN2MXlqamVqdWN2cg==

Can't help you with recommendations in your area unfortunately, but hopefully you won't feel alone if you're in the throws of renovation or planning stages with my insta!

May I join?

I bought a 2 bed maisonette in London I originally had cowboy's and their work will eventually need correcting. But in the meantime I've cracked on with other stuff.

Just had my kitchen fitted! But I empathise with the comments about finding trades as a solo woman I find men do sometimes give a more expensive quote because I'm a young woman.

Of course you can!

I'm married, but have found we tend to get more reasonable quotes when hubby is involved rather than me on my own organising quotes. Ridiculous really, as we are both as clueless as each other! Though I do find the same thing happens with cars too.

Oh hello! I’m in the same boat as some of you!
we bought a doer upper in May. With two small children it wasn’t liveable so currently holed up with the in laws
The biggest thing I related to was how quickly costs spiral. Our initial quote was £53k, we’re now looking at £85k. Now that does include us adding in a driveway being paved (does anyone have any cost ideas for that?), and building a bathroom and renovating the existing one. But even with that, our budget is creeping away. I initially had some extra savings for nice bits like new bedding and a tv unit, but it’s all dissolving…
having said that, we are very much hoping to be in by the end of September.

That’s a lot of progress @Yemelade, am going to look at your Instagram if that’s ok?

@HangerLaneGyratorySystem if it helps I have just looked up an old invoice to see how much it was to have a double glazed unit in a window replaced as it had blown. It was £168 in 2022 on the south coast. If the frames are ok you just need the glass. New Worcester Bosch boiler slightly moved along the wall was 2k, South West in 2023.

Anything salvageable in the old bathroom? If the bath is white could you change the taps for a shower mixer that can be mounted on the wall and then a shower screen on the side? Definitely worth looking on Facebook market place for sinks and toilets, people often change their minds about things and some pretty much brand new stuff ends up on there that can be tied together by changing taps etc.

I used online carpets direct end of last year to do a room 4 x 4m. Bought carpet, gripper and underlay for just £193 and paid £120 to a fitter for fitting. Not the greatest quality but not too bad and their cheap laminate for utility was actually better than expected.

I’d see what else comes up in the survey and then make a decision.

@HangerLaneGyratorySystem don’t know if this helps but British Gas do interest free boiler repayments so you can pay back the cost of the boiler over a few years with no interest added. I’ve done this

We're a bit further along our planned purchase of a doer upper. I think it'll need some work before we move in- replace guttering, damp proof course, probably electrical work. The decor is very, very old fashioned and the estate agent was telling us all the things we'd need to rip out, like bathrooms and carpets, but we won't be doing that for years. Decor isn't much of a priority for us (though my pinterest boards say differently!)

The costs spiraling thing has been my biggest gripe! It's also hard to stay on budget and keep yourself organised when the goal posts keep shifting or having so many varied quotes that it's difficult to distinguish what is actually a reasonable price. For instance, several builders visited. One said it was a 10k flat fee to knock a wall down, another came and told us it would be 6-9k, the builder we went with gave us a verbal estimation of all the work involved e.g. price for the rolled steel joist, price for structural supports to hold the house up. He told us it would be no more than 3k and he was true to his word. But if we'd have stopped with the first two quotes, I'd have been thinking 10k was normal?!

I also feel you on the "spare budget" thing. We had our savings stashed in a high interest account which matures in September. Had hoped to buy most of a holiday with the interest but we've now ring fenced that for house works. We too won't have money for new furniture and bedding etc but I'm sure we'll get there in the future! Just may take us longer than anticipated. Best of luck with your home renovation works, fingers crossed you get in for end of September!

Of course! I had a couple requests last night so I am assuming you are one of those!

I did initially have it on public when I first started it, but I got a notification that 1000 people saw one clip I posted a while ago and it freaked me out so I turned it private 😂

Whoops, hit send too soon!

Editing because i misread...
How did you find the carpets from that website? We went into tapi carpets recently and I was shocked that the fitting was almost as much as most of the carpets! We've been considering fitting ourselves or looking at an online retailer.

I don't know why estate agents do this. Especially when it is clear that substantial works are required. We knew we were buying a fixer upper, but the guy that showed us around was adamant that he needed to point out everything that needed to be taken out, including talking about the nicotene stained floral wallpaper in most rooms, as if there was even a question we would be keeping it! Like you say, its just about time and money (and having the energy to do things too!). I suppose it worked in our favour because we had less conpetition to buy it in the end, but it's very overwhelming and puts a bit of a dampener on the excitement when youre being shown around!

Thank you for posting your insta account. Just came here to say that you are both totally adorable! Your cottage looks fabulous and it will be amazing when it’s done. Keep up the good sense of humour!

@Yemelade Thanks for the Instagram access, am going to sit down later and have a good look through but had a very quick look and think it is a great house.

The carpet isn’t the greatest of quality but I really wasn’t expecting it at £120 to be fair and just needed to chuck something down in that room for a bit as cheaply as possible as are going to let it for a bit so would be a bedroom but long term will go back to a reception and will have hard flooring . Depending on room size it might be an idea to shop around locally and see if you can get a remnant , get your own underlay (usually use thick cloud ( or similar) and gripper and then speak to a local fitter.

The rest of the house has something different down and I was quite shocked at how much the quotes varied. We paid just under 4k for the other rooms in the house that had carpet, one guy quoted 6.8k. The guy we used came to us and had done a great job on 2 friend’s houses. The carpet from him is definitely better but I think for the price I paid the online stuff is ok and not that landlord hard crap if that makes sense.

Had more of a look, I absolutely love it, will be amazing.

Thank you! We have our moments where it feels overwhelming and we feel a sense of regret for taking on such a big project. But more often than not, we're excited and happy to have taken the risk and such a big project on! We would never have been able to afford this house if it was in good condition. Fingers crossed a year from now we have it more or less how we want it!

No problem!

Yes that's a great price for carpet that isn't a landlord special too. In our previous home, we found a deal online for £599 for a full house of carpets including underlay and fitting. We ended up paying £40 over because of the size of the rooms, but it was well worth it. Unfortunately no such deal exists with that company now!

It will all be worth it in the end when you have the house you want, done to your taste!

Great thread, I’m living in my renovation project 3 years and counting coming from a full renovation into a new project I simply don’t have the energy or headspace yet.

We have new drawings and plans going in, that’s on my list to sort and I project managed the last project to the tune of £325k. this time I’m doing the PM but have £200 and that’s it.

The thing I find is not using builders, we use sepertae trades and I co-ordinate them all, that’s all a builder does is sub contract, that are just like usless project managers around here.

we also do lots of work ourselves, so save a small fortune, we tend to do the hidden stuff like putting the plaster boards up, running the insulation, running the plumbing etc.

Im half excited and half dreading this one, I do really need some more time as work is busy and life is busy so 2026 I’ll get started!

We have just had a quote for £26,000 to repair part of a wall in the garden which has fallen down!

Doing work yourself saves so much. We've been in tiny eaves storage cutting out copper pipes and ripped everything out ourselves, as well as dug trenches for drains etc. Every penny adds up!

Sounds like you have a monumental project ahead. Best of luck with it and enjoy your break!

Is it the great wall of China?! Jesus that's expensive!

Crazy quotes indeed!

It's a bugger isn't it? I remodelled my favourite house and I swear doing the bathroom nearly did me in!

But ... Here I am again. This will be the last home I remodel. I'm older, tired and incredulous at the price of everything! But I've really shopped around to keep costs as low as possible. I learnt from my favourite house that certain things are a waste of money and I'm not buying high end this time. I've been quoted thousands by a couple of trades and then hundreds by different people for the same work. But still even the price of paint is madness!

I'm doing dining and shower rooms at the moment and it's very slow progress. There's a lot of construction but I've got a great builder. The windows, french doors, bedrooms and lounge are done. Then it's the kitchen, bathroom and yard.

The bit that I find exhausting is unpicking someone else's work. Nothing here has been done to my standard.

I really just want it all done. What has been good though is I've given away things because I'm not having lots of plants in pots to look after, or things to dust.

It sounds like I've got a huge home. I haven't. It's just a lot of work ...

How are we all?!

I'm feeling slightly gutted because hubby and I had scheduled to fit our kitchen this week, however there was a problem with plastering which means everything has been held up. The new plasterer is only starting today and will probably be finished on Monday! By which point we are both back to work.

Have tried to make ourselves useful though. Dug some trenches for pipework and drains, created better squared off boxing around our soil stack, added an extra beam to where our new upstairs bathroom will eventually go to bestbl support the massive bath we plan to install, and also cut out a hole and installed a lintel for a log burner to be added at a later date! (Final picture is a live moth found when dismantling part of the kitchen ceiling)

I was previously feeling confident we'd have our kitchen in and looking pristine by christmas, which is still many months away, but because it feels like every small stage comes with so many extra and unanticipated delays, it also feels like I've got no hope of a finished kitchen anytime soon!

Anyone else progressing slowly or perhaps better than they'd planned?

Nice lintel installation. I should be doing stuff but I can't be arsed so I am sat in the garden at the moment. I think I might officially gift myself a day off, which basically entails doing all the housework and household admin instead!