Renovations - where to start?

[newhouseplans]

Apologies, this is long!

I have recently inherited £50k.

My house is in desperate need of repair / upgrading and so I intend to spend it either on renovating the house as this will significantly improve the quality of life for my family - currently we're making do with sub-par living standards. The DC are 11, 13 and 16.

I'll get some contractors in to quote, of course, but I'd love some MN advice on where would be best to spend the money. I don't think £50k will stretch to all the things that need doing, so it's a matter of priorities... WWYD / what would you prioritise?

These are the current problems with the house:

• heating system needs replacing - new combi boiler & new pipes and radiators as the current ones are old and rusting. This one is essential

• lead pipes need replacing.

• kitchen falling apart, no dishwasher. I don't need a snazzy kitchen, but a functional one would be great, and a dishwasher would be amazing!

• bathroom is so tiny and water pressure so rubbish so as to be not functional. Two of my teenagers are too big for the bath. We desperately need a decent shower for them, it's not very easy to wash in there.

• we are overcrowded, one of us sleeps on the sofa in the living room. We could do a loft conversion - or if the conservatory could be made into a dining room, maybe turn the dining room into a bedroom

• the conservatory is about 40 years old and falling apart - we have the washing machine and dryer in there, which works well, but it's not usable as a room in winter as bitterly cold or in summer as roasting hot. It also has a outside type drain in it - when they converted it in the 80s they simply added a conservatory over the outside drain

Which would you tackle first? How many of the above do you think we could get done for £50k?

FWIW despite its problems, we do like our house. It's in a nice area, we have great neighbours and the bedrooms are significantly bigger than most in this price range (no box room!)

We totally renovated our house 2 years ago. This included rewire as well as new boiler and heating system, new pipes. We also took out bath and put in walk in shower.
Shop around for kitchens we got quotes and were stunned at the difference in prices. The one we got was less than half price of the lowest quote and much better quality. This was a very small company, made their own units etc and wouldnt have known they existed only for a colleague recommending in passing.
we also had a very old dilapidated conservatory that had to come down. We replaced it with a garden room that we love, for a fraction of the price and can use it year round. Also looks so much nicer.
we spent in excess of 70k not including garden room but this was a total refurb including plastering and new floors so with a 50k budget totally doable.

I was going to suggest a garden room/ log cabin also . My 23 ds stays they when he is over , which is only every other weekend now .

Meant we could reclaim his bedroom as a dining room.

Whole project cost about 13k all in albeit we built the cabin ourselves

That's a really interesting idea!

The garden is tiny, so I'd need to have a good think about whether it'd be worth the trade off, but adding a separate shower downstairs and having a space to eat in the kitchen would great.

That's encouraging, thanks.

Love this idea - if only we had room in the garden. It's tiny, sadly! No room for a log cabin, if we still want to have a garden!

If your rooms are a good size, is there anything you could do with splitting one bedroom into two smaller ones so no-one has to sleep on the sofa?

Cant you use the foot print of the conservatory? So not taking dpace that isnt used already? This is what we done.

You would be amazed how much space just going 3-4 m can make from the back wall of the house. Its within permitted development usually as well so only building regs needs (check that in case your area has exceptions).

If the conservatory is already using that space then you are just filling in and large doors can feel “inside/out” so compensate for the lack of garden. Make it a nice courtyard with raised beds and so long as you have space to sit, its worth it. Small gardens can be amazing.

50 grand is not gonna touch the sides there could you not move house with the money?

Unfortunately not - well not if we want all the rooms to have windows anyway!

Yes, we could potentially use the footprint for an extension instead of a conservatory.

This is really worth considering I think.

I did consider moving, but I estimate moving costs to be about £16k or so. (When did stamp duty get so expensive?!)

Then, I'd need to do a little work to make the house saleable - say the bare minimum, maybe £2k if I'm careful.

We need to stay in the same area and I'd have about £32k extra over whatever we get for my current house.

Having a look at Rightmove, I don't think we'd get what we need for that.

Loft conversion first, adding another bedroom adds value to the house price plus you can't have someone sleeping long term on the sofa. A simple legal velux loft conversion can start from just £15k depending on where you live but I would budget more like £25-£30k to be safe (dorma conversions or adding things like bathrooms cost much more).

Boiler if it needs doing (probably about £3k, needs gas safe people) but radiators are easy enough to change yourself or a handyman you know if it needs doing. You can usually get radiators from about £20-£60 each unless you need a really large/oddly shaped one.

Bathroom, where I live places offer bathroom packages where they will update your bathroom switching the bath for a shower for approx. £5k it doesn't need to be a crazy expensive job.

Anything left you could maybe 'update' the kitchen.

@newhouseplans you don't need planning permission for a loft extention if a velux roof window, you do if putting a dormer window in. Building regs are essential if you want it to be classed as a bedroom if you come to sell, otherwise estate agents have to market them as a 'loftroom'. Even to start the process of building regs off over 10 years ago it was £400+ up front, they come and check you have complied at various intervals throughout the build then sign it off at the end and issue a certificate. It costs more to comply than if you make a 'loftroom' eg as well as compliant stairs the window frame in main existing bedroom had to be changed for one that you could climb out of if there was a fire, firedoors that would last 30 minutes and a great depth of insulation under the roof tiles which meant the bedroom ceilings had to come down to lower the floor to give sufficient head height ( you might not need that though depends on your existing roof.) We couldn't live in it whilst it was done but worth it in the end to get my own bedroom and exclusive bathroom........bliss after sharing with 3 boys😂

• kitchen falling apart, no dishwasher. I don't need a snazzy kitchen, but a functional one would be great, and a dishwasher would be amazing!

Do you need new cabinets or could you go for new doors / knobs? Could you paint your existing cabinet doors and add new knobs to freshen it up?

It is definitely not 35,000 now for a loft conversion. We are in the Midlands and I was quoted 50 without a bathroom.

You can do one without regs - perfectly liveable and much cheaper.

Surely it’s no good to you though without regs
The whole point is to add the value of the property without building regulations potentially you’ve just devalued it

Kinda.

The main point is to improve the quality of life for my family, not to add value.

But even so, it'd be a bit daft to go to all that effort and expense and not do it in a way that adds value.

They're so old we need new I think. Also, it would have started off a galley kitchen but one side is missing the built in cupboards.

You don't need planning everywhere for a dormer. We are in London and ours was done under permitted development - our borough only requires full planning permission if its a conservation area / listed etc or if the house has already previously been extended over a certain size.

Yeah, it's an ex council semi, it's not got any conservation related restrictions. 😁

I need to have a look at what my council permits as standard (any idea where to start?!) or are the "permitted development" standards the same UK wide?

Been watching as we need to reno our house too. Lots of interesting ideas and suggestions. It would be wonderful to get an update on what you decided to go with.

I mean, if you knew there was another chunk coming at some stage you could do it in stages. I’ve thought about doing it that way because I get big bonuses. So I was gonna put the VELUX windows in, put a smoke detector in put air conditioning in
and then at the dorma get it all made beautiful at a later date but fundamentally we would be able to go up there and sleep if we wanted to or if the extra space was needed that was my thought process anyway.