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!)

I know people are saying you don't need planning for the loft, but you do need to apply for permitted development and the application fees have just risen. I don't know if a bedroom and bathroom would be possible with the loft space you have available? Though it may be tight on the budget.. worth getting a quote though. We used a company called Home Tales for ours and they provided a free quote when we enquired - could be helpful to get the numbers before making a decision.

You do not need to “apply for permitted development”. You need to apply for building regulation - initial approval of plans, inspections and final sign off.

You need to read the Town and Country Planning Act.

Please ignore anyone suggesting you can get a loft version for £15k. That's wildly out of touch. I'm in the midst of a loft conversion. - south east- no dormas. One bedroom, one bathroom, walk in wardrobe. Our quotes for build alone were £50k-£90k. And that is without bathroom suite costs, flooring, decor. It will be Nearer £60k with all that plus building control/ planning/ professional drawings.... if we are lucky. Focus on all the other bits and save for the loft at a later date would be my advice.

Do you have a floorplan?

Can you take pics of the conservatory? Is it falling apart all over, or would £8k ish on a greenspace uk type insulated roof make it workable year around for you? Ours wasn’t salvageable, but to replace with an extension would have been £58k plus VAT on a shell basis. So blow your whole budget.

Personally I would:

Sort the lead pipes. Will be up to about £1k to your boundary, lead pipe replacement scheme with water company should do the rest. Get a filter tap for your drinking water. I’d be more worried about microplastics in the bottled water to be honest, if you’re in a hard water area (us too).

Do the conservatory roof with a proper insulated roof. Move the drain outside. About £8k. Put a lean to outside your back door into the side return for washer and dryer and airer etc to free up the conservatory as nice living space

Sort the water pressure - ask about an unvented pressured cylinder tank. Can it go to the loft to free up space? This made a huge difference to our water pressure, plus they’re half the size of the old ones. Cost £2.5 k a couple of years ago. Radiators were reasonably cheap- look at Best Heating website at the BTU calculator to size them properly to each room. Makes a huge difference. Was £60 labour to replace each one. You might find the pipes don’t actually need replacing. Boiler about £5k depending what you want.

Then I’d focus on the bathroom, which should be about £4K to £6k labour plus materials. Maybe about £7-£8 k all in, if you shop around for fittings and tiles

Then you have about £15k to £20k left to spend. I’d probably do about £10k on the kitchen, including a dishwasher (wouldn’t be without ours)

Would spending on a Murphy style wall bed for the dining room make a big difference? Then you can fold it up to the wall with the covers still on, and just pull it down at night. No faff of making it up like a sofa bed, but also don’t have a bed in your living space all the time. And can use the space in the daytime as extra space for the teens

You could do the plumbing, bathroom and kitchen with that. I don’t know what you are really envisaging with the conservatory but £50k isn’t going to stretch that far. Certainly not to a loft.