Another how much would you budget for...

[Daboomboom]

Small 2 up 2 down Victorian terrace. As you can see there is nothing in the front yard but broken concrete and weeds. I know it's ugly.🤣 The door is about 4ft from the pavement.

How much would you budget to make it look pretty like the pictures (apart from the fancy tiles on the path because we know they will be expensive and plants)? The concrete needs to ne removed and new wall footings added so literally everything needs to come out.

Should have said, this will be done by tradespeople.

Homes Under The Hammer make it seem likes jobs like this will cost under £1000 even when done by tradespeople. How?!

Homes under the hammer is old no? Or are there up to date episodes?

youll need a builder to builder the wall, a gate put in, might be worth taking up the path right under the window and then placing levelling compound before tiling. Be careful not to block the air vent.
I want to say 2-3k?

It cost us £1000 just for the fancy tiles for our path and that was pre covid. I would say £5000 maybe more of in London? Maybe £3000 if you don't do the fancy path.

There are some more recent ones. They turn them all into HMOs or flats these days. Less grey though and some at least try to keep any intetesting features so that's a plus.

Our yard all needs completely ripping out back to soil. Definitely need the air vents!

The fancy tiles along the window would look nice but the reason for the separate slabs and fancy tiles is
a) cost. The slabs will be cheaper and
b) there is a big step to the front door so we think it might look a bit odd. We havent figured out what to do with that yet because the step stops a gate from opening fully. The previous bodger owner just cut the corner off the wooden gate so that it had zero support and felt like it would fall apart. 🤣 We do need a step though.

Yes, we are counting the fancy tiles separately as we may need to compromise on those.

That's one advantage of it not being a pretty house - pretty much whatever we do will be an improvement!

Be careful incase you end up with damp issues. I would try to get earth or maybe pebbles against the house wall to prevent splashback onto the walls when it rains. Even if it's just a small 10cm channel. And make sure the rest of the area slopes away from the house.

I’d go for a low wall but without railings, gravel in front of the window and paving stones from gate to door if you want to do it cheaply. I’d hang the gate so the bottom is about 4 inches above the slabs so it doesn’t catch. My neighbour has this and it looks great with a few plants in large pots.

Get the slabs off eBay ? Cheaper
That would take my builder about a week but make sure you’ve got all the materials delivered first otherwise you pay them to wait around.

We are surrounded by cats. They will use the gravel as a toilet. Besides, Im not overly keen on a garden full of gravel.

Genuine question - why would pavers/tiles cause damp issues?
As someone said above, the airbricks will still be exposed.
It's concrete at the moment so we are not covering grass or something. It shouldn't be much higher than the current level.

I'm not overly keen on gravel gardens, plus we are surrounded by cats and I don't fancy picking up their poo every morning! I guess gravel would be easier and cheaper but we're not selling the house and the concrete is safe so we'll just keep it as it is until we've saved enough if the above designs are out of budget right now. People steal plants by us. They've been known to actually dig them up so potted plants have no chants even if you fill the pots with bricks. I was thinking of getting a miniature potted magnolia by the door (I love magnolias) but I dont think I want to risk it.

Saving would give me chance to figure out where to put the bins! 🤣

The gate would need to be higher than 4 inches and then we'd end up with the top sticking up too high. I think we need a smaller gate but that would look stupid plus I was reading something about gates having to be a maximum distance from the floor for safety reasons. As much as I hate cats in the garden, I dont want any getting stuck/hurt under our gate.

We'll get everything delivered before they start.

We're not overly fussed on the type of slab so should be able to get some reasonably priced.

I got a quote for £6k to redo the pavement at the front of our Victorian building. That included removing all the victorian checkered tiles, fix the base and the door step and relay the tiles the same pattern and add bites of tiles missing (we have just a few bits missing). So very labour intensive.
London prices

The tiles alone will be £1000 with sealents
original style tiles were the best value vs quality for us
some tiles are poor quality-so shop around

You need encaustic tiles
grey slate is cheap looking and will/has already aged

I would say £5-7k we are outskirts of London.

Depending on how good your gutters are, or where the wind is blowing, the rain can splash off the hard surface and hit the wall above the damp proof course. If the dpc high up, it won't matter but I would think you probably want at least 4 courses of bricks below the dpc to be visible to be certain.

Eek. Hoping that because mine will be a rip out and start again, not trying to keep tiles etc, it might be cheaper? Hoping!

I know the tiles are expensive but it's something we can compromise on which is why I'm curious about prices excluding them.

Some people around us have put bathroom tiles down and whilst they would look better than what we have they generally dont look great so we wont be doing that.

I dont like slate. Off to Google encaustic tiles...

Hopefully closer to 5! 🤣

Ah. We dont have that issue at the moment so I think we'll be ok but thanks for highlighting.

nonetheless the minimum accepted distance from ground surface to the damp proof course is 150mm, ie 2 courses of bricks

going by the photos your DPC must be the join above the airbricks, so currently the cement surface is just about at the correct level. If you try to keep that, apply self level compound on it and then tile you will be far to close to the DPC and will risk splashback when raining.

Eventually that may cause damp problems in the wall and when eventually selling the property would be flagged as an issue needing work in any survey for the buyer.

Your proposal is to create a hard surface enclosed between the house and garden walls. You seem to be overlooking the question of surface water drainage. I doubt you want water running under any gap below the gate, mind you could be fun skating in and out of the house when it turns to ice.

Doubtless you've noted in the comparative photo there appears to be a planting bed of soil into which the water can drain....

I see what you mean now but I think you've maybe misunderstood what I'm after?

The concrete needs to come out completely as does the half layer of bricks at the front. It's beyond self levelling. 🤣 So it's literally taking it back to soil and starting again.

Our plan includes an area of planting. We are pretty much after the photos and we want a strip along the front wall like those. That's why I asked for an idea of cost without plants because the cost of plants can vary so much.

Although interesting point - we've never had any puddles/running water etc on the concrete even when there was a wall in place.

Thanks for raising valid points though.

With the wall. It looks like there were gaps under it but they were under the concrete on the other side so there was nowhere for water to run.

Now Im confused where rain water used to go! 🤣