what order shoud I tackle decorating and renovating a flat?

[samsonara]

We have bought a small 1st floor one bed flat, it's in poor condition inside so we need to do it up before can rent it out. It needs a completely new bathroom and new kitchen, replacing carpets in bedroom and hallway and stairs. Also would like to put down floorboards in the living room, tiled floor for bathroom and kitchen, wall tiles in these rooms and the wallpaper in the hall, bedroom and living room needs removing and needs painting. Should the first thing be to have the bathroom and kitchen striped out and removed and all the carpets taken up, wall paper off? then what? I'm not sure what order things are best done in. We won't be doing any of the work ourselves, but I need to work out a plan and shedule and call up people to get estimates in the next week or so any advice from those who have done something similar would be appreciated.

Get someone in to check wiring, plumbing and boiler. Assuming they are all OK, proceed as follows. Order first skip, largest size. Get new bathroom done first, then kitchen. Take up old carpets and strip wallpaper and prep walls at the same time, then decorate throughout flat. Next get tiler in to tile kitchen and bathroom wet areas and any floors. Finally get floorboards laid in living room, and last of all have new carpets fitted with the best underlay you can afford. Sorted.

Thank you BoffinMum, that sounds like a good order to work in. I like that you have written sorted at the end, it's a kind of "the goal word" in all of this [ smile]

That's right. The tradespeople will probably confirm what I have said, but do consult them about the order of work as you go along, because their own schedules and the availability of materils will impact on what is possible.

I think the most important thing is always to pay attention to the scary invisible things like wiring at the beginning, because what you don't want is unnecessary hold ups when nasty surprises are found, or to be re-doing work. Another problem that may loom is that the walls might need re-skimming when you take the wallpaper off, for example, which means a delay as they dry out (anything from 3 days to 2 weeks depending on the property and heating).

Also for personal use, I would type out what they call a bill of quantities, which lists all the things you need to have done and the quantities of materials required. and tick it off as you go, or annotate it with any delays or whatever.

Good points BoffinMum, thanks for mentioning bill of quantities as I hadn't thought of that a great tip foe getting well organised.