House renovation and garage build

[Craikeybaby]

Because I know how popular build threads are on here!

My girlfriend's grandfather passed away last year, leaving the house he's owned since the 50s to the family. As the house has always been the focal point for the family, they decided they would prefer it to stay in the family and we were asked if we wanted to buy it. Our medium term plan was to buy a house together (she's lived with me in my flat for 6 months) in that area of town anyway, and as the house has the essentials (off road parking and a garage) so we've decided to go for it.

The only problem is that as it stands it is a 90 year old man's house, albeit a 90 year old man who looked after his house meticulously until he wasn't able to anymore. So we're going to have to do a bit of renovation, which is something that neither of us have done before but we're both looking forward to it, especially as her family have said that we can get the work done before officially buying the house (I need to sell my flat to go towards the deposit) so we won't have to live in it while the work is going on.

So far I've had my friend who is an electrician round to look at the wiring and he has confirmed that it will need a rewire, as some of the wires are aluminium, we thought this would be the case anyway. We've also had a look at kitchens and bathrooms and both seem to agree with what we want, which should take some stress out of the process. The first unexpected problem has been found, the wooden garage is on a bit of a slant, so we'll have to add a new garage onto the list of jobs, but that isn't really important at the moment and means that I can get my perfect garage etc.

Our next steps are:
Get a quote for getting the kitchen redone - We've got a local company coming round to look at it later and give us suggestions, they've already said they'll be more expensive than the sheds (who we will probably get a quote from to compare) but seem to be much higher quality.
Get the heating/hot water checked out - We might need to get a radiator added in the dining room.

Price wise we are paying about £40k less than other houses similar, but already modernised houses in the area, but including garage further down the line we will probably spend that much, but get the house as we want it.

Any tips/suggestions, especially for what order things should be done, electrics/floors/decorating/windows/fitting gas fire etc would be much appreciated and I'm sure I'll have a load of questions as this progresses. Likewise if anybody can recommend good tradesmen in the Coventry area, that would be great!

04/02/2014 - I have changed the thread title as the thread now includes my garage build from February 2014/page 10.

Edited by Craikeybaby on Friday 23 March 12:54

Edited by Craikeybaby on Tuesday 4th February 10:51

[Craikeybaby]

A few pictures:





After spending a few hours at the house last night I've been convinced that we don't need to knock the kitchen and dining room into one big room, which should save us some money, as it was looking increasingly complicated.

We are certainly getting a full rewire and new kitchen. However, I hadn't thought of underfloor heating, are there benefits other than freeing up wall space by losing the radiators?

[Craikeybaby]

pmanson said:

Should be a great project...

All I can say is flood wire it with CAT5/6 and Coax - everywhere you think you'll have a TV/PC/Other device and a few more for good measure.

I was already planning on getting CAT5 to a few places, I assume I'll need some sort of router/hub to control all the connections, I was going to get cables for the rear speakers of my surround sound set up wired in too.

Du1point8 said:

My take on underfloor heating is this.

Can be done off the boiler with actual water or off electricity, it rises all over the room rather than one spot next to a windows, keeps your feet warm whilst gently heating the room, electric underfloor heating can be put on to a zone system so only the rooms you are in get heated.

Radiators??? Who uses them anymore to dry clothes etc???

With them generally near the window some heat gets lost through the window itself, the heating of the room means those next to the radiator are roasting, whilst those on the other side of the room are luke warm, underfloor heating (water/electric) eliminates this.

If you have a small kitchen, budget for washer/dryer to use on the days when drying outside is not possible...

Do you have a floor plan?

It turns out the guy that is going to check our heating out next week, mainly does underfloor heating these days, so if we do need a new boiler (theres a back boiler installed at the moment) we will ask him about underfloor heating. There's a lead pipe going to the current boiler, so I understand that will need to be replaced.

The kitchen guy we spoke to yesterday seemed really good, we're going to see what designs he's come up with next week. He said, he will be a bit more expensive than the DIY shops etc (we will be getting them round to quote too) but as we are planning on staying there for a while, I think I'd rather spend a bit more to get the quality.

The only room which needs a radiator has french windows (second picture down), so radiator will be on one of the other walls, we will also be replacing the gas fire in the room.

The kitchen is fairly small, but much bigger than where we live now, but there still won't be room for a dryer, I've got a washer dryer at the moment but never really got on with it, there is a big verandah at the back which could be good for drying.

Making a floorplan is on my list of things to do, I'm getting to grips with Google Sketchup, but slowly.

Edited by Craikeybaby on Tuesday 20th March 17:08

[Craikeybaby]

Yes, it is the gas pipe to the boiler. As we are already planning on moving the gas hob to the other side of the kitchen and probably fitting a new boiler (am I right in thinking back boilers aren't a great idea?) I agree that fitting new gas pipes will be a good idea before we tile downstairs.

[Craikeybaby]

We met with the kitchen designer yesterday and it actually turned out to be cheaper than we expected, about £10k, which includes taking all the old tiles off the wall and replastering, sorting out the ceiling (which is horrible polystyrene tiles, with a step under where the landing is) and solid wood worktops. My only concern is that the integrated dishwasher is unbranded (although has a 5 year warranty) but all the other appliances are known brands. The only disagreement between me & the girlfriend was what sort of extractor we want, which tbh neither of us are that fussed about. Our next step is going to be to get a kitchen quote from one of the sheds and see how that compares.

[Craikeybaby]

Thanks for the input guys, the rough breakdown is:

Cabinets - £2,500
Sink & taps - £500 (we're going for a cheaper one anyway)
Appliances - £1700
Gas fitting - £200
Over boarding ceiling - £200
Plastering - £600
Tiling - £500 (removal of old tiles on walls & floor and fitting new floor tiles)
LED underlights - £200
Fitting - £1400 (including new door into cupboard under the stairs)
Then VAT on all that.

We're going to Magnet tonight to see what they can offer, although pricing up a kitchen on their website that we liked came to about £9,000 anyway.

We've also used Mavenlink to set up a project plan etc, at the moment we're planning on moving in by August and think this seems reasonable.

[Craikeybaby]

Over the long weekend we made a bit more progress, mainly with getting my flat on the market (estate agent coming over later on) and getting our heads around what we want to do with regards to heating.

We have found out that the back boiler is part of the gas fire, which was fitted in 1973, we even found the handbook!

Old back boiler by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Even though both the fire and the boiler are working fine, we are probably going to replace the boiler with a combi boiler (we just need to work out where we will be fitting it) as we are having gas work done to move the hob to the other side of the kitchen and we'd rather get all of the big jobs done before we move in.

Any advice on combi boilers and how much work is involved in moving the boiler to potentially the other side of the house would be great!

We both like the look of wood burning stoves to replace the gas fires in the living room/dining room, although we will probably leave those for when we have a bit more money, it's nice to find something we want to do which isn't linked to something else!

The minton tiles under the carpet in the hallway seem to be in good condition, so we will be removing the carpet and leaving them, as they are a good period feature of the house. The livingroom/dining room also have nice wooden floors under the carpets, which I like, but my girlfriend isn't so keen on.

Edited by Craikeybaby on Friday 1st February 22:53

[Craikeybaby]

Wow, loads of posts, thanks!

furtive said:

A word of caution about buying the house on the cheap, and also not buying it until you have finished the work on it. Whoever currently owns it could be liable to inheritance tax and capital gains tax, and selling it on the cheap could be considered tax fraud possibly.

Looks like a nice project though

I am also concerned about that, I have mentioned it to the family (and my tame solicitor - who is looking into it for me), maybe my original post could have been worded better though, we're paying bottom of what the estate agents valued it at, which is considerably less than other houses in the area which have already been modernised.

BoRED S2upid said:

Source your applicanes yourself there are so many comparison sites out there this is a must. Find what make he is sourcing and you will beat his prices on the internet.

I don't know what Mavenlink is but I hope this isn't expensive.

My tips for a project like this rip everything out yourself tiles off the walls, kitchen units, tiles off the floor, wallpaper, carpets, everything that isn't connected to a water suppy or gas supply rip it out yourself. Beers for mates is a lot cheaper than a day rate for a builder. Then when the trades do come in they have a blank canvas to work with.

I've had a quick google for the appliances and there is certainly a couple of hundred pounds to be saved, so thanks for the heads up!

Mavenlink is free online project management (that hooks in with our Google calendars/to do lists) with all the various things to research/arrange we're finding it useful to keep on top of things as this is the first time either of us have done this sort of project.

The plan is to do more of the work ourselves later on in the project when we have moved in but getting the kitchen done is a priority so we have one nice room already there when we move in. At the moment time is more of an issue than money, but we will be knocking an hour off our daily commute, so should have more time when we move in.

Ranger 6 said:

Plan, plan, plan and then plan again - it appears so much of what you want to do could be done better by doing structural, wiring & plumbing first, then getting the kitchen done. If I was changing as much of the house as you appear to be doing I'd only get the kitchen company to fit the kitchen - I wouldn't dream of them doing the ceiling as well.

Clear out as much as you can yourself before letting any trades start, then get a builder who can manage the trades and a couple of prices for the whole job unless you can PM yourself.

Lastly don't try and move in first - do all the changes while you're not living there.

Planning and working out what we need to do in which order is certainly the trickiest bit I'm finding, we want the kitchen done before we move in, but now realise that we should be doing the electrics and boiler first (there shouldn't be any structural work, but we need to get a survey done), luckily we are both better at planning than doing We're putting off doing the bathroom as what's there already is perfectly usable and we'd rather get things done to a high quality when we have the money rather than get it all done one the cheap at the start, but anything that will affect the whole house (rewire) or kitchen (boiler) is going to get done first. Is there anything else that would be better to get out of the way first?

CharlesdeGaulle said:

Can I ask why not? It sounds like you have a small-ish kitchen so this would offer more space. Also, whilst not to everyone's taste, it's a very modern look which might pay dividends when you come to sell or have a family. If you're doing all this work anyway, now's the time to do it.

I think the main reason is that it would leave quite an odd shaped room, and limit wall space too much for kitchen units, we were thinking an island in the middle, but that only really left one wall for high units. Other things that would have made it tricky/more expensive were different floors (concrete in kitchen and wood in the dining room and it would have meant changing the whole under the stairs area too. As you say I think it would have been a good thing to do, but not on our budget.

Muncher said:

Roughly:

Single Oven (Series 5 Aqua assist single oven B44C74) £1,153
Microwave/Combi (Series 5 C67P70)£932
Steam Oven (Series 5 Circosteam combination oven C47C62)£976
Warming Drawer x 2 (N21H40) £712
Induction Hob (Series 5 Flex Induction Hob T44T63)£757
Full height integrated fridge (G8320 £1,374
Full height integrated freezer (K8315) 1,665
Dishwasher (S51t69x2gb) £579
Flush in ceiling extractor (199C68) £1,079

That's £9,227

Edited by Muncher on Wednesday 11th April 20:26

Wow! That's making me feel a lot better about the quote of just over £9k for the whole kitchen!!!

Blakeatron said:

To the op - I have just started playing with floorplanner.com, its great for playing with ideas!

Thanks, I'll check that out, Google Sketchup seems really powerful, but there is a bit of a learning curve!

Edited by Craikeybaby on Thursday 12th April 13:45

[Craikeybaby]

I also forgot to mention a pretty big step in the process, my flat is on the market with the first viewing on Monday...

[Craikeybaby]

northwest monkey said:

Get the basics done first. Your electrics & plumbing (including replacing your back boiler) should be done first.

Be careful about getting a kitchen done as one of the first "nice" rooms - by the time you've finished the rest of the house, it will be covered in dust & scratches etc.

You haven't mentioned a budget - are you talking a bit pinchy in terms of cash or are you a powerfully built director?

We certainly got carried away with the kitchen, probably as that seems more exciting, but this week we're focussing on the heating and electrics, we've got a heating engineer coming to quote for the boiler replacement tomorrow and an electrician to quote for the rewire on Thursday. To prepare for the electrician we've have made a list of what lights/sockets/network points etc we want in each room, which has shown up a slight difference in how we want to do things, I want to make sure we have enough sockets for everything + spares and sockets/light switches were we need them and my girlfriend is trying to keep things as simple as possible ("It doesn't matter if we need to walk from the front door to the kitchen to switch the hall light on"/"We can uplug X if we want to use Y" etc ).

Which brings us onto the budget, we have got about £17k to spend on work before we move in. Which I was basing on £9k kitchen, £5k rewire and £3k for boiler etc.

[Craikeybaby]

The deposit has been paid for the kitchen, so after a few months of planning it's started to seem real!

We've had quotes ranging from £2.5 to £4k to replace the back boiler with a combi in the coal house (backs onto the kitchen), I was a bit surprised that there was such a big version in the quotes (based on comparable boilers - Worcester Bosch/Valiant) part of me thinks I should go for the cheapest option, as the guy seemed good to deal with (turned up on time and the quote arrived when he said it would etc) and he comes highly recommended, but I'm always a bit suspicious when something seems too good to be true.

This week I also had a slight set back with selling my flat, another one has come up for sale in my block £10k less than I was going to be asking for, so my estate agent as advised me to wait for that one to sell before marketing mine.

[Craikeybaby]

There has been loads of progress on this since I last posted, I've got a stack of photos to process and upload before I do a proper update though.

[Craikeybaby]

I've finally got round to updating this thread, as I've accepted an offer on my flat, so this is becoming more real, I can't believe it was almost a year ago I started this thread and 6 months since I updated it!

I've got photos uploaded, so this thread should be a bit more interesting:

First off some better before pictures:

Kitchen before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Dining room before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Hallway before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Landing before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Front bedroom before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Little bedroom before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Back bedroom before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

[Craikeybaby]

Work started on the kitchen with wallpaper and polystyrene ceiling tile stripping:


Kitchen stripped by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Then we let the trades take over, floor latexed ready for Amtico and electrics first fixed:


Kitchen first fix by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen first fix by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

The MiL wasn't too impressed when she popped round and saw the house in that state, I don't think she thought we really needed to do much work before moving in, but she was fine by the time it had been plastered and painted. Our first mistake here was not leaving enough time between the plastering and the kitchen being fitted, meaning it was a bit of a panic to get the kitchen painted. We were a bit shocked at how green the paint looked in the empty room:


Kitchen plastered and painted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen plastered and painted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen plastered and painted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

The second problem was not noticing that the plasterer hadn't plastered the gaps between boxes for the sockets etc, so we ended up with big holes that needed to be filled afterwards.

However, we were pleased with the kitchen once it was in:


Kitchen fitted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen fitted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Kitchen fitted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

[Craikeybaby]

Since the kitchen was fitted we ended up doing a lot of filling and repainting, around the plugs especially, which wasn't ideal, but the kitchen does look a lot better for it, but the doors were spoiling the look of the kitchen, so we decided to see what was under the hardboard (excuse the cheesy action shot:


Door stripping by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Stripped door by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

As we had kind of expected the original wooden doors were actually in pretty good condition and after being stripped and waxed actually came up quite well:


Restored doors by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

The last expense for the kitchen was the glass splashbacks, we went a few shades darker than the wall paint (Dulux Lime Zest 6 on the walls and 3 for the splashbacks) and other than the glossing the kitchen is done:


Splashback fitted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Splashback fitted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

[Craikeybaby]

iamrcb said:

loving the stairway decor, kitchen clock and radio, small bedroom drawers

The stairway decor is the first thing that everybody notices, unfortunately my girlfriend was a bit eager with the wallpaper stripping, so there's now a strip out of the middle , but we're hoping to get some of it off in big enough chucks to frame (or something) so that it is still sort of there going up the stairs.

[Craikeybaby]

With the kitchen done we set our sights on the next two rooms we would want ready when we moved in, a bedroom and my office (the small bedroom). After stripping the wallpaper from the kitchen we thought the small bedroom would only take a few hours, but that was before we'd encountered the textured wallpaper. After wasting a morning not getting very far we bought a streamer, which made the job considerably easier, but still a ball ache, but with the potential for drips of boiling water to fall on your head when doing the ceiling. As the wallpaper came off we found a vent which had been papered over and a few areas around the window where the plaster had crumbled away - probably a bad job when the double glazing was fitted. Annoyingly I can only seem to find pictures of the good walls once they were stripped, it is pretty difficult to show the whole room as it is so small.


Office wallpaper stripped by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Office wallpaper stripped by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

We decided that we would do the back bedroom as a spare bedroom, but move in there first, using the furniture from the flat, then get new fitted wardrobes etc for the front bedroom. The first job before stripping the wallpaper was to dismantle the fitted wardrobes, (well, actually to remove all the crap important stuff that can't be thrown away that the inlaws are storing there (it is still in the dining room ) the wardrobes were actually very well made and it felt a shame to get rid of them, but as we needed to get the room plastered they had to go. Then it was more of the same, stripping textured wallpaper from walls and ceiling, which was especially difficult where the old fireplace used to be, as the plaster seemed different to the rest of the room, almost clay like. In one corner we found "May 1989" written on the wall, evidently when Jen's granddad had put the wall paper up, the worst discovery was a patch of damp around the window frame, which Jen's family seemed to think had been sorted a number of years ago. As we've had the wallpaper off for most of the lovely weather we had towards the back end of last year and the wall stayed dry, so I'll believe them and not get a "damp specialist" in. There were also a few areas where the old plaster had crumbled away, but to be honest we were expecting that and had planned to get the rooms plastered anyway.


Damp by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Old plaster by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

The next job was an enjoyable one - removing the skirting boards, all blokes like using a crow bar, right? This caused a bit more damage to the plaster, especially on the lath and plaster walls, but the rooms will now be plastered to the floor, rather than skirting board level.


Back bedroom by Lewis Craik, on Flickr


Back bedroom by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Before the plasterer came we got a new loft hatch installed on the landing, as the one in the bathroom was too small and we needed to get the bathroom ceiling plastered before the new bathroom is fitted and the bathroom had the same polystyrene ceiling tiles as the kitchen. Fitting the loft hatch made a mess of the landing ceiling, so we may accelerate our plans to sort out the landing, which we were going to leave until last. Having been up in the loft I'll also have to board it out, as it has plenty of insulation, but won't be so good for storing stuff. I understand I'll need to get "feet" to go between the boards and the joists to ensure that the insulation doesn't get compressed and lose efficiency, so that's another job on the list.

The plasterer did the bedrooms and bathroom ceiling last month, so they will be ready for their mist coat which is the next job, now with a bit more urgency as moving in feels a lot more realistic now!

[Craikeybaby]

Thanks! There are 6 more to go, hopefully they all come up as well. I'm trying to work out what to do about hinges and door handles, the existing ones aren't great, the bolts (I think that is the correct term) are those ball bearing on a spring jobs, like I'd expect on an airing cupbard etc, rather than a latchbolt which retracts when you press the handle/twist the doorknob.

Of course if I decide to replace them that means cutting the door and frames to suit, so I need to do that before painting the door frames. Is this usually a hard job?

Yesterday we sanded down the door frames on the next rooms we are going to paint, but couldn't finish them because there are a few bits that will need some filler after removing the skirting boards which were nailed to the door frames.

Today has mainly been filling out all the paper work for selling my flat - boring!

[Craikeybaby]

Progress feels like it has been slow since my last update, but that's mainly due to things kicking off at work, but I've got tomorrow and Monday free to crack on with painting.

I have decided to get new handles/hinges for the internal doors, luckily they're pretty much the same size as the old ones, so the door frames don't need hacking up, just a bit off filling where the hinges aren't quite as deep as the old ones. I've been visiting the huse every day after work to do a bit more filling on the door frames (to give each layer plenty of time to dry) and they're now ready for painting.

Rather than watching the paint dry between coats I've borrowed a mitre saw and bought some new skirting board, so will have a go at cutting that to size.

[Craikeybaby]

That was our original plan, for those reasons, so we'll have to put up with it (ill post a picture later).

Lights/socket in the loft have already been fitted, although I need to get the switch relocated to near the new loft hatch, but I'm guessing that is a job for an electrician, rather than DIY?