Refurb with one contractor or many specialist?

[Lonoxe]

We recently moved house and have now lived in the new place for about a year so time to do refurb. What do people think about getting one single contractor to quote and do the whole job versus contracting separate pieces to specialist. Nothing structural required and I know there's more project management/admin/time involved in the separate specialist option but other than that, does it offer benefits like cost or better quality work?

Specifically we are looking to do work inside and out with the choice to select finishing for kitchen and bathrooms

Inside - New Kitchen, New bathrooms, Repaint the whole interior, make cellar usable for dry good (currently good condition, not flooded but a bit damp and hasn't been used in a long time so may need stairs, well windows, door and ventilation)

Outside - Upgrade soil pipe and install new treatment plant, New driveway (tarmac is bugged and would prefer gravel ~ 50m), new frontage gravel, some paving in places and general garden/grounds tidying ~ 1 acre

Car port/garage and decent provision to store a lot of wood for seasoning

Wishlist - solar panels and battery, heat pump and old stable renovation

All thoughts welcome, thanks

Edited by Lonoxe on Wednesday 22 March 21:51

[Lonoxe]

Aluminati said:

How good are you at project managing ? You don’t have that many complex elements, so avoiding an MC’s mark up will give you much savings.

Finding decent subbies will be the key.

Thanks. I think I can manage project management well. So, you think there's no economy of scale in giving several work to a MC?

[Lonoxe]

Thanks GT, phumy. All makes a lot of sense on the economy of efficiency/ chasing trade around as well as managing unforeseen issues. Benno, we'll be living here so you make a good point there.

I suppose a key concern is being able to spec everything into original costing at the outset for a MC. It is difficult as we don't know the precise finishing we want in terms of brand/cost/quality for taps, sockets, tiles, paint, kitchen, loo components, etc yet. Someone that allows us to buy our own material including kitchen supplier would be ideal. Are there such firms?

[Lonoxe]

Thanks guys. Quality seems to be better with specialists. But given how overwhelmed trade folks are with work, I wonder if it’ll be easy to get people for sun 10k gig where necessary. How is almost 200 years old (1830s) and thankfully doesn’t need re wiring