Cost of gutting a house?

Kris_90

Kris_90

Kris_90

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29 Jun 2011
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2,081
Hi All

I'm doing a bit of future planning and would appreciate if anyone can give some advice or share an opinion. I've been living in my house for just under two years and have been decorating rooms as and when money allows. I live in a terraced house which is approximately 100 years old and was worth £45k two years ago. Although the price is low the house is slightly bigger than the average terraced house but needs to be modernised (artex on the walls etc).

As of this coming Friday I will have decorated all rooms except a spare bedroom and the bathroom (the toilet, basin and bath are 31 years old but are still going strong :D), I've also put a new boiler in.

I'm thinking about gutting the house in approximately five years but I'd like to work out the approximate costs. I'm 24 but I don't see myself looking for a new house, I really like the house and area so I wouldn't mind spending a more than the house is worth to get it perfect.

I'm hoping to do the following:

- Gut the house back to the bare brick
- Knock two reception rooms into one (would require an RSJ)
- Knock two fireplaces out (I'm not sure if they require some sort of support)
- Knock all internal walls down on the first floor and rebuilt with two bedrooms instead of three
- Replace all beams, floorboards etc
- Convert loft.
- Update all the pipework in the bathroom
- New plasterboards and get a plaster in to skim
- Electrician to rewire the house
- New bathroom
- New kitchen
- New staircase, banisters, skirting boards, door frames and doors
- New external doors and windows (two doors and seven windows)
- New back wall and replace a shared wall with a fence
- New steps to the garden and replace the retaining wall.
- Build a small retaining wall in the middle of the garden so it creates an additional level - then patio one level and build decking on the other level.

Could I get all that done for £50k? I'd be happy to do most of the jobs myself to save money on labor but I'd have to get professionals in to do the important jobs.

Any advice/opinions appreciated.

Cheers
 
If you did all of the work yourself. You could do that for £50k and have money spare (depending on quality of finishing bits, kitchen, bathroom etc).

You just need to take your time and research everything and make sure it's done right.

I've dug up concrete floors, removed a first floor and replaced joists, floorboards, knocked down internal walls, built internal walls, wired house, plumbed house and pressure tested...everything basically, the list is ongoing.

The only thing I paid to be done was the concrete screed to be laid in my kitchen ontop of the under floor heating I laid.

What do you do for work? In the building industry? If you are then there isn't much reason as to why you have to pay someone to do any of that :)
 
I'm an accountant (in training), it won't help with the physical side of the work but it should help keeping on top of costs etc. I'll start researching shortly as you said I want to make sure it's done right.

Cheers
 
The £50k budget will entirely depend on your personal DIY abilities.

If you will be using contractors for all of it, £50k won't even come close to what you need. The loft conversion could easily be £10k+ on its own.
 
I did up my own house, completely gutted and re-done. Did everything myself literally the only thing I got someone else to do was the carpets, connect the gas and sign off leccy work from BC. purely due to my pride and the fact I'm pretty handy anyway always have been. Maybe the mistake I made was doing everything myself. Saved me a packet but almost killed me. Be prepared for long days, I just ended up like a zombie when I got home and the only thing that was on my mind was 'house' was hard on the missus too as I hardly saw her. Also get a radio, I started to give pieces of wood names and talking to myself towards the end!
 
If anyone asks how old the Artex is, just say its 25 years old as it would have been free of asbestos by late 80s. Keeps cost down. :o

I've got 30 year old Artex and it has crumbled off where I had damp so I'm doomed anyway.
 
No other input besides pleading with you to make a thread and take a lot of pictures :p.

I'm really into these sort of things, and as soon as I finish University, I want to find my own house (in terms of buying the house) either here (UK) or abroad (Scandinavia or America) and my feeling is to buy a house and gut it and start again :), so hugely interested.
 
A couple years back now but to give you an idea what can be done for around 50k if you do most of it yourself (well me and dad who was a builder) and haggle - seriously haggle.

Started as a bungalow (size now is about 8x12m and we added nearly half it's original size on during extension work)
underpinned
pulled down half the external walls and rebuilt
change of internal layout
extended ground floor
new windows
new doors
rewired
replummed + new rads, taps etc
cat5e networked
new kitchen
new bathroom
fully re-plastered, bare brick/plasterboard
replaced wooden floors with concrete ones (downstairs)
literal replacement of everything 'decorative' like skirting
Took roof off and fully replaced roof (trusses, tiles, insulation) with new loft conversion - needed stairs + 6 velux windows

Electrics, plumbing windows and the entire roofing was done by tradespeople (we did help here and there) although slightly cheaper than normal as we knew them.

Only advice I can really give is work out EXACTLY what you want to do because the order you do things is important and to think ahead, I'm wishing I'd thought ahead to fit fibre or cat6e network cable for example.

Having done it... nothing is exactly rocket science but experience makes a huge difference to how quick you co do it and you MUST take notice of planning regs and building inspectors as needed.
 
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