How did you plan your house renovation?

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Firstly apologies for the long post!

Im looking for a bit of advice and to hear of the experience of others who have embarked on extensive projects involving house renovation.

Currently myself and my wife rent out a house in a fairly rural location and our decision has been whether we actually wanted to live there ourselves, with that in mind we moved to the area and rented a property to see if we liked it. We do and yesterday we told our tenants that we wouldn't be renewing their lease which is up in October as we planned to move in ourselves.

The house is a four bedroomed detached property which is in good condition with a big garden but unfortunately has a dated interior - perfectly clean and habitable - but dated. We would need to change two bathrooms and a kitchen minimum but would also be looking at new heating and insolation and potentially some internal restructuring or even an extension or conservatory. There is also a large barn which could either be knocked down or could be renovated too.

Our first decision is whether to move in, get a feel for the place decide what we like and don't like and make a more informed decision on what needs changing. Alternatively we can continue to rent where we are and we can do all the work so that the place is perfect before we move in.

Secondly we also need to plan what we want to buy. How do people actually do this in practice?! Its really overwhelming when you have essentially a blank canvas? Id like people to tell me their experiences of how they went about this, websites, design software, forums etc etc basically where do you start when planning something like this so you make the most informed decisions and get it right.

We have loads of time and want to get it right so I would really appreciate any input from people who have done similar. As its a rural area most of this work will be done online. We don't have the option of trawling retail parks and large showrooms!

TL DR - tell me about how you went about renovating your house! Share pics too if you want/can

 

[rexehuk]

Pretty good question... My answer would simply be it won't all come at once.

I'm smack bang in the middle (maybe start...) of a full renovation. I have no floors, ceilings, in some situations walls. For us, the first point of call was the easiest, strip the house, that requires almost no planning.

We planned prior to moving in what needed doing down to room level with rough budgets and what order we'd want to tackle it in. That however is fluid, i.e. we can't do much now due to rewire, so focus on other items that will help us speed up once wire is done.

After that started planning the bigger jobs, and gathering quotes from builders etc, however I'm doing it all myself. For the kitchen, leverage a company to do your design with you... we chose wren kitchens and I've now sourced it all from DIYKitchens for 8x less (granted in a different colour).

We're probably doing it in a weird order. However currently we're focusing on purely style we want, some basics like lighting and decoration for rooms / colour schemes. In around that I'm doing own thing such as sound insulating the entire house, which you could argue most people wouldn't think of doing.

I like visio for simple designing, not yet versed with other tools!

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

We just gutted ours, all ceilings, floors, stairs, plumbing and 90% of the electrics.
Then I laid the floor upstairs, insulated the whole of upstairs (studwork on the external walls with insulation stuffed in).
Staircase reconfigured and started
All the plumbing went in along with the electrics
Walls, ceilings, bathrooms gah what a mission that was!

I enjoyed it all and a great experience but good lord it will test you

 

[placeholder]

Thanks for the replies. Im in the fortunate position of having my father in law working for a construction company so not only is he a time served joiner but he has pals who are electricians and plumbers so getting the work done shouldn't be too much of an issue, it more the process of deciding what to actually do.

Ive discovered I have no vision whatsoever! I love Homes Under The Hammer and the like and when I watch I see guys coming in having bought a house and they say "Im taking the bathroom out, moving that wall and putting an extra room in here" and all I'm left thinking is "How the hell can you even see that?!" Im always amazed by the end results. Even last night I had a wee look at kitchens just to see what was out there and I was completely overwhelmed by the choice. My wife is much better at that sort of thing that me so in that respect Im sure I will be fine but Id like to contribute if I can.

I must admit Im leaning towards moving in for a while first to get a feel for the place, I think that will help make the right choices even if short term it will be more of a pain.

 

[robj20]

No plan here, just doing it a room at a time as far as we can.

Currently on with bedroom 2, before doing the third. Soon i will be fitting my central heating, all new radiators and Evohome.

 

[mattyg]

Live in it for a while.

We've changed our kitchen design half a dozen times now due to how we would actually use it as opposed to how a designer thinks we would use it.

 

[placeholder]

Living in it has become uppermost in our thoughts recently. The drawback is obviously having the chaos of the work going on round you as you live, anyone who has done this find it a problem? The in-laws live close by and we get on really well so could actually move in with them for a short period if it was a bit much.

 

[CaptainComedy]

Planning is key to give you assurance that what you get is what you want with no (or minimal) surprises.

Brainstorm ideas
Look online for similar approaches
Draw a rough draft
justify your ideas
if your partner disagrees can you compromise?
do a rough costing for resources (doing the work yourself will save you a lot!)
set your time and double it
Find out the risks
Make a work breakdown structure (room by room> change by change>bit by bit)
"A structure is only as sound as its foundation" rings true, spend a lot on the base and you will have more reward later.

 

[tom_nieto]

This depends on money and time. If you've got enough cash, then I would suggest getting an architect to do some drawings and then go ahead with a total refurbishment whilst you live in other rented accommodation while a single firm is contracted to do the whole work. This will be the most painless way to do things.

I think it is useful to live in a property for a little while to get a feeling of how it could be improved, especially if you're struggling for ideas at first. It really helps you to appreciate how you could alter the property for your benefit and specific requirements as well as taking into account things like light and vistas.

Living in the property while you do work will save considerable cash, but it's hard work and sometimes impossible if you're performing major works. Changing a kitchen is bad enough, but doing an extension and structural work at the same time can leave you open to the elements for a prolonged period of time.

If you're using your own contractors then you'll need to invest quite a bit of time being a project manager and thinking very carefully about timescales. The contractors will be able to aid you with materials, but this can slow the process down as you'll want them to hit the ground running with materials on site. Coordinating the different trades can be a real challenge!

Above all I'd recommend getting an architect to make your designs and detailed technical drawings. Having the detailed technical drawings makes quoting so much easier and avoids arguments over designs as they're clearly marked out. It also means that you don't have to be on site 100% of the time making decisions as the drawings should clearly show every aspect.

 

[placeholder]

Some sound advice there, my brother in law is an architectural technician so he could draft up drawings and plans no problem assuming we actually knew what we wanted! I don't think we would be doing anything major structurally but its a question of deciding and getting in all done in one go rather than bit by bit.

Financially we should be ok. There is no mortgage on the property and we have two flats with about £10k worth or mortgage left on it and another flat thats got probably £60k mortgage on it thats rented out permanently so I would imagine the banks would be kind. Don want to spend any unnecessary cash that we don't need to though!

 

[FurryLemon]

1 room at a time.
Do your budget calculations 3 times then add 30%.
Do the dirty work first.
Do as much of the labour work as you can (if hiring in of course)
Buy materials yourself if hiring in, it's generally cheaper.
Don't rush! It's ohhhh so easy to spot a rushed job when visiting people.
Don't cheap out on fixtures and fittings.

Don't buy

Black granite work tops unless you like polishing them.... I ripped all mine out after a year and replaced them all with hardwood.

 

[mattyg]

1 room at a time.
Do your budget calculations 3 times then add 30%.
Do the dirty work first.
Do as much of the labour work as you can (if hiring in of course)
Buy materials yourself if hiring in, it's generally cheaper.
Don't rush! It's ohhhh so easy to spot a rushed job when visiting people.
Don't cheap out on fixtures and fittings.

Don't buy

Black granite work tops unless you like polishing them.... I ripped all mine out after a year and replaced them all with hardwood.

Agree with everything above....Apart from the granite. I've had both and Granite takes less work than wood...By a long way.
9 yrs after having it installed we sold the house and people thought the Kitchen was new..

You just need to find the right granite cleaner.

Plus Black granite is almost indestructible


Maybe because I used to clean our Black granite floor the worktop was a piece of Wee

 

[the_r_sole]

When we did ours we did a reasonable measured survey while waiting for solicitors to muck around, that gave us a good base set of information to get quotes/work out what we were going to do etc.
Then we prioritised the list of jobs, we knew we needed central heating, a kitchen, a bathroom and new windows as a minimum (we ended up doing a lot more than that, and it's still in progress!) There's a thread in here somewhere with what we started with and the way we went about it

 

[toshj]

I could probably give you plenty of advice on how not to do a renovation, however I've been desperately trying to figure the whole ordeal!

We got a quote from a set of trustworthy builders, told them it was far too high and then knocked a few of the plans off the list before receiving a second quote which we accepted. Actually I think we were asked what we wanted to pay (50%) of their original quote, and they said fine but it had to fit in a certain time period... which they didn't state to us. I should stress that the builders had just completed a solid job renovating my sister's flat, and the head builder had worked with my uncle (also a builder) for a decade... so they came with very strong references.

The quote was probably too low, and as the work started taking longer, the head builder come to resent us. We had a vague plan of what we wanted to do, and had an idea of how, when, what, etc. All of a sudden the builder told us that we'd have to start next week, or we'd have to wait 9 months. What turned into a 6-8 week job, beginning October and us back in the flat before Christmas, saw us finally settle back in by the following May.

We had a heap of problems - the flat above us leaked through into our living room... a couple of days after laying brand new floorboards, the Tiler began squatting in our flat (sleeping on new and mostly unopened furniture) and who lost the plot when he was fired (began harassing us, threatening me, etc.) and loads of little things went wrong (the dropped a freshly painted cast iron bath down the stairs, underestimated the amount of tiles we'd need, which took 4 weeks to order in more, etc.).

We're actually rather pleased with the finished product, the cost was bearable and it's added genuine value to the property. But it was definitely a series of life lessons which took their toll on myself and my girlfriend.