Undertaking refurbishment of our new dream house

[PedanticBuilder]

Hi everyone! 

 

I just wanted to introduce myself, I'm Hayden. 

 

Myself and my wife have recently purchased our dream house, which is in need of a lot of TLC, and it's going to be  massive DIY undertaking.

 

I'm really excited to join this buildhub community and will input where I can.  If people are interested, I will be happy to share my progress as I go along. 

Happy building! 

[Mr Punter]

Hello Hayden and welcome.

 

The house looks a bit neglected.  It is quite unusual being 3 storey with the integral double garage.  What changes are you considering?

[PedanticBuilder]

50 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

Hello Hayden and welcome.

 

The house looks a bit neglected.  It is quite unusual being 3 storey with the integral double garage.  What changes are you considering?

Yes it has been neglected. The ivy has attacked the property pretty badly!This view it's more towards the back of the house and the entrance is higher up towards the right (the driveway is steep). Its definitely a unique layout and part of the reason we fell in love with it. 

Regarding what needs doing -blimey, how long do you have?

The major/structural works include:
- knocking down walls between kitchen and dining room (will leave the steel installation and plastering to pro's but can do the fireboarding of the RSJ's myself)
- installing a new steel wrap-around balcony with gall balustrades  (I can do things like installing the composite decking but the actual fabrication and installation of the  frame will need to be outsourced.
- Replacing the existing entrance gates (as the entrance is too narrow), with a sliding gate. Ill have to see how much of this I can do myself! 

Other than that, the whole house needs refurb - new kitchen (might use DIYKitchens for this if they have decent quality worktops), new windows, new external sliding doors, new front door, flooring, lights, plastering in some rooms. The garden needs major refreshing too as we plan to have a outdoor kitchen and vegetable garden. 

Also plan to turn that garage you see into a gym. WE already have a separate detached garage up the driveway.

We've budgeted £250k but i know in the current climate, that may not be enough. 

[Mr Punter]

You may find it useful to get some measured plans of the existing building and site and any proposed new layout.  That will make it easier to specify what you want.

 

Do you want to improve insulation, ventilation, heating, hot water, solar, cooling etc?  These are worth considering early on.  £250k sounds a healthy budget but windows and external doors, kitchens, landscaping, automatic gates, wrap around balcony and glass balustrading can eat through a lot of cash.

[PedanticBuilder]

2 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

You may find it useful to get some measured plans of the existing building and site and any proposed new layout.  That will make it easier to specify what you want.

 

Do you want to improve insulation, ventilation, heating, hot water, solar, cooling etc?  These are worth considering early on.  £250k sounds a healthy budget but windows and external doors, kitchens, landscaping, automatic gates, wrap around balcony and glass balustrading can eat through a lot of cash.

Great points! Im definitely going to create a floor plan to get a idea of the space (floorplanner.com is great for that). Im also planning on utilising AI rendered mockups to visualise different specs and get it to generate different interior design ideas. 

The idea of being semi-off-grid is very appealing so would love to get solar panels and energy storage system. Its a double brick construction so Im not too concerned about insulation at this stage. 

"wrap around balcony and glass balustrading can eat through a lot of cash" - Don't i know it! A company quoted me 67k for the wrap around balcony after i showed them this rendering im never paying close to that. If it comes to it, I may just settle for a terrace instead of a wrap-around. 

[Nickfromwales]

Ola, Hayden. 
 

Let it all out mate, plenty of good folk / great advice available here.

 

The vision looks nice, are you DIY’ing it all? There’s a lot to do!

[-rick-]

2 hours ago, PedanticBuilder said:

Its a double brick construction so Im not too concerned about insulation at this stage. 

 

That's a pretty basic setup these days, do you know how much, if any, insulation there is in the cavity?

 

Given insulation is one of the cheapest improvements you can make to a house with a return on investment much better than solar or similar, I would definitely spend time looking at this first. If money was tight I'd rather have a well insulated reasonably air tight house with appropriate ventilation than a cold draughty house with solar panels.

 

Insulation is also one of those things that is much easier/cheaper to do at build time (or when you are doing a major refurbishment) vs trying to fix later.

[PedanticBuilder]

29 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Ola, Hayden. 
 

Let it all out mate, plenty of good folk / great advice available here.

 

The vision looks nice, are you DIY’ing it all? There’s a lot to do!

Ola! 

I will try do do as much as I can, I recently did a flip where I did the entire refurb myself (other than plastering and painting) so I do have some experience  But the structural stuff like removal of the walls, RSJ installation, balcony frame fabrication to the contractors. 

[PedanticBuilder]

21 minutes ago, -rick- said:

 

That's a pretty basic setup these days, do you know how much, if any, insulation there is in the cavity?

 

Given insulation is one of the cheapest improvements you can make to a house with a return on investment much better than solar or similar, I would definitely spend time looking at this first. If money was tight I'd rather have a well insulated reasonably air tight house with appropriate ventilation than a cold draughty house with solar panels.

 

Insulation is also one of those things that is much easier/cheaper to do at build time (or when you are doing a major refurbishment) vs trying to fix later.

I'm afraid I havent yet checked, maybe i'll have a peek when there is opportunity. But that is very good advice! I'll keep that in mind.