Is £188k a realistic budget for a 4,446 sq ft refurb?

[PedanticBuilder]

Hey all, 

 

I'm currently planning the refurb of a 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom property with around 4,446 sq ft of internal space and have put together the attached budget. I'd be interested to get people's thoughts on whether I'm in roughly the right ballpark with this, or whether I've seriously underestimated anything.

 

I'm planning to do a lot of the work myself, so most of the figures are materials only. Anything marked as "subcontractor" is work I'm planning to outsource.

 

The total is currently coming out at £188,490 with no contingency included. I'm particularly interested in how other people approach budgeting for larger refurb projects.

 

Would appreciate any thoughts, especially from anyone who's recently done something similar.

 

Thanks!
Hayden

[Mr Punter]

Skirtings, architrave, flooring, plumbing, wiring, heating, ventilation.

 

It is a huge house and a massive amount of work.  Make sure you have not missed anything and you are not wishful thinking.  How long do you think it will take you?

[Spinny]

Think you need contingency regardless, otherwise as soon as some problem comes up you are stuck. I doubt the market will value a half complete project at much more than an unstarted project.

How would you phase the work ? If you run out of money what is best - a whole unplastered house, or some rooms complete and others not started ?

Are you going to sell it or live there forever ?

No Electrics or plumbing ?

[PedanticBuilder]

15 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

Skirtings, architrave, flooring, plumbing, wiring, heating, ventilation.

 

It is a huge house and a massive amount of work.  Make sure you have not missed anything and you are not wishful thinking.  How long do you think it will take you?

Thanks for your input, good points! The skirtings appear to be in a good shape, could do with sanding and repainting. 

I'm giving myself 2-years as I have a 3-year old, a baby on the way and a full time job 😅 So will mostly be evenings, annual leave and weekends. 

[PedanticBuilder]

14 hours ago, Spinny said:

Think you need contingency regardless, otherwise as soon as some problem comes up you are stuck. I doubt the market will value a half complete project at much more than an unstarted project.

How would you phase the work ? If you run out of money what is best - a whole unplastered house, or some rooms complete and others not started ?

Are you going to sell it or live there forever ?

No Electrics or plumbing ?

"Think you need contingency regardless" - Fair point! Ive added 10% contingency but in reality, its my forever home (answers your other question ) so I'll spend what needs to be spent, it will just mean delay until we save up the shortfall.

"How would you phase the work ?" - very good question, we are hoping to start upstairs and get that in a good state. Then we will tackle lower floors and bathrooms incrementally, keeping the mess contained. Definitely not figured that out yet but need to have a game plan. The app I use has a Gantt chart and tasks feature so I can plan what needs doing, assign materials to tasks and ensure I'll have enough to cover each task. 

Electrics - Doh! Thanks, forgot to add that.

[-rick-]

The amount you've got down for bathrooms doesn't really allow for much more than the most basic products (and it's tight even then). When it comes to choosing fixtures and fittings you may find that number going up quite a bit.

[Spinny]

It is quite a piece of work to create a meaningful budget and to stick to it. Our original builder had a QS draw up a line item budget for our extension/refurb contract but with estimates for the plumbing and electrics. I insisted he got quotes for those items which came in a lot higher than his estimates. You need to either have a pretty good idea of what you want to do and the relevant prices, or be defining a budget and then constraining your choices to fit within it. These days there are lots of items where choice and affordability can change the price by multiples and huge amounts of that choice.

You should have a window and door schedule and cost that up, a steels and lintels schedule etc etc. You are bound to want some labour too I'd have thought - some things require multiple people, some particular skills, or placing risk with contractors.

As it's your forever home you will need to phase it appropriately. Are you going to be living there, or when would you need to start living there ? Living on a building site is not much fun, but makes it easy to be around as much as possible. Are you trying or willing to do it over 1 year or 5 years or even 10 years ? Do you have a partner ?

[tetris]

You're doing internal doors yourself but budgeting £75k (over a third of your budget!) to pay somebody for externals?

Are you planning significant structural work (relocating windows)? Just sayin', £75k is a lot of spondoolicks. Does it really need to be done?

 

I'm not in a too dissimilar position (just moved into a run down, somewhat smaller, house - 135 sq m + garage + half an acre plot with a view of building a workshop or 2), but I'm not doing any budgeting - I'll just tackle 'em as they come because the house keeps throwing up new problems faster than I can deal with them right now. Just have my high-priority hit list and the rest can wait.

 

Instead of trying to eyeball a budget for a massive project with a bucket of unknowns (you'll never get it right - trust me, I've been consulting on massive IT projects for a decade now - never seen an initial budget that didn't make me want to laugh out loud), I would very strongly advise you to do two things:

1) Tranche the works, at least into year 1 and year 2. Maybe into year 1 - summer; Year 1 - winter; Year 2 - summer; Year 2 - winter; Backlog. Good idea to MSCW all your requirements at this stage.

After each tranche you, ideally, want to be in a position where you can cancel/long-term pause your works if you get a black swan event (you or Mrs become unemployed, end up in hospital, Mrs gets a bad case of postnatal depression, kids go long term sick, you get into a car or bike crash, Trump decides to invade us just to name a few).

Do not plan to start work that you can't exit in an orderly manner.

2) Determine a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for each tranche and each year. The absolute minimum you need to deliver to be able to say that your work during that tranche has been competed and actually improved the house and added value to it (value to you personally or mkt value). In this case if shit hits the fan, you can de-scope the works to the absolute minimum you need to deliver in the given tranche.

 

Also, have you done your full discovery? E.g. Are you 100% confident you wouldn't suddenly need to fork out £40k for removal of lose fill asbestos, crumbling AIB or lagging? Do you have a brand new roof already, 'cause I don't see anything budgeted for roofing works? Boiler's arse is not falling out yet?

 

Another thing to consider is if you have a mortgage or not. If you do, can you spend some of this cash repaying the loan instead and do the works 4-5 years down the line? Otherwise you're essentially paying 5% interest on every pound you spend on your house.

 

We'll probably get hit by a huge inflation over the next 2 years so your 10% padding might even cover the price increases, never mind any unforeseen works.

 

On 09/10/2026 at 13:36, PedanticBuilder said:

I'm giving myself 2-years as I have a 3-year old, a baby on the way and a full time job

Good luck mate 🤣

Edited 2 hours ago by tetris

[tetris]

Generally, projects have 3 control levers: budget, timelines and scope. People very often focus on the budget and forget about the other 2.

 

For best planning, you need to use all 3 and build in contingencies for all 3.

And if you prioritise your requirements well, scope is the easiest one to adjust.

 

Since you're living in the house, have an orderly exit plan from every piece of work that you begin. And follow the 7P principle in everything you do.