How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

That sounds like it'd be beyond our budget/capacity right now. Hoping for something that can be applied like a poultice, left to do its thing, then scraped off with minimal effort...

We used this on our cills and stonework.
It does work but its a messy old job. You trowel on a thick layer then wrap it in the paper covering. Leave that for 24 hours and in theory it should peel off with the old paint attached, in reality you need to do this several times depending on the thickness of paint. You also need to wash it all off and use a PH agent to neutralise the acid, so its gets everywhere.

Thanks, top tip.

Now prang that the acidic slurry might damage the fresh brick tint and pointing…

An infuriating consequence of people putting up shitty cheap render.

Acid + lime pointing go boom. Maybe.

I dunno, I'm not a chemist.

Can anyone recommend someone to strip paint off exterior stonework?

I don’t have the time to do it, and all the recommendations I’ve had so far are booked up for ages.

I’m happy to give my technique a go if you want?

All the quotes we've had for our extension so far are far more expensive than we'd expected/can afford.

I think we're going to have to row back on our plans a bit and lose a fair bit of the space we'd imagined. Which would still be great and is still necessary but it's a bit of a shame.

Not to be too much of a negative type but it will likely cost more than they have quoted too …
I watch these programmes on telly and the say “it cost us £200k” as an example. They never say whether that includes the 20% VAT or not

Can you share your current plans, and possibly costs you've received?

@johnnettles2 is right in that it'll definitely cost much more than any provisional quote in the end, but you can often save a lot in various places...

Sorry to echo those above, but costs will rise. We uncovered nasty surprise after nasty surprise doing our work. It's reassuring to know they're sorted but continually threw up extra expenses.

That's why you calculate with a buffer, no?

that’s why you don’t do an extension in the year of our lord 2024

But as Cheney said, there are known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

Never mind an extension, I’m getting quotes of £10k to fit a kitchen (albeit including full rewire, lowered ceiling, plastering and moving water/waste).

Don’t even get me started on the VAT thing.

Architects, you’re B2C not B2B, communicate appropriately.

You should be ok as it dries to the paper and (generally) peels off with it. We end have about 6kg, sheets, and neutraliser left over from stripping some cornice for repair. You'd be welcome to it if you wanted to test a patch.

The drawings are attached below, and estimates we've received so far are around £140k + kitchen + flooring + VAT.

It's going out 4m from where we are now (in line with neighbouring properties) but we could cut some off that and still have a really nice dining/living area.

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That would be much appreciated! Where are you based?

That looks like a similar volume and scope of work to our ground floor extension, but with the addition of a utility room.

I’d say £140K exc principal items and VAT is on the high side, based on what we’re paying. You may be liable for posh-area-tax tho; we’re in E10…

You’ll find you won’t reduce costs by much, if at all, by reducing the depth by a metre or two. Keep the plans as they are, and shop around. It’s a buyers’ market right now, a lot of builders are struggling.

We're Catford so might be bit of a schlep. I work near Farringdon if that was easier for you though?

Save the money and move house.

How much would you save if you only went out 3 metres? I doubt it would be that much, would it?

ouch. sounds a bit spendy for sure.
I guess to make a considerable saving you'd need to lose the utility and shower room / side extension, and just go out at the back.

you could maybe fit the WC and shower into the utility space if you used a pocket door and put the washing machine in the kitchen?
WC straight into the kitchen is probably less than ideal though...

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We're in Oxford and I'm not quite sure how it compares to London prices yet as we've not been here long, but I doubt it's any cheaper- certainly other trades like plumbers seem more expensive (though it's been a couple of years since getting equivalent work in London and I know prices in general have changed too).

We've pretty much exhausted the list of builders who we've had word of mouth recommendations from, though we're still waiting to hear back from a couple and two are not going to give an estimate without structural engineers' drawings that we don't have yet.

We might go back to the architect and see if she can recommend anything to slice off a few tens of thousands.