Owning your own home

Just had a quote for doing our bathroom. Ouch.

£600 to plaster, £990 to tile, almost £4k to do the rest
materials (probably best part of 3k) on top, as well as flooring and electrics.

Seems a bit pricey to me... still, in the time it's taken procrastinating, we've saved enough..

A grand to tile? I assume at that price it includes tiles and that they're made of pearl and gold?

I hope you're sitting down. It does not. It is also not a particularly large amount of tiling

We did our (very small) bathroom a couple of years ago for about half that labour cost.

However... in retrospect I should have paid more for a decent job as I am noticing now where corners were cut.

^ a good point. Ours was considerably cheaper but not necessarily primo tiling. It's absolutely fine and far better than I could ever manage but I suspect there are people who make it millimetre perfect on spacing, grout quantities, scrape etc.

But yeah, that seems mad expensive. 10k to me is a kitchen including units, not a bathroom. More quotes?

Deffo more quotes, that seems steep.

Edit: sorry that was meant @rhowe

Maybe check the tradesmen (tradesperson, tradespeople?) thread.

^ where is this mystic thread of great mystery?

A good tiler ought to be about £250 a day. Same for a plasterer.

I'd have thought 2 days to plaster four walls and a ceiling is right, so that sounds OK.

What's the other £4k? First fix of pipes should be a day, then screwing in the loo, basin etc another day, maybe 2. £4k is 3 weeks solid work, one week should be plenty.

There's a cast iron soil pipe to replace, the floor needs a bit of work and getting the existing tiles off is going to be a bit of a nightmare (they're very well attached). Some boxing in for the concealed shower controls, but aside from that nothing particularly special. It's only being half-tiled.

Our lounge is at least 4x the size and was plastered in 2 days (first day prep, second day was an 8am-8pm plastering marathon) Paid £900 for that, so this does seem a little steep although the walls will probably need more prep than our lounge did.

Extension / building advice needed....

We're looking to create a single story extension to the rear or our property to square off the gap on the right of the photo below and create a large kitchen / diner with glass doors all along the back.

At the same time, we're also looking to square off the eaves at the front of the property to make the en-suite larger (see other photo).

What's the process for getting quotes etc? Best to get an architect first? Any way to estimate ballpark figures?

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Going with his replacement, Sara N. will post how it all goes once, fingers crossed we get a bit further through the purchase/sale.

Bromley so might struggle as you're west right?

Neighbours have a different style house to us. Not sure a loft conversion is possible on a chalet style...

I know they are dirty word but have you spoken to an estate agent ? They will normally be able to tell you the ballpark figures under the pretense that you don't want to go over the post build value.

That style of house is pretty common in Bromley / Chislehurst / Sidcup. I would imagine that all local builders will have done a few of the same conversions before

It's not something i'd considered. The local estate agent that we bought the house through we're fairly incompetent though they are a SE / Kent specific agent so may have some idea. I'll give them a call.

Totally agree re: house style. These are everywhere around here so i'd be amazed if someone hadn't done something similar already...

Can anyone recommend me a good bathroom fitter in London? Needs retiiling, floor and walls, and new bath / toilet / sink. Maybe installation of a shower too. Ag

I know a really expensive one...

Estate agent: "Is that your absolute max offer? Oh by the way are you aware of the underpinning that took place 30 years ago?".

FFS.

that's a good point. how do you find out about any historical structural work that may have been carried out on a property? presumably this is beyond the remit of even the full fat buyers survey.

Sometimes searching planning permission portals gives clues (and even google streetview) but they tend to only go back so far.

I think you have to get a full structural survey and hope they're good.

presumably this is beyond the remit of even the full fat buyers survey.

yep, you need to basically ask the owner

Also, just watched the RICS survey guy with our Canary. He spent under 15 mins in the house, mainly wandering around saying 'Bruv, this is proper QUIRKY' to himself... WTF are people paying for?!

how much did you pay him?

Nothing, it's my house he's 'surveying' for the buyers.

Had to pay for one of those guys when we required a valuation to buy more of our flat. Seem to remember it being a couple of hundred quid for him to spend <5 min wandering round and then picking a figure.

Seems like a pretty sweet gig. Even used a bike to go between jobs.