How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

Starting this thread as a reference point for others asking the same questions rather than spamming the home owners thread which may be better kept to the nuances of home owning management and mortgage sorting, all that gubbins.

Going to kick this off with waffle about my new bathroom and my learnings.

Costs:
Labour £2.5 min, the last bathroom I had done was similar, some folks quoted £200 a day, oner cheeky lad wanted £650 a day. I chose the former.

Taps and gubbins:
EC1 Bathrooms - a local family run business who have been super helpful, they also offer a decent discount on things so the list price is rarely what you pay.

Refs and floorplans:

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And refs

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Rule one: everything costs more than you budget for

Yeah, and everyones dead candid about how much everything cost. If you see a pic of a nice extension, chances are its 6 figures, even if they talk about how modest it is.
Before we undertook all our Reno work we did some basic research and came to the conclusion 90K would do loft and an extension, it didn't cover half that.

It's hard because if you like things to be finished nicely with quality fittings then everything just costs so much.

My wife and I both never want to do a large renovation ever again, too much stress.

However the house is almost done and it's starting to feel like it's worth it.

Some rough costs below since we’ve been through this recently:

Extension costs. Across the way had double height extension on one side, about 4m wide. That cost him £115k all in, finished. Quotes for the building work for a single height full length extension on ours was going to be £40k, or around double that for full height. So that means glazing, plumbing, plastering, decorating etc is going to add around £30k on top. Bifolds add around £10k depending who you get them from.

Our 3x3.5m IKEA kitchen was about £3.5k I think, with fairly modest worktops, including non IKEA sink but not including appliances. Fitted everything myself. Kitchen plastering is about £1k if you need bonding coat. Ceiling extra. Skips £280 each.

We’re way out in the burbs, so obviously London costs are going to be higher once you start factoring in trades’ higher costs due to ULEZ vans, parking, skips, access etc etc. Can’t imagine being a trade in central these days, I literally can’t work out how you make that work.

To add to the costs:

We had a 50m^3 loft conversion with two hip to gables and a large rear dormer put in in 2013. The conversion bit was £60k. It didn't include supply of the bathroom suite or decorating. Everything else was included (building works, scaffolding, skips, building control, electrics, windows, fitting bathroom suite etc).

We are in zone 5 Barnet. Lots of free parking etc.

I still shudder at the cost of redoing our old bathroom

We got some designs back from the architect - we’d decided against the extension but they’re trying to lure us back in and a bigger kitchen does sound nice.

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Just do it, it’s stunning.

It would be useful to be able to move between kitchen room and living room without going via the front vestibule

Yeah I find people say this but we enjoy having a room that is quite separate - would have liked to make the entrance hall larger but not too sure how. Plan is for the study to have a sofa and tv in it too. In the version with an extension there’s a window linkage between kitchen and living room

Yeah, obviously like the space. Not sure it looks a bit too much like a big box? Also ££

Oh I can imagine. Don’t think it does look like a box though, think it looks harmonious and unifies the rear.

Both look nice, but i imagine extension is spenny.. and not sure it looks /that/ worth it??

You would imagine correctly - would begin with a 2 😖

Yeah, I’m mostly trying to convince myself not to do it. The budget should really do that mind

If you're in London, which I assume you are from the EC1 thing, bear in mind that our water is incredibly hard. Any taps with a black finish, particularly matt ones, are incredibly susceptible to showing the slightest of water spots and get pretty ugly pretty quick.

I love the look of them too, but the amount of cleaning they require to keep the showroom finish makes them unfeasible in my experience.

Oh strewth, that’s a lot.
Floor plan wise both look great, and maybe the larger isn’t worth the extra expense, but looking at the renders it changes the whole building dramatically visually.

I have a black taps in kitchen and toilet and honestly they rarely have any marks despite it being hard water.
I’ve gone for untreated brushed brass for this new bathroom.

Flat roof can be a maintenance pita

Yeah - I love the idea of the longer island and it does tie it together nicely from the rear but I think it would add 50+ to the budget which is already close to 2 and I’m just struggling to see how we could afford/justify that much extra.

Maybe I should just start a current project rather than clog this place up but here are the upstairs options.

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mind's boggling a bit at how you'd even finance a build with a 2 in front of it. we were v lucky to buy somewhere in 2015, renovate it and then sell it in 2018 for mucho profit, which we then ploughed into our new place. is that how most people do it ? or equity release ? trust funds ? CREDIT CARDS ?

And rule 1 still applies even when you take rule 1 into account.