Have you ever wondered how much a full house renovation would cost? Or look at squares on Instagram and wonder how much money went into making it look that way? In the first part of this long overdue blog post, I am taking a deep dive into the finances of our renovation, how we afforded it, how much everything cost, where we saved money and where we were ripped off.

First up, I think it’s important to be transparent about money - our house has always been described as ‘a budget project’, but what does that mean to you if you don’t know the numbers? I think platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have skewed the narrative on home improvement budgets. Our feeds, magazines, or image searches are so saturated with beautiful homes that have been bought, built, or renovated with endless finances, that we, as an interiors enthusiast community, have normalised vast expenditure, whilst projects like ours end up being labelled as ‘budget’, which has always felt completely out of touch to me. A person’s budget is so relative to their own circumstance, and many of you will feel like our renovation is not ‘budget’ at all - and that’s totally fine - it really didn’t feel like a budget renovation to us either!

In fact, there are many areas you could save money if you have more time and more skills to take on the work yourselves. We completed the majority of the renovation in 8 months, which meant we had tradesmen here back to back for a long time, but I am absolutely sure, if the work had been left to us, we would still be living in a building site now. As many of you know, fitting DIY around work and kids and other commitments means that the simplest of tasks can take weeks, let alone big jobs, like sanding all the floors in the house! However, I am not here to justify what we spent - we have created a fun and wonderful home with as minimal disruption to our kids lives as possible and we love it!

There are many areas where we could have been more frugal, and other areas where we saved a lot of money by upcycling, buying second hand and keeping to similar colour themes throughout so we could use up leftover paint. We sold our old home (which we also renovated) for a good profit and had a couple of years of savings, so we had a pot of money ready to go to finance the work on this house. We made sure not to stretch ourselves financially on the mortgage, which afforded us luxuries like employing decorators and professional floor sanders rather than doing it ourselves (been there, done that and got the very dusty t-shirt!) We knew we wanted to get the work done quickly so that the house would be ready before baby number 3 came along. With this in mind, whilst we always tried to go for cheaper options, shop around, think of alternatives, hadn’t been on a proper holiday since we’ve had kids - neither of us would ever claim to be particularly thrifty and we acknowledge that having the financial freedom to be like that is a HUGE privilege.

So, I hope you find the following break down of costs useful - I know I craved information like this when researching costs before we moved in.

For full context, we live in the south of England, where labour costs do tend to be more expensive than the rest of the UK, and the majority of the work was carried out between October 2018-July 2019.

Large Jobs we outsourced:

Removing front garden, leveling turf, laying large gravel driveway for 4 cars: £3726

Removing internal wall, bricking up doorway, opening up two fireplaces: £2500

Building regulations for wall: £500

Replacing two man-hole covers on drains: £100

Plastering 2 x bedrooms, landing, stairway, hall, living and dining room: £3250

New sockets installed, some light switches removed, all remaining plates and sockets replaced: £1055

Chandelier install: £75

Original wood floors repaired, sanded and oiled in 3 x bedrooms, landing, hall and stairs, living and dining room, plus installing new floor board between two rooms where original wall was: £2600

New boiler installed, system flushed: £2300

Walls, ceilings and woodwork painted in hall, stairs, landing and small bedroom: £1514

Walls, ceilings and woodwork painted in 2 x large bedrooms, living and dining room: £1436

Bespoke sliding door full height wardrobes x 2 and bespoke full height cupboard in girls’ room: £1280

Bespoke under stairs cupboard door installed and skirting/picture rails replaced: £175

Bespoke cupboard and shelves inbuilt in living room: £470

Bespoke ply cupboard built in small bedroom: £325

Tile 4 x fireplaces including hearths : £1010

Install outdoor tap and fix kitchen sink: £158

Install new basin in downstairs toilet, remove waste pipe, change flush: £320

Install electricity and light fixture in garage: £500

Total Labour Costs: £22,001

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Materials cost (by room)

Kitchen:

Stick on tiles: £157

Dulux Paint (1L) for large cupboard: £16

Farrow and Ball Calamine (1L) for bin cupboard door: £26

Ronseal Diamond Hard Floor Paint (1L): £14

Light switch plate x2, Plug socket with oven switch: £79

Living room/Dining Room:

Farrow and Ball Pink Ground emulsion (2.5L): £50

Farrow and Ball Pink Ground Eggshell (750ML) (for small bit of skirting on pink nib between rooms): £29

Dulux Brilliant White Trade Emulsion (10L): £35

Cupboard and shelves painted in leftover paint: £0

Fireplace painted in leftover paint: £0

Tiles in living room for two fireplaces including hearths: £327

Double dimmer light switch plate, 4 x double plug sockets: £140

Hall, Stairs and Landing:

Dulux Brilliant White Trade Emulsion (10L): £35

Farrow and Ball Peignoir Eggshell (750ML) for internal door: £29

Valspar woodwork paint for banisters x2 (colour matched): £60

Ronseal Diamond Hard White Floor Paint for stairs: £14

Double and single toggle light switch plates, single socket: £77

Bathroom:

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (for floor): £22

Annie Sloan Clear Lacquer: £22

Dulux Brilliant White Trade Emulsion (leftover paint): £0

Main Bedroom:

Bauwerk Limewash paint (which didn’t work): £89

Dulux Brilliant White Trade Emulsion: Leftover paint

Farrow and Ball School House White Emulsion (2.5L): £50

Valspar woodwork paint (colour matched) for wardrobes (2.5L): £30

Tiles for one fireplace including hearth: £92

Double socket, 2 x socket and USB, light dimmer plate: £113

Girls’ Bedroom:

Valspar Emulsion (colour matched) (2.5L): £24

Valspar Woodwork Paint for skirting and door (colour matched) (2.5L): £30

Valspar Woodwork Paint wardrobe (colour matched) (2.5L): £30

Valspar Woodwork Paint for picture rail (colour matched) (1L): £21

Tiles for one fire place including hearth: £142

New skirting and picture rail: £77

Double socket and light dimmer plate: £44

Small Bedroom:

Valspar Emulsion (colour matched in two different colours) (2.5Lx2): £48

Valspar Woodwork paint (colour matched in two different colours) (1Lx2): £42

Double socket and light dimmer plate: £44

Downstairs bathoom:

New flush: £12

Basin, tap and corner unit: £152

Tiles (sent by company as a mistake on previous order): £0

Cupboard upcycled using leftover paint and rattan: £30

Sliding Door upcycled using leftover paint: £0

Dulux Brilliant White Trade Emulsion leftover paint: £0

Total Materials Cost: £2202

Tools bought:

Circular Saw: £50

Wallpaper steamer: £40

Hedgecutter: £35

Miscellaneous tools approx: £120

Total Tools Cost: £245

Total Renovation Cost: £24,448

Woah!! That’s a lot of information!! And a lot of money!!

I hope that helps give an insight into how much renovations cost. Next week, I will share how much it cost us to furnish the house which is where, on the whole, we have made bigger savings as we buy a lot of our furniture at auction, upcycle what we already have or make good use of big sales.

A year on from completing the majority of the work (although when is a house ever finished?!), it has been interesting to look back at the finances and reflect on what we paid. As I mentioned previously, we are not great at budgeting - I was never one for a spreadsheet - so this is the first time the numbers have all been put together. Eek!

In hindsight, there are definitely areas we were overcharged. We feel our plasterer took advantage of our tight time schedule to charge us extra as he knew we were a bit desperate to get someone booked in. Thankfully they did do an absolutely fantastic job, so much so that every decorator who came to quote for us afterwards, asked for the plasterer’s number. We’re also still not sure how our electrician charged us £500 just to install electricity in the garage, but there we go - we have a fridge/freezer and tumble drier in there which we use a lot, so it has been well worth it despite the initial cost.

The driveway was half the price of other quotes given and has made a huge difference on our daily lives. Our old driveway was so narrow we had to park our cars behind each other which meant constantly moving them back and forth, not to mention the anxiety building every time I drove home that I would scratch the car on the wall (like I did the first time I drove our new car!) We also know that driveways really help to add value to your home so I am sure we will see the returns on that investment if we ever choose to sell.

As we used a lot of tradespeople, we did ensure to get 5 or 6 quotes for every job. When estimates can vary so much from one person to the next, this gives you a much better idea of the real cost of the job and you can make a more informed decision.

We also saved a lot of money by using Valspar colour match service rather than buying the colours I loved directly from the expensive brands themselves. We have been happy with Valspar although I am aware it gets very mixed reviews, so it’s best to do your research before you purchase.

As for a budget renovation? I think I’ll reserve that term for hard-core DIYers who do everything themselves. Label it what you will - I don’t mind - but for us, it’s a happy family home which we feel very blessed to have.