There is a distinct sense of déjà vu chez Millard. Yet again we find ourselves
in possession of a wreck. As before, this wreck is a Georgian terraced
house, cruelly butchered into three flats. Our job? To return it to a family
home.
We did this in 2004, and now, five years later, we are doing it again, 100
yards down the road. Why? Well, the house is bigger, and by London standards
has a vast garden. I am also coming to the stage when losing children in the
garden is an aim, not a fear. More space is good.
Unfortunately, however, we have a much smaller budget. In 2004, we spent about
£300,000 doing up our house — which means about £350,000 in today’s money.
This time around, we would like to come in at about £200,000. Or, rather, we
have to. So how can we do the same amount of refurbishments, redecoration
and structural repairs, but for half the cost?
I call our architect, who tells me that the cost of labour has gone down, but
the price of raw materials has gone up because of the strong euro, so the
two should cancel each other out. At least there’s no shortage of people to
do the work: I seem to have the same Polish builders that I had five years
ago. Their English is still hopeless, but they are as charming as ever.
While they get going with skips, scaffolding and the like, I take what I think
is called a root-and-branch view of our refurbishment budget. First, the
kitchen. In 2004, we installed state-of-the art Bulthaup, with ergonomic
this and stainless-steel that. Beautiful. It still is. But it cost £50,000,
which is just too much now. For these cash-strapped times, the company has
developed a cheaper range, the B1, which has the style you’d expect, but
comes in only two colours, with a choice of only two types of wood for the
door fronts. And it still costs £20,000-£25,000.
The Used Kitchen Company might be a better bet. As the name suggests, it sells
second-hand designer kitchens, with prices from £950 to £20,000. Some are
ex-display, others up to 10 years old; sensible offers are accepted. “Our
kitchens sell at 50% to 70% off their retail value, which is a huge
discount,” says Looeeze Grossman, the company’s director. She reckons that
most buyers will have builders on site to do the fitting, but the firm can
recommend installers. It sounds good (theusedkitchencompany.com).
I’m keen to perform the same trick with the bathrooms. Last time, they cost
about £1,000 each to kit out. Could I do it for half the price? I venture
onto preloved.co.uk, a second-hand
website. A £2 second-hand loo seat may be an economy too far, but what about
a roll-top bath with “telephone” taps for £100? You have to arrange to
collect it from Wolverhampton, but new “telephone” taps alone cost about
£80, so it might be worth hiring a van and making the journey. It also comes
in cheaper than eBay, where roll-top baths go for about £400 at the moment.
And so to the rest of the house. Last time, I painted everything in stunning
colours from Fired Earth — but 5l of emulsion costs £40. Equally, the
heavenly, chalky matt emulsion from Paint and Paper Library is a hefty £50
for 5l.
Gumtree has a 5l pot of yellow emulsion paint for nothing, but you have to
collect it from Aberdeen. I decide to copy my friend Kim, who painted every
room in her house a single shade of Dulux Labrador Sands (£30 for 5l). She
says the light makes the walls in every room look “subtly different”. Sounds
sophisticated — and I’ll save a fortune.
We are taking the curtains with us — I’ll just get them altered to fit.
“Everyone’s doing it,” says Sian Colley, a soft-furnishings genius who made
our curtains last time around. “Or they’re buying them from charity shops
and getting me to clean and refit them.” Fabric last time cost me about
£1,000. The only things I can’t take with me are the bespoke blinds in my
office, which cost £99 each. I’ll replace them with John Lewis ready-made
bamboo Roman blinds (£30 each). All the furniture, obviously, will just be
moved over — dismantled and reassembled down the road, if necessary. I’ve
already found someone to do it.
What about the stair carpet — which cost me £3,000? We are moving only 13
doors to a similarly shaped house, so could we just move it? Apparently not,
because the runner will have moulded itself onto our old stairs. Roger Oates
Carpets, from which I bought last time, has frozen prices since 2004, and
will knock £50 off for returning customers; but is there a cheaper
alternative?
There is a single runner for 13 stairs available for £250 on eBay. And
Wholesale Carpets has elegant black-edged sisal runners, suitable for up to
15 stairs, for £169 each (wholesalecarpets.co.uk).
So I might get a monochrome carpet to go with the monochrome walls.
Most of the rooms won’t be carpeted at all. Last time, we used Marmoleum floor
covering for the children’s rooms and bathrooms. It was fabulous: it comes
in a million colours and is ideal for racing cars, constructing Brio train
tracks, dismantling doll’s houses and tap-dancing on. If you need to be a
bit cosier, you just put down a rug.
Back in 2004, I paid £28 per square metre, plus Vat. It’s a bit cheaper now,
but still more than £20 — as is other laminated flooring. So I ring a local
floor shop in Islington and ask for lino. The man at the end of the line
says he can let me have some “from £6.99 up, love”. For floors with heavier
traffic, I’ll sand and paint the floorboards, probably in Labrador Sands.
It’ll be like living in a sand dune, but never mind.
Time to look outside. Last time, we hired a designer who reconfigured our
garden, putting in a sunken eating area, a patio and various small brick
walls. We also got a job lot of flowers and shrubs from a garden centre. It
looks lovely, but cost about £10,000.
This time, I have done the garden myself — or, rather, my lovely builders
have. They have taken away five skiploads of plastic, rubble, wood and
broken bottles, leaving it bare but for 19 trees in a copse at the bottom.
(I told you it was large.) At which point I went in with a £20 bag of grass
seed, 50 tulip bulbs and 100 daffodil bulbs. I might do some fancy planting
later, but all will come from cuttings or seed. It sure adds excitement to a
rainy day: the children, who seeded the grass, now positively welcome a
downpour.
It’s going to be an interesting six months. We don’t have cash to splash, but
the challenge of sourcing bargain bathrooms, paint, kitchens and carpets is
a real one, and it will certainly make an impact on my bank balance. I hope
it will be a positive one.
Rosie’s guide to renovating on the cheap
We spent £300,000 doing up our house last time around; money is a bit tighter
in these credit-crunched times, and we’re trying to renovate a similar
property 100yd down the road for a more manageable £200,000. Here are some
of the ways we’re going to save money.
- At £50,000, the state-of-the-art, ergonomic stainless-steel Bulthaup kitchen
isn’t an option this time around — we’re hoping to pick up a recycled
designer model from The Used Kitchen Company for £4,000 (saving
£46,000). We’re also going for second-hand in the bathrooms, which
means a bill of £500 rather than £2,000 (saving £1,500).
- Fitting new sash windows in 2004 cost £13,000 — repairing the old ones will
cost just £8,000 (saving £5,000). We’re also taking £5,000
worth of curtains from the old house with us, and having them altered for
£500 (saving £4,500). We’re reusing old door handles where
possible, at a cost of £1,000 rather than £2,000 (saving £1,000).
- Using Welsh slate on the roof again is an extravagance too far, as it cost
us £15,000 — Spanish slate is £14,000 (saving £1,000).
- We’re going for cheaper flooring, too, spending £2,000 rather than £5,000.
This will include a second-hand stair carpet for a few hundred pounds (saving
£3,000). And forget the £10,000 Bisque radiators — we can get
standard ones for £2,000 (saving £8,000).
- Rather than replace the cornicing for £6,000, we’ll spend £1,000 repainting
it (saving £5,000). The same goes for the plastering, which cost
us £22,000 last time. Repainting it should come in at £12,000 (saving
£10,000). Smarter lighting choices, with one light switch per room
instead of 5-amp lighting circuits, will cut the cost from £6,000 to £1,000 (saving
£5,000).
Last time, we spent about £10,000 on landscaping the garden. This time, we’ll
do it ourselves for £200 (saving £10,000).
TOTAL SAVING: £100,000
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