Indicative costs of partial house renovation-Melbourne

[markb28]

After 4 years in Australia, I'm finally in a position to purchase a house and will be looking at buying a 3 bed house in Melbourne, inner north suburbs in next few months.

 

Some of the places I'm thinking of buying are nice but dated and will require a fair bit of work.

 

Can anyone advise on ballpark renovation costs, think mid-range not top of the line. Purely for budgeting purposes.

 

Replace bathroom (tiling, toilet, sinks, bath/shower enclosure) - whole room renovation

Flooring (wood) per room,hallway and living area

Kitchen replacement including appliances/dishwasher/cooker/sink/cabs

Painting for approx 150m2 house

10-15m2 garden - fixing up generally

 

Also any advice on securing good tradies would be useful, after renting I haven't had to deal with many here.

 

Cheers

 

Mark

[Eera]

How much are you intending on doing yourself?

 

I'm not in Melbourne but we've done that sort of reno so can give you the approx costs.

We did our bathroom ourselves, new shower and vanity came to around $1500, tiles were about $40 sq/m (and you'll save yourself a lot of hassle long term if you go for a colour that resembles dirty feet). Allow 3 times more time than the installation brochure says; they assume your house is plumb and square and you know what you're doing. Took about a week overall and maybe came to the grand total of $4000 for physical items, excluding frustration, shouting and husband almost gassing himself using a 2-stroke chainsaw to cut the show recess out.

 

Kitchen was done recently, left that one to the professionals. Came to about $35k but that's including stone splashbacks and counter tops. If you went laminex it would have been about $20k.

 

Laid wood floors myself when we extended, spotted gum was about $4 per length, seem to recall to do a sunroom cost about $600, and the neighbours came over to see why I was swearing so loudly. We hired a room sander from Bunnings to polish the floor which didn't cost a huge amount, but was probably one of the physically hardest things I've ever done.

 

We also put on a huge hardwood deck, and the build cost of that including the roofing, electrics and everything else to make it habitable was $46k.

 

You may need an owner-builder licence to do any substantial renovations yourself. We got the guff as we were intending on building the deck ourselves, then decided it was all too hard and paid a pro. Glad we did in the end! Bear in mind if you are looking at an older home there's a good chance it would have moved and not been built as square as you'd hope, so there may be fiddling to do to get everything in.

[buzzy--bee]

Hi Mark, I lecture on owner building.

 

Bathrooms and Kitchens are pieces of string questions - can be done for $10000 perfectly adequately but basically, $20,000 + for a more contemporary stylish look.

Flooring - $100 - $200 per sqm.

painting - about $10,000 for painters to do a house of that size.

 

Hiring trades - see the attachment which I hand out on the owner builder course.

9 signs of a good builder.docx

9 signs of a good builder.docx

[markb28]

Thanks for the responses, will use that as info when we get quotes. As contractors, days off work to do the work ourselves isn't great value.

[Petals]

Its not cheap, they say extending and renovating can be more than the cost of a new house.

 

Since my husband died I have had to use trades people to update stuff around my house and I could have built a new house for the amount I have spent. However I do have a big house on big land.

 

It will depend on where you work, remember my husband had a work mate who lived in Brighton and the cost of a wall to be built there was twice the cost of a wall to be built out in the burbs. They charge by where you live to some extent. Also you need to be careful there is no asbestos in the house as you will have to have it removed by professionals. A lot remove it themselves however they may also end up like me a widow of mesothelioma. Exposure to asbestos is around renovations a lot, our solicitor told us younger people were clients of his seeking compensation. I have three people in my family that have died from asbestos exposure.

 

Sometimes the older houses foundations are no good as well. My daughter lives in Brunswick and rents and the house she is in moves all the time as in the time when it was built they did not have the foundations of modern houses. They have to get the door lock fixed as the door moves and sometimes grass grows up the hall ha ha. Its been well renovated but its the foundations that are bad

 

So you need to get expert advice before you buy an old house, can of worms, if you like.