Daunting Situation

never_mind

Hey everyone,

We decided to buy a former corporation house which has huge potential. The house is 72m2, so is quite small, but we are a very small family. The house is liveable but needs to be completely insulated (exterior); new windows; new external doors; new floors; new carpet; new kitchen; new bathroom. Everything works fine (from what we can tell), but money that I was expecting through a bonus has fallen through. We now have a budget of approx 90k and we are panicking a bit. The garden itself is also in a state and we have a ridiculously big front and back garden (end of terrace house) that wraps around. We are both a bit handy but we had plans to extend and get in a proper drive way (it's literally just slabs of concrete at the moment).

Basically, I am not sure how we are going to do it with that tight of a budget and we are getting concerned about this decision. I know a lot of stuff can wait, particularly as we are going into the summer months. We have a lot of support from family who are in construction and such, but I am prob just freaking out about it now.

Not sure why I am writing this, think I just need to vent my feelings somewhere!

Anyone else in this situation that got through it? There is an awful lot going on in our lives outside of this and we are stressed.

Col_30

I know exactly how you feel. We have bought an old 1930's bungalow in Dublin. The house is about 80sqm.

We want to extend to the side, 20sqm max extension. We also want to convert the large attic with rear dormer to create 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. We also need renovate and reconfigure the existing house bringing it up to modern standards. We have a budget of 300k and are panicking we don't have enough for what we want. Prices are insane!!

It's all how long is a piece of string territory and depends entirely on your finishes/materials. Having contacts in construction will help of course.

From googling and reading online forums, Facebook etc., you can budget anything up to €3,400 per sqm for an extension and €1,500 per sqm to renovate. Since I started researching over a year ago, these have gone up from €2,500 for extension and €1,000 for renovation.

Your money should go a long way with renovating the existing or getting a small extension and renovating bit by bit. Best of luck with it all!

Kurooi

Yeah been there done that.

Spend the money wisely. Insulating an exterior on tight budget is not smart. You can insulate internally yourself at 1/10th the cost and 10x the effect. Or even just suck up the higher bills for the time being but as far as bang for your buck goes external insulation is far down the list. Garden, costs nothing to grab some shears and clean it up , rake down to flat, tidy surface. Grab a bag of grass to plant or just leave as is. Concrete slabs in driveway, plenty of people drive down a dirt road for theirs. The moment you talk patios and paving concrete or asphalt is yucky ugly gray, you want fancy pretty sandstone and half the places out there could spend your 90k budget just on that. You can do those fun external works next year or year after when you have somewhere decent to live! There's a few 10ks saved. And you'll be wiser too, grow into the space build more ideas for what you need and want.

Right now you need somewhere to live, prioritize bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen make sure they're ready , clean finished spaces for you while you're working on the rest. You need a space to retreat to at the end of the day. If things indeed "work" as in you have your electricity, plumbing , heating working then 90k budget for a 70sqm house and handy people is quite a lot.