Ahh it’s that time of year again, when I look back on our yearly renovation spending and cringe. Renovating a home is not a cheap process and despite trying to do everything “on the cheap” things still manage to add up to horrific numbers. And I know we’ve spent A LOT of money this year because we took out a home improvements loan and that money is now pretty much all gone! YIKES.
So I did a post like this last year and I find it a great way to track our year-on-year renovation spending (making sure we’re not overspending!) and look back at some of our most expensive and bargain costs. I do also intend on doing an overall cost round-up of each room as they’re finished as well, but as we’re yet to actually have a room that’s 100% finished, I’ll just stick with yearly cost round-ups for now!
So if you want to see what we’ve achieved over the last 12 months, then be sure to check out my last post here. This year our time and money has been spent in quite a few rooms, including the spare bedroom, conservatory, kitchen and garden! This post isn’t meant to be braggy in any way, renovations obviously cost a lot of money and all of this includes stuff like pipes, screws, lengths of wood etc (not just a few Channel bags or Louis Vuitton shoes, sadly ;)) and I personally find it useful to read about others renovation costs, to see whether we’re on the right track or ridiculously overspending. Hopefully, it’s the first!
Total Renovation Cost for 2016: £10,355
So where has 10K gone? Well, we’ve knocked down two walls, fitted a steel, installed a new gas line, replaced a window for a french door, replaced the conservatory roof, installed a roof window, bought a ton of limestone tiles, underfloor heating and had a log burner fitted. The rest? I don’t even know. Apparently we’ve spent crazy amounts on adhesive, insulating plasterboard and general inexpensive materials that suddenly group together to total A LOT. I know I’m pretty behind updating the blog with all our progress, so this money has certainly got us beyond what I’ve shared so far, but I’m still pretty shocked, to say the least.
2017 will definitely see a lot of money continuing to be spent, but hopefully a heck less than this year! Here’s some of the most expensive and bargain buys of the year…
£1777 Log Burner, materials and installation, including hearth & lintel. Expensive, but so so so worth it.
£1340 French door & fitting. Technically we haven’t paid for this yet, as we purchased it on a finance payment, which meant paying more than it would have cost DIY-style. But it’s a great quality door and means we can rest assured on the safety of our home! (at least through this door ;))
£350 Rangemaster Cooker from eBay, barely used with an RRP of over £1000!
£25 Internal Skinny French door, again from eBay. This has replaced the old back door between the kitchen & conservatory. A made-to-measure equivalent (it’s a non-standard door size) would have been around £200!
Considering the log burner accounts for almost 20% and the French door about 15%, I guess the rest of the expenditure isn’t so bad…. right? Now, excuse me whilst I go and lock my credit card away….
So here’s to 2017! And wishing for fuller bank accounts 😉
Happy New Year to you all! X
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