Well the first quote came in a few weeks ago and we dismissed it outright as it was triple our building budget. Last night, Amy emailed to say the Bill of Quantities had finally arrived (six weeks later than it was meant to) with the quote detailed.
It was nearly four times our budget!
The actual cost of the BOQ was meant to be £360 but it ended up costing £540. So now we're paying out for a list of items which I am having trouble agreeing with. For instance, they want to charge us just over £6,000 to install and fit the Ikea kitchen. This includes plumbing and electricity. To give you some comparison, our current flat has a slightly bigger Ikea kitchen than the one we'll end up with in the new house and it cost around £900 to install and fit.
There are materials listed in the BOQ which are mysterious - £50 here, £100 there, for little more than nails and screws - and yet there's still a £2,000 contingency fee at the end.
As the addition of an extension on the property will add about 10% onto it's value, it's absolutely bonkers to spend much more than this on the renovation, yet the two quotes we've had in so far are more like 15% (and when you're talking thousands of pounds, that 5% adds a huge sum).
So. Rob now wants to move in and rent out our current flat as soon as possible so that we can start saving up for the rest of the work to be done in the future (THE FUTURE?! Incidentally the photo above is from the weekend, showing friends round our empty and expensive space.)
I am keen to get another quote or two as I would prefer to have two out of the three floors done before Christmas, if we used either of the quotes supplied so far, we'd be lucky to get the ground floor done. I suggested renting out the new house for six months, or even selling our current flat to fund the work, but Rob thinks that both of these suggestions are absurd.
And yes, I am buying Lottery tickets.
No comments:
Post a Comment