Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Dec 28, 2011 10:27 am To the brains trust of the forum. I have been tossing up for several years of late between KDRB, renovation, and moving home. I live in the worst house in one of the best suburbs in the blue mountains, and in all honesty, there isnt a suburb i can think of that is better than this one, within a 50 km radius. Love it here. I am looking for some kind of advice on option 2. I already looked into option 1 at the end of last year. I had Masterton come and do a quote on a KDR. I live on an easy site that unfortunately has about $20,000 worth of work that needs to be done before you can build a slab. But on top of that, because i'm in the blue mountains, they quoted me a further $150,000 for overheads (in addition to the price of the $200,000 home I was looking at building). While the investment would be worth it (2 storey homes in this suburb that are 60 y/o sell for $700K+), I don't want the risk of servicing a large mortgage. So, I'm now looking at option 2, the renovation. The house I live in is a typical post-war fibro home. 3 bedrooms (though one is TINY), 1 bathroom, 1 living area, a kitchen/dining area and a laundry in a cupboard (wierd). Basically to get the house I really want, I want to change windows, exteriors, and roof, as well as the internal flow of the home -- without doing a full KDR. I've already had a rough estimate that doing exteriors, roof and adding a large room to the home would cost around $150,000, so i'm budgetting for at least $200,000. What i'm curious about is the cost of the internals -- not how much it costs to do a bathroom/kitchen reno -- i did my own kitchen and i paid for a bathroom previously, but more for moving walls. I want a knock a wall out here, I want add a wall there, and I want to move this wall here... that kind of thing. Can anyone help me understand what its going to cost me to do all that work? I am assuming that, given i will be having a new roof bot on (trusses and all), whether a wall is load bearing or not doesn't matter, because none of them will be once the roof comes off? Anyway, any ideas? I could be moving 100m of walls. I would say that only the first 3 lineal metres of the home would be salvaged. Everything from there back would be reduced to rubble and the extension would start from that point... Re: Major Renovation -- Am I dreaming? 2Jan 08, 2012 1:15 am We renovated our first home, it was an old commission home in the south eastern suburbs on Melbourne. The total of the renovation 7 years ago was $120k, to build a new house on the same site the same size would of been similar in cost. With renovating you have options to do what you want but are still limited with what the building can offer. We out grew our little house, bought another house and now am doing a knock down rebuild. Before we considered kdrb, we thought about renovating as we had done it before, but the house on the site would not accommodate what we wanted to do. Also building in an area that you are already established in is brilliant. My questions to you are There any builders that will build in your area for a better price than Masterton? Are there local builders who do complete homes? Have you thought of kit homes? Have you seen a local draftman, they can design a home and recommend local builders? Good luck, let us know what you decide. hubby, kids and me all waiting for the Amberlea Site Cut 27 September 2011 https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46637 http://www.dscml.com/ Hello Josh, This is Irving from PRIMA, we are a manufacturer of the staircase, railings, kitchen cabinets, windows, doors from China. If you have requirement to purchase… 0 5468 Coming back to your old stomping grounds, huh? Renovations on a budget can be quite the journey. It's like giving your house a new lease on life. The twist of not knowing… 1 3484 Assuming the structure of your cabinetry is good then I would DIY everything as follows: - replace your counter tops entirely, - replace all drawer runners with soft close… 1 4785 |