How true to life is Room to Improve?

wherearewe45

I love the idea of buying a delapidated run down old house house in the country and doing it up to the last with my own preferences and requests. I'm dead set on getting an architect in to design a house my all mine and my partners requests in mind (within reason obviously). I'm just wondering to accurate is Room to Improve and are there significant aspects of renovations that ignored in the series for the sake of simplicity?

Time is the big one.
Starting from nothing it could take you years.
Money is the other one.

mickdw

The design is a major part. After that, if you employ a building contractor, the hassle is basically taken away but you will have decisions to make everyday once it gets toca certain stage. There will surely be a few issues along the way so contingency certainly needed but with the right team of builders, Designer and Engineer, it should be a reasonable experience.
Locally here, most people self build so thats taking on a whole other level of management and time input.

FFVII

mickdw wrote: »

The design is a major part. After that, if you employ a building contractor, the hassle is basically taken away but you will have decisions to make everyday once it gets toca certain stage. There will surely be a few issues along the way so contingency certainly needed but with the right team of builders, Designer and Engineer, it should be a reasonable experience.
Locally here, most people self build so thats taking on a whole other level of management and time input.

Self building - you are gonna mess up loads first time round.

afkasurfjunkie

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Time is the big one.
Starting from nothing it could take you years.
Money is the other one.

Money is the big one.

Time is the other one.

mickdw

FFVII wrote: »

Self building - you are gonna mess up loads first time round.

Thats where design professionals come in.

Roadtoad

Its excellent from a general shapes/ materials point of view, opening our minds away from the old school.
Its low on tech talk, perhaps deliberately. They sell dreams, not u-values, beams, heat recovery etc.
They do a good job indicating how overruns occur, with lots of object lessons. This generally occurs as soon as the first foundation is opened.

Don't try it yourself unless you/parents/in-laws are in the trade. The art is as much in the specification as it is in the drawings.

Cash_Q

Roadtoad wrote:

They do a good job indicating how overruns occur, with lots of object lessons. This generally occurs as soon as the first foundation is opened.

It does seem as though no matter what the build cost will be, you need to factor in a huge amount of money for overruns. I can never understand why the design cost is priced within/exceeding budget, without allowing for a massive contingency spend. They always somehow manage to pull an extra pile of money from somewhere.

Quantum Erasure

Grand Designs is a better show all round, Room to Improve is more about the personalities (or personality clashes)

pwurple

I think it's a good example of why NOT to use that bloomin' architect! The man apparently has no concept of budget.


We've done a couple of renovations over the years. Started small (kitchen extension) and got more ambitious as we went along. We went over slightly on the last renovation (8%). Partly because we found a problem that needed to be fixed once we opened up the walls, and partly because we upped the spec on finishes towards the end. That was still within our 10% contingency though.


I think the general rule of thumb is that you get your third one right. The design is the hardest work and that's where the slog is needed. If you go into the process with a scribble on a piece of paper and the intention of winging it, you're in trouble. If you have every space planned and specced correctly, you've a good chance of successfully keeping to budget. Live in the house first, so you can see how the light moves during the day, what your views are, what's missing in particular. Get your requirements built up and start from there. If you don't do the design right at the start, you will get decision overload at a certain point in the build, where you need to decide a lot of small things fast (types of sockets, skirting shape, tiles, etc)... and when you don't have it pre-picked one of three things will happen.
1) the builder will pick it for you.
2) you will pick something you regret because you didn't research it properly.
3) you delay the build.



The other aspect is the relationships. Roadtoad said it's best if your trades are in the family... none of my family were involved, but I did have a solid relationship and good communication with our builder, QS, joiner, window supplier and trusted them. Our plumber we didn't know that well, and he was a devil for not picking up the phone or answering messages, and maybe as a result the plumbing is probably the aspect I'm not 100% happy with.

Good communication and lots of talking is how it all hangs together.

I'll give you an example of communication. We had designed our downstairs to be all one flooring and wide doors, for wheelchair access... no door saddles anywhere. We had told the builder this, and noted it on the plan. We were having a site meeting every morning and evening, but the carpenter didn't show up to the morning meeting one day as he was getting materials. Himself and his apprentices lashed into the job and did the whole ground floor in one day. He did blasted door saddles everywhere with big gaps under them. Half the floors had to come up and go back down again, another day and a half to fix it...

pwurple

pwurple wrote: »

Our plumber we didn't know that well, and he was a devil for not picking up the phone or answering messages, and maybe as a result the plumbing is probably the aspect I'm not 100% happy with.

Its impossible to find a reliable plumber.

_Brian

If you cut the happy times down to abkut 5% of what they show and replace it with more stress, anxiety, fights and tears it probably would be more realistic.

Thespoofer

There's a lot more swearing in real life.

Baybay

I think one of the the biggest inaccuracies in Room to Improve is how much money is left to put into the expensive decor & bits at the end. Something costly goes wrong mid build or something extra is added in & in my opinion the magazine perfect look is amongst the first thing to go. I know it’s tv & we don’t want to see granny’s red Formica table in the kitchen. Again. But sometimes that’s the economic reality. It’s all very well saying but just budget for it but if it comes down to upgrading the insulation or scattering designer cushions willy nilly, I think the insulation has got to win.

the_pen_turner

Baybay wrote: »

I think one of the the biggest inaccuracies in Room to Improve is how much money is left to put into the expensive decor & bits at the end. Something costly goes wrong mid build or something extra is added in & in my opinion the magazine perfect look is amongst the first thing to go. I know it’s tv & we don’t want to see granny’s red Formica table in the kitchen. Again. But sometimes that’s the economic reality. It’s all very well saying but just budget for it but if it comes down to upgrading the insulation or scattering designer cushions willy nilly, I think the insulation has got to win.

i agree.
I think the reason we don't see some room on the show is because they are not finished. that's very much in line with most peoples reality. most people finished one room at a time.

HeidiHeidi

I also strongly suspect that some homes are largely staged with borrowed/loaned furnishings for the final TV reveal.

awec

“So folks, it’s all finished now and it looks wonderful, can you remind us of your budget?”

“400k”

“And how much did you spend?”

“600k”.


:rolleyes:

Roadtoad

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

I also strongly suspect that some homes are largely staged with borrowed/loaned furnishings for the final TV reveal.

They don't hide this. The long list of 'thank-you's at the programme end lists all the shops that loaned stuff. That's OK, it allows TV and reality come together sweetly.

HeidiHeidi

Roadtoad wrote: »

They don't hide this. The long list of 'thank-you's at the programme end lists all the shops that loaned stuff. That's OK, it allows TV and reality come together sweetly.

Hmmmm. "Reality" is a fairy loosely-used term in that case!!

Wabbit Ears

my sister, who does this sort of stuff, says to expect to spend double your budget and 4 times the expected time frame.

So if you think 100k and 3 months, it'll cost 200k and a year.

This is, of course, when your building something bespoke with custom parts etc etc. you can throw up a normal gaff in no time but we're talking custom builds here.

pwurple

I hope your sister isn't a project manager!

HeidiHeidi

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

I also strongly suspect that some homes are largely staged with borrowed/loaned furnishings for the final TV reveal.

But that is nothing to do with the design of the house?

Most people are realistic about it being a TV program and in reality its nearly always costs more and take longer unless you are experienced, a QS, or a builder or the like.

Plus those in the business have access to resources and deasl an ordinary person never gets, I have seen this.

Edgware

BrownFinger wrote: »

Its impossible to find a reliable plumber.

A few more months of Covid 19 and they will be glad to answer the phone