by
September 4, 2023
This was a 1970s house, which then had been raised and two units added underneath in the 1980s. No major renovations had been done, and the last tenants had treated it very poorly. Once they left the only option in order to rent again was to do a full house renovation. That is repaint, re-carpet, rewire, re-plumb and install modern kitchen and bathroom to bring it up to date. This was the classic “everything must go”. The only areas not renovated were the windows, and even they got new latches.
To upgrade the kitchen the obvious move was to remove the non-load bearing dividing wall in order to open plan the lounge and kitchen areas. The key design element was to remove the initial part of the hallway and add this space into the kitchen area. This gave us high wall space for the pantry and fridge. We lost the laundry area, and so added a washing machine and condenser dryer under the kitchen bench. Luckily the cooking appliances and basin could remain in the same location between the windows. We also added lots of cupboard space and a return.
Many hidden improvements are a good idea during a full renovation if the house is intended as a long-term hold. This one had already been with the same owner for 25 years and they were looking to make sure there were no issues for the next 25 years! The plumbing had issues due to failing black piping, so as the flooring was being redone the plumbing could be completely renewed. Equally as the switchboard was being relocated and modernised it made sense to renew the electrical wiring, especially once we found that rodents had made of feast of some of it.
On a full renovation the little things add up. For example, new lighting, new new power sockets, windows stays, and even cupboard handles seem small but the sheer number of them add up to a lot of cost. In this renovation the carpet and flooring was around $7000 installed (Carpet Mill sale). The curtains came to $2,000 (on Spotlight sale), and then all the doors and knobs had to be replaced as well. We spent around $11,000 for electrical work, and $8,000 for plumbing. The kitchen was great quality from Bunnings for around $6,000 and anther $8,000 to Trade Depot for kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures. All the builders and other labour for taking everything apart and then putting it together again, as well as painting the whole place, brought the entire bill to around $85,000.
This was a 3 month job that turned into a 4.5 month job due to illness and coordination issues. That increased the loss-of-rent cost incurred in having the place vacant from around $5,000 to $10,000. Time is money! The plumbing and wiring jobs were much larger than expected due to the defects found. The rent increase of around $140 per week meant that the job did give a ROI of around 7%, and of course gave a big boost to the value of the dwelling.
