Guide
What decides the cost of a kitchen or bathroom renovation
There is no price list on this site. What follows is what actually moves the figure, so that a proposal reads as a set of decisions rather than a number.
The room as found
The single largest variable is what is behind the existing finish. A room whose services are sound, whose floor is level enough and whose walls are in reasonable condition is a different job from one where the boards have dropped, the wiring serves something unexpected and there is lath and plaster behind the units.
None of that is visible until the old room comes out, which is why items that depend on it are listed as provisional after survey rather than buried in a single figure. Findings are recorded while the room is open, priced as a written variation against the agreed scope, and put to you before anything is done about them.
Whether services move
Replacing a kitchen or bathroom on existing service positions is materially different from relocating them. Moving a waste means finding fall; moving a sink or a WC any distance in a period building often means lifting a floor. Extract is the other half of the same question: a short duct through a wall that will accept one is straightforward, and a route that has to cross a flat or land on a controlled elevation is not.
This is also where scope boundaries matter. Work outside this main service is covered in our Other services catalogue; the scope and responsible business are confirmed before an instruction.
Access and the building
Getting materials in is a real cost in this part of London. A house with a driveway is not the same proposition as a third-floor flat up a shared stair with a lift that will not take a carcass, or a village lane with a single timed delivery window and no standing.
Shared buildings add protection of common parts, restricted working hours and, frequently, a waiting period for consent. Controlled parking, skip licences and bay suspensions are ordinary line items rather than surprises.
Tenure, consent and specification
Leasehold work usually needs a licence to alter, and the freeholder's administration and professional costs sit with the leaseholder. Conservation-area and listed-building constraints can change what is possible on the envelope, and listing can reach the interior as well.
Specification is the part most people think of first and it does move the figure, but in generic categories — the difference between a laminate and a stone worktop, or between a standard tile and a handmade one — rather than through brand partnerships, which we do not have. Occupied working is slower than empty working, and that is written into the programme rather than discovered halfway through.
How we price it
We visit, then write a proposal against a defined scope. We do not send a figure from photographs, because a photograph shows the finish and hides every one of the factors above.
The proposal sets out the scope, the specification and a programme. Variations after that are written, not verbal. If you want a sense of the range before committing to a visit, the honest answer is that a telephone number is not a substitute for seeing the room.
Questions
Because in this housing stock the range is wide enough that a rough figure would be misleading rather than helpful. Two kitchens of the same size in the same street can differ substantially depending on whether services move, whether the building needs consent, and what is behind the plaster. A visit is quicker than the correspondence that follows a bad estimate.
A line in the proposal for work that is likely but cannot be scoped until the room is open — a length of failed waste, a subfloor that will not take a finish, wiring that serves something not on any drawing. It is listed with an allowance so the figure is honest about uncertainty rather than pretending there is none, and it is confirmed or released once the position is known.
The work this applies to
Where this comes up
Related guides
- Licence to alter: kitchens and bathrooms in leasehold flats
Most flats in North West London are leasehold, and most kitchen and bathroom work in them needs the freeholder's written permission before anything is taken out.
- The order of works in a light refurbishment
In a whole-flat programme the sequence is the thing you are buying. Everything else is materials and labour.
- Living through a renovation: occupied-home sequencing
Most people can stay for a single room. Very few enjoy staying for a whole flat.