Before we submitted the plans to the planning department, we thought it might be a good idea to start pulling together some estimates. We already had a budget that we were working to and this was part of the brief that we had given Mark, the architect. However, there is no point in putting something through planning that you simply can’t afford to build. This turned out to be a smart move.
We engaged a Quantity Surveyor (QS) via the architect who took the Mark’s designs and produced a set of rough estimates. These are based purely on the current designs and some prior knowledge of what it takes to build/renovate properties like these and in this part of the world. In fact, the QS managed to produce a set of estimates without visiting the site – based purely on the work that needed to be done and the amount of space/materials involved. At this stage, the estimates can only be very rough.
But they only need to be rough. The initial set of figures showed that we were already over budget by about 20%. While you can reduce costs by cutting back on some of the footprint, you aren’t going to save huge amounts. We took the decision to lose the garage/office on the basis that this could be added in at a later date and it might also have been difficult to get through planning. Getting rid of this element of the decision would also save time and money – the design of the garage/office was still only at a formative stage when we took the decision to scrap it.
However, the whole process did underline how important it is to understand your priorities and make compromises accordingly. We still won’t know the final figures until once the planning permission has been granted – after all, some key parts of the design might get rejected and this could have a huge impact on the budget.