Polished FBs vs carpet vs tiles?

[wylie]

...the bathroom has tiles where the shower is, and the rest of the room is concrete, so im wondering on how to tackle it?

I would simply paint the concrete. It is no different to a unit where the bits that need to be tiled are tiled and the rest is painted. Check out my thread (link further down) about the unit my son did up. It is painted concrete walls throughout. He chose to tile some bathroom walls for aesthetic reasons, not because they needed to be tiled. See the photos and you'll see they were not tiled for the past 50 years.

whereas the kitchen, as you can see is L shaped, and im trying to work out how to get the $750-$1000 kitchen,

I would keep that kitchen and paint the cupboards inside and out. Pull up (or scrape up) the vinyl (?) flooring and/or tiles and polish the boards through the whole kitchen. Don't buy a dishwasher for the moment, get it rented and change the kitchen down the track. (Dishwasher will be deeper than those cupboards so will not fit if you keep them, which I would do for now.)

The last place we bought has that style of kitchen. We couldn't afford to replace it when we renovated before first tenants went in. We painted the kitchen and put timber laminate flooring on the benchtop with a timber strip. Looks so much better than it sounds . Has worn well.

We have just offered to replace the kitchen the the tenant who has just moved in. She said she would love to keep it (but understands if we change it) as it was one of the things she really liked about the house.

The good thing is that if you polish the kitchen floor too, when you remove this kitchen the new one will be wider and you will not be left with any unpolished bits (as long as you replace with a similar shape kitchen).

also, as you can see there are 2 types of tiles laid, which are horrible, I get the gut feeling that the green tiles have been laid directly onto concrete and there are no floorboards,

however the rest of the house is floorboards

Can you get under the house to see if the kitchen floor is concrete? If it is, in the thread about my son's unit, you can see the difference stick on vinyl tiles made to his kitchen. Cheap but effective (probably not the best over the tiles unless you fill up the grout lines, but there could be a difference in level between the tiles and the vinyl. Polished boards throughout would be my choice, easy, less expensive than doing a different floor in the kitchen too.

Painting the bathroom all white will make it seem larger and clean and fresh, new shower curtain can be changed for each new tenant.

The living room needs paint and floor polish and will look so much better with just that.

If this is in a cheaper area, that is all I would do.

http://somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74317

 

[Truly Exotic]

hi everyone,

just wondering if people could help out

im currently considering options during a reno to polish floorboards or not,

the property is quite cheap and only a basic job will do,

so far

230 for hiring both sanders

270 for varnish from bunnings

120 for sealer,

just seem svery expensive for 620 plus sandpaper (200) plus labour say 2 days, cost is almost 1500 doing it myself plus some help

is this the cheapest way to go to polish fbs on an ultra ultra low low budget?

 

[Truly Exotic]

Any one please?

 

[wobbycarly]

hi everyone,

just wondering if people could help out

im currently considering options during a reno to polish floorboards or not,

the property is quite cheap and only a basic job will do,

so far

230 for hiring both sanders

270 for varnish from bunnings

120 for sealer,

just seem svery expensive for 620 plus sandpaper (200) plus labour say 2 days, cost is almost 1500 doing it myself plus some help

is this the cheapest way to go to polish fbs on an ultra ultra low low budget?

Do you want the cheapest, then do it yourself, but don't complain about the quality! Pay someone to do a decent (decent = reasonable quality at a reasonable price) job and you won't regret it.

 

[AlmostBob]

Do you want the cheapest, then do it yourself, but don't complain about the quality! Pay someone to do a decent (decent = reasonable quality at a reasonable price) job and you won't regret it.

I agree, the first floor job I did myself was terrible, the 5th job, by then I got good at it, my own sanders went back and fixed the first job. If there is only going to be 1 job, pay someone.

 

[NBS]

Thanks everyone, thanks travel bug,

Ive attached a poorly handdrawn layout of the place, it came off the sec 32 so its reasonably to scale,

I agree, I was thinking about spending the most on the bathroom and kitchen as thats what I believe people make their key decisions on, so I am currently looking at the $740 Ikea or $1000 Mitre10 (which I havent inspected yet) I assumed that you need a dishwasher and hence I included it , but travelbug seems to think otherwise, should I spend another $500 on an even better kitchen and skip the dishwasher???

I'm not convinced about a dishwasher, it was a bonus for my place. Ask a managing agent about the dishwasher, they should know what tenants are looking for.

The above diagram shows the layout, all the white/blank areas are floor board, the red bit is some really old horrible looking yellow tiles, whereas the green bits are some dark green/blue mosaic tiles that has been put in later,

anyway, what I meant about side tiles in the bathroom and kitchen were the tiles on the walls, which are either really bad looking (one type has flowers all over it, while the other is like 2cmx2cm old style swimming pool tiles)

anyway, would apprecaite if someone could give me a few ballpark figures,

Im comparing whether to put cheapo carpet in or to polish the boards, the boards are old and dirty looking but appear structurally fine.

I would pull up anything outside the bathroom, toilet and laundry, polish floor board will cost about $25.00 a Sqm. To carpet my 3 bedroom place was $900, could have got the carpet cheaper if I had chased around. Sounds like it worth pulling the tiles off and putting in one colour. The tiles I got for my place were $10 Sqm at a tile discount place.

As you can see the kitchen has 3 types of flooring, I am not 100% sure if there are flooboards under the 2 tiles, but I assume they are, would it recommended that I rip out the tiles and have a polished FB kitchen?

If there are floor boards under get them polished match the other living areas

The bathtub area, toilet and laundry are actually either concrete or plasterboard walls, do you recommend that I tile it to make it look better since they all have the same hideous green/jade/dark blue mosaic tiles.

Can the tiles be painted?

And finally there is a passthrough window with plastic slide windows, say about 1.5mx60cm in wooden frame, I am thinking about removing the plastic slide windows, and leaving it, or a if guy can make the window taller, for cheap, I might make the window bigger,

as for polishing, the total square metre is approx 65sqm, so im not too sure how that compares to ive been told good cheap tiles are $17+$25labour per sqm, which makes it $42 per sqm,

Not sure what you mean about the window. I would polish the living area and kitchen/dinning, carpet the bedrooms and tile the rest. Polish floor boards $25 Sqm, carpet bedrooms $400 - $600, curtains (full drop)they cost me $600 (7 large windows) for a 3 bed house including the rails.

To tile all areas (Living and bedrooms)you will need a tile underlay so added cost for tiling, polish is cheaper

For bathroom, the vanity is fine, shower is fine, taps need replacing, 1 wall of tiles is fine, however the other wall has no tiles (just concrete/plaster),

Are you saying" in" the shower area one wall is tiled and the other is not or the shower area is tiled and the other wall in the bathroom is concrete / plaster. If the later leave as is just paint. Tapware from $25.00 - $50.00 a set use WELS 3 or better and get a water certificate so you can have tenants pay water usage (if you can do this where you are)

anyway, appreciate everyones feedback as I am jumping around.

Have you allowed for electrician, plumber, rubbish removal. As for lighting batten holders with a shade $10 - 15 at Bunnings. Painting one colour throughtout, not sure what it will cost as not sure if you have to buy the gear to do it.

Have you considered the age of the wiring, building /pest inspection for the unknown you may not be finding.

List everything that needs to be done including light switches, door stops etc etc you maybe replacing and price it all so you are well informed on the total cost.

Brian

 

[Truly Exotic]

Do you want the cheapest, then do it yourself, but don't complain about the quality! Pay someone to do a decent (decent = reasonable quality at a reasonable price) job and you won't regret it.

Well the guy who is working with me, has done them before, he knows how to do them,

We will,be both doing it together, so yes, I am paying for someone to do it,
But DIY shouldn't cost thi much, pretty much 20 % off a professional quote

Hence, my question is that do we need to seal it?

Or can we use a cheap varnish or does one exist?

Eg for my last job, I hired a painter, and being a pro painter refused to cut corners or even use the cheaper paint, hence my paint job ended up costing me one third of my entire budget

I learnt lots from him, but I now know for a cheap property there is no need for up to 4 coats of paint!

 

[travelbug]

Have you had quotes for the sanding. Your hire price sounds about the amount I pay someone else to do it.

 

[Truly Exotic]

Have you had quotes for the sanding. Your hire price sounds about the amount I pay someone else to do it.

Really?

It's from Coates hire

130 for the sander and 97 for the edge sander

 

[TONKA]

The hire drum sanders are terrible to use and are rarely ever set up properly. I actually had to hire one of those tiny Silverline drum sanders to do about 60sqm of old tassie oak for a friend, never again!

Make sure you budget heaps for sandpaper as they charge you a fortune for it and the do-it-yourselfer always thinks he only needs a few pieces

Edit: you also need a buffer, an orbital sander and corner machine or scraper plus heaps of other bits and pieces