Sophia Money-Coutts dreamed of turning a ‘doer-upper’ into a fab pad but two years on it’s not

The first builder died a week after I hired him (heart attack; I didn’t cause it). The second builder arrived and immediately stated that my flat in South London was too far for him to drive from West London every day. The third builder said I had to wait “at least a year” before my project could start because his workers had returned to Poland. The fourth came by and promised a quote that never came true.

It wasn’t until I met a married couple who live two blocks away and run a real estate company—she does the design, he oversees the construction—that the renovation could begin.

I bought my Crystal Palace flat in September 2020, in love at first sight. It’s unusual: a semi-detached house built in 1900 by a wealthy merchant as his weekend getaway (wealthy Victorians had mansions in this leafy spot as it’s the highest point in town, out of the smog). But work had to be done. A lot of work. New windows, new wiring, new kitchen, new bathrooms, new floors, total redecoration. No problem, I thought then. I always looked at changing rooms; How hard can it be?

Well, hard as a totem pole, to borrow a phrase from Ryan Giggs. Work began last May, barely 20 months after I moved in, when one end of my kitchen was demolished to make way for glass doors overlooking the garden. Nearly five months later, the doors are yet to come, and that end of the kitchen remains nailed with particle board as material lead times are long due to labor shortages and supply chain problems caused by the pandemic, Brexit and rising energy prices.

Since then my kitchen floor has been ripped open, all appliances removed, an old bathroom taken out, two rooms smashed into one, one window taken out and a hole made for another (also covered in chipboard). There is more dust in my house than in the Gobi desert and I cough at night like a consuming orphan in the one untouched bedroom because I insisted on staying put as the renovations rumble around me. Had to. Couldn’t afford to rent anywhere else. Because the cost of such work is staggering.

How do you actually know what a steel beam should cost? Walk into a Tesco Express to buy a bottle of wine and it will cost you a tenner because it says so on the label. But do you want to know how much it costs to install a wet room or replace your kitchen cabinets? A builder scratches his ass, produces a random number and you have no idea if he’s scamming you.

DIY beginner Sophia Money-Coutts shares everything she’s learned about renovating a home and gives her top tips

All the while, I’ve been well aware that I’m leading this project as a single woman who – until recently – thought a screwdriver was a potion. “Your husband here?” a builder asked when he stood on my doorstep. Lindsay and Claire, the very helpful couple overseeing my project, at least sent me an official looking document with a quote for each room before we started. Still, it wasn’t cheap, and I scrapped several ideas (underfloor heating in the kitchen, sliding doors between my bedroom and bathroom) to solve several problems that emerged along the way. The foundation for the new kitchen doors wasn’t as deep as we’d hoped (of course not), so more concrete was needed; the wiring in the kitchen was even worse than we (of course) imagined, so that was another expense.

Then there are all those minuscule details that you don’t think about until you step into the renovation world. How high do I want the light switches in the hallway, Leigh asked the electrician. “Um, normal height?” I answered. What kind of toilet did I want for my bathroom, Claire asked during a planning meeting. “Uh, a normal one?” (I finally changed my mind and chose Burlington Bathrooms’ Regal design because I’m tall and have a seat six inches higher than your average, which makes for a more, er, comfortable experience.)

The things you become obsessed with during a project are mind boggling. I spent hours (frankly, whole hours) on lighting websites and more hours traveling around London, lying in showroom baths, shoes off, trying to determine if the incline is comfortable enough for my Kindle to read. I scoured Pinterest for bronze kitchen cabinet handles and contacted several sellers on Etsy about “movable” butcher blocks. For months I thought of little else but lampshades and wall colors, sinks and towel rails. I’ve shared the one existing bathroom with dozens of men—scaffolders, carpenters, plumbers, and painters. Clint the carpenter even moved into it for a few weeks while he was making my wardrobe, and we shared long conversations about the benefits of drawers versus hanging rails.

“It’ll be lovely when it’s over!” everyone cries, as if a renovation is like childbirth. But now that the project is only a few weeks away, all I can say is: pushing a baby out isn’t that bad, is it?

• Sophia Money-Coutts’ new novel Looking Out for Love will be released on February 2, 2023 on HarperCollins