This is a website for buyers, owners, and sellers of property in Spain, offering reliable information and resources to help you get things done with confidence. It is run by Mark Stücklin, author of the Spanish Property Doctor Column in The Sunday Times (2005-2008), and the book ‘Need to Know: Buying Property in Spain’ published by Collins.
It’s been almost two months since I last wrote about the progress of my Barcelona apartment renovation, as I’ve been uncomfortably busy trying to get my Property Corner section of this website off the ground, whilst at the same time trying not to lose control of the renovation work. Feeling a bit like a hamster on a wheel, I just haven’t found the time to write about it.
With too much on my plate I took my eye off the ball and all of a sudden found myself horribly over budget (a familiar story, I’m told). Anyway, it’s now back under control, as amongst other things I’m sacrificing bespoke fitted cupboards for IKEA. Lots of other cool things have also been abandoned.
Soon it will be finished so rather than miss the opportunity to update those who are interested I thought I would try and different approach and shoot a quick video update, which took me three minutes, and might even be more interesting than the written updates.
So here it is. Please forgive the shaky camera work at the start – it’s a learning process and it gets better after a few seconds. If the regulars who have been following the progress of my renovation like it I might do a few more, though I also plan to write more articles on questions like hydraulic tiles, the wow factor, bed height, windows, LED lighting, Telco, managing renovation from afar, to name but a few.
GarySFBCN says:
Nice! And the video is a good medium for these types of updates.
The parquet: If you entertain a lot and your women friends (or men I suppose) wear high-heel shoes, consider a laminate with a rating of AC5 or AC6 instead of wood. Those shoes damage most wood floors. If you’ve ever been in a ballroom with a wooden floor, you know what I’m talking about. And while I was kind of repulsed at the idea of laminate, I’m glad we have it. The stuff looks great and is ridiculously resilient. But it wasn’t cheap.
By the time we finished our remodel, the cost more than doubled for many reasons. I used money reserved for furnishings and landscaping both terraces to help off-set the increase. I’ve never heard anyone say that their remodel project was finished according to the original schedule or budget.
Unless you plan on changing the Ikea kitchen cabinets sometime in the future, if possible, consider paying extra for nice granite, marble or other quality surfaces on those cabinets. We chose Neolith Porcelain for our kitchen surfaces. My thinking at the time was that when searching for a home to buy, I could tell when each place was upgraded by the materials used in the kitchen and bathrooms and, frankly, so many of them looked identical. I wanted to avoid that – and we did.
Thanks for sharing your project!
Mark Stücklin says:
Hi Gary, glad you liked it, also happy to hear about your laminate floor, as that is exactly what we have decided to do. We have original hydraulic tiles in most rooms, but have decided to protect and cover them in every room apart from the entrance and the gallery. Synthetic parquet these days not only looks incredible, it’s also robust and easy to maintain, and cheaper than real wood, so ticks all the boxes.
Pretty much everyone I know who has done a renovation in Barcelona has gone significantly over budget, but now I know why. I made the mistake of not paying enough attention to the original spec and budget, so I didn’t know what was included without having to go and look it up. I started piling on the extras like no tomorrow, and got caught out by the carpentry, which I thought was included but wasn’t. I think I also went over the top on the insulation, but in the long run I hope it will pay off.
The kitchen will still be bespoke, though cabinets will not go all the way to the ceiling (where you can’t reach anyway), the island has gone in favour of a table, and few other luxuries have been abandoned. My wife’s walk-in closet enjoys full funding, but all the other fitted cupboards will now come from IKEA.