Data reveals average home renovation goes £3,024 over budget and takes three months longer than expected to complete

Whether you’re renovating one room or the entire house, a lot goes into the process to achieve the perfect result; a home that truly reflects your personal taste and style. Despite it being such a celebrated and awaited finish, often renovators look back at aspects of their process with feelings of regret – and they also learn things along the way that they would do for next time.

Many people opt to renovate their home, whether it’s to endorse their personal taste or to keep up with modern interior trends. With renovating being such a hectic time, hearing the regrets of others is a great way to provide the gift of hindsight which will help future renovators avoid mistakes and be left with nothing but a perfect finish.

To better prepare future renovators on their project, Toolstation surveyed over 1000 renovators to gather data from those in the know on the most common regrets, stresses, and mistakes.

The most stressful rooms to renovate

According to Toolstation’s respondents, the kitchen is the most stressful room to renovate for close to half (49%). When looking across regions, Brighton came out on top as the most stressed city when it came to renovating their kitchen (70%). This could be due to several reasons – from the amount of equipment, accessories and utensils that need to be packed up, to the loss of cooking facilities and disrupted routines around work and school. This could especially be the case for young families.

The second most stressful room to renovate was voted as the bathroom (22%). In this case, Norwich was the city that agreed the most (36%). Renovating your bathroom can be stressful for several reasons – from having to choose from a wide range of designs and layouts, to plumbing issues, to, of course, being without a toilet/bath/shower.

Not too far behind the bathroom was the living room/lounge (9%). Belfast and Northern Ireland both came out on top as the cities who found the living room the most stressful. The living room plays a huge part in our lives. As a room meant for relaxation, living amongst renovation is bound to cause stress.

The regions who overspent the most on time and money

Spilling Over Budget

Over half of the survey’s respondents stated that they went over budget (55%), with the average amount being just over £3,024. This differs across regions, with London being the city that splashes their cash the most, going an average of £4,378 over budget.

Cardiff isn’t too far behind, going over budget by £3,041.

Brighton came out as the best money managers, with the average overspend coming in at £1,070.

16% of those surveyed in Greater London revealed that their budget was blown between £7,001-£10,000.