I didn't realise I'd need to spend more than £4,000 on all these jobs after we'd finished our renovation

Finishing a major renovation is a bit like moving house. Now you’ve got to unpack and find a home for everything, work out what extra furniture you need to buy — and, in my experience, get ready to spend a lot more money that you hadn't planned for.

But as anyone who has tried to renovate on a budget knows, stumbling across extra costs you hadn't planned for can feel like a kick in the teeth.

After an expensive 20-week project that finished at the end of last year, we thought we’d finally have some financial breathing space for our credit card and savings account to recover. But it turned out there were a whole stack of post-renovation tasks that we hadn't initially accounted for. As these costs ran into the thousands, I wanted to share them with you so you can plan for them if you are doing a similar project.

Post renovation costs I hadn't accounted for

My husband and I finished renovating our Edwardian terraced home in north London at the end of 2024. We added a bedroom and bathroom in a loft conversion, put a downstairs loo in, a new kitchen, some new windows, installed a heat pump, moved a few walls around and laid new flooring throughout the house.

While we had budgeted effectively for the work itself, we had not planned on any of the below — which ended up costing us thousands of pounds.

1. Professional cleaner — £390

It was amazing to see our house transformed when the building work finished: no more 1970s decor, no more washing up in the bath while our kitchen was fitted, and lots more space and light throughout the property.

But, the dust! A reality that anyone living on site during a renovation will understand. It was everywhere: stuck to the skirting, under the fridge, on top of cupboards, and so on. A quick whizz round with the vacuum cleaner wasn’t going to cut it. We paid £390 for a professional 'after builders' cleaning service to get our house ship-shape before we unpacked our stuff.

2. Changing home insurance — £85

This was a modest cost, but one we forgot about and got stung on given all the other expenses we were forking out for.

When we bought our three-bedroom house, the annual buildings insurance was £385 with Frontier. But now our property was bigger with an extra floor so we needed to change the policy. Frontier quoted us more than £500, so we switched to Quotemehappy.com and paid £470 — which was £85 more than our old one.

3. Replacement and additional furniture — £2,859

I don’t have expensive taste, and like to hunt out bargains and get things done on a tight budget. However, we really needed to get some furniture that would suit our post-renovation home.

We had put our daughter’s toddler bed and son’s cabin bed in the skip during the renovation as we didn’t want to pay to put them in storage, when basically, they had outgrown them and we needed to buy new beds for them anyway.

So, once the renovation was over, a priority was to get proper beds so they didn’t need to sleep on airbeds anymore. We bought a £195 Argos bunk bed for our son, and £249 John Lewis Anyday bed for our daughter, plus £410 on three mattresses.

Ikea wardrobes for the kids’ bedrooms were next, as our house previously had (rather grotty) fitted wardrobes, which we enjoyed demolishing. A trip to Ikea was in order: we paid £639.50 for two large Pax wardrobes, which double up as chest of drawers and even toy storage.

Unfortunately, cheap Ikea wardrobes were not going to work in the loft bedroom with its sloping ceiling. This was the master bedroom, and while initially we bought a £7 Ikea clothes rail, we knew we needed a fitted wardrobe to make best use of the space.

We haggled with Hammonds and got the price down to £1,358.50 for a 162cm-wide wardrobe. It fits perfectly, looks great and is significantly less than the £2,000-plus cost I’d been fearing. But still, my credit card wasn’t very happy about it.

4. Finishing touches — £421

I overlooked the fact that going from a one toilet house to a three toilet house means you need to buy extra loo brushes, hand soap and hand towels. So, that was an immediate £60 hit.

Next, we wanted to lay a stair runner. Cheaper than carpet, a stair runner can dampen the noise — and soften any falls — as well as looking stylish. After months of online browsing, we settled on Dunelm Herringbone Border Navy (60x800cm) at £169. My husband then borrowed a staple gun from a friend and bought things like underlay, staples, a utility knife and carpet tucking tool (£68) to fit it himself.

We also needed curtains for the loft bedroom. We chose teal blackout thermal ones from M&S for £95 plus an oak pole from Dunelm (£25). A panda lampshade (£4 in the Argos sale) completed our son’s bedroom.

5. Extra painting — £300

Don’t underestimate how much stuff can get damaged during a renovation. Our front door bore the brunt of deliveries and dozens of builders and workmen going in and out non-stop for 20 weeks - and got bashed and chipped.

We’re paying a painter to give it a lick of paint (Farrow and Ball Kittiwake) which, including the paint, will cost about £300.

6. Bringing the garden up to scratch — £315

Now that the weather’s warmer we’ve turned our attention to the garden, which is looking very shabby compared to our newly-renovated house!

I’ve got an old bbq free from a friend, and the previous property owner left some plastic chairs, so our most urgent purchase is a nice garden table. We’re planning to splash £115 on this Ikea table.

We also need to replace some fence panels, because an old lean-to that we knocked down during the renovation exposed a rotten fence behind. That will likely come to about £200.

GRAND TOTAL: £4,370

A final note

If you’re planning a renovation, as well as putting money aside for unexpected costs during the work, also set up a fund for all these bills when the work’s complete.

That way you’ll have some ready cash to pay for essentials like insurance and furniture, your home will feel cosy and done in no time — and it’ll spare you a financial headache.

If you have renovation plans yourself, make sure you swot up on the pointless home improvements that won't add value to your property.