We spent probably about $500K on "renos" on this house. When we bought it 2.5 years ago we knew it needed a major overhaul so had the costs factored in, although admittedly our budget got well and truly blown - our own choice to blow it because we ended up using top quality everythings from kitchen appliances to a $8K bathtub for our ensuite. We had hoped to be mortgage free at the end of it but have ended up with a smallish mortgage. So, the first $300K or so was paid with cash that we had from the proceeds of the sale of our last house. The last of it by getting a mortgage.
My first house (which I bought alone) I borrowed a little extra at the beginning so I could redo the kitchen. Then a couple of years down the track used the redraw facility to do the bathroom.
We are trying to do bathroom reno's (see other thread about how difficult finding getting quotes!) but we have just overpaid into our mortgage and now are redrawing - interest rates have fallen since we bought and we never changed our repayments so built up a little that way too. When we got the mortgage out, we got it for amount flat was going to cost + stamp duty minus our deposit and then when got first home owners etc it sat in the mortgage account so always knew we would have a bit to draw out too. At some point we will rent this place out and will get a better rental income due to renovations + value will increase but didn't want to wait till have saved up everything as want to enjoy the new bathroom and kitchen ourselves too. (Shower is also vital as is leaking into wall - and little point in only doing that). Only problem is after paying out for big expenditure (we just got double glazing) is hard seeing interest on loan be so much higher each month because it isn't being offset by that money.
We need to do our bathroom but we are saving cash to do it. We do have a redraw facility, but because of the way our mortgage is structured, we can't justify redrawing for house renos when it's a business mortgage. But we are able to do it all ourselves so it is only a matter of paying for the materials so it wont cost as much as getting tradies in.
We added on to the mortgage for our bathroom reno. Actually had to get a personal loan for a couple of months and then paid this out when we re-did the mortgage. We also keep ahead on the mortgage so we can re-draw if needed. The hot water system just blew up and we may have to re-draw some cash to cover that.
When we got our loan we got some extra $$$$ and we were able to paint the entire house, polish all floorboards, get our blinds/curtains etc and some other things. The rest is bit by bit as we need it & can afford it. We will also make do with what we can until we can afford the major reno's. We just got a quote this morning to cement our driveway and we will build the fence ourselves. We have also come up with a shelving idea that looks nice in our laundry and will do for now. We will be done one day
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