Bedroom Renovation: Our quick guide to renovating a small bedroom

Undergoing a bedroom renovation is an important part of refreshing your home.

Whether the bedroom is small or large, a little planning for costs and activities will go a long way to ensuring you can renovate your bedroom in good time and within budget.

This article provides the important steps to renovating your bedroom and getting a whole new living space for you to get a good night’s rest.

We also provide some ideas for making a children’s bedroom safe to play in and cosy for sleeping in.

And at the end, we itemise all the costs so you can get a good feel for what your overall investment might look like.

 

The steps and potential costs when renovating your bedroom.

Start with the end in mind

Having a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your bedroom is the very first step in planning the renovation.

You should make decisions on where you want furnishings, lights and even wardrobes. Imagining how you want to use the space in the future, compared to how you use it now, will definitely help with creating your own unique vision.

Once you have a better understanding of this, the rest will be much easier.

So, first things first.

Planning and installing the electrics round the room

Electrics is an essential part of the room. You will need ceiling lights, television, bedside lamps too, maybe even a hair dryer.

With that in mind, don’t be afraid to change the current plug sockets to fit with your vision and then arrange for an electrician come and provide a quote for making the changes.

Example Electrician costs:

In the UK, new plug sockets cost approximately £70-£90 per socket. So, for a small bedroom with 4-5 sockets, you will be looking at around £280-£400 per room.

U4U Renovation Recommendations:

We highly recommend having a qualified electrician come and complete this work as it’s very dangerous to touch electrics without full knowledge of the wiring procedures.

You definitely need to bring in the electrician before the plasterer, because the electrician will need to chase the wires through the old plaster.

The last thing you want is for them smash out your fresh new plaster only for you to have to cover it up again.

 

Plastering the bedroom walls

Once you have your light switches, electric sockets and wiring for the ceiling lights in place, it’s time to get your walls (and ceilings) neat and tidy.

Putting fresh plaster on the walls will give you a real sense of a new bedroom so that when you come to paint or wallpaper, you are doing so on a brand-new wall.

Example Plasterer Costs

Plastering costs for a small bedroom are usually between £350 and £500. You will need to get a quote for both materials and labour.

If your bedroom is slightly bigger, then you may be looking at more like £750 to plaster a full room.

U4U Renovation Recommendations

Plastering is one of those jobs where you need to have a lot of practice to get it perfect. That’s why we suggest finding a local plasterer who can come round and perfect your walls.

It’s always useful to get a recommendation from a friend so you can be sure whoever you choose will be reliable in getting the job finished. Or, you can use MyBuilder to look at reviews.

What’s more, plasterers can make a great mess so it’s a good idea to strip everything out of the room and don’t put any new flooring down until they have been and gone.

Now from one messy job to the next.

Painting the Walls

If you’re painting onto fresh plaster, you should use a mist coat first or paint for new plaster, this allows the paint to go on easier.

You don’t want to spend loads of money on expensive paint, which just gets absorbed by the plaster.

Costs of Painting bedroom walls

A large tub of emulsifying paint will set you back approximately £25, from which you should get a minimum of 2 coats in a medium sized bedroom.

Then your decorative paints will cost slightly more. For example, you may need 3 tins of paint at approximately £25 per pot.

So, you will need to spend around £100-£150 to get your walls painted and looking fresh. That gives includes a bit of cash for low cost painting equipment, like trays, brushes and rollers.

U4U Renovation Recommendations

Painting is a job you can do yourself. And if you’re on a budget, we highly recommend taking some time to get your hands dirty.

If you don’t want to do it yourself, then a decorator can cost around £200 per day so you could be looking at around £500 for a decorator to do a medium sized space. That’s on top of the paint.

It’s not essential to paint the walls before the flooring goes in but it can make it a lot easier when covering things up.

 

Choosing and installing the flooring

The flooring in your bedroom is going to bring you much comfort.

There are many types of flooring and underlay to choose from. So, with that in mind the first decision is whether you prefer wood flooring or carpet.

You may wish to go for wood floor and purchase a rug so you can have the best of both worlds.

Your chosen floor type will determine which underlay you need. At Underlay4u we offer specific carpet underlays, which give you additional comfort in any of your home spaces, including the bedroom.

Most of our products also offer additional sound insulation so you can keep the noise down around the home. These are usually perfect for an apartment or children’s bedroom.

Cost of Flooring

The costs of flooring can vary dramatically depending on what you want. We recommend budgeting for between £20 and £30 per square meter for the carpet or wood floor. Then an additional £5 per square meter for the underlay.

So, in a room that measures 5m x 3m your costs will be approximately £375 to £525.

Smart choice underlay that’s perfect for the bedroom

 

U4U Renovation Recommendations

Choose a floor and underlay for your specific needs. For example, if you want to make your home more insulated, choose a high tog option. Whereas if you want to make your home more soundproof, choose a high insulation underlay

If you’re using the space as your Children’s bedroom, then choosing both a high insulated and sound reducing underlay can bring many benefits to their sleep and play time.

 

Adding the finishing touches to your bedroom renovation

Fixing the wall trimmings

Once the large items are done, you may want to finish everything off by installing new skirting board and/or new coving.

These pieces can make a huge difference to the finished room and the feel of it being fresh and new.

Costs of skirting and coving

Skirting boards should cost no more than £7 per square meter and coving approximately £3 per linear meter including some decorators caulk to cover up the gaps where the walls aren’t straight.

So, on a room size 3m x 5m you are looking at approximately £10 x 16m = £160 all in. It really can be worth adding these finishing touches just to finish the room off.

Completing your vision

Remember you started with the end in mind? Well, now is the time to see things through.

Choosing your furniture can be exciting times. It can also end up quite costly if you don’t monitor your spend.

You may need a new bed, mattress, light fittings, wardrobes, curtains and other small items like plants and ornaments to fit in to the new look and feel.

Furnishing costs of renovating a bedroom

All these things can vary massively in costs, for example you could buy a short-term bed for £100 or a super expensive one for £1,000.

We recommend budgeting a minimum of £1,000 if you need to purchase all the above at the same time.

Total Costs of renovating a small bedroom

Before you get going on your renovation project, here’s a final list of the approximate costs we have mentioned throughout the article, that you may need to spend in order to complete your project.