Your floor goes in last. Here’s how to make sure there’s money left for it

Nothing in a renovation is more visible than the floor or works harder. It’s in every room, every photo and every footstep, and it’s the thing you’ll be standing on long after your paint colour has changed twice.

The problem is the floor is usually one of the last things to go in. By the time anyone gets round to choosing it, the extension has overrun, the kitchen’s gone up and the “while we’re at it” jobs have eaten whatever budget you left. We see it in the showroom every week: people who’ve spent two years planning a house, then settle for a floor they don’t love because the money’s gone.

We asked Ian how to stop that happening. Ian is a London property developer, investor and renovation veteran who now works with us here at Kite. He’s also learnt the hard way what happens when you go cheap on a floor. His approach is simple: save in the places nobody notices, so you can spend where everybody does. Here are his 10 ways to do it.

About Ian Steed

Ian is a London property developer, investor and renovation veteran. Before that, he was a senior project manager at Lendlease and Crest Nicholson. He now works with Kite, helping clients plan their floors around the rest of their project.

1. Do what the Victorians did

Walk round a Victorian terrace and you’ll see the logic straight away. Fancy tiles and cornicing in the hall and front rooms. Plain boards and simple fireplaces at the back and up top. They spent where guests would see it and saved everywhere else.

Ian does exactly the same by spending on the principal rooms and anywhere guests go. Save on the back of house and the upper floors. You don’t need Lefroy Brooks taps in the utility room or the loft bathroom.

The same goes for floors. Put your cleanest, most even oak in the hall and living room. Up in the loft, go for a grade with more knots and character. Grade is one of the biggest drivers of price, and we explain the rest in how much a wood floor really costs.

2. Sash windows: timber at the front, uPVC at the back

Good uPVC sash windows, painted with a wood-grain finish, look just as good as timber ones from the pavement, and Ian reckons they come in at less than half the price.

If you’re in a conservation area and planning requires timber, it’s normally only on the street-facing elevation. So put timber at the front and uPVC at the rear.

3. Paint: save the posh stuff for the rooms that matter

The aspirational paint brands get more expensive every year. Meanwhile, hallways, landings and stairwells add up to an enormous amount of wall, especially in a larger house.

Ian’s fix: pick a colour from a good-quality, lower-cost brand like Dulux for those areas, and save the premium tins for the living room.

4. Built-in storage: look up IKEA Pax hacks

Bespoke joinery is one of the most expensive lines on any renovation budget. Search “IKEA Pax hack” on Instagram or TikTok and you’ll find people getting the built-in look, with proper doors, scribed edges and a coat of paint, for a fraction of the cost.

5. Lighting and sockets: count the points

Builders and electricians often charge per point. Thirty spotlights in a kitchen is thirty points. A directional track with eight lights on it is charged as one.

Sockets work the same way. Plan your furniture layouts early, so you know where the sofa, beds and desks are going and don’t install sockets you’ll never use. Then spend on the sockets people see, and save on the ones inside cupboards and in back-of-house rooms.

6. Bundle your deliveries

Heavy items cost a fortune to deliver: tiles, sanitaryware, appliances. Order them in dribs and drabs and you pay that charge every time. Ian orders all the appliances at once, from the same website, and saves hundreds of pounds in delivery alone.

7. Carpets: go for a wool blend

Many of our clients go for wood floors throughout the house, plus a beautiful rug or two where they want softness underfoot. But if you must have carpet (and we know some of you love the extra dust they hold on to, and how hard they are to clean… we joke), go for a wool/polyester blend. It costs a lot less than pure wool, and Ian’s other reason for liking them is that carpet moths are less keen, so you’re less likely to find bald patches under the bed in two years’ time. Carpet moths are actually one of our favourite animals at Kite, as they have been doing excellent work in promoting the wood floor industry.

8. Let Google Lens do the shopping

Seen a tap, light or door handle you love? Take a photo and run it through Google Lens. It’ll find the product, or ones that look just like it, and show you who’s selling it for less. Ten seconds of effort for what can be a big saving.

9. Set up an email account just for the project

Start a new email address for each renovation and sign up to every newsletter going. You’ll get the introductory offers and the sale alerts without burying your normal inbox. Bonus: every quote, invoice and delivery note for the project ends up in one place.

10. Buy out of season

Garden furniture, decking, sheds and air conditioning units are all at their cheapest in winter, when nobody’s thinking about them. Buy then, not in the first heatwave of June.

And the one we would say: buy the floor first

The floor gets squeezed because it’s chosen last. So flip it round. Choose it and pay for it early, and it can’t get eaten by everything else.

It also saves you money. Our Forward Order Scheme takes 15% off selected best sellers when you confirm 6 weeks to 6 months before delivery. And because we store your order free for up to 6 months, buying early doesn’t mean living with a pallet of boards in your hallway while the builders are in. When the subfloor’s ready, we deliver.

Floors last longer than most marriages, so it really pays to get it right.

Renovation budget and flooring: FAQs