First Time Buyer: Total Cost of Buying and Renovating my First Home!

I think this post is probably going to make me a little sad when I add up all the costs associated with buying my first house and renovating it over the first year, but nevertheless, also interesting to see the total cost. I bought my first home last year and it's officially been completed, redecorated and freshened, with some small projects and larger home improvements. I'm not including any furniture that I can obviously take to another house or ongoing costs and bills. 

The initial costs of buying a home start with the cost of the property itself. I do have a mortgage, but as that's the resale value, I'm going to include it for the total cost. So the house was on the market for £190,000 when houses were barely lasting days, so I went way over asking price with £205,000. 

In order to actually purchase, I required a mortgage, survey (£995), electrical certificate (£180) and solicitor fees (£750). As a first time home buyer, I didn't need stamp duty or some other associated house buying costs. These totalled £1,025, but I also got £750 cash back, which basically paid for the solicitor, resulting in a final cost of £1,175.

For the moving in process, I hired movers to help which cost £274 and then decorated the whole house which split between 3 workmen was £3280, £110 and £200 for both workmanship and supplies, totalling £3,590.

My 2 big renovation projects were the main bathroom (£6,950) and utility room (£6,694 but I did get a £303 refund). The latter included a new downstairs toilet, 5 new downstairs internal doors, all the electrical works and plumbing, and I'm also going to add the cost of the fitted kitchen fridge/freezer and wine rack unit for the kitchen at the same time. This totalled £13,341.

The 3 big items that I have purchased for the house as fitted items is a new fireplace (£158), Hammonds fitted furniture for the master bedroom (£5,000)and shutters in the bay window of the lounge (£1,130). These totalled . Again, with some damage to the chest of drawers and shutters, I got a small reduction of £435 and £100 respectively, therefore the total was £5,753. 

For the outside, I've had the entire outside of the house cleaned, including the gutters, patio, driveway and facias etc (£400). Plus, had the patio repointed (£250) and the gardening project (£200). Once garden renovation has not yet quite started but it needs doing and I have already been quoted so I've included that in the total cost too, making it £850. 

I feel like that's the grand total of how much I've spent on everything but furniture, decor and ongoing costs. Apologies if I may have missed a few small things! I've always said I plan to spend about £230,000 and I am incredibly impressed with how close I have come. The grand cost comes to... £229,709. 

Stay tuned to see if I can get my money back!