Refurb costs, rental income and tax

[AJ1982]

You may prefer the 10% wear and tear allowance.

10% of rental income can be taken as a deduction. Whether you use it or not, assuming your property is furnished.

[ASB]

No. Repairs in the course of the rental business will generally be revenue in nature and claimable.

that doesnt include improvement which are capital in nature. Though they can mitigate any eventual cgt.

There are some improvements which are claimable, eg insulation but this iszabout to run out.

[TykeMerc]

I've not run any rental properties in about a decade so I'm rather out of touch.

In the event I want to fairly extensively refurb a property before starting to let it out privately, bit of remedial repairs, decorate throughout, maybe kitchen/bathroom and carpet throughout can I offset those refurb costs against the rental income?
I understand that mortgage interest costs can be offset against the rental income, but I'd like to be sensibly tax efficient.

Obviously I've no intention of running this or future properties though my contracting business, just doing some on the side BTL stuff, I know there's several posters with a lot more recent BTL info so I'd appreciate any advice.