Renovating parts of your home or the entire structure is an adventure that warrants excitement. Once the final upgrades occur inside your home, you feel a sense of fulfillment, especially if the job is well done.
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As a homeowner, you want to get the best renovation outcome, whether for self or commercial purposes like renting out or selling. This makes it even more vital that you stop and seriously access your options to determine if you're ready to go the whole hog.
Have these ten factors in mind when you decide to renovate your house from scratch.
Do Your Research
Research for renovation costs should only come after you determine your reason for initiating the process of renovation.
If the project is more of a personal endeavor than a commercial one, you should do extensive research on boosting the place's livability to keep your family comfortable. This can mean breaking down walls to create space for your people or installing wood windows that are more convenient for your kids to operate.
Don't limit your scope of research and be critical about style, functionality, and structure as they hold much weight on buyer decisions in the market. Check online for different color palettes, images, and furnishing types but hold back from purchasing any of these items until after the groundwork begins because your tastes and preferences may change along the way.
It also helps to do on-site research by spending time at the house once the renovation process begins to get a picture of how everything can settle-in harmoniously.
Budget
Money is an essential piece of your project that you should think about and prioritize above everything else.
For a successful renovation, you must set aside a realistic budget that covers the entire cost of the operation. It should include the money for upgrading each room if you're renovating the whole house and a sum for the minor in-house fixes like purchasing door knobs and cabinet ware.
Remember that your workers need their payments on time as per the contractual agreement, which may take up most of your cash, thus you may need to keep extra cash as a buffer in case additional costs arise.
You must also compare notes with the lead contractor to develop a quote that caters for the operations from start to finish. Avoid cutting costs by buying cheap work materials as you're only compromising on quality and durability.
Keep ledgers for expenditure, including daily purchases or other minor costs that may affect your total budget.
Timeline
Before your project is complete, it will have its share of ups and downs that may derail your initial plans. It is, therefore, essential to be realistic about how long specific changes will take and the time it may take to find suitable replacements for your new home.
For example, if you plan on upgrading your bathroom, you'll need to replace old appliances with more modern ones such as a bathtub which can take days to locate.
Complications may arise, especially if you've been living on the property before the renovation; such as uneven floors that require jousting the flooring all over again, which can set you back days if the extent is significant.
When setting an accurate timeline for the project, make sure you include unanticipated setbacks and mishaps to avoid getting frustrated.
Schedule
Your focus should gear towards creating a working schedule so that operations can run as smoothly as possible within the predisposed timeframe. This will enable you to meet your deadlines while also being in the loop of whatever activities are going on at any moment.
You should avoid coming up with a schedule independently, as most of what it involves requires a team effort. Instead, work in tandem with your group of renovation experts to establish a formula that will determine what projects will be on for the day, their order of occurrence, and the person responsible for seeing them through to completion.
A schedule also takes away the chaos within a construction site. It establishes a clear path for the roads to use when making appliance deliveries and where the tradespeople need to be at all times to avoid overcrowding and overlapping.
It can take days or weeks to develop an ideal program that caters to every aspect; therefore, you should begin creating it immediately after the contractors are on-site.
Detail
When people hear about a renovation, they think about significant projects while, in fact, it is the finer details such as color palettes, design types, and measurements that matter
Without being clear enough about what you want, you can end up with a less than admirable space lacking features close to your heart. It is painful to spend a considerable amount of money on renovation to end up with an appeal different from what you envisioned.
Instead, map out what stays or goes and include details of how you want specific rooms to look.
For example, if you want a modern kitchen, elaborate on the type of kitchen layout you prefer (open or closed), the kind of storage you want, and the lighting arrangement.
The same goes for other areas in your household but be careful not to have too many different design patterns as they may negatively affect your home appeal. Instead, try to keep it simple, classy, and uniform all over.
The Future
As a savvy homeowner, you must always think about the future and how your house can look to meet all the expectations of a modern house. This means you should always go for stable features that can adapt to the changes in consumer taste, so that they don’t become obsolete in one cycle.
For example, you can upgrade your kitchen by embracing an open layout and installing quality countertops and vanities that can withstand the test of time.
Make your renovations decisions while thinking about the future to avoid going back to the drawing board a few years after as it only costs you more money.
Damp
When there's excess moisture circulating within your home, it creates a damp environment that is bad for your health. This can be a potential danger once marks start forming on your walls and floors.
It is almost impossible to trace where the dampness is coming from under normal circumstances, especially if the structure is old. However, renovation gives you access to sensitive areas such as blocked drains and leaking gutters that are often the leading cause of dampness.
Damp conditions left unchecked for a long time can favor the growth of fungus that causes rot in timber. This can happen, especially if your place has poor ventilation around the floorboard or roof space.
To remove damp may cost you extra money besides the standard renovation costs because it's a separate project.
Timing
The time of year you decide to undertake a renovation project determines how much you'll spend and how long you'll have to wait before the task completes. This is because the total cost of renovating tends to fluctuate during different times of the year, depending on the market demands.
Between October and December, prices are always high as most people actively look for ways to spruce up their homes.
Renovation is also generally slower in some seasons than others because of the impediment of operations by the weather. While internal processes like bathroom and kitchen upgrades can continue even through the most adverse conditions, outdoor renovations such as deck installation or roofing may come to a halt.
It is essential to wait for the warmer springtime or hot summers before you can begin any renovation pursuits to avoid nature’s interruptions once you start.
Order of Renovation
As a homeowner, you may see renovation as a burden, especially when you don't know where to start. It can be a real challenge if it's your first time because a simple mistake can leave you with a less than desirable result.
There may be no particular order of doing a renovation, but experience dictates that you should start with the rooms that create a lot of mess and take the most time, such as the kitchen, before proceeding to the less strenuous areas of the house.
When renovating a room in your house, always isolate the other areas from the demolition mess by placing plastic bags through the doorways where traffic is high to avoid spreading the dirt.
Survey
Extensive renovation projects require detailed planning and not guesswork. This may mean hiring a surveyor to take measurements of your property while also look for any structural dangers.
A survey is also necessary as it gives you an insight into the type of work it will take to make your home better. It is essential to survey if you want to renovate a recently purchased house.
Conclusion
A home renovation project can take months to complete successfully. It is disappointing when you start such a significant project and end up with results that you don't like. This is why it is essential to consider the scope of the work you want to do before proceeding to undertaking it.
The following factors should come to the top of your mind when you want to renovate your entire home or selected sections.
This is a contributed post.
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