10 Tips to Help Your Home Renovations Run Smoothly

Are you considering renovating your home? Creating a space that you design specifically for you and your family can be an enticing thought. Impulsiveness and impatience can lead to mistakes when it comes to home renovations, as can cash flow issues. Taking on home renovations can be expensive, long drawn out yet rewarding at the same time.

The last thing you want is to rush in and find you are ill-prepared for undertaking work on your home, resulting in the task taking longer, stopping altogether, or being carried out incorrectly due to time and money restraints. So how can you make sure you are ready to take on repairs in your home and design and build the home of your dreams.

Read on for ten tips to help your home renovations run smoothly.

Planning is key

Before starting anything relating to renovation works on your home, ask yourself some questions. Do you have a plan for what you want and now what you are looking for.

• Are you expecting to live in your home during the work?
• How much can you realistically afford to spend?
• How long do you anticipate the work will take?
• Do you know what you want?
• Do you have the money ready to start the work?
• Have you gotten any quotes?
• Are you extending on one level or two?
• Do you have the correct permissions for the work? Or can you get the right permits and approvals before you start the work?

Don’t Rush Into Things.

One of the biggest mistakes homeowners can make is to rush into work too fast. Moving into a new home and immediately undertaking work can backfire on you. Instead, take your time. Live in your home for a while and see how it suits your needs before looking at what you can change.

Allow your house to settle into your day to day life and see how it reacts to you. If your home still needs work to help it accommodate you after living in it for a little while, then look at plans to help it become the home you need it to be.

Get a fee for where you need the extra space and how you can integrate renovations into the existing space you have

Do you have the space to extend?

Just because you want to extend, that doesn’t mean you can. Measure our outside space carefully and make sure you are happy with the loss of outdoor space you will be sacrificing for the renovation works if you are extending.

Try blocking the area you will be using off and having it out of bounds. This will help you to get used to the loss of outdoor space before you start any work and help you acclimatize faster.

Permission

Most homes are subject to planning approval before having exterior work undertaken on them. Check with your local state laws and follow the requirements correctly. In most cases, retrospective permits are not always accepted. Hiring a local architect to draw up plans will give you more insight into the type of work that is likely to be approved as they will have extensive knowledge of precious refused and approved plans.

If your home doesn’t come with the correct planning permissions, you may face a challenge when it comes to getting the proper approval. One right way to judge if your plans will be approved is to see what work neighbors have carried out to get an idea of the type of proposal that will be accepted.

Be realistic on timescales

Exterior work can take time to be completed and, sometimes, at the mercy of the weather. You want the job to be completed properly. For this to happen, you need to be realistic about how long you anticipate the work to take. Best case scenario and sans any hiccups or unforeseen problems are rarely the way these things happen. Prepare yourself for the unexpected and allow more time than you have been quoted to complete everything.

If your house is an older build, chances are there may be a few surprises thrown your way, the more work you do on the house.

Live in or Move Out?

Having work done in all or even some of your house can be a tremendous upheaval, especially if you have a family. Are you able to live in a home that is without a kitchen or a bathroom, for example, for any period of time? If the answer is no, it may be that you will have to move out of the home until the works are fully completed or at a standard, you can live with.

Consider going in with family, friends, or even moving into a hotel or short term rental property during the construction work. Factor this cost into your budget for the work that needs doing. If you don’t do this, it will become an added expense you need to pay for that isn’t included in your budget.

Budget

When it comes to budgeting for home renovations, it pays to be generous when it comes to costings. Having a backup fund for those unexpected costs is vital, so the whole project isn’t thrown into jeopardy. When getting our quotes from contractors, make sure you are 100%  confident of precisely what they are quoting for. Are you planning on being the materials and fixtures and fittings yourself, or will the contractor be supping everything?

If you are buying the materials yourself, then make a list of everything you need to purchase and where you are buying it from and when. Doing work this way will mean you need to get the right materials for the contractors to be able to carry out the work. For outdoor renovation work, companies such as American Cast Iron Products can help you source the right type of maintenance hole covers or other ironwork you need.

Compare your costs against those of the contractors and balance out how much work it will save you by having the contractor source the materials as well as complete the building work required.

Project management

Becoming your project manager can save you money in the short term, but it can also take up a lot of your time. It may be more cost-effective to hire a project manager to keep on top of the work and navigate between contractors and the work that needs doing on schedule.

The same is true for a designer too. Having an idea of the look and style you want can end up being tricker to bring to fruition. A designer can work with you to help you realize the look and style you have in your mind and bring it to life in your home. Find someone who can see our vision and work to implement exactly what you are looking for once the renovation works are complete.

You get what you pay for

Don’t be swayed by low prices and promises that sound too good to be true. If you are quoted a price that undercuts other quotes you are given, ask yourself why. Where are they making the savings, and how can they complete the work quicker? If something seems too good to be true, chances are it usually is!

Ask the right questions, dig deeper, ask for testimonials, and make sure the person you hire is a good fit for you and feel confident in your decision to hire them. If you need to cut costs, try taking some of the work yourself. Remember, this is one of the most expensive things you will do in your life apart from taking out your mortgage.

Be Decisive

Regularly changing your mind can not only lead to friction with the contractors, project managers, architects, and designers you hire but also yourself and your family too. Constant changes increase timescales and costs. Be confident before you start on precisely what you want. But be flexible should things not be able to be completed to plan but try to avoid making changes once work has begun. Time is money, changes are money, and you could be setting back the project.

In conclusion, home renovations can be time-consuming and costly. However, you want to make sure you are getting it right the first time around. If you don’t, you will have wasted time, money, and opportunity.

Do your homework before you agree to any work and most definitely before building works start. Know precisely what you want, what your contractors will be delivering, and be confident you have chosen the right people for the job. Making a mistake when it comes to home renovations can be a costly mistake. Get it right the first time, and before you know it, you will be able to sit back, relax and enjoy the home you have been waiting for!

Previous post:
The Most Brilliant Interior Design Trends Of 2020

Next post:
What's a Home Foreclosure, and How Does It Happen?