At one time or another many homeowners decide that they need to renovate their homes.
This could be when they buy a home that is new to them, or it could be later when the kids have grown and you need to change how your home works. Either way, renovating homes can be a big deal and can take you many months to finish.
If you want to do the work yourself, it could take you a long time to complete the project. If you want a professional home renovation in Vancouver, you could call a lot of companies to get estimates on the cost.
You want to do your research and not choose the first company that you see advertised on the internet.
Renovating your home can be a task that needs to be done but can be overwhelming. This article will give you a list that can be followed to make things a little easier for you. You can also get ideas from here and continue to do more research to find more ideas.
Steps You Should Take for Renovation
1. Invest in a Key Lockbox
If you are going to do renovations before you move in, you might want to invest in a key lockbox or smart door hardware. If you are hiring a contractor this can save you many early mornings and long morning drives.
The contractor can get the keys out of the lockbox and you won’t have to meet him in the early morning hours.
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2. Spend Time in the Space
Even if you are doing something small like painting the walls or replacing the carpet, you will want to spend time in the space that you are renovating.
This will help you to see how the light reacts in the space and help you to make your choices of colors. You could also see how different types of carpet will look in the area and what colors will look like if you get samples to set in there while you look.
See here for more design hints before you begin: https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/home-improvement/renovations/what-to-know-before-renovate. You don’t want to make any mistakes because you didn’t want to wait.
3. Be Realistic About Your Timeline
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it will also take you longer to do your renovation. Be realistic about how much time it will take.
You want to plan realistically so that you won’t be disappointed when it is taking a while to complete. For example, you might think that renovating your bathroom will only take a weekend but discover that it will take at least three weekends to replace everything in there.
If you had planned on three weekends in the first place, and somehow finished in two weeks, you would be happier, and not disappointed.
4. Expect the Unexpected
Things happen. Especially when you are doing any renovations and you should expect something to go wrong.
If you are renovating an older home, you need to expect that there will be trouble in the walls -outdated wiring, termites, wood rot – these are all things that could be hiding. These are just a few of the things that can go wrong when you are redoing your home.
5. Interview Multiple Contractors
If you are hiring a contractor, you want to make sure that you interview multiple contractors before you choose one. You want one that will fit your style and what you want to be done.
You want them to understand your vision and feel good about making it come to life. You also want a contractor that has the best price for the job – you don’t want to go with the cheapest one, necessarily, but you don’t want to miss out on having one who can do the job cheaper.
6. Renovate Your Kitchen First
You will want to do your kitchen first because it costs the most and makes the most mess. If you do it later, the mess could ruin new paint or carpet in other rooms.
When you are working on your kitchen, you might want to put up plastic sheets in any doorways or open passes. When you redo your kitchen, you can recover about 75% of the costs of doing it.
Since it could take you several months to do your kitchen, you might want to set up a temporary one in another area of the house if you are planning on staying in your home during the remodel.
7. Be Specific About Designs
If you plan on using an interior designer for your designs, you will need to narrow down your design choices. Look over home magazines and websites that show different designs that you like.
Narrow those down to a few and then talk to the designer. They can help you narrow those choices down even more and help you to pick the ones that you really like.
You want to do this because you don’t want the designer to tell you what you like, you want to have an idea of that beforehand. You also want to make sure that you talk to them about timing so that you can base some of your ideas on how much time it will take to do the work.
Conclusion
Renovating a home – even a small renovation – can take a lot of time and money. You want to make sure that you know what you want before you begin.
You want to make sure that you spend time in the areas that you want to redo before you do it. You can see here for design tips. This can help you to make design decisions that are based on what you see, not on what you think you remember about the space.
You want to do things in a particular order so that you don’t make messes in too many spaces at once. Doing the kitchen first, for instance, will keep the mess of your largest project away from paint and carpets that you might have already replaced.
