When you move into your new home, you want to make it look and feel just how you want it. Sometimes this can be an easy and quick process, and it may involve just giving the walls a lick of paint. However, on other occasions, you may want to rip out fixtures and fittings and completely start again within rooms such as the bathroom. As you spend a lot of time at home, you want to ensure that you can bring your visualization into reality. You want to make it looks and feel as fabulous as it can do. However, where do you start this process? Renovation works can be exhausting and costly, and they can be stressful, so what do you need to look at first?
Establishing What Your Budget Is
Before you look at changing anything or improving it, you need to establish how much you have to spend. Home renovations costs can quickly rise and escalate, and it is important that you get a grip on your budget before you go any further. So, how much have you got to spend, and what do you need to get for your budget? What would you like to achieve for your spending? Do you have ideas in mind, and if so, do you know how much they will cost? If you start renovation works without creating a budget, you may end up spending more than you can afford to, and this may then mean that you have less money to spend on other areas of your home.
Try and Do Work Yourself
When you start to get prices and quotes for work, you will quickly see how expensive home renovation is. To reduce your overall costs and outlay, you should look at doing as much of the work as you can by yourself (or with the help of your family and friends) If you can do things like decorate rooms or even remove fixtures and fittings (safely of course) before the arrival of workmen, then you can save yourself time and cash. It is important that you feel both comfortable and confident doing the work yourself and that you do not push yourself to do anything that you are unsure or uncertain about.
Take up the Paintbrush
Even if you are planning large-scale renovations within your home, a fresh coat of paint never does any harm. Giving draw walls and ceilings a fresh coat of paint will help to live and brighten a space. This is ideally what you want, even if you are planning on renovating a space, because it will make it both comfortable and easy for you to live in. When you are looking at painting walls, you should also look at painted kitchens, too, because painted bespoke kitchen cabinets can lift a kitchen area and leave it looking like a completely new room. Paint can help to lift how you feel, and it can help to lift how your house looks, so take time to paint yourself, or take time to call in the professionals.
Decide What to do as a Priority
Not everything that you want to do within your home is going to be a top priority, and if you are working within a restricted budget, you will want to ensure that you prioritize your spending. So, take some time to look at your home and see what you want to do (and need to do) as a top priority. For example, do the electrics need re-wiring, does the plumbing need fixing, or do you need to rectify a leaky roof. Once you have set aside a budget for priority spending, you then know what you have left to spend on other renovations.
Focus on Key Living Spaces
As some rooms within your home get more usage than others, it is important to prioritize them. For example, your kitchen, bathroom, and living room are all heavily used spaces within your home. Making them look right and investing your time and effort into renovating them will give you places to retreat to and places to enjoy – even as other rooms and spaces within your home are being worked on and renovated. You need to have key living spaces finished and compete within your home to ensure that the renovation process does not take its toll on your finances too much.
Focusing on One Room at a Time
Your whole home may need renovating and redesigning, but financially this can be expensive. Sometimes it is better for you (and your budget) to focus on one room at a time. When you focus on renovating one space at a time, you can be sure that you are getting your spaces looking exactly how you want them to. If you tackle too many rooms at once, the budget will be hard to maintain, and as a result, you may end up having to make compromises, and this is certainly not what you want.
Recycling and Upcycling Where You Can
When you renovate, you don’t always have to look at brand new all of the time. You can often make use of the things you would otherwise be throwing in the bin. Sometimes, you can save both time and money by recycling and upcycling what you already have. For example, those wooden windows you are ripping out and replacing with uPVC – could they be used in your garden space as a feature?
When you are renovating your home, and you are doing so on a budget, you have to change how you think. You have to look at the bigger picture, and you have to establish just how you will get there. Renovation is a process that can take months, if not years (dependent on the size of the project and the budget you have). Renovating can be stressful, and it can take its toll on your family life and leave you with an unhealthy balance. Take on projects that you are comfortable with, and be sure not to overstretch yourself or your finances.