What You Need to Know Before Renovating

 If you're thinking about renovating, then you're probably already feeling overwhelmed by the task. Renovating is often disruptive and it causes a lot of mess, and it causes a lot of noise in your house. 

You can have that vision in your head of the finished result, but until you get through the renovation part of it, you're not going to get to that ideal. Blown budgets, vanishing tradies, all of the horror stories will be coming out of the woodwork when you talk about renovating.However, it doesn't have to be that way.

Whether you're looking to renovate something small, such as getting a replacement window put in for your living space, or you're looking to upgrade your carpet in the bedroom, or you're looking to do a full renovation with a new extension on the side of the house, you need to be aware of everything that could go right, or that could go wrong, so that your renovation comes through in one piece.

Image source: Pexels

1. You need to start with a goal. When you're talking to companies about helping you with renovations, you need to make sure that you have a clear vision and a goal for your overall idea. If you want a contemporary exterior or a minimalist interior, this has to be translated to the company that's going to help you. Are you looking to rip out and replace the bathroom, or do you want something new for your kitchen? Whatever it is, have your goal on paper so that you can talk it through with the company that helps.

2. Set your budget and then add a little more. To be able to balance your vision and goals with what you can afford, you need to have a budget in place. Once you have an idea of what you can afford, you can then start gathering quotes from tradies and from designers so that you can understand whether your budget is realistic or not. If you have got a realistic budget in mind, add 10% to that just for any incidental costs that you may not have accounted for.

3. Put together a team. You want to make sure that you have a trader you can get along with, a designer who's going to work well with you, and you want to make sure that you have checked online reviews and verified any credentials. Licensing, insurances, word of mouth recommendations, all of these things are things that you should be paying attention to.

4. Have a timeline in mind. The timeline that you have in mind for your renovation may be shorter or longer than you need. It's important that you have the right time frame in mind, though, so that you can keep everybody on track. You want to reduce the risks of conflict, and you want to keep yourself and the team accountable. When you work with contractors, you need to make sure that you estimate the start and end dates for each area of the project, such as framing, plumbing, painting, and more. Everybody should be on board with what it should take to get your renovation through to completion.