How To Plan Complete Home Renovations
Tackling a complete home renovation project can feel both exciting and daunting. Whether you’re taking on a fixer-upper or simply updating your home, it often feels like the possibilities for what your home can become are endless. From altering your floor plan to switching up your colour scheme, there are so many ways you can personalize your home during a renovation and ensure that the space is more efficient and effective for you and your family.
However, with complete home renovations come a great deal of decisions that you will need to make. This can feel overwhelming, particularly if you are new to the world of home renovation. Projects can last weeks or even months, so being prepared to have a little chaos thrown into the mix is important as you keep the end goal in mind.
That’s where the planning stage comes in. By gathering information and making decisions collaboratively with your contractor, such as those at masteredhomerenovations.ca, you can gain a sense of confidence and control over the situation, trusting that your prep work will carry you through. But how exactly do you plan for a complete home renovation? Let’s take a look.
Set Your Budget
Establishing your budget is easily one of the most important steps of any renovation project. Dealing with finances can be stressful for some on a regular basis, so it’s important to think critically about what you can afford to spend when there’s added pressure to your bank account. Home renovations often cost more than people expect, particularly if they have never renovated a house before, so determining your budget in advance will ensure that you do not overspend. While creating your dream home is important, you don’t want to have to worry about a debt that you cannot pay back.
Your budget also impacts the scale of your project. Some prefer to renovate every room at once, while others choose to tackle one room at a time. Naturally, the more spaces you take on, the more your renovation will cost. A smaller budget may restrict the number of projects you can take on at a time to ensure that quality is not compromised.
It’s recommended that you set at least ten percent of your budget to the side as a contingency plan. Issues often pop up during renovations that can’t be anticipated, such as mould in the walls or outdated electrical. Rather than pulling from other areas of your budget or trying to find money you don’t have, this reserve can act as a buffer. Plus, if you don’t end up spending it all, you can either stash it away for your next renovation project or splurge on an exciting feature for your home.
Choose Your Materials
When it comes to home renovations, one of the most exciting aspects is getting to determine the aesthetic of your home. From tiles, paint, wallpaper, and hardwood flooring to appliances, fixtures, and furniture, there are so many decisions you get to make regarding the look and feel of your home. By taking the time to choose your materials in advance, you can see whether they go well together and ensure they physically fit into your design plan.
There’s no right or wrong way to pick out your materials, but some prefer to choose a feature or two that they can build a room around. This ensures the space doesn’t feel too busy and there aren’t clashing colours or patterns.
Make sure you are keeping your budget in mind when selecting your materials. If there’s a particular piece that you’re excited about that’s on the pricier side, there’s no reason you can’t get it, provided you maybe pull back and save in other areas. If you have a vision in mind, it is fairly easy to achieve that look while still being money-conscious.
Establish Your Timeline
Your timeline greatly affects your budget, as the longer the project takes, the more it will cost. By determining your timeline with your contractor, you can better estimate how much money you will need to allocate to labour.
Additionally, knowing your timeline will help you book external professionals, such as plumbers and electricians. This ensures that they will arrive on time and slide seamlessly into the timeline, rather than you reaching the lighting stage of your project and then calling an electrician, thus putting your project on hold.
Don’t be afraid to take your time during the planning stage. The more information you collect and the more prepared you are, the fewer surprises you will encounter during your complete home renovation.
