A complete remodel is a fun way to create a home you love. Whether you’re updating an older home, creating a more comfortable space, or hoping to add value to your property, renovations have many benefits.
However, it can also cause stress. Renovations can be overwhelming, stressful, and things can go wrong. There are many things to consider and many pitfalls to avoid. This article provides the process and some good tips to make your home renovation go smoothly and with satisfying results.
Here are our top tips for how to renovate a house effectively.
Do a Deep Research
Home renovation is an important project for homeowners. Successful projects all have scientific and reasonable research and planning. Accurate research helps you plan better, budget more effectively and avoid unexpected and costly expenses. Research is a great way to gather actual information about the house, come up with ideas, options and choose your optimal solution. There are many ideas that can be very strange and creative when creating a house, the research step will help you find out if it is possible or not.
You should start researching local regulations and permits when planning your home renovation. You make a list of things to do and find out if you need a permit. If you are completing a project that will change the structure of your home or the way you use rooms, you will most likely need to contact city officials. If you need a permit, wait to apply until you have hired a team and got it on track. Your contractor may need to apply for a building permit depending on where you live.
Define your goals
There are many goals of home renovation, you should write them down and consider them carefully:
- Renovating a house to live in?
- Renovating a house for rent?
- Renovating a house to sell a property you just bought?
You should also create a wish list that describes what you want – what architects call a “program”.
For example:
Main floor
- 3 bedrooms
- 1 working room
- 2 fully bathrooms (luxury equipments)
- 1 kitchen large (modern equipments)
- Expand the living room to have a view
Finishing the basement:
- 3 bedrooms
- 2 full bathrooms (basis equipments)
- 1 kitchen
- 1 living room
- A media room
According to your goals you should plan your home renovation accordingly. If you’re interested in enhancing resale value, you should tackle remodeling projects that increase ROI. If you want to renovate your home to improve the quality of life for you and your family, then you think about the rooms or ideas you desire the most.
Develop a detailed plan
After research, the next important step is planning. You should outline what you need to do in a file on your computer so you can edit it regularly. Your project plan should also include:
- Goals
- Status of your property
- Budget
- Licenses
- Design
- List of supplies and materials
- List of steps
- List of manpower
Establish a Budget
Planning a renovation can be very innovative and exciting. You can easily get carried away with those grandiose ideas. However, not every idea is financially, technically and licensing feasible. If you budget correctly, you can control the amount of money spent and not pay too much for unexpected expenses. The amount of money you plan to spend on home renovations will determine the scope of your project.
An excel file will help you significantly. There can be many ways: Determine the total amount you are willing to spend, then divide this amount into parts of the house, or plan from each category and then add the total to the overall budget. Once you have a detailed file, you will figure out your priorities and think about where you can cut or increase costs. Research how much things will cost by asking for multiple quotes.
Design
You should hire a professional company to design because they will coordinate all the factors such as your wishes, the condition and structure of your house and interior elements and materials to create a complete drawing. correction. If not, you can do it yourself but the results will be as feasible as a professional company. The following are the main steps in the design:
- Measure: Measure the length, width and depth of walls, doors and windows, etc. You should also get the dimensions of furniture, appliances and other items in the renovation area.
- Layout design (2D): The floor plan design has no furniture, which is the form you want. This design requires a lot of technical knowledge and current status, especially the electricity, water, gas and heating systems
- Add furniture: When there is a 2D drawing board fill the interior with furniture and equipment. Most design applications can be used to pull 3-D models of common objects.
- 3D design: Allows conversion from 2D to 3D design. 3-D mode can give you a better idea of how things work in space.
- Construction design: In reality, 2D and 3D designs are not used in construction because of many practical problems such as the city’s inlet/outlet water supply system. Therefore, construction drawings are needed to be able to proceed with construction.
Discuss with your neighbors
Talk to your neighbors about your plans and ask for their understanding about the inconvenience during the repair process. A good relationship with your neighbors will help you during the home renovation process. Even when the renovation is finished, you want a positive environment to live in, so it’s best to keep open communication with your neighbors from the beginning.
Keep Your Priorities
To keep your home renovation on target and on budget, you need to focus on your main priorities. It’s a good idea to start with the kitchen, bathroom and living areas as these areas are often the most expensive and most frequently used. Focusing on your priorities may include renovations that will give you more living space, improve your quality of life, and increase the value of your home. Priority areas can be the kitchen, bathroom or finishing the basement for living or renting. You can invest more of your budget in these priority areas or categories.
Choose Material
In order for your house to be durable and cost less to maintain, choosing materials suitable for the weather and level of use is very important. In cold climates like Canada, pay attention to winter. Some important and hidden internal materials such as electricity, water, gas, heating systems need to use standard products/materials, high quality, durable and minimize maintenance.
When choosing materials, you should also pay attention to energy saving factors because energy costs account for a large proportion of your monthly expenses. Some products help you save significant energy such as LED lights, induction cookers, induction lights, solar energy devices, etc. Some solutions should be applied to save energy such as replacing main doors, office doors, and increasing insulation.
DIY
Labor costs are rising in North America, so a great way to save money is to do some of the work yourself. There are some simple, permit-free jobs you can do yourself, such as painting walls, installing insulation, and installing shelves. However, some jobs require a license and require skills and craftsmanship, requiring professionals.
Leave Some Things to Hire Professionals
DIY can save you a lot of money, but many times it’s more expensive and time-consuming than hiring a professional. When you do it yourself, there are many factors that arise that you have never had experience with, which will force you to do it again and again, increasing costs and lengthening time. For some jobs that are heavily technical, complex and highly aesthetic such as electricity, water, gas, heating… you should leave it to professionals. They have the knowledge, skills, experience and the right equipment to get the job done quality, beautifully and quickly. They also know how to handle problems that arise in practice to achieve good results.
Add more Storage
A home renovation is a good opportunity to redesign storage elements, which will help your home look less cluttered and more refined. For professional contractors, they have design options to have more storage space and optimize the area. One of the modern design options is the built-in cabinet system, which helps make the room tidier than separate cabinets and has more storage space.
Importance of Light
Increasing the amount of natural light is the best way to enhance your experience and mood and can also make the room look larger. The solution to increase natural light is to expand windows, install more windows or add skylights.
Besides natural light, you can use artificial light. Artificial light has two goals: illumination and decoration. You can install additional lights for these two purposes. Luckily, there are many types of LED lights with many different shapes and energy savings for you to use in many different areas to create special effects.
Perfect the Painting
Although painting is simple, it has a big impact on the look and feel of the house. Although you can paint the color you like according to your preference, avoid using colors that are too dark as it will affect the mood of the room.
Insulation
When renovating your home is a good opportunity for you to improve insulation. Good insulation makes a house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. A good thermostat also helps you reduce energy consumption and save money.