Don’t Spend a Fortune on Renovating Your Home
English: Kitchen cabinet knobs, pulls, handles for display at a home center. There is a wide variety of models and styles available in stores and on the Internet. For use in Wikipedia article on Kitchen cabinets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The renovation of an old or run down property can seem like a huge and expensive job but it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune if you go about it in the right way. If you want to stick to your renovation budget then the following are some of the issues you should think about before you get started on the work.
Learn How to Do Some of the Jobs
If you can learn a few of the skills needed to renovate the house then this will save you a huge amount of money in the long run. Of course, doing the work on your own will probably mean that you take a lot longer to get the place completely right but the savings you make might allow you to spend more on the materials and get the look you really want rather than settling for something which isn’t quite what you had imagined when you first saw the property. By taking scissorlift-training, for example, you can save a good deal of money. This same principle applies all over the property and you should think about it carefully before hiring any tradesman. Simple jobs like painting can be done with friends and turned into a fun get together, while more complex tasks like sorting out the plumbing can be learned a lot more easily than you might think.
Plan Ahead
Ideally, you will plan ahead so that you don’t waste and time or money on your restoration attempts. Your first step is to come up with a plan of what you want the finished place to look like. If you feel more comfortable doing this room by room you should be careful not to overlook issues like the wiring and plumbing which affect the entire property. You won’t want to spend a lot of cash or put in a lot of effort into a room only to realise that you need to rip up some of your hard work before proceeding in a different room.
Use What You Can
You might find that you need to rip out a lot of fittings and it is easy to think that this is all going to go straight to the local skip. However, might you be able to salvage something from this lot? Perhaps the wood from some outdated kitchen cabinets could be used in your shelves or in some other way. Equally, you should consider carefully before ripping out units which could be painted over or modified in some way. One of the big benefits of some older properties is that they contain high quality materials. You don’t want to take something out and replace it with an inferior, modern equivalent when it was possible to use the original as the basis for the look you are after. By using this principle all over the house you should be able to make some savings from your planned budget and will probably make the renovation work a good deal easier as well.
This post was brought to you by Anthony Bendel who writes for www.scissorlift-training.org.uk
Category: Home Renovation
