It goes by so quickly! We’ve just come out the other side of a 4-month extension, that was 4 months of builders in and around the house. But I do look back now and think that it went by pretty quickly. It’s just down to us now to make the house a home and learn how to live in our new space.
5 Top Tips For Renovators
I wanted to give you 5 quick tips for a renovator to help you on your way when renovating your home.
Don’t Be Afraid
Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries with style, design and decor colours. Pick something that you and want to spend your time in. I have been much more true to our style and the feeling we love in our home this time and it’s working. We wanted a space that we could all relax in and feel comfortable, so picking things we love gives this feeling straight away. Use bold colours if you want to, as long as you research how to make this work, it will! Bold colour schemes are becoming much more popular and I love them!
Be Prepared
Everyone says it to you before you have the building work or renovation. Be prepared for a mess, things to go wrong and budget to be stretched! And it’s true. I tried to cover everything I could at the start so there weren’t any unexpected costs, however, there still was. The biggest things were design ideas that we hadn’t thought about until the build progressed, like lowering the ceiling in the main room, meaning we could cover the new steels and make a smooth ceiling.
If you’re renovating yourself (without or with only a small input from contractors), it’s important to make sure we have all the tools necessary for the larger jobs we conduct. For instance, smaller tools such as an online bathroom wall cladding distributor can help you ensure the fit is perfected every time.
Think About Natural Light
Natural light is amazing and you want to try and get as much as possible in as you can, but think carefully about it. What type of doors are you going to have? Bi-Folds, sliding, standard opening? What materials will it be used from? Aluminium or Timber? Check out this post Kloeber has written to give you some help on deciding what material is best for you.
Once you’ve decided this you need to think about the location or the windows and doors? Will they opening easily? How much sun will come through? Will you need any coverings like curtains or blinds? Also, think about who can see in the windows? We nearly had the neighbour looking right in through the Velux window whilst we’re sat on the toilet!
Easy Dinners
This was a big one for us, with a family of five to feed throughout the craziness we needed easy dinners. Use a slow cooker, it might drive the builders crazy around dinner time when it smells amazing but it’s a one-pot dinner that you can load up with good food and then dish out easily when it’s dinner time. You could also consider slow cooker liners which would cut down your washing too. You can also make bulk amount and freeze for another easy dinner.
Pets
Think about your pets during renovations. I am very lucky and Gus my dog was very tolerant of it all, as long as he’s with me he tends to accept what’s going on. He learnt the smell of the regular builders, so when they arrived in the morning he knew it was OK for them to come into the house, but if they had a new builder with them, he knew and they would get a bark! I always kept him out of the way of the builders, and he did go to my parent’s house one week when the two large walls were being knocked down.
I hope these 5 top tips for renovators was handy for you and good luck with your renovations!
18 Comments
These are great tips Steph! We’ve got some works coming up and I’ve been wondering what on earth to do about not having a working kitchen for a bit. Slow cooker! Why didn’t I think of that. It’s a good job we’ve just got one – now just working out easy stuff to make.
Check out Pinterest, so many amazing slow cooker ideas on there!
We are looking to move this year and in two minds to get something that need renovating. It does worry me but your post makes it sound so less daunting so perhaps we will buy the project after all x
Oh I love my renovation! It was lots of fun and means you can have a house that is just yours, even simple things about where the plug sockets go!
I totally agree about getting as much natural light into your home. We try to do this on each home project we do as it really does make rooms look bigger and more inviting.
Makes such a lovely room to be in doesn’t it
We really need to tackle some work on our house but it does scare me a bit. Reading about your journey and all your tips has been really helpful so hopefully it will be less daunting when we do get started
Oh don’t be afraid it’s OK once you get started and well worth it in the end
We are desperate to move but can only afford what we already have, so my thoughts are turning to extending and resigning the downstairs
Oh that would be exciting, it’s a great way to spend the money on the house by extending. Not wasted on moving costs
I think your ‘be brave’ point is a really important one. We moved into a newbuild and I had to pick our kitchen cupboards etc. I felt that the best option was to play it safe and go with what the show home had. It was ‘too safe’ and we’ve just replaced it all
Ah yes we’ve had plain ones in every house and kitchen we’ve done. Not this time!
Great tips. I have had 3 friends who had their homes renovated, the mess! They lived of takeaways and eating at friends houses because of the mess and lack of eating space.
It’s a crazy time, so any help is welcomed!!
These are really helpful tips, as renovating can be such a bag task to take on! I really like the tip of considering natural light – it can make all the difference to a space 🙂
I love having so much light in the main room, it makes you feel much happier
Great tips! The slow cooker has always been a saviour for us when we’ve been having work done in the house and a lot of the kitchen is off-limits. I think having the confidence to do what you really want to do (and not listen to the naysayers) is vital too.
I love the slow cooker! Brilliantly invention!!