A home renovation is a great way to make your existing house work for you, enabling you to avoid the costs of moving home. This is especially useful if you like your current neighborhood and are just looking trying to make adjustments so that your current living arrangements suit your family’s needs. However, there are many different ways to renovate a home and a number of factors which should be taken into consideration before going ahead with your ideas. From design and planning to the financial implications and understanding the steps involved in a renovation, here are some top tips on getting started with making changes to your home.
Design and planning
Depending on how large your project is, you could design the changes to your home yourself and then get them approved by a planner or surveyor; alternatively, for larger projects, you may want to have professional architectural plans drawn up. Either way, it is much cheaper to make sure the design is fool-proof from the outset, in comparison to having to make changes and alterations along the way; not only can this hugely slow down the progress of a project, but it can start off a chain reaction of higher costs which may set back the completion date.
Budgeting for size and scale of the renovation
You need to factor in every part of the renovation before you commit to starting the process, and this includes everything from building foundations and laying out the basic structure of the renovation to the final additions of carpets, wallpaper, and furnishings.
Financing the renovation
Once you know roughly how much your renovation is going to cost you, you can then look into getting the right funding if you don’t have the financial means yourself. You could consider getting a loan from friends or family who wouldn’t mind lending you the money on a short-term basis or try a crowdfunding website. There is also the possibility that you could re-mortgage your home to release some of the equity, and then pay this back in monthly sums until the loan is paid off. Alternatively, you might want to consider comparing bridging loans on The Money Hub, as these short-term loans are perfect for getting started on a project until a more stable form of finance can be arranged.
Understanding the process of the renovation
If you are planning a large renovation, such as redesigning the entire layout of your home or building a sizeable extension, then you may find it useful to hire a project manager. Though this will mean some extra expense at the outset, you could save some money in the long run, as they will be able to organise a financially manageable schedule for the project. There are also a lot of different components that go into a renovation, from carpentry and plastering to plumbing and electrics, and eventually adding the finishing touches with furnishings and décor.
Having someone to oversee all of this will take a huge weight off of your shoulders, and make everything much more bearable for you and your family throughout the process.
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