There may be nothing more exciting and simultaneously anxiety-provoking than renovating your home. Since your house is one of your biggest and most important investments, home renovations can quickly go awry if you aren’t careful and don’t anticipate anything that can go wrong along the way. If you want to make sure to have your renovations done on time and on budget, then you can’t ever do enough planning. To avoid disaster, heed the advice of Well Refined Renovations and don’t do these top renovating mistakes that can be your greatest pitfalls.
Not investing the money for quality materials
There are some things that you can skimp on and others that you just can’t. When you are renovating, it is important to know when you can use cheaper materials and when you can’t. If you use materials that aren’t strong enough to stand the test of time, then you will end up either having to replace them or to deal with the problems that can come from them not holding up the way that you need them to. If something is crucial to your design or the structure of your renovation, make sure to spend a little extra to ensure that it will last.
Measure twice, cut once
The key to any renovation is to measure twice and cut once. If you cut something too small, then you are wasting materials you can’t use. If you cut too big, then you are wasting material again. Measuring might seem like an easy enough thing to do, but sometimes to be precise you should measure once and then measure again.
Follow the steps
Sometimes the prep work seems meaningless and you just want to jump right in – but the success of any renovation project is usually in the amount of time that you spend planning and prepping. Even if you are excited to get it started and get it done, don’t skip the prep work – or you will likely spend a whole lot of time correcting what you didn’t do ahead of time.
Get down to the bones
A lot of renovators think that putting a Band-Aid on a situation is better than ripping off an old bandage and getting to the crux of the injury. Take the time to gut things; it will pay off in the end. By gutting the necessary areas, you can better insulate your home, make sure that there aren’t any lurking problems that are left to worsen, and you can do it right the first time from scratch – instead of redoing it a couple of years from now because you didn’t take the time to gut it the first time.
It’s all in the tools
If you are going to engage in a DIY renovation project, then invest in the right tools to do it correctly. The amount of time you waste using the wrong tools and the quality of your finished project are both going to be highly dependant on the type of tools you use. Even if you want to keep costs low, using the wrong tools will end up costing you more in the long run.
Don’t fail to make lighting considerations
If you don’t take the time to consider the right types of lighting fixtures, you will forever be frustrated with your inability to see things. Live in a space that you are renovating for a while before you decide where lighting is needed, so you can know for sure where to concentrate it. You can very rarely put in too much lighting, but it’s a common occurrence that renovators wish they added more lights and in different spots.
Old classics are always classic
It can be nice to use trendy materials and fixtures. But when you are renovating, the problem is that using trendy things can age your home quickly. Try to use classic and timeless materials and fixtures, so that people won’t be able to date your home and when you renovated purely by the materials you choose.
These are common mistakes that might not seem like a big deal when you are in the process of renovating, but in a couple of years you may look back and regret your decision. Take the time to do things right the first time, and you won’t ever question the decisions you made or wish you had put more time and energy into the renovations the first time.
