Renovation Preparation- How to better prepare for a Home Renovation

Home renovations have the potential to become stressful and costly if you do not prepare properly. Mistakes are easily made, and budgets blow out if you have not better prepared for your home renovation.
 
Here are my top 5 tips, in a fairly loose order, on how you can make a renovation less stressful and more fun for all involved, with little  to no budget blow outs. 

1. Make Social Media your New Best Friend
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If you do not already have an Instagram, Houzz and Pinterest account set them up now and use them daily, if you have the time. This will be your starting point to get inspiration for your project.
On Instagram you can do hashtag searches or follow builders and or home renovators in your local area, and ideal hashtag could be #renovationsperth or #perthbuilders if you are Perth local. Hashtag searched can be super detailed or you can use Instagram style hashtags such as, #housegoals or #kitchengoals. Either way start to discover the platform, and whatever you do, if you like any image save it by clicking on the bookmark button on the bottom right of the image.
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Pinterest is an amazing visual platform that allows you to create boards and save images to those boards.  The new school way of scrap booking.  You could create a board and call it Perth Home Renovation or whatever you like. Your boards can then be added to as you scroll through Pinterest by simply pinning the image to a board. These boards can then be shared with your builder and or building designer later down the track when you are discussing your home renovations with them.
 
Houzz is also a great platform which is solely, created as the name suggests, for renovations and new homes.  Builders and Home Renovators as well as interior designers and material suppliers have accounts on Houzz and can show off their jobs on the platform to prospective customers just like Instagram Business Pages.  Houzz works like Pinterest just make sure you save the images you lie and the builder and or designer you find on there.
 
These social media platforms will be your starting point for narrowing down what designs you like and what colours and material you like. Much easier and cheaper than the old school way of going through Magazines and tearing out the pages you like!

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2. Create a Must Haves List for Items in the Renovation

From your above inspiration start writing out a list, which may get bigger and bigger as you go, of the “must have” items that you want in your home renovation. This could be things such as: double glazed windows, bifold doors to the kitchen/alfresco, custom bench seats in the kitchen/living, that amazing pendant light at Beacon Lighting. Whatever you REALLY want in your home renovation must be written on this list.

Once you are nearing the end of your research stage and about to meet with a building designer and builder this list needs to be narrowed down to a realistic  amount of must haves, as from this list the builder will be able to work with you on budget to sacrifice the nice to have things for the must haves.

This is an important step and shouldn’t be missed as it could make or break your lovely new home renovation.
 

3. Create a Realistic Budget for the Home Renovation 

This is the most important one to really focus on and drill down on. The best place to start is to talk to a Real Estate in the local area that you live in and ask them how much your house could potentially be worth if you did what you were planning to do. For an example if you want to add on a home extension and include a full home renovation of all bathrooms and create a brand-new renovated kitchen with a newly renovated laundry and brand new alfresco plus one extra bedroom -how much will the renovated house be worth? If the answer is $500,000 more than the current value than my suggestion is to take 10-20% and make the reno budget around $450,000 (assuming you can afford it). Basically, whatever the extra value increase is the homes value is, take 10% off that or a little more and work with that as you budgeted amount for the home renovations.
 
If you are not bothered about over capitalising on your home then you just need to work out how much you can afford to spend on your renovation and your builder will be able to tell you what is possible for your home.
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In most cases you need to then sacrifice certain things while costing out your build with your builder to make sure that you stick to budget, which is why the must haves list in step 2 is so important.

4. Go Window Shopping for Fixtures and Fittings and Materials 

​Once you are equipped with your budget and you have a good idea of the look and feel you want from your soon to be newly renovated home you need to hit the pavement and go window shopping.
 
This can be fun and overwhelming at the same time. The best place to go in Perth is Home Base in Subiaco, I also suggest hitting up Home Shows that may be on in Perth or which ever capital city you are from. HIA do a home show annually in Perth and there are plenty of exhibitors there.
 
Tiles shops, Reece Plumbing, Harvey Norman are a few places to start. Also, furniture shops are great places to get inspired for colour pallets. Take note of prices etc as you need to be mindful of this when you sit down with your builder to discuss the fixed price quote.

5. Speak to a Renovations Specialist Builder and Building Designer ​

Once you have done all the above you are now ready and equipped to take on any questions your building designer and/ or builder will throw at you. 

 I always suggest getting both builder and designer involved together. You can work with either a draftsman, building designer or if you are happy to pay that extra fee, an architect.
Getting both builder and designer involved from the start means that you will help to prevent any budget blow outs, as the designer can design the renovation and the builder can suggests ways to reduce the cost of that home renovation design. This is important and one we really like to focus on at Distinct Renovations.

We recommend at Distinct Renovations to get your drawings done from the start, independent of the builder, as then you and the designer will hold rights to the plans and NOT the builder should you choose to go with another builder.
 
After all you don’t want to waste a whole bunch of money to later decide you don’t like the builder originally engaged. Then to find out you have no rights to the plans that you paid for as part of their preliminary agreement- don’t get caught out doing this!
 
Renovation preparation is one of the most important stages of renovating….. As is everything in life- PLAN PLAN PLAN

To recap- Get on to Instagram, Pinterest and Houzz and start savings images.  Create a must have lists of items you want for your home renovation and then work on a budget for the home by possibly talking to local real estate agents. Once your budget is formulated take a shop around for fixtures and fittings and materials you may want to use on your home renovation.

Next step chat with a builder and a designer who can draw you your house plans. It is vital to have planned enough before speaking to a builder and a building designer as you need to be sure of your end vision for your home renovation.
 
There are many other ways you can prepare for a home renovation but in my experience from previous renovations completed on our homes and from all our workings with clients, doing the above 5 things before you start getting prices from builders for your renovation will set your miles above the rest and will better prepare you for your home renovations.

Distinct Renovations are happy to help you at any stage of your renovation, we have extensive experience of renovating our own homes and those of our clients. Feel free to contact us at any stage for any advice around renovating and building.