Four Pre-Renovation Tasks to Complete
So you’ve decided to renovate your home. But where should you begin?
Before embarking on renovations, there are various factors to keep in mind before undertaking projects – budgets and goal setting to products and appliances – before any decisions can be made on renovations.
Interior designer Darren Palmer from The Block and Reno Rumble shares some essential steps you should consider prior to reaching out to tradesmen for help.
1. Draft A Brief
When hiring or contracting people to complete work for you, creating and providing them with a brief is standard practice – apply this concept to your home as well.
“Your brief should include timeline, budget, mood and style preferences as well as inclusions and exclusions for the space,” according to Darren. This will guide all decisions about purchases or inclusions.
Keep visual references handy so you can monitor the aesthetic impacts of your purchasing and design decisions, to ensure you achieve the desired result upon completion.”
Your briefing document doesn’t need to be shared with anyone – it simply serves as a useful way for organizing your ideas and plans for renovation.
2. Create Your Budget
Alongside your brief, Darren advises drawing up a detailed budget as part of your purchasing decisions. With so much information out there and so many decisions pending over time, having a limitless number of choices available to you can be intimidating; having a set amount in mind helps limit them and keeps everything within the bounds of possible solutions.
“To create a comprehensive budget spreadsheet,” recommends Darren, “incorporate all confirmed costs into it as much as possible.”
“That means sourcing as many items as possible before beginning, working through pricing options and finding deals that make sense for you. If you have carefully laid out all your inclusions, some might go on sale during the process; just keep in mind that purchasing something discounted just because it fits a brief is no bargain at all!”
Darren advises that keeping to a budget will be especially crucial when renovating to sell or investing in real estate, to protect profits.
