Has spending so much time in your house got you thinking about changing things up? If so, you’re not alone. A lot of us have been forced to stay indoors far more than we normally would, meaning we’ve had to get up close and personal with every inch of our homes. Outdoors has been largely closed, so there has been no excuse for us to not tackle the snag list most of us tend to ignore.
This has spurred a lot of people into kickstarting their renovation plans. After all, there’s no time quite like the present, is there? Before you begin stripping wallpaper and aggressively pulling up carpets, here are some tips you should take heed of in order to prepare your house for renovation.
Get a House MOT
Renovations have a nasty habit of shedding light on unforeseen problems in houses. You might not have known that you have a woodworm infestation until you begin stripping back layers of your house to its timber. In a likely manner, you might not have anticipated doing a search for a service provider that specialises in such issues. We would also recommend seeking someone out that is familiar with the local area and climate (believe us, it makes a difference). So, for example, you should seek out a timber and damp specialist in Kent if you are local to the area.
You can avoid a lot of these unsightly problems by hiring a surveyor to come and give your house a once over. What this means is that before you spend money and get halfway through your project only to find you have a larger issue at hand that will cost a lot more to fix, you can effectively budget and tweak your plans and financials to suit.
Prioritise Rooms
If you’re planning on overhauling your entire house, you will first need to prioritise set rooms. It’s not viable to strip every room back to its bare bones and continue living and functioning in the house as you will need to. With this in mind, choose the room that is most in need of a revamp and do that one first. It might be your kitchen or it might be your bedroom. Whatever it is, stick to one room at a time. You might desperately want to change your hallway because it looks tired and old, but if your pantry is suffering from rotted wood or a window safety issue, that needs to be done first.
Oftentimes, the most pressing jobs aren’t the most glamorous, but they are certainly the most important. To that end, if you do strip wallpaper back and find a patch of damp or crumbling plaster, don’t ignore it. The key to a successful renovation is to not cut corners and do a good job first time round.
Label Storage Boxes
The best way to go about a renovation is to completely empty out the room. This will make manoeuvring far easier and result in a more efficient renovation compared to if you were trying to plaster or paint walls whilst trying to get a single speck on a beloved piece of furniture.
When it comes to emptying out the room, the best approach is to invest in storage boxes (cardboard or otherwise) and tactfully store items of a similar ilk in each box. For example, place all your books in one box and label it ‘books’. Put all your cables in another box, making sure they’re not tangled up, and label it appropriately. This will not only reduce clutter in other rooms when you move them out of their original room for the revamp, but it will make unpacking far easier and more organised.
Summary
Have you recently undertaken a house renovation? If so, what are your top tips, and did you use any of the ones above?