First Time Renovators Costly Mistakes: Avoid these 3

Jul 22

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When you embark on your very first renovation, it can be exciting. You’ve most likely have spent time creating your Pinterest boards and you have a really good idea of what you want to do. You have watched the TV shows that make it look oh so easy. As exciting as it is to start a renovation, there are some first-time renovators costly mistakes to avoide.

First Time Renovators Costly Mistake #1 – Know Your Limits

I love DIY projects. As you know, my husband and I fully remodelled our entire main floor and bedrooms upstairs and recently completed our basement development. We did the majority of the work on our own and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. The custom floating shelves below were made by my hubby and then I stained them and together, we installed them. We made 2 and installed them in our basement development. First Time Renovators Costly Mistakes I’m a hands-on type of designer who likes to swing a hammer, create an interesting piece, or just stain some wood for new floating shelves. I also know my limits.My tip for everyone is to know what your limits are. I’m going to use drywalling as an example since I absolutely hate that job. Hanging drywall is actually not that hard to do. The hard part is doing it correctly. And by correctly, I mean for the mudder/taper that is going to follow you. The crews that I work with will not mud/tape after a DIY has installed the drywall. Why? They know there will be deficiencies and that it will show. Why would they attach their name to something that will look crappy? Why would they open themselves up to criticism from the homeowner about the mud/tape job (when it clearly isn’t their issue)? First Time Renovators Costly Mistakes The above image is a flip property that I worked on. This is what the walls looked like when we obtained the property. No straight lines, a million drywall screws.There is no amount of mud/tape to fix a crappy drywall install job. Period. In line with that, there is no amount of paint that will cover shitty drywall work. You see where I’m going with this??? If you know you are not good at something, it’s time to source it out.

First Time Renovators Costly Mistake #2 - Time

If you are planning an upcoming renovation, I encourage you to write down what you are comfortable doing (see above) and then allocating a time that it will take you to get it done. I really encourage you to have a start and end date to your renovation. First Time Renovators Costly Mistakes For some of my clients, they know they are not going to lift one finger to get the work done. For others, they wish to add some sweat equity to their project to keep prices down. I’m all for that!

Allocate Time

Allocating a time for each job you wish to tackle will ensure your renovation will not last forever. If a renovation drags on, you enter into renovation fatigue , you start to hate renovating and soon one of two things will happen: you will quickly get the work done just to get it done and the work will most likely be shitty OR the work just won’t get done and you’ll be living through a renovation that never ends. And let me tell you, NO ONE will be happy!If you have a full-time job, it is also a good idea to consider what your time is worth. Is it worth working all day, coming home to put in another 3-4 hours each night or is it worth paying someone to get it done in 1 or 2 days?

First Time Renovators Costly Mistake #3 – Unrealistic Budget

I’ve started to use the word ‘INVESTMENT’ in place of budget. Prior to any work being done, it is important to know what kind of investment you are willing to commit. This will be known as your budget. How do you ensure your budget it realistic? How do you create a realistic budget? Start paying attention to pricing. Don’t just randomly pull numbers out of a hat.

Some Stats to back this up

According the Houzz and their recent 2018 Overview of US Renovations in 2017 and 2018, and reported in Lighting and Décor

…the two biggest reasons for going over budget were the choice of more expensive products and materials (42 %) and the products or services costing more than originally thought (41 %).

Did you read that?

42% chose more expensive products and
41% reported services costing more than originally thought!

If you don’t have an idea of what you would like to invest in your home to start with, how can you stay ON budget? First Time Renovators Costly Mistakes

Last week, I just wrote about renovation compromise and used these two sinks as an example. You can click on the link to find out the pricing for these similar sinks.

I’m a total list person so create a budget list and allocate a dollar figure to it. Research what the costs are for the hard goods as well as for the labour. This should be your starting point.