According to Mark Roemer Oakland, people tend to renovate their homes once every few years for a bunch of reasons. From upgrading their property to changing its use and more. However, most homeowners tend to make common mistakes that could be avoided during these renovation projects. Let’s check them out.
The Mistakes
- Setting an unrealistic budget and timeline – Renovations would always cost you more than expected. While your contractor may quote you a price after considering all the building materials, labor charges, and modifications, you’ll always end up spending more due to unexpected surprises.
Your floor may not be leveled, plumbing may require extra work and many other challenges may pop up that extend both the budget and timeline of the project. That’s why it’s important to set realistic expectations. When you set a budget, expect to pay around 20 percent more. The same holds for the project timeline.
- Prioritizing form over function – Aesthetics are important. Your renovated home should look better than it used to, especially when you’re spending thousands of dollars on it. However, that doesn’t mean you should be sacrificing function over form. You need to be able to live in that space, not just admire it or show it to your guests. Consider door and window placement, indoor lighting, outlet placements, and traffic patterns throughout the home while you plan the upgrades.
- Buying home decor and furniture early on – Furniture, flooring, and appliances need to sit in the available space. Redesigning the existing space for new furniture, flooring, and appliances is counterintuitive and will cost a lot more. That’s why you shouldn’t be too hasty at ordering new flooring material, appliances, and furniture for the renovated home.
Wait for the renovation plans to be finalized and allow your contractor to provide you with accurate measurements before you order new flooring and furniture. You can even delay flooring or carpeting for the time of the year when demand is low. For instance, home improvement chains have attractive sales during the month of December and early January. Contractors are also more willing to negotiate since demand is very low.
- Being too trendy – Your home isn’t just a place for you and your family to live in. It’s also an investment. With the changing job trends and increase in work-from-home jobs, you may find yourself moving to a cheaper and quieter city after a few years. That means your home needs to sell for a good price when that happens.
That’s going to be very difficult if you go wild and super trendy on renovating your home. You can personalize your home to a certain extent. However, it shouldn’t be so trendy that it goes out of fashion and becomes less attractive to potential buyers. When that happens, you’ll need to spend a lot more money on renovating your home before putting it up on the market.
Conclusion
Mark Roemer Oakland suggests that you avoid the above-mentioned mistakes and minimize unnecessary expenditure. Those mistakes don’t just cost you money, but also extend the timeline. Some of them even come with long-term consequences.