Renovating a Home: Top Ten Dos and Don'ts

When renovating a home it’s essential to carefully plan and budget for your project. Make sure you follow our Top 10 Dos and Don’ts when renovating a home:-

There are lots of things that you need to do when considering a property project, but here are our Top Ten Tips to get you started:-

1. Do make a list of everything that you want to do, not just in one room, but around the rest of your home too.

2. Do write down a priority order of what needs doing. For example, do you renovate room by room, or get the home painted throughout first?

3. Do work out how much you have to spend - keeping up to 30% of the budget as a contingency.

4. Do write down a list of materials that are required and start to work out and then find out the difference in value versus quality

5. Do make sure you shop around for materials - or if professionals fitted ask them to list and break out cost of materials and labour

6. Don't employ a tradesperson or professional company, unless you are sure you have read and both parties have signed a contract.

7. Don't pay for work upfront, agree stage payments for work and make sure you keep 10% of the final cost back until the work is finished to your satisfaction.

8. Don't skimp on items that need to last such as taps or showers

9. Don't keep changing your spec throughout the project - you will go over budget and annoy the trades people!

10. Don't try to do too much in one go, do things in the right order and take one step at a time.