Friday, February 19, 2016

5 Tips To Save Money On Home Renovation ♥

Whether you’ve recently moved in or have spent years enjoying your home, renovation is essential for refreshing your house or flat. The main fear for homeowners is that the cost of home renovation will leave them with little to no savings. 

Deciding when to make bigger purchases and when you can save by doing it yourself is tough. To help you make the right call, we’ve collected five big and small ways to save when doing home renovation.

Check Your Budget First 
Look realistically at how much you can willingly invest and where you can splash out a little on fixtures and fittings. 

Also be aware of how much time you have to do the work yourself and when your deadlines are. Buying new lighting is a weekend job, but getting new kitchen cupboards could take a couple of days and will put your kitchen out of commission. 

1. Rearrange Rooms & Throw Away Extras 
Sometimes you don’t need to make a big change, or even pay for one, to make your home feel renovated. By rearranging the furnishings in a room you can make it feel like new. This is something we have done this past weekend and it feels great to have more space.

Try making small changes, like moving a chair near a window for reading, or completely rearranging all the furniture in your room. Experiment for a day or a weekend with new homes for your belongings. Move your kitchen table to the middle of the room and see if you end up with a more engaging communal eating space, or shift your bed and drawers to one side to give yourself a workout space. 

When rearranging look for anything you don’t need and haven’t used in the past year and then throw it away! Preferably by recycling or finding a good charity shop to give it to. We have a lot of our things and some unused toys of our sons to a charity shop at the weekend.

Cost: Nothing but a few hours of your time.

2. Paint A Feature Wall 
Repainting a room is a great way to create a new dimension and change the vibe of the space. But painting a whole room is time consuming, especially as you’ll have to do multiple coats to get a defined colour. While paint isn’t necessarily expensive, even a small room could require several pots. 

However, if you want a quick and cheaper way to repaint a room, consider painting just one wall. Create a feature wall by choosing a single vibrant colour that suits the mood of your interiors, for example a rich red for a bedroom or cool aqua for your bathroom. 

One 2.5L pot of paint will cost around £25. You’ll need about 2L to paint a standard wall and will need to do two coats in order to make a dynamic colour look great. That will cost you approximately £50 and take you about a day - with drying time. This leaves just enough paint left over for touch ups as and when.

Cost: £50 and a few hours of your weekend.

3. Reupholster Furniture  
Furniture doesn’t always deteriorate as fast as the patterns and designs may fade or stain. Couches, armchairs and even dining chairs can become limp and scuffed but will remain entirely useable - but not as aesthetically pleasing. 

So rather than splashing cash on brand new furniture, why not do some home reupholstering and get new furniture without the price tag. Granted you’ll have to look up some DIY reupholstering tips but the skills are fairly basic. 

You can easily sew a new cover for a sofa or re-pack a chair cushion to breath new life and style into well loved furnishings. If you are willing to spend on an upholsterer who already has those skills, you’ll probably be able to find someone locally who is willing to do it for a fraction of the cost of new furniture. 

Cost: £200-350 for a couch with labour costs or less if you’re having a go yourself.

4. Invest In Granite Kitchen Worktops 
Granite kitchen worktops are an investment. They look great and last a long time but come with added cost. While materials such as wood and linoleum come in grades that have their own advantages, they are all prone to damage over a few years. Granite will last lifetimes. 

To afford a granite kitchen worktop you may need to save a little more in advance. But with suppliers offering free quotes and huge ranges, you can afford to take the time to get it just right.

 Cost: £1000-1500 (average) depending on your kitchen counters size and one day.

5. Buy New Artwork 
Last but not least, you can renovate your home by picking up some new art to adorn the walls. Whether this is paintings for your hall, pictures for your bedroom or family photos for the kitchen. 

Buying art is as much down to your taste as your budget. You can find unique artistic renderings of bowls of fruit for hundreds of pounds or tens. However, if you want to save money on your home renovation with a personal touch why not grab a multiple picture frame. Include family pictures, postcards and favourite quote clippings to make a personal decoration for your home. 

Cost: £50-5000 and as much time as you can spare.

Have you done any home renovations lately or have any planned?

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