Things I've Learnt About Home Renovations So Far
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Tom and I have been in our house now for nearly ten months and my goodness has time flown by! But in that time, we've managed to do a whole host of different things to the house and not all of them are cosmetic.
From installing an entire, new central heating system ourselves and having a new boiler professionally installed and completely ripping out and refitting our downstairs toilet (read all about that here) to cutting and fitting new skirting boards and scraping off five layers of wallpaper (yep, I said five!), a lot has happened since we first moved in and we're so proud of where we are today.
If you're interested in our other projects, I'll be posting a guest bedroom before and after-style post and a living room before and after article later this month and into the next, so keep your eyes peeled for that! But here's everything we've learnt so far about home renovations as a first time buyer - enjoy!
You can't rush it - preparation is key
Rushing you home renovations spells disaster. This was obvious with the way the previous owners did things to the house. We reckon they splodged on white paint and quickly refitted the bathroom to sell the house. The paint work is shoddy, even using emulsion to paint skirting boards and architraves and even the way the flooring was laid spells quickness. As such, we've witnessed, first hand, how rushing things can turn out and the results are awful. Even when it comes to painting the walls, the room needs a lot of preparation.
Our living room, which I'll talk about in more detail in another blog post, had five layers of wallpaper all around it and that doesn't include the backing paper they used. Plaster came off the walls in numerous places and there were giant cracks behind the radiators (which we moved ourselves). Wallpaper paste was stuck to the walls and the ceiling (because that was wallpapered as well) and the original paint underneath all that wallpaper was like a Drumstick lolly.
It took a lot of plastering, Poly-fillering and sanding before we could even think about painting any of the walls white and this process had to be repeated numerous times. We spent our first Christmas without skirting boards and we didn't even have a fireplace mantel at that point either. The window sill was plastic and the ceiling was all plasterboard that hadn't ever been painted.
But we worked hard on that room since November (when we moved in) and we completely finished it this month and boy, oh boy, is it a transformation! Keep your eyes peeled for a renovation blog post about that because, trust me, it'll be JUICY!
You just can't keep on top of the mess
When you first start renovating your house, you do your best to clean up the mess at every given moment. But it's just not a sustainable way of doing things. Instead of cleaning up the mess as soon as it's made, I just wait for the job to be completed and then I'll clean up the mess.
There's no point doing it along the way because it's just a huge waste of time when you could be doing something else, like painting or sanding or filling. If you're renovating your house and are going through it for the first time, just embrace the mess and deal with it later. Guests will have to take you as they find you, for now. But also, there will be an end to it eventually.
When we were at the stage of messy work, it felt like I was never going to have a clean and tidy house ever again, but sooner or later, the messy jobs are completed and you'll slowly start to see a return to normal, just wait because it'll all be worth it in the end - trust me!
The best-planned projects always turn out well
It's imperative, especially if you have a large room that needs a lot of work (like our living room, which didn't even have a door on it...), that you plan your renovations carefully. We sat down and worked out where we wanted the radiators, which kind we wanted, the pattern of our new floor, the thickness of the new floor, the paint and colour scheme we wanted, the size of the new sofa we'd like etc etc.
Make plans because it then makes it easier and a bit more simple to execute the tasks. You'll find that working in stages makes life a lot better when renovating a house. Not only because it'll be done to a good standard but also it'll do a world of good for you mentally. You'll be able to see a difference as each stage is completed and it will feel less like it's going on forever.
Sometimes, however, plans change
Even the best-planned projects end up changing, especially if you have an older house, like we do. Everything we do we feel as though we come across something else that puts us ten steps backwards. So we need to spend time and money rectifying what the old owners did before we can even think about doing what we want to do to it. Sometimes, it causes plans to change.
We had to change the pattern of the floor in the guest bedroom because of the way the floorboards underneath were laid, for example. We also had to decide on a different sink for the downstairs toilet because of where all the pipes were laid. We had to pick a different toilet because of where the waste pipe sits (which is made of clay). Nothing is ever simple, especially with an older property, like ours. So don't expect everything to go how you want it, is what I'm saying, I guess!
Nothing comes cheap
You might not think that a few pieces of skirting board costs a lot, but it certainly does. Not even a tin of paint is cheap if you want a good quality product. We always go with Dulux, no matter what. Even for our white base coats, we choose Dulux Brilliant White paint. We bought a new door for the living room which cost less than handles and the hinges.
We switched out the old, cheap plastic electrical sockets for modern chrome ones which were about £10 each and £25-£30 if you wanted ones with USB ports. Even copper piping is expensive, as is plaster (not pre-mixed, just for the powder that you add water to) and wood (which we needed to construct a fake wall in the downstairs loo). You must have some disposable cash available that's budgeted specifically for the house and nothing else because you'll definitely need it, even if you're just giving the house a fresh lick of paint because rollers and paint brushes aren't cheap either.
You can't just think about the 'now'
What might be in fashion or on-trend now might not be in a few years time. You also need to think about what a room will be used for in the future. Our guest room is painted a neutral colour because where it's being used as a guest room now, it might be used as a nursery later down the line. We'd also like to extend the house out into the back garden, off the kitchen, so there's no point having a new kitchen now if we're going to expand it in a few years time.
Just think about the future and also saleability. I know it might sound silly when you've only just bought a place, but you'll likely sell it on if you need more space or wish to downsize so you have to also appeal to other people in a sense because it'll be easier to sell if you decide to do so further down the line.
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I hope you enjoyed this blog post? Let me know in the comments below what you've learnt about house renovations and I'll see you again very soon with a brand new blog post :)
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