7 Home Renovation Myths
Renovating your home is a long process and it's hard work. If you've recently bought a house that needs to be done up and you're finding it a little overwhelming, then here are some renovation myths for you from someone has been through it (and is still going through it). You might not want to hear some of them, but it definitely makes you put a realistic hat on when you're looking to renovate your property.
1. You need to call in professional tradespeople for everything
There is so much you can do yourself to help save you some money. We're first time buyers, so we don't have a huge pot to pick from to way tradespeople to do everything for us. We've even relocated all of our radiators and installed new ones ourselves.
The only things you're not allowed to work on yourself is anything to do with gas or electric. Always make sure you're getting gas or electrical engineers out to do that work for you. Some of the things we've done that people thought we'd got someone in to do included:
- Laying a new hearth on the fireplace
- Plastering half a wall and sanding it back flush
- Putting in a new toilet and building a fake wall for it to sit on
- Relocating radiator pipes
- Replacing the old radiators with new ones
- Cutting and installing new skirting boards and architraves
- Planing, fitting and painting new doors
- Putting in a new door frame
- Laying laminate floor in a huge room
- Installing a wooden windowsill in the guest room after ripping out the plastic one
- Pulling out a ten-foot tree from the front garden
- Rebuilding our under stairs cupboard
The only thing we haven't done ourselves, so far, is having the new boiler fitted and balanced and having the log burner resealed and swept. In February, we'll be having a front door professionally fitted as we need a FENSA certificate to go with it.
Basically, we'll do as much as we can ourselves, unless the law or building regulations state otherwise. REMEMBER, only do things yourself if you know how and have the tools and confidence to do it - do so at your own risk. Don't undertake jobs that are dangerous or involve gas or electricity.
2. Paint covers up everything
Trust me on this, paint definitely does NOT cover up every imperfection, especially in your walls. We had to sand everything out of our walls because the previous owners managed to mess up the paint job when they covered all the walls in cheap white trade paint. There were drips and scuff marks absolutely everywhere.
There were even scratches in the wall where their dogs had been scratching at the walls. These all have to either be filled and sanded flush or sanded out entirely. No matter how many layers of paint you use, you'll still see those imperfections. Paint does not cover up everything, so look up how to fix those pesky hairline cracks and wall dents, because paint is not so forgiving. It's all in the preparation!
3. The bigger, the better
You need to make sure that you get a good return on investment (ROI) when doing home renovations. Be sure to get out what you put in. When you start undergoing huge projects, you're in danger of actually losing money as opposed to making some sort of profit.
Let's say your home is worth £300,000 and you spend £20,000 on a new kitchen, then you might only get an extra £10,000 thrown on top of the house value, meaning you'd have lost £10,000. At worst, you want to break even, but at best, you want to make a considerable profit with the improvements you're making. Be careful when pricing up big projects and decide whether or not you'd actually get back what you put in before committing.
4. Repairing an issue is cheaper than just replacing it
Sometimes, it's far more cost-effective to just entirely replace something as opposed to fixing something to make it work. The downstairs toilet, for us, is the perfect example of this. Because the pipe to the cistern was at a 90 degree angle, it meant the flush was extremely weak and it also looked awful - like an old school toilet with a chain.
We could have kept the original toilet and box in the awful-looking pipe, but the flush would still have been ineffective. Instead, we ripped it all out and put a new toilet in, building a fake wall to allow for a modern loo to be installed. Read our toilet renovation here. I know it's an extreme example, but replacing it was a more cost-effective solution than working with the rubbish we had. It also makes it better for you in the long run.
Let's say you have a slow leak on your toilet and it keeps happening no matter how many plumbers you call out, then replace the loo! This will likely end up saving you money in the long run. A new toilet could set you back as little as £70, whereas you could end up spending £50+ for each plumber you call out - it's a no brainer!
5. Renovations need to be bang on trend
Trends that are popular now probably won't be in 5/10 years time. Don't succumb to current home decorating trends. It's not too much of a big deal if you're painting a feature wall, but think twice before putting up that wallpaper or knocking down a wall, it might just come back to haunt you when you come to sell it in the future.
6. It'll get done in no time
Renovations take time, especially if you're pretty much starting from the beginning, like we did with our living room. It took as around 9 months all in all to get that done. It all takes time, even down to painting the walls. The last thing you want to do is get drips marks or ripples on the wall where your roller has been. We even have to gloss new skirting boards, doors and architraves.
It's not a quick thing, especially when each layer of gloss takes 16 hours to go off and you need to apply a primer first. It's all in the preparation of the walls, the ceilings, your wood work etc. We had five layers of wallpaper to remove in the living room and a lot of plaster came off the walls.
We patched it up ourselves using plaster and even then, it all needed to be sanded down. There were marks in the wall that looked as though it had been scratched by a werewolf which needed sanding out. The whole process takes time if you want great results that'll last for years to come.
7. Planning will help eliminate unwanted surprises
You can plan until the cows come home, but there will always be something that crops up which you weren't expecting. I find no matter which house you buy, there will be an unexpected issue to tackle, although I feel like we've come across more than our fair share, haha. Basically, just go along with it if something comes up that you didn't anticipate. Where's there a will, there's a way, as I like to say!
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I hope you enjoyed this blog post? Let me know in the comments how you're getting on with your home renovations and I'll see you again very soon with a brand new blog post :)
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