5 things to think about before renovating or building
The 5 questions
A new year and most people start to think about their home renovation project. When we get a call from a potential client that is interested in us taking on their project, there is a range of questions we go through.
Location: Not only is the geographic location important, so we know where to travel to. But which direction does the property face is it in a city, village or town. Is the property isolated? Obviously, we also carry out a search on google maps and street view are great tools, as well as zoopla and rightmove for us to see the last images of the house or to look at a floor plan so we can start to gather some ideas before we have even walked into the property.
House age: Finding out roughly how old the house is will help us to gather an idea of the architectural style and come up with ideas to try and create a design that stays true to the house’s original design intentions. We believe it is always important to remember the history and try and preserve the character and charm of older properties.
The age of the house will also help with working out if there could be any potential structural risks as many old houses over the years have been patched up and quick fixed without any thought of preserving it for long periods. This way if we walk into a property and see potential problems we can forewarn you of these problems before work has started.
Purpose of the house: in today’s turbulent financial climate property purchasing is now very different, many more people are not just seeing a house as a family home but a potential investment or business idea. More independent people have decided to go into developing a property which of course for us means a different approach to the design proposal. Choosing a more commercially pleasing layout, colour palette and budget-friendly fixtures and fitting.
We have also seen an increase in properties purchased for holiday lets, which we have now designed and completed a few of these projects. It is important to design a holiday let to stand out from the crowd. These are fun projects as it usually means we can let our imaginations go a little wild and create bold schemes to give the guests an enjoyable and unique experience.
Wants and desires: We encourage you to create a list of wants and desires, after all, if you decide to hire an interior designer to help to create your dream home, it should have everything you want in it and should be a space you can enjoy and relax in. We also love when people have pictures or images of things they have seen and think that they would like it in their home. The best part of the project is handing over a finished home that our clients are proud and happy to come home too.
Of course, the hard part of this is we are not always miracle workers and structurally it is not always a possibility to change a house as much as people think. There are a few difficulties in delivering the dream home, firstly it will start with a mess as taking out the old to get ready for the new creates a lot of dust and usually take longer than people think to bring this dream to life, so making sure you have a realistic expectation of this is very important.
Budget: after doing a few projects you find that most people have a figure in their head of how much a house renovation should cost. Our rule of thumb is to get three quotes. This method allows you to see the cost of 3 different contractors who are all quoting on the same job. If all of them come back with a similar price then it is pretty clear that's what the project will cost. However, if you receive 3 very different prices varying by several thousand then it doesn’t necessarily mean that the most expensive is the best or will take the quickest, it might just mean more questions need to be asked about the price variation.
You should also always make sure you have an extra small pot of cash, usually called a contingency, as most buildings come with their scary unknowns.
It is also important to remember to be flexible with your expectations as if your priority is to have a very fancy kitchen then maybe choosing cheaper tiles for your bathroom or cheaper carpet for the bedrooms will allow you to achieve that dream within your budget. A budget is never a bad thing as it allows you to be more creative with your decisions.
After we have done this case study on a potential project it allows us to have the information we need to talk to you and be able to present a few ideas to get the creative ball rolling, to then move onto the planning and costing stage.
