Planning and working on a new home project can be both exciting and stressful. The key is to make the outcome great so that it was worth all of the hard work. Two very common areas to revamp in the home are the bathroom and the kitchen, as these are typically the key selling points. They are also areas of the home that people prefer to see clean and modern. Here are a few tips to help you maximize your efforts and make a DIY home project a success:
1. Prepare your family with a true timeline of events, and also plan a budget. One common problem with remodeling a bathroom is not giving your other family members a start and finish time, forcing them to wonder when the work will be done. If there is a set time, this will prevent people from continuously asking you, “When will this be finished?” Setting up a realistic timeline prevents you from becoming frustrated and eliminates your family’s stress. For example, a simple print out of a schedule can really help, saying which days the facilities will be unavailable.
2. If you are remodelling a bathroom, keep in mind that your bathroom may potentially be out of commission for days. This can make everyone uncomfortable and a little unhappy. A few options are to set up a system with a neighbour. Try and see if they will allow your family over to use their restroom in exchange for babysitting or other services. I have done this before, and in exchange for letting my family use their facilities, I have taken my neighbour’s children to an amusement park for the day. We stayed at a hotel in the evening in an effort to lessen the burden. A night with an empty house can be a truly great offer to your neighbours, especially if you take their kids on an excursion they don’t particularly care for. If you have teens, allow them to stay at a friend’s house. Chances are your teenage daughter will not be willing to go even a day without a shower.
3.Collect all the materials you need and organize them with your projected timeline. If you happen to be working with your wife/husband or children on a project, allow them to choose what fixtures, paint colors, or basins they want ahead of time. Allowing everyone to contribute will make this project an investment for the entire household. Preparing and organizing materials will prevent you from stepping on your own toes. For example, if you are going to repaint a room and install new hunter fans, have your sanding and wall stripping materials out first. Paint at the very end. Even if you just detach the cabinet fronts and set them up in a separate room for painting, it will give you some needed space. Give your family some input on your renovation. Finishing touches such as drawer pulls and decorative accents are a nice way to involve your family.
4. When in doubt, get an app. My Measures and Dimensions is an app that is a great way to give you a visual of your space on your phone. It gives you access to all of the dimensions and information on the go. Simply snap a photo of your space and it allows you to add in dimensions on top of the image, making it easy to explain your project to a sales associate or decorator. Home Depot as well as Lowe’s also provide apps allowing you to save your information, review previous orders, and allow you to send someone else to the hardware store without having to relay every detail of the remodel.
Brilliant post! I myself have been DIY blogging for a few years now and this gave me some good ideas for our own blog, thank you! As a contractor i think communicating well with the client, especially beforehand, to minimize the disruption that always happens when working on someones home. Great stuff.
Good post indeed – not heard of the app in question before either, so that will come in handy. Currently re-modelling a new buy, I think the point of just making a project timeline is gonna make a difference!
I agree with you completely home must be added and tidy and the most important thing is the kitchen and bathroom
Good post indeed – not heard of the app in question before either, so that will come in handy. Currently re-modelling a new buy, I think the point of just making a project timeline is gonna make a difference!
Great post, but you should also include how to handle your pets through a renovation because they are family too!
What a super blog. My head is spinning with loads more ideas. Thanks
a ton for sharing this invaluable information Ann. I will be back.
I am a long time watcher and I just considered I’d drop by and say hello for the very first time. I really appreciate your posts. Thanks
Good post indeed – not heard of the app in question before either, so that will come in handy. Currently re-modelling a new buy, I think the point of just making a project timeline is gonna make a difference!
I agree Anne, things become too messy without a proper planning. On top of that, people inquiring about the completuon of the work is another headache. This app is actually helpful, I have heard about it from someone else too. Thanks for the post, will check it out.
I really appreciate your input. The discussion here is very lively too which is great
Brilliant post! I myself have been DIY blogging for a few years now and this gave me some good ideas for our own blog, thank you! As a contractor i think communicating well with the client, especially beforehand, to minimize the disruption that always happens when working on someones home. Great stuff.
Great article, Its harder to plan things with really you ones, there mood and temperament changes from one day to the next
Great tips , I`m starting to renovate my own apartement these days and as you`ve said yourself the tricky part will be the bathroom so i`ll prepare my familly for the days to come , i may even move them to my parent`s house for a few days of hard work .
That will be a good option. I think staying with family (if you possibly can) is a whole lot better than asking your neighbours. Of course, not everyone has family nearby.
Thats a pretty impressive piece of information 🙂 as a blogger I am your fan now
Great sharing! So many good ideas to make our famliy happy. Happy home depends on good organization of projects in the room, you did a good job to offer suggestions.
Great work Anne.I agreed that During renovation its our responsibility to take care of our family.Like as said above in bathroom renovation we must have to find the alternative option so that our family members do not face any problem.
Anne, I love the finished bathroom and the writer is correct in that bathroom and kitchen renovations greatly improve the value of a home.
Thank you, Judy. The picture is actually one I took of our very own bathroom after we did it up.
Brilliant ideas, I’ll be trying this, I bookmarked the page so I can return to it whenever I need it
These are some great ideas! So many people forget that renovating will affect their families lives. Thanks for sharing!
That’s right, Eric. The renovation goes a lot smoother and easier on our families if everyone knows what to expect and has an idea of how it would look when finished.
Recently, we redesigned our son’s room with a theme according to his age (10 years) and doing his closet a little bigger. But use floorplanner app that allowed me to know if I was right with the use of materials.
Great tips and thanks for sharing.
Thanks for stopping by, Gilberto. I hope your son is enjoying his new room.
There are a lot of autocat programms we used that are free and give you a nice look of how your house will look like afterwards.
Our children helped picking colours and furniture. That helped them feeling better in our new home.
Brilliant post! I myself have been DIY blogging for a few years now and this gave me some good ideas for our own blog, thank you! As a contractor i think communicating well with the client, especially beforehand, to minimize the disruption that always happens when working on someones home. Great stuff.
Thanks for the comment. I’m glad the post could give you some ideas for your blog. Yes, we’ve done a lot of work on our house while living in it and I know first-hand how difficult this could be, especially if all the plans are not in place beforehand.
🙂 No problem! I will say that Its sometimes difficult to work on peoples houses when they themselves dont help contractors! (for example if we are painting the exterior, its good if the home owner can remove plants against the wall, that sort of thing). ANyway, thanks again for the ideas