My renovation: The things I wish I’d known before we started our family home reno
Part 6: Find out what lessons Sophie has learnt as she reaches the half-way point of her family home reno
We’re in week 10 of our home renovation and, although we’re surviving (just about), there are definitely some lessons I’ve learned over the past couple of months that I think would be useful to share with any of our subscribers thinking of taking on a family home reno. And if you have any of your own tips to share, why not add them to the comments section at the bottom of this newsletter?
You need a lumpy contingency fund
I know everyone says this BUT we thought we had a healthy lump sum to fall back on, and I also (naively) hoped that we would have enough left in that same pot at the end of our project to build our pergola and it’s not looking very likely at the moment. We’re half-way through the project, which called for a site meeting with our architect and contractor to look at cost variations – what work we haven’t had to do and what additional work we have already agreed to and still need to add on to the project costings. We knew there were going to be a lot of unknowns with our project, and it’s looking likely that the re-rendering aspect is going to be a little trickier – and potentially more expensive – to resolve than we had initially hoped! My advice, double your contingency!
Sourcing and decision-making takes up a lot of time
Don’t underestimate how many decisions you’re going to have to make, as well as how little time you’re going to have to actually make them – especially if you work full time and have children who need ferrying to and from school, weekend parties and after-school clubs (I swear they have a better social life than I do!) If you can go into your renovation having made as many decisions as possible before you start, then you’re on the right track. There’s nothing worse than your contractor giving you less than 24 hours to pick the colour of your guttering and glazing when you’re on a work deadline and don’t have a RAL colour chart available – true story!
It’s important to be as detailed as possible in your tender package
Another reason why you should make decisions before you start is to ensure an accurate tender quote. We knew we were going to go for cork parquet flooring in our kitchen and living room, but we only specified cork flooring in our invite to tender. I hadn’t done the research on the installation process – the parquet cork floorboards require a protective lacquer coating. Had I been more specific at the start, the labour costs would have been added into the budget at the very beginning. We’ve had a few add-ons like this!
You need to spend time on your electrical plan
I pored over our electrical plan with Charlie and our architect but I still feel I missed a couple of places. I’ve already noticed that we forgot to add sensor lighting in our larder cabinets and also a double plug socket in one of them, too. It’s fine, we’ll add rechargeable magnetic strip lighting instead, and I’ll have to make do on the plug front.
It’s useful to have a back-up fittings & fixtures list
Twice now we’ve gone to order fittings and fixtures, only to discover that they’re either out of stock or no longer available. Thankfully our cork flooring was only out of stock and it arrived two weeks before installation so it’s had plenty of time to acclimatise before installation. But it did take six weeks to arrive rather than the usual one week so it was a little touch and go at one stage! However, it was a different story with our kitchen splash back. Unbeknownst to us when we went to order the tiles online, we discovered it’s an end-of-the line tile and no longer in stock anywhere other than Cheltenham – which is where we are now headed to tomorrow to collect the very last of the line… I probably could have sourced something different and more locally but our architect has planned the plug socket placement to the mm based on our tile size and chosen layout design – I didn’t have the brain capacity to find something similar or make any more decisions as I’m so busy with work and family life!
Have you made these same mistakes during your home reno? Or perhaps you’ve got some of your own top tips and advice to share with other Nest magazine subscribers? Let us know in the comments below…