Handy Guide For Renovating Your Homes Garage and Bathroom: Worriless Garage Makeover
Remodeling your family’s home is a realistic alternative to simply packaging up your belongings and then purchasing a new home elsewhere. However, remodeling doesn’t always equate to less expensive; bad organization or simple planning mistakes will usually lead to financial and emotional loss. In-depth research and proper organization are your two best weapons to side-step the common pitfalls of a home remodel. Make sure to use them!
Your bathroom, your garage, and your kitchen are great rooms to start your home remodeling. But prior to beginning your project, you should ask yourself a number of questions. The most important question (which requires an honest answer!) pertains to money: what is the total amount of money you can afford to spend? It is critical that you are realistic with your financial position when considering a remodel. Unless you are extremely thorough when accepting estimates from your contractors, your total construction cost will most likely run 20% to 30% higher than estimated. While your home has limitless possibilities for remodeling, this article will only discuss the following rooms: the bathroom, the kitchen, and the garage.
Just about everyone views their bathroom as a sanctuary. Where else can a person lock himself out from the world and soak up the suds in a bubble bath or enjoy a hot shower? During your bathroom-remodel planning process, you should take into consideration how your time is spent in the bathroom: staring at yourself in the mirror or enjoying the bathtub. How you answer that particular question reveals where you need to indulge in your design. Do you know there are options such as towel warming racks and even heated flooring? And it is always good advice to spend a little extra money on higher quality bathroom fixtures. By investing more money into the extra bells and whistles will easily transform a normal bathroom into an at-home spa.
It is a well known fact that over 50% of home owners don’t park their vehicle in the garage. Instead of having ample parking space, they have turned their garage into a storage unit. Have you allowed yourself to become one of those individuals? If so, you should remodel your garage. A professional garage remodel can increase your storage space, expand the “usable” square footage of your house, or it could possibly allow you to park a car inside of it. With easy garage floor tiles you will be able to create the garage of your dreams. You can buy garage floor tiles from a variety of online stores or you can go to your local home improvement store. Easily compare prices on garage floor tiles by doing the right research online. This will ensure you get the best deal.
In addition to gaining some extra storage, a garage can be remodeled into an elaborate work room, a laundry room, a workout room, or maybe even an extra living space (like a child’s play room or another bedroom). If you are possibly considering extra living space for your remodeled garage, you will definitely need to factor in the extra construction costs for electrical, heating, and cooling. And if you are going to add a bathroom or some other form of hot/cold water supply, you will also have to include plumbing costs which can be costly.
Remodeling a kitchen is usually the most costly (and complex) house construction project you can start. It is quite a large undertaking; do not take it lightly! It is always a good idea to hire a qualified contractor than to try and perform your own kitchen remodel. If you request bids from several different contractors (which is a good idea), your breakdown of work to perform must be very detailed about the different construction materials that need to be used (it is easier to compare highly detailed proposals). Also, if you don’t take the time to be specific about construction materials, there is a strong chance your contractor will choose inferior (or more expensive) materials than what your original planning called for.
Designing a suitable layout of your kitchen is the most important phase of the construction for your new kitchen. Every design detail of the new layout needs to meet with your approval prior to beginning construction. You and your family need to consider the down time; how long can you tolerate cooking or buying your meals outside the home? The more changes you make, the longer you and your family will need to live without a working kitchen.
Outside of hiring a licensed contractor for your remodeling project, it is also a good idea to hire a consultant to oversee the work progress and work quality that you receive from your contractor. Most of us cannot tell the difference between high-quality electrical wiring and bulk, discount wiring, but a contracting consultant can. He or she can notify you if your contractor or subcontractors attempt to take shortcuts.
Your overall livelihood (and happiness) is closely associated with your home. Be extremely organized in your planning and preparation for your project and you should have a pleasant remodeling experience.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.