Renovating a home is exciting, but it’s also complicated, expensive, and occasionally chaotic, something I know first-hand after several years of doing exactly that to our own house.
In this category, I share practical, honest advice covering every stage of a renovation project, from budgeting and finding the right tradespeople to the details of plumbing, electrics and structural work. My aim is to help you avoid the costly mistakes we’ve made along the way, so you can get through your renovation with your sanity (and your budget) intact.
Renovations rarely go entirely to plan, and mine certainly haven’t, but with the right preparation, you can avoid a lot of the common pitfalls. I’ve covered everything from kitchen and bathroom renovations to protecting your home during building work and choosing the right contractors, and I’ll keep adding to this category as our own renovation journey continues.
If you’re just starting to plan a project, it’s worth reading through a few posts on budgeting and contractors first, as they’ll save you time (and probably money) before you get stuck into the more hands-on posts.
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For a lot of people, DIY isn’t a job which fills them with joy and satisfaction, but you can make DIY easier. I’m not the biggest fan of DIY, but I do enjoy it more when I’m prepared. Is there anything worse than starting a job, and realising you don’t have the right paintbrush/screws/drill bits…
Our house renovation did not always go to plan, so here are some tips on how to avoid house renovation disasters. Hopefully, I can help a few people out, and they can avoid making the same mistakes that we did. Making a stud wall We ‘found’ an old doorway that had clearly been boarded…
A few days ago, we had the Living Room reveal, but now we have the bathroom reveal! The bathroom was one of the biggest jobs. We weren’t actually planning on changing it right away. But a leaking soil pipe, and the need to get access to the wiring under the floorboards, meant the whole thing…
I’ve been waiting to do these before and after reveals for so long, and now I can announce the living room reveal! I wanted to get all the rooms straight and tidy before I posted any pictures. The living room was the second biggest job in the house. Before This was the photo taken for…
We moved into our renovated house last week, but we still don’t have a washing machine. One of the huge selling points of our house was the double garage in the back garden, which is where our washing machine is being fitted. Luckily, our mums live nearby, and they have let us their theirs for now! …
The day has finally come, and we’ve moved in to our new house. I’m sharing some pictures with you, even though it’s still very messy, and we still have a LOT of sorting out to do because WE’VE MOVED IN. I can’t believe how instantly at home me and Jay felt: I thought it would…
This week saw the arrival of wooden laminate flooring and carpet, and I can’t believe we’ve got all the flooring fitted in the whole house. I wasn’t expecting to get any wooden laminate flooring down in my study for a while, but we had lots of leftover from the kitchen. This was such a bonus: we’d…
This week has been a race against time in order to get everything ready before the carpet installation on Tuesday. The carpet installation is happening next Tuesday (27th June). Since last Monday, I needed to: Sand the entire staircase, including all the spindles, handrail and baserail. Sand all the new skirting board in the lounge,…
Painting the kitchen was supposed to be the easy part, but it didn’t turn out so easy. I was looking forward to painting, getting some music on, taking some snacks and generally having a good day. On Saturday morning, I got up early and went to the shop we’ve bought all our paint from so far….
The bathroom has been my nemesis for weeks now. I’ve been using the neighbours’ bathrooms for the last 8 weeks. It’s true that I’ve got to know them pretty well because of it – and they’re all lovely. Luckily, we’re not living in this house. Having no working toilet or shower would have been impossible….
Everything that we’ve done to this house has been on a tight budget, and that includes our new bathroom. Although we’ve saved a lot of money, we have also spent A LOT. Buying a brand new bathroom is expensive, so we figured out how we could make it cheaper. And it sort of happened by…
We bought a second-hand kitchen on eBay for an absolute bargain, and it was probably the riskiest purchase I’ve ever made! When Jay turned round to me and said he’d found a second hand kitchen for sale on eBay, I said absolutely not. No way. I don’t often use eBay. Partly because a) I don’t…