Planning a Home Renovation Part I
This is the first part of a two part article on planning a home renovation.
The main goal of renovating a home is to change the current layout and amenities of your home to fit you and your family perfectly. A home renovation should strive to change your home from a place where you can "make do" living to a place that is an expression of who you are and that reflects your lifestyle and your dreams.
The first step of renovating a home is planning. The more time and effort you spend on planning your renovation the more likely the changes you eventually decide to make will be exactly what you were hoping for.
Probably the best way of making your home a good fit for you and your family is to decide how you want to use each space. Early in the planning process you should start a notebook devoted to your renovation. In this notebook you can jot down any ideas you have about your renovation, put clippings from magazines of rooms or houses that you like, put sketches of possible floor plan changes…anything you think of that could help you when it comes time to sit down and actually plan the changes. Write both concrete things like how many bedrooms or bathrooms you want, but also less tangible things like how you would like to feel when you are in the rooms.
The following list of ideas should help to get you started:
Kitchen
Do you cook or entertain often? This may mean that you want a big kitchen with all the latest appliances. Evaluate what you currently have to see where your kitchen may now have shortcomings. Not enough counter space? Are the counters a comfortable height and depth? Is the counter/cabinet layout broken up by doors and windows that could be moved to make a continuous work space instead of a broken one? Do you want your guests to be able to hang out and visit with you while you are cooking?
Entertaining
If you are plan to have friends over or socialize often, you will want to consider if your current layout is the best it can be for entertaining. Jot down notes about how many people you will likely entertain at a time, and where you would like them to congregate and socialize. Is your living room large enough to comfortably accommodate all the people you plan to entertain regularly? Could you expand the space to be more usable by sealing off a doorway? Or perhaps taking out a wall to combine it with another room to make one large room? On the other hand, is your living room so big that it doesn’t feel cozy? Is there a way you can break up the space and make more appropriately sized conversation areas? If you plan to have overnight guests, do you have a guest room?
Working at home
Do you plan to work from home? If so, do you have a space you can use as an office? Is the space big enough? Can it be closed off from the rest of the house so you can work in peace? Are the enough electrical outlets and adequate lighting?
Bathrooms
Do you have enough bathrooms and are they big enough? Do you want a luxury style spa retreat, or can you get by with a bare-bones bathroom? If your bathroom or bathrooms seem to small, can you gain additional space by moving the fixtures to different locations within the room, or do you need to figure out a way to add more space to the room itself? Do you have a linen closet near your bathroom?
Your Perfect Day
Try to describe your perfect day in your newly renovated home somewhere within your journal. Do you get up early and have coffee on a beautiful new deck? Do you lounge comfortably in your living room reading the latest romance novel? Do you take a luxurious bath to wind down at the end of the day? Have each member of your family write down their perfect day. You will be surprised at how many ideas for renovations this simple exercise can spark.
When it comes time to renovate, pull out your notebook and look back through it. It can be a valuable tool in deciding where best to invest your money in new improvements. You can also share it with your architect or designer (if you have one) and it may help them to come up with some additional ideas of how to make your house more "you".