If you’re thinking about renovating your home, take a moment to collect your thoughts. Residential renovations or home inspections require some serious planning. Here are five main points of consideration to keep you on the straight and narrow.

1. Choose Your Style

Creating a home is a lot like choosing an outfit: everything should work together. While you may enjoy many different styles or design pieces, mixing and matching is risky business for non-designers. Instead, select one style for a deliberate, cohesive look. You’ll be happy you did for the final reveal!

Neighborhood Vibe

Standing out for all the wrong reasons won’t attract potential buyers. Instead, choose something that matches the local real estate to better market your home.

Product Availability

The style you choose has everything to do with what’s available now. If you’re unsure, browse blogs or check out designers’ recent picks. A trip to your favorite furniture store or showroom can also give you a feel for contemporary pieces.

Personal Preference

Perhaps the most obvious factor is choosing something for yourself. If you don’t intend to sell any time soon, why not make yourself happy? Choose a particular style like minimalism, art deco, or Mediterranean revival. If you’d rather, lead with fabrics, wallpaper prints, or cherished design pieces to inspire your space.

Market Appeal

If a home inspection or hopeful sale is in your future, appealing to the masses could be a smart move. Take a look at staged homes to know what décor works well for home sales. Next, check out popular home stores to see how to incorporate these styles into your own renovation.

2. Set a Budget

Like it or not, money plays a big part. What you can or cannot do rests heavily on your budget. Are you planning on redoing your entire home? How many rooms are included? Have you thought about landscaping, additions, or a furniture budget? All of these questions are tied to a single figure. Ask around for realistic quotes to know what’s in store.

Check Your Finances

Knowing how much money you have to spend means taking a close look at your finances. As obvious as it sounds, getting it wrong is not worth the stress. Take a long, hard look at what you and/or your spouse have to spend and how you intend to pay it off. Talk to banks for loan information before setting anything in stone.

Settle at Eighty

Most home renovations cost 20 percent more than their estimated total. Instead of overshooting what you can really pay, start off with the final number and roll it back to 80 percent. Boom! You’ve got a buffer for unexpected spending.

Divide and Conquer

Having a concrete number to work with means you can break it down by room or house area. For example, you might save half your budget for the kitchen and the remaining quarters for two bedroom remodels. Just be sure you don’t spread your budget too thin in the process.

3. Anticipate Some Changes

No home renovation goes completely as planned, so you’ll need to allow some wiggle room. For example, it’s common to face setbacks due to supply chain issues or unforeseen technical complications. Other times, contractors or laborers start later than scheduled because of a previous job delay. Understand that your renovation schedule is really more of a guideline.

Extra Materials

If you’ve ever sewn before, you know a lot of material goes to waste. The same is true when building a home between defective pieces or partial cuts. Talk to your contractor(s) about ordering quantities to avoid running out of supplies.

Longer Hours

Major projects are difficult to plan perfectly. What you can count on is longer hours and commensurate pay for your contractors, builders, etc. What’s more, limited access to your home is another part of the renovation process. That also means waiting a bit longer than anticipated before moving back in.

4. Know Room Values

If you’re renovating several rooms in your home, it’s time to make some tough decisions. Which rooms are most important to you and your family? Which don’t require renovations? When push comes to shove, you’ll need to make some tough decisions. Here are a few factors to consider when weighing your options.

Get Estimates

Get an estimate for separate rooms to solidify your budget. If contractors quote you an overall price, ask for a rough estimate per room for your own planning purposes.

Understand Extras

Not all rooms are priced the same way, nor are they of equal value. For example, a kitchen is often costly to renovate because of heavy plumbing and electrical costs, though it’s also a valuable space. On the other hand, some higher price tags are simply worth paying.

5. Hire Wisely

Not all contractors offer quality work, so be sure to do your research. Check out reviews, browse portfolios, and get a sense of their history. Choosing specialists or experienced contractors may pay off in the long run, so be sure to hire for all the right reasons.

Read Contracts

As you may know, a sales pitch and a signed contract are two very different things. Liking your service provider is all well and good, but you need to read the fine print. Ask to include verbal agreements in the final contract before giving it the go-ahead.

Ask Around

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to choose quality contractors. Ask friends and family for recommendations or approach neighborhood groups with the same question. Many home service businesses leave their signs out front, so go for a drive to see what’s available.

Renovation Reminders

Renovating your home is a serious decision, so doing it right matters. Start by getting into a good headspace and outlining your priorities. Then, keep these five major factors in mind to prepare for a complete home overhaul.

Are you in the market for a home inspection around Orlando? If so, we’d love to help. We at Pro Inspect Solutions wish you the best of luck with your remodel and look forward to meeting you!