When I was young I was not a planner. I was not very organized but I was spontaneous and fun. Although I still like to think that I am spontaneous and fun I have realized the value of being organized and thinking things through. Especially when it pertains to my house. With that in mind, this blog post is about the work you need to do before you take a sledge hammer to that wall you hate. The blight of unfinished home improvement projects can really take a toll on you.
Quotes
I am not sure if I can stress enough the importance of getting a quote, if not multiple quotes. These are vital to your budgeting process and most places will do them for free. Think of it as a job interview. You are interviewing these people for the job of working on your house or providing you will a product. Interview multiple candidates. See who you like best and you think will do a good job. This person may be working inside your home for an extended period of time so you should at least feel comfortable having them around and they should treat you with respect and not be pushy or flaky.
And if you have multiple quotes to choose from then you can see if the prices and duration of a project are all about the same or if some are much higher or lower than others. I would recommend three or four quotes so that you can get a good idea of the variability. Of course, if your house is flooding or some other imminent disaster is happening then have the first person you call fix it. That is not home improvement but disaster mitigation and you should have an emergency fund for that. But that is a whole other post.
After you have your quotes then you can start working on your budget. Keep in mind that quotes are not just for labor. You also need to get quotes for home much materials cost which you plan to install yourself. Flooring, back splash tile, paint and whatnot along with tools you may need. For example, when we bought our lovely bamboo flooring we found out what the materials cost per square foot and figured that it would cost $1,000 for what we wanted. But when we went to purchase the materials we found out that there were vapor barriers, padding and glue that we also needed for installation which raised the total price to roughly $2,000. It was still a good price for what we got because we installed it ourselves and saved a lot on labor but there always seem to be hidden costs that you have to search out when getting quotes and putting a budget together.
Budget
It may seem obvious but setting a budget and sticking to it is one of the most important things you can do when remodeling your home. Budgets are not glamorous or fun (unless you have a touch of OCD like me) however if you start a project without one then the costs can quickly spiral out of control and you will end up with only half a dream kitchen or going into debt. I recommend neither of these outcomes.
Now, I am not saying that you have to allocate every penny but getting a general idea of what things cost. You can make a budget one of two ways. The first way is to figure out how much money you have to spend. Say you have $10,000 in savings to spruce up your kitchen. Your appliances are new but the floor is nasty and you could really use some new cabinetry. Knowing how much you have to spend and a rough idea of what you want to accomplish will allow you to get quotes for materials and possibly labor and see if they fit into your budget. Here is a special budget tip: Take 10-20% of your budget and put that aside. Do not allocate it towards anything but instead keep it handy incase some part of the process goes over budget. And if you don't spend it great! Money in the bank or at the very end (after everything else is close to being complete and not going over budget) you can splurge on whatever you were really hoping for.
So here is an example rough budget of $10,000.
$1,000 This is the 10% that we set aside before doing anything else
$2,000 Fixing/removing existing flooring so that new flooring can be installed.
$2,000 Cost of new flooring. Installation will be done by homeowner
$5,000 Cost of new cabinetry and counter top. Homeowner does installation.
$9,000 Total cost budgeted for with $1,000 remaining for overages or last minute additions.
So that is one way to set your budget. For most home owners I think this is the way to go because you know ahead of time how much money you have so you don't go crazy. Besides, most of us already know how much we have to spend on a project. But let's say you are doing to get a loan and don't know how much you need to ask for. That is when you would use this second method of budgeting. In the second method you find what you like, get quotes for it, add it all up, add 10-20% for overages and then you have the amount you should ask for. A bathroom remodeling budget could look something like this:
$1,000 new tile floor
$500 new tile around bath/shower area
$200 new low flow toilet
$100 eco friendly showerhead
$300 vanity
$300 sink and faucets
$200 medicine cabinet
$50 paint
$50 shower curtain
$2,700 total plus 10% overrage
$2,970 or roughly $3,000 total for a bathroom remodel.
I totally just pulled these numbers out of thin air to demonstrate how a budget might go. I feel that if the sky is the limit then you will easily reach the sky and then head for the stars so unless money is no object I think budgeting option number one is best for most people. And remember that things can be done in stages. Start from the ground up with new flooring and wait on replacing upper cabinets. Particularly when you are doing the work yourself breaking a big project into a number of smaller projects can be very helpful.
Have you recently budgeted or gotten quotes for a home improvement project? Tell us how it when in the comment section.
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