The lure of renovating can be difficult to ignore.

If you’ve just moved into your dream home you’ve probably been keeping mental notes of all the bits and pieces you want to revamp or completely overhaul. If you’ve been living somewhere for quite some time, then you might be itching to remodel. Or if you’re looking to sell, then you’re likely thinking of all the ways you can refurbish your digs to boost the property’s value.

Knowing the main reason why you want to renovate is going to be your key to success here. This is because the goals that you want to achieve at the end of your renovation will drastically change the approach you take and process you go through. 

If you’re hoping to sell your home, then the renovations you undertake will be completely dependent on what others will want. If you’re renovating for yourself, then you don’t have to impress nobody! This might seem obvious, but you might be surprised how many mistakes are made during the course of any given renovation. 

Given that, let’s go through the 5 renovation blunders you’ll want to avoid when making serious refurbishments.

1. Renovating your entire home in one go

Hold your horses there, sonny. I can see you’re excited about this overhaul but let’s just think about this for a minute. If you’re going to renovate your entire house, or at least a significant portion of it, you’ll need to recognise how big an impact that’s going to have on you and your family. Renovations aren’t something that you go into lightly since they can often be a painfully slow undertaking. 

Ideally, you’re going to want to find alternative accommodation if you do decide to renovate everything at once – and be conservative with your time frame as well. If you’re going to be living in your house while multiple rooms get refurbished simultaneously, I’d invest in some quality ear plugs at the very least. If you have children around, try to make sure they aren’t exposed to excessive dust or dangerous work spaces. 

Otherwise, just take it easy and do one thing at a time. It’ll likely save you a lot of stress.

2. Going overboard

Going overboard with your renovations can be scarily easy to do, so don’t think you’re exempt from this list just because you might be super practical or frugal with your finances. Whether you’re renovating for yourself, or you’re renovating to add value, just be careful about where you decide the draw the line. 

A good way to gauge a good idea from a downright crackpot idea is to think in terms of how a renovation fits in with your lifestyle and be practical with your choices… at this stage you might think you can tell the difference but when you’re wearing rose coloured renovation glasses, it can be harder than you think. Sure it might be fashionable but how often are you really going to use that pool? Yes, that chandelier might seem luxurious but it might end up putting off potential buyers rather than impressing them. Just have a long, hard think about all the ideas swimming around in your head before bringing them to fruition. 

3. Renovating a property before moving in

A good number of people are so excited about renovating a new home that they won’t even feel the need to live there before commencing their grand plans to revamp. This can be a big mistake however, since living in a home for at least half a year can give you some much needed insight into how the home currently “feels” to be in. 

That’s not crazy talk either. The ambiance and overall atmosphere of a home can have a big impact on how a given renovation might end up. Think about the natural lighting within the home and how that could be affected by any planned remodeling. Think about the placement or replacement of any new installations you’re thinking of adding and how that could change the overall flow of the living space.  

Just spend some time in the place you want to renovate before going all out. There’s a good chance you might even change your mind by the end of those 6 months.

4. Going over budget

When it comes to renovating for resale, some people can go a little bit mad by trying to remodel, restore, and repair everything in sight to boost their property’s value as much as possible. Before even planning your renovations however, make sure you do some research about how your home compares with others in the housing market, and use that information to determine how much you should really be spending.

If you know anything about renovations, then you know how likely it is that something might go wrong. For this reason it’s important to prepare for the worst and have some additional funds available in case that benchtop doesn’t end up being big enough, or IKEA sent you the wrong cabinet (again!), or god forbid Jerry breaks his leg and you have to push back the finish date 3 months. Having said that, it’s advisable to ensure that you hold around 30% over your estimated budget on hand… you know, just in case Jerry and his broken leg means you have to hire an actual professional. Thanks Jerry.   

5. Going renovation crazy

The idea of revitalising an old space can be an exhilarating prospect, so it’s no wonder that many people can become over-enthusiastic about the idea and end up wasting a whole bunch of time and money on something that could’ve been avoided.

So before you go nuts and start knocking down this wall or bulldozing that room, just take a deep breath and think, ‘Do I really need to do this?’. Sometimes, the smallest and most inconspicuous of changes can make some of the biggest impacts. So why don’t you try starting small and then working your way up from there?

It could be the case that all that lounge room needed was a new coat of paint in a more complementary colour to the rest of the house. Maybe all your kitchen needs are some new doors for the kitchen cabinets. How about rethinking that bathroom overhaul and simply replacing the shower head, taps, and shower curtain? A lot of the time it can be completely unnecessary trying to undertake an entire home renovation when instead you can create similarly effective changes with the smallest of things.

No matter what your end goals for renovating, you want to make sure that you’ve thought long and hard about what you want to achieve, how much you can afford to spend, and what you’re going to get out of it in the end.