Renovating your home can be frustrating and stressful, or alternatively a fulfilling and rewarding process. How you approach the project will greatly influence the kind of experience you have. 

There are several approaches one can take when starting a building process ... from engaging the full services of a design professional, such as an architect, to spending your weekends in overalls. Regardless of your preferred approach, here are a couple of tips to help smooth over the renovating bumps.

Top 10 renovating tips

Engage a design professional

The least stressful approach to renovating your home is to hand over the entire job to a design professional. It is easy to underestimate the stress that renovating can cause: an architect is capable of managing the whole project, from first concepts through to the final clean, or they can be engaged to provide partial services, which may suit a smaller renovation budget. In terms of design, even if you have a very clear idea of what you want in a renovation, the services of someone skilled in design can be very valuable. When you pay someone for design, you get the benefit of years of training and experience, and often you can benefit from a design approach which you would never have devised. Selecting an architect can be done in several ways: by recommendation from friends, family or colleagues; by reading design magazines to find a design style you feel comfortable with.  If you do choose to engage a design professional they can protect you from many pitfalls outlined below, and guide you in the decisions you need to make.

2. Contact the Planning Department at your local council to find out if you require a planning permit

A phone call to your local council will quickly establish if you require a planning permit for your renovation. You may apply for a formal planning certificate, which tells you how the land is zoned and if any special controls apply to it (as shown on the council's planning scheme maps). If you do require a planning permit you will have to lodge an application. An application for a planning permit should include all necessary supporting information, such as plans, reports, photographs and an application fee. Submitting a planning application can be an onerous task, and there are complex guidelines regarding overlooking, over-shadowing, parking, building mass and so on to which you must adhere. A planning application can take quite a while to be processed. Before lodging your application it is best to discuss timing, as well as ascertaining the exact requirements for a submission with your Town Planner. It is important not to confuse planning permits with building permits. Building permits relate only to the actual construction of a building.

3. Establish a realistic budget

There are at least two approaches to establishing a budget: either base it on how much you can afford, or alternatively how much you can spend on your house without over-capitalising the property. If you see your renovation as a short-term solution, then it is important that you do not over-capitalise. However, if you plan to settle down there for the rest of your life, it makes sense to base your budget on how much you can afford. Your house is probably your largest asset, it can also be a place which is a refuge, which delights and welcomes. These thoughts should be taken into consideration when setting a budget for your renovation.

4. Write a good brief

It is important to think very carefully about your exact requirements for a renovation. If you assess in detail what you want out of your house qualitatively, rather than list rooms quantitatively, you may realise that your house can already perform some of the functions that you require by simply re-naming or re-organising rooms. When deciding what you need in a renovation, think creatively, and envisage how rooms can be flexible, have multiple uses or change over time. It's also a trap to reproduce your favourite room everywhere in a house. For example, although you may love airy light-filled rooms, a house gains texture and depth from a variation of qualities. Don't let your whole brief be hijacked by one requirement - it's easy to become stuck on an initial idea, but sometimes this idea can end up ruining everything else.

 

5. Budget versus brief: "Can you afford what you want?"

Unfortunately, rarely does a budget match a brief. It's always disappointing to realise that you can't afford the 1000-person ballroom! However, once you know roughly the value of your project, the process of actually getting something built can be made much easier by prioritising and being ruthless about your options. In most cases renovators are left with one of two options: increase the budget or change the brief. If you have a clear idea of your priorities, both financially and in terms of what you want or need from your renovation, then reconciling differences between your budget and brief will become a less painful task.

6. Make allowances for cost escalations: include a contingency sum in your budget

The inevitable cost escalation of a project is another aspect of home renovation, which can cause anxiety and potential marriage breakdown. Particularly if your house is old, there are likely to be problems which cannot be foreseen, and which always cost money. Similarly, there is always some change that you want⁄need to make to your project, and then the hot water service blows up four weeks into the building process. To take the sting out of cost variations, you should always have a contingency sum put aside. If you don't spend this money (which is unlikely) then that's a bonus. Otherwise it's great to know you have money in reserve, just in case the unthinkable happens.

7. Feel comfortable with your selected builder

During the building process, your builder can be like a favourite uncle (or auntie) or they can seem to be the devil incarnate, intent on crushing you emotionally and financially. To avoid the devil scenario, it is a good idea to research builders very carefully. Take the recommendations of friends, relations and colleagues, look at the previous work of the builder you are considering, and take a little time to get to know any potential builder, to see if you are compatible.

8. Use passive solar principles

Local councils strongly recommend that you use passive solar principles in new buildings. This means taking into account good ventilation, natural lighting, shading the house in summer and letting sunlight in during winter, orientation and siting of your building. Remember sunlight and air are free: make the most of them.

9. Make full use of your property: don't forget your garden

Often the building works at hand preoccupy the home renovator. The garden is the 'something we'll get at later' or ' the bit we didn't build on'. Consider your garden. It is something that only gets better with time. Planting can work to achieve passive solar principles. For example, deciduous trees will provide shade in the summer months and allow sunlight to penetrate your home in winter, when you need it most. Consider what aspect your internal spaces have to the garden. A room can be enhanced by its garden aspect. Planting can work to create intimate spaces by making outside rooms in your garden.

10. Make sure your living arrangements during construction are manageable

First, if you can live somewhere else during building - do it! It is very hard to live on a building site, and it may save your sanity, or at least your relationship, if you can live somewhere else while building takes place. Look into house-sitting agencies, the costs of renting, family and friends. If however, if you need to stay put, make sure that you plan for it. Make sure the builder is aware that you will be living on the premises, and make it clear that you need to be informed in advance if the water or the power are going to be turned off. There are other things the builder can help with if there is good planning. For example, quite often the builder will be able to rig up a temporary kitchen and the building program can be structured to get the new bathroom first. Also make sure that builder's insurances and your own insurance cover all eventualities, and that any division of liability is clear from the outset.

Renovating is different for each person and of course there are a lot of unforeseeable variables. However, the crucial element of the process is about risk-minimisation through good planning and expert advice.