How to Prepare for Your Renovation

Perway Construction Services
November 11, 2021
- So today everyone, I'm going to talk to you about how to prepare your house and your family or yourself for your renovation. I am Louise from Perway Construction Services and you might be at the stage now where your council approval has gone through. You've got all your documentation, you've agreed on price with your builder and contract documents have been signed, so woo hoo you're good to go. And now you've got a date for the builder or tradies to come in and do your works and you just need to start thinking about how to plan your home and yourselves for your upcoming renovation. But we've got a few steps that we would like to talk to you about. First of all, we think that you should take audit of all of your belongings. And obviously you're not gonna be able to use the whole space of your home. It depends obviously on the size and scale of your renovation, but we do recommend the spaces that will be transformed, obviously collecting all of those items together and arranging for them to be put into a storage area, whether that's in your home or an external storage area. And we do think that you should take audit of what your belongings are and where you've put them as well so you don't forget. Other things to consider are really decluttering at this stage, if there's things that you're not using, either bring them to a charity shop or give them away or stick them up on your neighborly Facebook pages so that when your space is finished, that you're not bringing all of your clutter back in. Our next tip is to think about an appliance plan. Obviously it depends on your renovation again, but for example, if you are getting your kitchen renovated, thinking about how you are going to manage potentially without your current kitchen for a few weeks. Think about the appliances that you can manage with and manage without. For me, it would be holding onto my microwave and my kettle, potentially the toaster. We're thinking about can you manage with those items for a few weeks. Also, if you're getting your bathroom renovated, think about the appliances that you use, your hairdryer, your electric razor. Thinking about those things as well, that making sure that you've got those things on hand and putting away everything else into storage. Our next step and tip would be protecting your property from dirt. So although we do try to eliminate as much dirt as possible, we put dust proof sheet down, we have special dust proof doors that can be installed to stop and prevent as much dust as possible, but no builder will be able to prevent all dust. So we do recommend protecting your furniture, upholstery and whatever else you can, as much as possible throughout the other rooms of your house. Fitted sheets are really great thing to use. So you can pop these over your couches and other bits and pieces of furniture. Removing if you've got really high-end items just to prevent accidents and making sure that these are out of the thoroughfare of the house for tradies, et cetera, walking through. As much as nobody wants these things to happen, if you can prevent these potential accidents from happening, that would be a plus. But we also recommend if you're having any type of work done and then you have to let your neighbors know. Keeping lines of communication open and the courtesy really of telling neighbors that there's upcoming works in your house will prevent some frustration down the line. If you let their neighbors know of your intention of what you're doing, potentially when there will be most noise. And that's usually at the start of a renovation when there's demolition occurring. You've got the main bulk of your tradies coming through at the start to the middle of your renovation. If you let that your neighbors know the anticipated works that are gonna be happening and also timeframes, that can help prevent some issues. It might not prevent them all, but it definitely will reduce any frustration I suppose. Just keeping the lines of communication open with them and obviously if they've got some concerns, you can let your neighbors know that they should contact the builder or the main contractor on site to discuss any issues there as well. We also recommend that you secure your pets. Again, if you've got pets at the house and you've got tradies and other people coming in at night, as much as we don't want it to happen, if there's a door left open or something and your pet escapes, that can cause an awful amount of concern and pain and we recommend that you secure your pet somewhere safe, either away from your property, if they can spend time with a family member or a friend. And if they're on your property, making sure that they're in a safe spot caged or fenced off somewhere that they can't escape. They might fret a little bit if there's people coming in and out as well. So if you can try and prevent that from happening, that will be good. The next tip we think that you should do is just establish the lines of communication that you're gonna have with your builder. In particular, like how you're gonna communicate, how many times that you're gonna communicate, what feedback that you're gonna get on a daily basis. Project updates, is as your builder going to text you, email you. What we do within Perway is every day, Andy will give an update on your project. From time to time he'll take a video, walkthrough, record it if you're not on your property. If you're there, obviously, you're more than welcome to have a site walk through. But it is important to establish for yourself to know what's going to be happening and what you can expect. We do really feel that keeping our lines of communication open is very important. The expectation as well from the customer, because a lot of decisions need to be made and important decisions, we need then you to be available to answer those so that it doesn't delay any foreseeable works. And obviously if there's good feedback, that's really great, but things that are annoying you, don't let it wait until the end of your job and then say, I wasn't happy with this, or I'm not happy with that. If something's bothering you at the time, say it. Builders aren't mind readers, so if there's something that's bothering you, let the builder or tradie know at the time so that they can help you fix the problem and you can work together to get over the issue. The last thing then is really to think about whether or not you should stay or whether or not you should leave your home. So again, depending on the size and scale of your renovation, sometimes it might not be viable at all to stay within your property, but sometimes people do think that if they leave at home and rent somewhere else, that this can be a more expensive option, but it's not always the case. If you are on your property and the builders having to work around you and potentially your schedule and know whereabouts the plan of your property as well, sometimes it can take longer to conduct the works. Obviously they have to set up, site prepare every day, tidy up at the end of the day, which is done usually to make sure the site is safe and clear, but the extra efforts that they have to do because you're on site can mean that it might not actually end up cheaper at the end of the day to be living at your property. If there is a chance that you can live somewhere else, just even for your own sanity, so that you're not hearing banging and seeing the dirt, and sometimes peoples can get quite anxious over that. It's just a thought to think about. It's your biggest asset, you're putting your money into to renovate. So have a think about what you would like to do. But if you have any other further questions, please reach out, join our Facebook group and we're happy to answer a lot of the queries and questions in there. Have a great day.