Renovations are a great way to breathe fresh air into your house. New furniture and a nice coat of paint will usually work wonders. It doesn’t matter whether you’re planning to sell your dwelling place or simply wish for it to look better. Taking care of the space that you call home is always a great idea.
While this all sounds easy on paper, the path from planning to execution is often littered with obstacles. Especially when you’re dealing with your bathroom, you’ll want to ensure that everything goes according to plan!
Small Distractions That Cost You Dearly!
Insufficient planning, blown budgets and botched renovations are just some of the bathroom renovation blunders renovators may experience, if done poorly.
To avoid a catastrophe, here are 5 bathroom renovation mistakes and how to best avoid them.
1- Not Having a Clear Plan To Start With
Before you take a sledgehammer to your bathroom tiles, ask yourself this question: are you sure of what you’re doing? Did you consider all implications? Once those walls come down and debris gets everywhere, there won’t be a way for you to flip the switch and go back. Plan every step of your bathroom renovations with care; it will save you both time and money!
2- Miscalculating Your Budget
If you haven’t already done so, consider listing all potential expenses and checking whether you can afford the investment. Bathrooms are rooms that you use every day, meaning that you won’t be able to put the works on hold and resume them at a later date. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
A way to have a good idea of the budget you need is to first create a mood board that would include the style, layout and furnishing you are after. Apps like Pinterest are pretty made for this purpose and are easy to use. Show it to the specialists you are considering and gather quotes. In general an on-site visit is also recommended to make sure the quote is comprehensive as you might forget to mention some important things about the current layout of your house or requirements.
3- Forgetting About where the water & steam goes
When we think bathroom, we imagine a dynamic space that allows us to take care of our bodily needs. Water plays a vital role in this process but can also sentence your walls to a slow and painful death. Especially if you enjoy steamy showers, you’ll have to dispose of moisture in a timely and effective manner. Exhausts such as windows and fans are extremely effective solutions to this problem.
4- Cheap fittings and finishes
Opting for lower quality products to save a few bucks in the short term will not work in your bathroom. The bathroom is one of the most used rooms in the house and is subjected to wear and tear on a daily basis. As a result, poor quality fittings and finishes may look good at first but generally, wear out or fail, which means you will spend more money to fix or replace them in the long term. As for your flooring, carefully consider which bathroom flooring you should pick. Read this guide on how to pick the right bathroom tile to avoid making unfit decisions.
5- Wanting To Just Get It Over With
Great haste makes great waste, some might say. Renovating your bathroom certainly isn’t the funniest of activities, but you should still refrain from rushing through it. While tiny imperfections and small mistakes might look insignificant now, they will grow into major issues as the days go by! Watch out for wonky bathroom tiling, cracks, lose fittings, leaking taps lose plug and so on...
6- The DIY temptation
Unless you’re a licensed plumber, electrician or flooring installer, attempting DIY on these aspects can incur serious fines in Western Australia. It is illegal to conduct any sort of DIY electrical or plumbing work in Western Australia and can lead to hefty fines and other costly mistakes. This applies to commercial renovations and residential
7- Over design and inconsistent styles
Most bathrooms aren’t very big, so there’s limited space when it comes to style, layout and design. It’s important to choose and stick to one style that matches the overall style and colour scheme in the rest of your home, avoiding any potential style clashes. You want your bathroom to add value to your home, not devalue it. Consider the essentials — like your shower and shower screen, vanity and mirror, and placement of toilet and bathtub.
Changing designs, styles and layouts on the fly during your bathroom renovation can result in style clashes and blown out budgets.
In Conclusion
Well done bathroom renovations have the potential to transform your living spaces. Just like any other DIY project, though, they require your full dedication and plenty of effort. Before you set out to tackle this challenge, prepare to deal with setbacks and come up with a solid plan of attack.
Be resolute throughout the process, carefully manage all resources as best as you can and you’ll easily achieve your goals!