Five Common St Johns Home Renovations
With the very high prices for houses in Auckland, home renovation is more popular than ever. Instead of buying a new house, more people are opting to stay in the same place, but to upgrade or make better use of the space they currently have. With the desire for more space for changes in lifestyle needs or growing families, home renovations can be a more affordable option than buying a new home. We have found that there are five common types of major home renovations in St Johns and the other areas we work in.
Here are the top five home renovations we come across:
Kitchen Renovations
Kitchen renovations and upgrades are the most popular form of home renovations. The kitchen tends to be the most used room in a house so if you want to increase the overall utility of your home, a kitchen renovation is often the best way to start. They are done for a number of reasons, including- updating cabinetry and appliances, increasing the space, and increasingly creating open-plan living spaces combining the kitchen and lounge. A kitchen renovation is also the best way to increase the value of a home.
Bathroom Renovations
A bathroom renovation isn’t on the same scale as kitchen renovations, but nonetheless, it is a major consideration. Bathroom renovations can involve moving plumbing or replacing old pipes. This itself will require remedial work to the walls. But often people want a complete renovation including changing walls, combining a toilet and bathroom, a new configuration of appliances and so on. These are major renovation works and render the bathroom unusable during the process. The bathroom is the second-best selling point for a home after the kitchen. A top-class renovation provides an opportunity to increase the feel of luxury within a home besides making use of less efficient usage of space.
Basement Renovation
One of the best ways to add usable space to a house is upgrading the basement. You can turn it into a full bedroom suite, or use it as a games room, movie room, a children’s play area, or even a guest room, depending on your needs. This is considered a major home renovation and can call for a significant amount of work and design. However, it is likely to cause the least disruption to the rest of the house and makes use of generally, unused or redundant space.
Open-Plan Living
A modern trend is to combine two or more rooms into one single open-plan living area. This often includes the kitchen so that people in the kitchen are part of the whole living entity rather than being separated from the family or guests.
Upgrading Older Homes
An old cottage might look cute but if they are in their original state, they will be cold, uninsulated, have old electrical and plumbing systems, they will probably have small rooms and lots of walls which take up potentially usable space.
Renovating older homes is a very common house renovation in St Johns. In fact, many people buy an old house in poor condition with the aim of upgrading it before they move in. This is a great idea as it means less inconvenience for the homeowner and for us, the home renovations builders, it means we don’t have to work around the family and can get on with the renovation work much faster.
Major Considerations For St Johns Home Renovations
All of these common types of home renovations will require accredited trades of some sort like electricians and plumbers. The old Kiwi DIY mentality can kick in so the big question is, do you want to do the rest of the home renovation work or hire a specialist local St Johns home renovation builder?
Obviously there will be more expense if you hire a builder but the overall costs will most likely, be far less.
If you take into account the following:
- The time it will take you to learn, practice and carry out the work, this will be way more time than a builder who does this type of work for a living.
- The renovation building company will be working full-time compared to you working at weekends or after your day-job.
- The upheaval to your family will be much less if you hire a professional building contractor since the job will be finished months before a well-meaning amateur can do it.
- The stress you and your family will undergo will be much less if you have someone else to handle all the problems that crop up.
- You do not have to research and interview multiple sub-contractors; a renovations builder will already have tried and trusted subbies they work with.
- The cost of materials will be less if you hire a builder since they can get volume discounts from the suppliers that a one-time builder certainly won’t be able to negotiate.
It makes sense to hire a local St Johns home renovations company.
Project Management Skills
Another key aspect that people generally don’t consider is project management.
A professional renovations contractor will help you put the entire project together and bring your ideas to life. They have experience in managing timelines, scheduling tradespeople and materials so people are not standing around idle. Every renovation project has surprises which generally means headaches, so you need someone who has project management skills to keep your project on budget and on schedule.
Project Management is one of our key skills and has helped us deliver projects to clients within budget and in a timely manner.
If you are thinking of a home renovation in St Johns, we will be happy to come along to your home to talk about your ideas and see how we could help you. Please call 021 209 2214 or email admin@feverpitchbuilding.co.nz.