ALIGNING YOUR DREAM AND YOUR REALITY THEN GETTING REGULAR RENOVATION COSTINGS IS THE THE SECRET TO STAYING ON BUDGET AND ON TRACK DURING YOUR RENOVATION PROJECT.
So you’ve finally decided to take the plunge and commit to your renovation project. Congratulations. You’ve started your renovation journey. The first step is often the hardest one to take…
To give yourself the best chance of success it’s important to ensure that your two worlds – your dream and your reality, complement each other and don’t collide sending you and your project into a death spiral.
Once you understand your project dream or vision, its time to understand if you can actually afford it.
You need to set yourself a realistic budget. One that is based on what you can actually afford. This budget needs to reflect what you can and are prepared to pay to get the lifestyle upgrade you want.
You then need to align this with the vision of what you want to achieve.
It’s so Important that your budget lines up with your expectations. Trust me, its much better to know this early in your project, as it’s much easier, both emotionally and financially, to adjust either your expectations or your budget early.
There’s no crystal ball
It’s almost impossible to predict without having made quite a few decisions definitively what any particular renovation will cost, especially in the early stages. Costs can vary significantly based on size and complexity, site conditions, level of fitout and design, amongst other things.
Don’t start out by comparing yourself to your neighbor’s reno that they did 5 years ago. Doing this will only set you up for unrealistic expectations and ultimately a disappointment.
Make smart choices & decisions
So start your journey by setting a realistic budget now right at the start- so you have the best chance of staying on track.
You have lots of options at the start – choose the best option to move forward to with.
This is a time to explore different options and choices that you have. And their will be lots of them. The key is finding the one that best suits your circumstances, expectations, and budget.
Talk to your Design Professional and get several layout options and get costs based on that. Understand the cost implications of each choice you make.
Be aware though, early on the costing figures will be ballpark. This is the reality and these costings need to be viewed as such. Every decision you make along the way will influence and affect this figure both negatively and positively.
Make informed decisions ask questions, and test your costs regularly along the way.
Build up your expectations
Don’t assume that your designer is as budget focused as you are.
As your project progresses, it’s important to get progressive costings done – this could be 2 or 3 or more before you go for a formal builders quote.
Many people miss this crucial step – for a relatively small outlay you can get peace of mind knowing that you are on the right track and within budget.
And better still if things are starting to blow out – it’s much easier to make amendments in the earlier stage and then progressively as you are building up the information in your project schedule than to find out at the tender stage that you are 10 if not 100 of thousands of dollars over budget. Only to then face the frustrating and demoralising task of pulling things out – compromising what you want.
In essence, pulling down your expectations rather than building them up.
Half full is more positive than half empty
Believe it or not, most people approach renovation this way. By pulling down their expectations to meet their budget rather than building up.
This never ceases to amaze me – but I believe it’s largely due to ignorance rather than design – A case of you don’t know what you don’t know.
When you look at it, its a very negative, hit and miss approach. That inevitably involves a lot of wastage. It’ll often cost you too – in terms of extra design fees, maybe council fees too not to mention your time.
It’s an incremental process
You need to understand that costing is an Incremental process. That builds up and gets more comprehensive and accurate as you make more and more choices and decisions. The benefit of regular check is that they allow you to manage your budget along the way. And make tweaks and readjustments as you go, so your budget and your expectations are always in alignment
It’s all about your approach
Remember knowledge is power, and ignoring this issue will set you up for a very rude shock down the track.
You want this to be an exciting experience, not one where you feel like you’ve missed out. And it can and should be, it all comes down to how you approach your project and view your experience
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Disclaimer:
While every effort has been made to provide accurate information, Buildit123 Pty
