Home Renovations - How to Develop and Stick to a Plan

If you are like a lot of people, you have some great ideas about how to renovate your home. Perhaps you’ve even started a few of these projects. But great ideas are just the beginning, they won’t help you finish your home renovation projects – for that, you need a plan.

Creating a home renovation plan is one of the best ways to ensure the projects on your wish list actually get done. In this article, we’ll look at a few ways to help you manage and complete all the great home renovation projects and ideas you have on your list. With a solid plan in place, you’ll soon be renovating your way to the home of your dreams.

Plan for Repairs First

One big reason why renovations get put on hold is unexpected repairs. When your AC unit or water heater quit working, or your plumbing springs a leak, these urgent repairs take funds and time away from the renovations you’d rather be doing. Such repairs add time, money and stress you didn’t account for at the start of your project.

But there is a way to keep home repairs from derailing your renovations: plan for them in advance. Although many homeowners wait until something breaks to fix it, taking a more proactive, budget-friendly approach and preparing for major home repairs ahead of time can help keep your other projects on track. You can implement this home repair approach at any time, but in the future, it’s a good idea to create an annual plan at the beginning of each year.

Related Topic: Planning Your Home’s Major Repairs for the Year

Make An Annual Renovation Plan

If you’ve gone ahead and created your annual repair plan, congrats! You are on your way to turning those home renovation projects from dreams into reality.

Now, based on your home repair plan, you can determine how much time and budget you have available for your home renovations—and make a plan for them, too. It’s important to keep in mind that you won’t be able to do all of your home renovation projects at once. In fact, it’s one of the key mistakes many people make. Trying to finish your basement, for example, while also upgrading your home’s insulation, might overload both your schedule and your budget.

Multiple projects also put a strain on your time, energy and focus. When you take on too many projects at the same time, what often happens is, nothing gets done! By scheduling your home renovation projects out months or even years in advance, it will be easier to accomplish each project when the time is right.

Have a Long-Term Plan

One of the best things about making a long-term renovation plan is that it helps you keep your project timeline realistic. If you have a lot of projects, but a limited budget, chances are you won’t be able to complete them all within a year. For example, remodeling an entire bathroom might be on your list, but it might not be the top priority at the moment.

Add projects you probably won’t get to start within the next 10-12 months to your long-term project list and use your downtime to plan for them. Your home renovation project plan can span several years, if needed. It really comes down to how much time and budget you can devote to each specific project on your wish list.

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Make a Someday List

There are so many great ideas out there for home renovations that it can work against you. Friends and family also offer ideas and suggestions you might think are great. All these ideas and suggestions just adds more projects to your growing wish list of renovations. You may even have started a few, only to have the project postponed for any number of reasons.

When the ideas keep coming, one thing you can do to avoid getting distracted from the projects you have going, or want to complete right away, is to keep a list of future projects. Your “someday project list” can help you keep track of all the ideas you want to tackle in future years, without derailing your current renovation plan.

Let Neighborly Help

You can find a lot of great home renovation ideas out there. And you probably already have several of your own ideas for home renovation projects. The challenge is finding the time to get them all done. This is where a company like Neighborly can help.

Neighborly is the nation’s top home services brand. We offer quality services from trusted brands that help make renovation projects and repairs quicker and easier. With help from Neighborly you can start checking off the projects on your list, and add a few more, if you like. For more information about Neighborly brands, check us out today!