Are you planning to renovate your bathroom? It’s no secret that the amount of time involved in planning and designing a home renovation can be overwhelming for homeowners. It takes quite a bit of patience, research, and understanding to pick out the right person for each job. When it comes to bathroom renovations, it can be tough to know where to start with everything that goes into the remodel.
Even if you’re on a strict budget, the cost of a home renovation can quickly get out of control! We’ve helped some brilliant Toronto homeowners with their home remodelling needs and we want to share some tips that can help you manage your budget effectively.
Confirm your bathroom renovation budget
Before you get started with your remodel, we need to discuss the budget you actually need to complete your renovation. Setting a budget doesn’t necessarily mean cheap. When you are creating a budget for a household remodel, it is a good idea to see how much of your total money will be spent on a particular room, and a bathroom renovation is no exception. If you are planning a multiform renovation, we recommend confirming a dollar amount you will be willing to spend on the bathroom before you make any design choices. This will help you price the fixtures and fittings so you have a firm grasp on what design choices you can afford.
Don’t forget to allot a portion of your renovation budget for unexpected expenses. We’ve had some clients that reserved 10% of their total budget for these types of expenses, but the amount you choose is up to you. No renovation goes 100% according to plan, so you want your budget to be flexible enough to cover any issues that arise with your renovation. At Focus Construction, we value transparency in our costs and calculations. When you work with us, we provide a full breakdown of the costs of materials and labour, so you never get a surprise bill.
Reuse material in your bathroom renovation
It may seem counterintuitive to reuse old material in your remodel but it can save you a significant amount of money. Certain features, like cabinetry and appliances can be refaced, or changed to bring new life into old fixtures. Changing the doors or even just the handles on older cabinets can breathe new life into the old furniture. If you don’t have cabinets that will work in your remodelled space, you may be able to find second-hand building materials at Furniture Bank, or even at auctions. There are also buy/sell/trade websites like Kijiji that are available too. Often when people are moving, they will sell existing appliances, which can be a great source for feature pieces when you find the right material.
Keep the same layout
One of the biggest expenses with any bathroom renovation is when you change the location of specific features, or the whole room itself. Moving a sink, bathtub, shower, walls, and windows gets expensive. Not only do you have to change the actual layout of the room, but the hidden elements need to be plumbed to the new layout. Since you won’t really know what to look for until you get behind the walls when changing a bathroom’s layout, these elements can get very expensive. If you are moving a wall for your bathroom remodel, this may mean keeping a portion of your budget to replace any load-bearing elements within the walls. It is highly advisable that you hire a professional to help with this type of remodelling work since changing the structure of the building requires professional expertise. Unless there is an issue with the functionality of the room, it is often not without the cost of changing the footprint of the major elements of the bathroom.
Focus Construction would be happy to help you design and modernize or renovate your bathroom. We’ve helped hundreds of homeowners update and renovate their homes to meet their changing needs. Book a call to get started.