The bottom line – it’s what matters most. Renovating a home or property is an expensive undertaking. It can be time consuming, stressful, intimidating, and it tests ones skills and spirit. Home remodeling has been known to make or break relationships. The arguments are rarely about finishes and choices of products or labor, they are about money.
How does one avoid getting sucked into the money pit? There are many that would take advantage of any homeowner, even one of meager means, and that is why we at Glass King blog. We strive to educate our customers and the public so that they will make well informed choices that will make their biggest investments and their lives better.
Hiring people you can trust is, of course, imperative. Yet that is not all you can do. Often unforeseen circumstances advance the budget beyond the limit. When tackling a project it is important to remember the rule of thumb: it takes twice as long and twice as much money as you think to finish it.
Calling in friends and family seems like a good idea, right? Free labor? Not if they don’t know what they are doing. One of our employees had her laminate wood floors installed by a neighbor. He accidentally set her house on fire! The fire was put out, but the smoke damage took months to remove and was expensive. Hiring the right professional in the first place would have saved her a great deal of time, money, and aggravation.
Buying materials “off the rack” sounds easy too, but not if they don’t fit! There are many custom cabinet makers that are affordable and custom countertop installers that can make your kitchen or bathroom just right when something store-bought would not fit and look terrible. Local craftsmen, small businesses, and artisans with affordable fees can be found quite easily with a little digging around.
A common mistake is using someone’s old paint. Paint does expire. It thickens, gets lumpy, the ingredients separate, and if you run out there’s a good chance that even a paint with the same formula won’t match right. Paint is cheap. Invest in fresh paint and your project will appear much better.
Don’t be afraid to buy used either. Habitat for Humanity has warehouses with used building products all over the nation and some of those carefully removed building materials can be a big boon if you have the right tradesman to install them in your home.
There are a lot of ways to cut costs – for instance, using granite tiles instead of a solid slab of granite costs about a third as much. That’s far better than laminate or composite countertops! Finding appliances in unusual places – like the clearance section at IKEA, for instance, saved a friend half of the cost of replacing her oven. It was heavy to haul home, but the find was worth it! Are you thinking of replacing your couch because the cushions are sagging? Why not just replace the foam and wash the covers instead?
An easy and inexpensive way to upgrade your home is by changing out the glass. A shower enclosure with hard water, lime, and rust stains is easily replaced and is comparatively inexpensive. It will give your bathroom a whole new charm immediately. A some fresh paint and you’ve upgraded your home and improved your resale value! At Glass King, we are not limited to window glass repair, we do shower enclosures, sliding glass doors, and much more!
Which brings us to windows and doors. For those interior doors that are plain wood or composite, just a fresh coat of paint and new doorknobs make a huge difference. For sliding glass doors and windows, replacing the hardware such as rollers, latches, locks, and handles will update your home for a fraction of the cost of a full replacement. If you are interested, contact us at Glass King at 480-389-5656 and we will be delighted to give you a free estimate.
