If you are thinking of renovating your bathroom or your kitchen in your new home… please stop.
Before you start picking out the tub and tiles and tearing down the cabinets, take some time and think long and hard about what you are about to do.
Don’t get caught up in the rush of renovating that you end up making short-term decisions and miss out on better options for your family.
To Renovate or Relocate a Bathroom and a Kitchen
Bathrooms and kitchens are expensive to renovate and therefore it is in your best interest to have them in the right location as early as possible.
I’ve had some clients mistakenly think that their bathroom and kitchen were already in the right location, so they undertook a major renovation on both. Subsequently, they realised that both really should have been relocated into a different part of the house.
Let me ask you this: Will you want the bathroom or kitchen you are thinking of renovating to be in the exact same place many years from now? Will the changes you make flow smoothly with your house’s function and style?
Throughout the years I’ve seen clients who go straight into renovating their kitchen not realising that the kitchen is in a dark and poorly ventilated location. Or they may eventually realise that it’s too far from the dining area or just too small for their family’s needs. The most common reason for eventually relocating a kitchen is poor layout.
The same thing goes for the bathroom. Maybe the bathroom is in an area where drainage is always going to be a problem.
Or maybe the bathroom is outside the kids’ rooms and they’re now grown and are fighting for privacy. Or maybe it’s getting scary to have to go outside their rooms just to use the bathroom.
A larger, connecting bathroom between two rooms would be a good idea; something that children can use into their adulthood.
Rash renovations like these are a result of a short-term vision. Since renovations are no small undertaking, taking the time to map out a long-term plan will help you employ a more strategic approach to renovating.
Relocating a Room can Cost the Same as Renovating it
I understand people are turned off relocating rooms due to fear of the cost. You might think a relocation will cost you so much more and a mere renovation will save you money. But the relocation of a kitchen or a bathroom is actually similar to the cost of renovating especially when they are part of a master home extension plan that covers the grand vision for your home.
There may be a few more metres of plastic pipe or water pipe involved in the relocation of a bathroom or kitchen, but it is actually a small cost and is relevant to the future planning of the house.
Create a Master Plan With An Expert Home Designer
Creating a master plan with an expert home designer helps you think in the long-term and ensure you don’t miss the big picture when it comes to a renovation or relocation project.
Here, you get to answer questions like: Are you planning to have kids? Will your kids be staying with you in the future when they have kids of their own? Will you be caring for your parents in the future?
If you think about these things now, you are saving yourself from seeking out repeated renovations in the future that will definitely be more costly.
By creating a master plan, you are making sure that the changes you do now will not compromise future options for your house. A master plan is your grand plan for your house – and not just your plans in the next two years, but longer than that.
Poor planning is the leading cause of cost overruns on renovation projects. When you address your homing needs individually, the overall result often lacks cohesiveness. And nothing is more expensive than doing things twice.
To avoid unnecessary costs and ill-conceived renovation projects, you need to anticipate your family’s needs from the start and discuss them with an expert home designer, so together, you can craft your master plan.
Embark on a renovation project that not only suits the present, but also the future. If you live in the North Shore area, call us now and let’s create your master plan.
Related Tag: Home Extensions Sydney
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