Common Home Renovation Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

Planning a home renovation can be stressful. From picking the right materials to selecting the finishing touches, there are plenty of pitfalls that go along the way. However, with the right help and careful planning, a home renovation can be one of the most rewarding investments that will help to improve your home’s aesthetics and functionality.

Before you begin, learn about the most common renovation mistakes that new homeowners make and find out ways to avoid them, so that you won’t follow in their footsteps.

1. Prioritizing design over function

When renovating your home, it’s so easy to get caught up in beautiful furnishing that you lose sight of its practicality. For example, while an all-white sofa would look lovely in your living room, they might not be the most practical for families with small kids and pets. You will have to invest time, effort, and money into keeping your sofa looking pristine if you want to maintain the look.

The same goes for all the small details around your house. While you may find hardware such as drawer pulls or knobs look attractive for your cabinetry, can kids and adults easily grasp and open the cabinets? So keep in mind the functional aspects of each item you choose for your home renovation, not just the aesthetics.

2. Being too trend-focused

Some homeowners tend to renovate their home based on what’s ‘on trend’ now (think millennial pink appliances, rattan furniture, floral wallpaper) however, trendy renovation ideas have a short lifespan and can go out of style with time. This will force you to abandon it and start looking for a new style. Let’s not forget the amount of money that you will have wasted on both projects.

If you want to incorporate the latest trends in your home, choose accent pieces that are less expensive to replace, such as an armchair, a reading lamp, or a wall decor and stick with timeless materials for big items like your floors, your kitchen cabinets or your walls. This will not impact the overall design of the space and can be easily replaced once it goes out of style in a few years.

3. Your room doesn’t have a “focal point”

If you walk into a room and nothing or everything catches your eye, then it has no focal point. This much-used designer’s term simply means a primary place for the eye to rest before taking in the whole space. A room without one lacks life, balance and harmony.

When renovating your home, decide what the focal feature will be and then arrange existing furniture to direct attention toward it. A focal feature can be a piece of art, a statement furniture piece, a mirror, a textural surface or even a stunning rug.

4. Going for low-cost over quality

As you’re choosing materials, don’t automatically go for the cheapest option available, but instead, invest in quality materials that will stand the test of time. Being overly frugal can only save you so much money, but being wise in decision-making can help you build a better home.

Do your research to know what you need to spend. A good rule of thumb is to spend good money on things you touch and use every day like door hardware, doors, faucets, appliances, kitchen cabinets. Also, make sure that each material you select for your home renovation (especially in the most trafficked room in the house) can last for a long time. Otherwise, you could be stuck with having to make costly repairs or replacements because you skimped on quality.

5. Not measuring your space properly

Not measuring properly is one of the most common mistakes you can make when renovating your home. Being off even a fraction of an inch when you order a custom built-in cabinets, for example, can have significant repercussions, causing poor fits and reordered materials so it’s better to measure an area not once, but a couple of times to avoid this issue. It will save you countless delays, money, and frustration.

While you’re at it, don’t forget to measure your door widths too. If you are purchasing big furniture or appliances like a sofa or a fridge, you’ll have to make sure your new purchases can fit through the entrance door. You won’t believe how often this gets overlooked!

6. Not utilising every inch of your property

Not squeezing every last drop out of your floor plan is yet another common home renovation mistake most homeowners make. So if you have any unused or empty corners in your home, turn them into a useful space.

For example, if there’s some space under your stairs, consider turning it into a cosy reading nook with a comfy bench and a bookshelf. Similarly, if you have an empty corner in your kitchen, you can always turn it into a functional space by installing a built-in cabinet to store household utilities.

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7. Not hiring a designer from the start

So many of these all-too-common home renovation mistakes can be minimised (and even completely avoided) by working with the right interior designer. They do not simply do the work for you; they also provide you with guidance on how to prevent and correct mistakes before they lead to the need for costly repairs.

If you’ve decided to hire a professional, simply drop us a free quote request here and we’ll be happy to match you up with up to five interior designers close to your area, tailored to your budget and needs.

All recommendations made by Qanvast will be protected under the Qanvast Guarantee scheme that covers 50% of your contract value, up to RM50,000, in the case that the recommended Contracting Service Provider becomes insolvent. For more information, click here.

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