Many DIYers get a thrill out of going by the seat of their pants. It’s your home, your ideas, your money—so why shouldn’t you do what you want, when you want?
But planning has its benefits—big benefits in terms of saving money and time. Poor planning means more time spent redoing work or fixing mistakes.
There are plenty of renovation checklists, books, and websites devoted to renovation and remodeling. Even so, there are some things that many DIYers forget to consider when tackling big home projects. Here are four.
Matching Existing Styles and Décor
Just imagine the pride you’d feel after remodeling your living room and dining room to make it look more modern. (Since we’re a window treatment company, we’ll of course focus on the windows, although the same lessons can be gleaned by looking at any aspect of the remodel project.) You’re admiring the black metal framed windows you’ve installed all around your living room and dining room. The lack of wood trim and the sleek window frames make your renovated room look like a minimalist masterpiece. You feel pretty darn good.
Until a few weeks later when the DIY success buzz wears off and you begin to realize that the 1920s oak-trimmed interior of the rest of the house is clearly the opposite of the newly remodeled room. And, in fact, the new construction makes the old parts of the house look dowdy or even dingy. You intended to update your home and instead you downgraded half of it. (But see the below section on window treatments to find one way to solve this problem.)
The lesson here is that sooner or later, you’re going to have to think about how your new work ties in with the old. A surprising number of DIYers forget this until the job is done.
Landscaping
For home additions or whole-home projects, your landscaping can take a beating. Damage to your landscaping can range from crushed flower beds and broken tree trunks to holes that need to be filled. Roofing, siding, foundation work, and paving can destroy a yard. DIYers, especially DIY newbies, are often amazed at the toll renovations can have on a yard.
But interior projects can cause damage to your landscaping, too, due to hauling materials in and out of the home or piling up construction waste. Trucks delivering materials leave track marks in the lawn. Barrels of offcuts and drywall chunks stored along the side of the house smother the grass. The bigger the project, the more the damage.
Don’t be shocked by the damage your yard is going to take from your DIY endeavors. Better yet, plan ahead and protect your lawn from trucks delivering building materials by putting down boards. Plan to store materials and construction waste in places that will do the least amount of damage to your plants and yard. And, most importantly, budget some time and resources to restoring your yard after the work is done.
Saving Spares
Your tile floor is complete. It took you weeks of hard work to get things just perfect. As you leave the room, your hammer snags on the door frame, slips out of your toolbelt and lands headfirst on the new tile floor, cracking two tiles.
No sweat—just replace the tiles. Except you are all out of the tiles—and they were on clearance and the last ones in the store. You have no clue where to get another tile like this, let alone two.
Always plan to have spares of what you’ve installed. Spare tiles, spare pieces of trim, spare outlet covers, spare paint. This is especially important when you’re installing unique or hard-to-find components. Those cracked tiles might live the rest of their lives with a rug hiding them from view. So, buy a few extra of everything you install and store it in a box in your basement marked “Spares.”
Window Treatments
Many DIYers forget window treatments, even though windows aren’t really functional until they’re covered with blinds, shades, shutters, or drapery.
While not as expensive as new windows, window treatments can represent a significant cost. Make your window treatments part of your budgeting. Better yet, look into which types of window treatments are the most interesting and attractive to you and make some decisions early on about how you’re going to use each room and the looks you want to achieve.
Few other design elements have as powerful an impact on your home’s interior as blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery. That’s because they cover the windows—generally the focal point of a room—and they present a broad field of color that can dictate the atmosphere and style of the overall design.
For example, solar shades, with their minimalist style and fresh colors, can help to create a modern room. A set of sheer drapes combined with a luxurious room-darkening drape can evoke a formal tone. A set of light-colored cellular shades can convey simple elegance.
There’s a lot of design power in a window treatment—make it part of your design plan early in the process and you’ll have a completed project that really works.
Looking at the example above where the new modern section of a home clashes with the older parts of the home dating to the 1920s. New Bali window treatments are a great way to bridge that gap. You can match the window treatments on the new windows to the window treatments on the old. By decorating the windows, new and old, with roller shades and or drapery in matching modern fabrics, you can create an aesthetic throughline that might rescue your entire project.
DIY projects should be fun and exciting. But a little planning can make things even better. Just considering these four items can save you hours and days of reconsidering and redoing. Make your DIY experience enjoyable so you’ll have enough enthusiasm left in the tank for the next DIY project—and the next.
