When you first move into your home, chances are, you’re completely happy with it. You’ll have spent a fair amount of time browsing the property market, waiting for the perfect building to pop up. However, as time passes, you may find that your needs and preferences change and that your home isn’t ticking your boxes anymore. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to move house. Instead, you could simply renovate your much loved property to make it appropriate for you again! This can be a long and complex process to undertake, but moving house can be long and complex too. Instead, with renovating you get to stay settled and you get to simply build and work on the place you already call home. Now, if you haven’t undertaken renovations before, you may be wondering where to start. Here’s some key information on renovations and the home renovation process that can get this venture started out in the best direction possible!

Benefits of Renovating

Of course, renovating your home can be expensive and time consuming. So, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re definitely getting something out of the process. What are the actual benefits of renovating your home? Well, when it comes down to it, there are a few. Here are some to bear in mind:

• Fitting your home to your needs and preferences – when you renovate your home, you can make it tick all of your boxes. If there’s anything that doesn’t suit your needs, you can change it to make your entire living space more functional and comfortable.

• Reducing moving disruption and costs – without renovations, your home may not be suitable for you, resulting in you having to move. This, of course, results in disruption for your children (especially if they have to move schools) and can entail a lot of costs on your end.

• Maintaining your home – when you renovate, you’re making sure that your home is completely up to scratch. It encourages you to keep on top of your home, ensuring everything is the best quality that it can be.

• Increasing your home’s value – renovations can also significantly increase your home’s value. This is important when your home is likely the biggest financial investment you’ll make in your entire life.

Step 1: Decide Which Renovations Will Be Best for You

If renovating sounds good to you, it’s time to decide what renovations will be best for you. There are countless options out there, so let’s just take a moment to go through some of the most popular and commonly carried out.

Extensions

By far, the most commonly carried out form of renovation tends to be an extension. When you first move into your home, chances are it’s big enough for you. It will have enough rooms and space to keep you happy. But as time goes on, your needs may change and you may find that you need more room in your property to be happy. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to move. Instead, an extension can help you to make your property bigger, adding on an extra room (or multiple rooms) and creating extra space for whatever you neded. Maybe you’ve decided to work from home permanently and need space for a home office. Perhaps you’ve picked up a hobby and would like space to practice it in your home, such as pole or ballet. You may decide that you want a pet and the pet needs more room to run around. You might have children and need room for them to call their own. The list of reasons goes on and on. Of course, there are so many different types of extension to choose from, so you may want to talk to a professional architect or construction worker who can determine which will best suit your needs. The two most common options tend to be a ground floor extension (which adds an extra room to the ground floor of your property) or a multiple floor extensions (which adds another room on top of the ground floor extension).

Loft Conversions

Of course, for an extension, you need sufficient land surrounding your current property to extend out onto. If you already have a small garden, or simply don’t have any land to build on to start with, you don’t necessarily have to count an extra room in your property as impossible. Instead, you could make use of your loft space by converting it into an extra room with a loft conversion. This is a great way to get use out of relatively disused space by turning it into a functional living space. You could turn it into a bedroom, a guest room, a home office, a cinema room or anything else you wish. You will need windows put in to flood the room with light, so make sure to contact a window fitting and window replacement specialist to help with this.

Step 2: Get Planning Permission

Of course, if you’re planning renovations to your home, you are going to have to get planning permission before undertaking the work. You should do this before doing anything else that will get the renovation process started. Put simply, planning permission entails a process that provides you with a permit to go ahead with your planned work. If you don’t get planning permission and someone complains about your renovation or the local council gets wind of your renovation , they can request that you put your house back to its original state. This, of course, will cost a lot of money and will see you wasting your time for nothing.

Sure, there are many more renovations that you might find better suit you. But this should just serve as some inspiration to start your search for the right work and the right people to carry out. The process may seem daunting, but once you get the ball rolling, you’ll find your home transformed into the perfect space for you to spend time in!