Top Tips for Painting your Home and Renovations *

*This is a collaborative post.

House renovation are two words that either fill you with dread and have you looking for a new house or have you heading for a hardware store, rubbing your hands with glee. Even if you don’t need to complete a full renovation of your property decorating can be stressful enough, there are decisions to be made; what colour, wallpaper or paint, and new furniture or not to name a few. The next decision you need to make is if you are going to complete the work yourself or call in the professionals.

Renovation is a big job to undertake and may not be able to be completed in one single job in the same way as decorating can be unless you vacate your property for a period of time while the work is completed. We counsel you, if relocating for a period of time is not an option, to consider what are the most important aspects of the renovation and what your priorities are. This may well help you to make the decision about which of the next two sections you will be using.

DIY

A lot of us are proficient enough to ‘do it yourself’ which, let’s be honest, is quite often the cheapest option; you can get everything you need quite easily and all you have to do then is put in the time and effort to get your house looking exactly as you want it. The negative side of this is the amount of time it takes to renovate or decorate yourself; even if you are lucky enough to have friends who will help with the work that needs to be done, you will still be looking at extensive time – both evening and weekends – to get this completed. You could well end up with a ‘too many cooks’ situation as well, in trying to bring down the length of time a task takes to complete you may not achieve the consistency of decorating as each person who helps will have their own way of doing things.

Professionals

Your second option is to call in professional help, whether that be contractors to complete a full renovation or interior house painters for a simple decorating job. There are lots of companies or solo operations out there so you will be able to get quotes before you begin and make an informed decision once you have pricing. Choose one that includes everything needed in the process including booking of dumpster for waste collection. It’s a great way to gauge which option is better to pursue.

However, depending on the job this could work out to be significantly more expensive than doing the work yourself. The positive with this method, however, is the substantial decrease in the length of time to complete the work – where completing the work yourself would mean evenings and weekends (or vacation time from work) professionals will be completing this work full time, often while you are away from the house so there will be less disruption to your living conditions.

Safety

Unless you are used to completing this type of work and working with the tools that are needed to complete the jobs needing to be completed, there is also your personal safety to be considered. Power tools will need to be hired or purchased and instruction manuals read to ensure you don’t cause yourself an injury. For decorating you will also need to ensure that you protect fixtures and fittings already in place so that they aren’t damaged. Again, these are all actions that can be completed quite easily but will take some preparation to get the work completed.

Paint

Paint or wallpaper is often a contentious decision, especially between couples, wallpaper is more difficult to upkeep as it needs to be stripped from the walls before new wallpaper can be put up. Whereas, although paint doesn’t often have the same look or texture that wallpaper does, it is easier to change and clean when you wish to change other aspects of your home such as furniture.

All of the above decisions can only be made by you; you know what you can afford, what skills you have and what time you can devote to the home improvement project you are considering, but as long as you review the above considerations we think you can make an informed decision about what is best for you and for your home.