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There will come a time when you need to renovate your home. After years of living in it, you might find that your family has grown or your needs have changed, and many elements of a house will eventually wear out, break down or become outdated – requiring repairs or a total replacement. It can be challenging to deal with because the costs of transforming your home can get expensive – fast.
While Fast Loans in NZ are perfect for emergencies such as a broken pipe or hole in the roof, other necessary adjustments can be planned and prepared for using a few clever cost-saving techniques. Here are some tips on how you can come out with a beautiful, modern home without breaking the bank.
- Prioritise And Pricecheck
First things first: take stock of your entire home to see what it’s a current state is. It’s worth forking out a little cash for a home inspection so that you know exactly what you’re dealing with. Once you have this information, you need to divide tasks into those that are extremely urgent, somewhat urgent and not urgent at all. Once you have created this list, look for quotes for the jobs so you can see what kind of spend you’re looking at. By doing this, you can plan how much you can put aside a month for renovations or what is worth getting a fast NZ loan for and possibly even see which less important tasks you can do yourself. Remember that certain things are best left to the experts, such as work involving electrical, plumbing or building repairs. A failure to use a registered professional here could leave you with a sizeable fine or shoddy work which causes problems at a later date.
- Restore Versus Replace
Completely replacing elements of your kitchen and bathroom can be very expensive as these rooms of the home are critical to determining your home’s resale value. For this reason, restoration is recommended over replacement. Doing something as simple as replacing and restoring grout and silicone can make a tiled space look brand new. You can also change the entire look and feel of an area by updating its fixtures, racks, pulls and handles. Another impactful but straightforward change can be removing old, peeling and mildew ridden paint and replacing it with paint that’s suited for the damp and heat of a typical kitchen or bathroom. Many bathrooms featuring tiling on the floor and walls, can often get chipped and cracked with time. Instead of replacing it all at a considerable cost, you could remove all tiles and create a statement strip or area for tiling while leaving the rest unadorned. This will have a lasting impact – with fewer tiles and handiwork required.
- Tackle The Small Stuff
Often significant issues in your home that you think require an expensive solution can have a simple fix. A typical example is the heating and cooling of a home. This is critical to your comfort and that of your family’s, but the costs can run high if you aren’t careful. Now is the time to fix all those small issues your home is facing that could cost you thousands in the long run.
A common example is your windows and doors and whether these elements are allowing air to enter or exit your home. This means your air conditioning or heating has to work harder, which means you pay more.
Tiny holes or cracks in your walls can be repaired using materials from your local hardware store and sometimes a room that seems dark and dingy needs a higher wattage of lightbulbs.
- Try Secondhand
Not everything you add to your home needs to be brand new, and just because you get something second-hand doesn’t mean it’s going to look old and worn. An excellent place to look for items to outfit your home with is large chain stores with showrooms, as they’ll often place an entire showroom area (or elements of it) for sale directly to the public once it’s gone out of date or when they’re replacing the old stock with new. Another place you could find unique items is at an auction. The contents of an entire household are often stripped and sold when an estate is liquidated, when a homeowner has died or when someone has downsized or relocated their home.
It might take a little longer than anticipated, but it’s possible to renovate your home for less. This way you get the house of your dreams, knowing that should an emergency occurs, that a fast loan in New Zealand will be there to help you out.
