Renovation ideas to suit your budget

Before you get down to actually renovating your house, here are a few vital things which you need to sort out to avoid incurring extra expenses and stressing yourself.

1. Plan a rough draft on a piece of paper by sketching what you have in mind as the new layout of your house. This will help you to be clear about the design till the last moment and you will also not get into last minute, unplanned expenses and stress.
2. Whether you are renovating a room, or an entire house, make a list of all the things which need either to be replaced or repaired, and try and stick to it if you don’t want to incur extra costs.
3. Be clear about your budget. Write down the cost of every object that you need to buy or fix. Also, take into consideration the service and emergency costs. Plus, if you are planning to paint and change the flooring, then also include this.

Here’s how you can plan the entire renovation according to the budget segment you fall into:

Spending Capacity: Rs. 35,000 – 50,000

Walls: If you think your walls don’t look that old and you can make do with the paint for some more time, then skip painting because it will consume most of your budget. Instead, to give a fresh look to your room, just get one wall in the room highlighted with either wallpaper or paint. You can look at interesting wall hangings that you can pick up for lesser prices from the internet or flea markets. Search your camera and laptop for the photographs you have taken, get them printed on large matt or gloss-finished papers and frame them with interesting borders.

Flooring: Changing the entire flooring will demand a lot of money, but if you are sick and tired of your current flooring, the best option would be to cheat. For all your rooms, including the bathroom, you can use mats, rugs and carpets to cover the floor and though you can do it for most of the visible area, even if you place it over a just a section, it will make a lot of visual difference.

Furniture: If you have some furniture already which you can repaint, repair and reuse, don’t look at spending on the new one. Remember that it’s okay to have a living room without a sofa. You can instead make the seating low by throwing in rugs and cushions and mattresses and lamps, and give the room a war makeover.

Spending Capacity: Rs. 50,000 – 75,000

Walls: You completely change the look and feel of your house by opting for a drastically different palette than the current one. While light shades make the room look bigger, darker tones will give an illusion of a closed, smaller space. These days, pastel hues of blue, yellow and green are in vogue and you can highlight certain areas with wallpaper, wall decal or a complimenting colour. Stark white and pastel is a good combination and so is ivory white and wooden brown. You can also look at tiles, specially for areas which are prone to getting dampness. It will last you for long.

Flooring:  Instead of changing the entire flowing, opt for carpeting certain key sections like the living and dining room. For the rest of the house like your bedroom and other rooms, you can look at placing mats or rugs.

Furniture: Revive your living area with a new seating arrangement, depending on the kind of look you want to give it. For an ethnic appeal, you can look at low seating and lots of lamps, knickknacks, traditional wall hangings which you can pick up from state emporia and wooden chests and stands to keep and display decor items. For a contemporary, modern look, go completely minimalistic and keep things geometrical and graphical like a single, longish piece of sofa and a striking graphic art on a wall to balance the layout.    

Spending Capacity: Rs. 75,000 – 1,00,000

Walls: Apart from pastel hues and combination colours of pastel sand whites, whites and brown and darks and whites and wooden, you can look at wall decals, which are quite popular these days. Even if you use decal on just one portion of each of the rooms in your house, it will totally uplift its appeal. You can also use slight wooden detailing on the walls and corners to give them a finished look.

Flooring: If you wish to change the entire flooring of the house, loot at floor papers, which would bring your cost drastically down as opposed to completely new marble flooring. Also thing about carpeting certain areas and using rugs and mats over the others.

Furniture: If you change some key objects like your living room seating, beds, cupboards and kitchen cabinets, most of your work will be done. Either get new ones or five a new look to the existing ones, the choice is yours, for instance, changing the upholstery of your sofa which will change its look is a much cheaper option than getting a new one. Similarly, you can look at repainting old wooden cabinets and chests with refreshingly new colours to give them a completely different appeal.