If you’re ready to renovate your bathroom, exciting times almost certainly lie ahead. But make these 3 mistakes during the renovation and you could give yourself a headache that can’t be solved by a long hot soak in a tub!
To help make sure your bathroom renovation goes according to plan, here are 8 things to avoid doing:
- Designing a bathroom that’s on-trend
While this might have been a great idea at the time, designing a bathroom around a current trend could quickly leave you with an outdated space as trends move on and change. Instead of concentrating on being trendy, focus instead on timeless features that will remain popular, attractive and functional for many years to come.
2. Rushing the design process
This stage of any renovation should be given due care and attention, and should never be rushed. If you do rush through the design phase of your bathroom renovation, you may miss out on opportunities to be creative and innovative, and to view your bathroom from a different perspective.
Carefully consider the space, what you want to achieve from it, and whether your proposed ideas will be enduring enough for you not to want to change them again in a couple of years’ time.
3. Missing out on chances to customize the space
No two families and their needs and desires when using a bathroom, are ever exactly the same, and for that reason, your bathroom should be unique to your household. But, by failing to explore opportunities to tailor the space and make it fit your wonts entirely, you could end up with a bathroom that doesn’t fulfil your needs, let alone your desires.
Listen to your design team, listen to your family, and don’t be afraid to ask whether something is possible, because more often than not, it is!
4. Hiring an inexperienced contractor
This is a cardinal mistake, and one that’s often made when homeowners are trying to save money renovating their bathroom, or simply don’t know who to choose. A general contractor that isn’t experienced with bathroom renovations, or who has carried out plenty of sub-standard renovations, will never give you the bathroom of your dreams, even if they may promise that while giving you a rock-bottom estimate.
Don’t try to cut costs when hiring a general contractor, because as with many things in life, you get what you pay for.
5. Doing it yourself!
There are only a few aspects of a bathroom renovation that a novice DIY enthusiast can carry out safely and effectively, and these are typically just aesthetic aspects, such as painting or possibly tiling. While it might be cheaper to renovate your bathroom yourself, mistakes that you make because you’re not a plumber, construction expert or other kind of professional tradesperson, can end up costing you dearly, and quite frankly, end in embarrassment and a whole bunch of stress.
6. Failing to optimize lighting
The right lighting in a bathroom can make all the difference, and when renovating, you have the perfect chance to get it just right. Think about what type of light you want and where, and how you can make the lighting adjustable to suit different times of the day, needs etc.
7. Ignoring accessibility
By making your bathroom accessible for the elderly or handicapped, you can ensure that you have a timeless space that’s always going to be functional, no matter what life may throw at you. From welcoming senior relatives into your home, to coping with a change in a member of the household’s mobility, an accessible bathroom is one that you can not just enjoy, but live with, and for many years to come.
8. Neglecting to consider cleaning and upkeep
By choosing materials that are easy to keep clean, and which will continue to look good no matter how much use they get, you can give yourself a bathroom that’s less stress, and which will continue to look as good as new, with little effort.
Renovating your bathroom can absolutely be a success first time around, but only with careful consideration of all the points above. To give yourself a bathroom you can enjoy for many years to come, don’t make these 8 mistakes!