How do you make the right decisions when renovating or building your home?

Here’s 3 top tips for improving your decision-making in your reno or new build.

Renovating or building your home can feel like one big choice – the decision to actually go ahead and do it.

However, it’s a series of decisions, and each one will lead you to the next. 

And one of the biggest challenges with it, is that you can end up 3 or 4 (or 30 or 40 steps) down the wrong pathway, only to find you’re in the wrong spot. 

And then it can be time-consuming, stressful and expensive to course-correct at that point.

On this journey, they say you make something like 15,000 choices when building or renovating a home (I suspect it can be even more!)

From the big decisions (like who you’ll work with and how much you’ll spend), through to the smaller decisions (like what colour should the front door be LOL!), it can be A LOT for the uninitiated.

So, in this blog, I’m sharing the 3 top tips for improving how you choose (and the quality of choices you make) in your reno or new build:

1. Create somewhere you can return to

Given you’ll be making so many choices in your project journey, it’s essential that you have a way of sifting and filtering through all the options. Otherwise, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and off-track.

Figure out what your big-picture goals are for your project. This can include your budget, your future lifestyle plans, and where this project fits into the overall vision you have for your life and finances. Determine your overall objectives so you can get to helicopter view when it feels like things are all over the place!

It also helps to have a framework for your overall project journey, so you understand the steps ahead. This will help you know whether choices can be delayed, or have some urgency. Set your priorities for what you value most, and provide yourself a place to come back to and check in with on an ongoing basis.

And get a team around you that you can trust and rely upon for great guidance and support – it can really make those many choices clearer overall.

2. What’s the ROI?

Every choice you make in your project can generally be assessed by its return on investment, or ROI.

The return may not always be financial – although many definitely are. Hiring a professional such as a designer or architect should always return more in savings or value than the cost of their fees.

Sometimes, the return may simply be in saving you stress, or insuring you against future drama or mistakes (both in and beyond your project). And some will purely be lifestyle returns in making your home feel more amazing, functional and long-lasting.

As you make your choices, assess your investment of time, money and effort in your project carefully, and consider what your ROI is, so you don’t waste that investment unintentionally.

3. Decision fatigue is real

Renovating and building is a marathon, and not a sprint. From start to finish, projects can go for two to three years, and that’s a LONG time to be making decisions, investing money and energy, and coordinating all the activities needed.

Many homeowners get to the pointy end of their project (the fun bit of deciding on finishes and fixtures and the stuff they’ve actually been looking forward to all along!!) and find they’re just exhausted by the thought of having to make another decision about something.

There’s some great ways to overcome this.

One is to bring forward your decision-making as much as possible. It manages risk during your build, will enable you to make choices when you have more energy and motivation, and can help you manage your budget overall.

Another way is to remove some or many of your options – which happens when you get clear on your goals (as I mentioned in Tip #1). For example, because designing for orientation is such a priority for me, it totally limits the number of options I explore when designing or advising on floor plans.

Getting guidance from those on your team, or impartial, experienced people, will also help with simplifying the decision-making. They can possess an objectivity that is super helpful – and as long as they understand your overall goals – can be a great source of help. 

I hope that helps with your project, and all the choices you’ll be making! Check out the resources below for more helpful information for your reno or new build planning. 

RESOURCES:

Three secrets we keep when building or renovating >>> LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Renovating to flip involves very different choices to do a family home – and a different mindset too >>> WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR MORE

Taking the right first steps when renovating or building >>>> LEARN HERE

What’s the difference between an architect, building designer and draftsperson? >>> LEARN MORE HERE