5 Ways to Cut Cost on your House Remodel

by Vivek Choudhary Nice life

Busting the budget is everyone's longest fear when it becomes to home remodels and with good cause.

Even if you catch the primary advice we've been doling out for years—build in a 20 percent cushion to cover the dangerous surprises, get renovation contractor recommendations and review them, dismiss the words "while you're at it" from your lexicon—it's difficult not to finish up shelling out more than you desire to.

With some important reasons about design, materials, and timing, you can cut costs outdoors by cutting corners. Below, we'll bestow you the methods, from the big to something as small as picking a wall sconce over a recessed light.

But another celestial truth about home renovation is that every little thing adds up. So another important consideration to start with is to decide whether or not to demolish the whole house and start from scratch.

1. Increase Efficiency, Not Size

If you can reorganize and equip your kitchen for maximum utility, you may not need to blow out the walls to gain square footage. Instead, start by replacing space-hogging shelves with cabinet-height pullout drawers 8 inches wide, containing racks for canned goods and other items.

You're getting three or more horizontal planes where you might otherwise get only one.

You could easily shell out a few thousand to outfit cabinets with upgrades like dividers, pull-out pot trays, and lazy Susans, but you'll save many times that amount by skipping the addition you thought you needed.

2. Bring in Natural Light without Adding Windows

Before cutting a big hole in the side of your house and rearranging the framing, consider less invasive—and less expensive—ways of capturing light.

For instance, to brighten up a windowless bath or hallway, you can install a "light tube," which slips between roof rafters and funnels sunshine down into the living space.

3. Hit the Recycling Center

Do-it-yourselfers can reap big savings with recycled or lightly used fixtures and building materials. For example, habitat for Humanity operates about 400 nationwide, offering salvaged materials at half off home-center prices.

Many house renovation contractor won't work with salvaged items or homeowner-supplied materials in general, because they don't want to assume liability if something goes wrong.

That said, if you're doing your work, you can find anything from prehung doors to acrylic skylights to partial bundles of insulation.

4. Donate your Trash

Before you begin a house renovation job, invite the local for chapter to remove materials and fixtures for later resale. We can do a total takedown or do a cherry-pick job and take the cabinets, the tub, the sink, and so on.

You save space in the landfill, collect a charitable tax credit for the donation, and help a good cause.

5. Do Your Own Demo

Knocking down your home may not be as costly as rebuilding; you can still shave dollars by doing some of the demolition yourself—as long as you proceed with care.

A reckless wrecker might unwittingly take out a load-bearing wall or, worse still, plunge a reciprocating saw into live wiring or pressurized plumbing.