The true cost of home renovations and the importance of residential financial planning.
Storytime:
I live in a mining town that is influenced by annual production bonuses. The payment of these bonuses affect everything from when schools decide to hold fundraisers, to which way the traffic flows in the mall parking lot each September. (Bonus month)
This bonus driven economy has another consequence.
Patchwork Homes. The whole town is full of one-bonus-at-a-time homes. My previous house had no less than 6 different floor types and three different styles of window frames.
The kitchen alone had three different types of tiles. You crossed from white shiny porcelain to a rustic clay flagstone and finally all the way to glazed imitation terracotta tiles each time you moved between the fridge and microwave. It was less of a feast for the eyes and more of a nauseating binge of styles and design choices that made no sense…
Slow and steady
For the 6 years we lived there I spent each spare cent on “blanking out” the house. I redid the floors, one room at a time, and stripped and painted all the walls a mellow beige just to cleanse my palate.
The most important thing this house told me, was to work with a plan, draw up a budget and stick to it. I spent months obsessing over the perfect neutral tile that could be taken all the way from the fridge to the front door. Because of my financial constraints as a new homeowner, this tile needed to be timeless, but most importantly it needed to be available year after year, so that for each next project I saved up for, I could walk into my local tile shop and order more of the same
In the end the house was “blanked out” and what followed was a wonderful year of “colouring in” our living space. And of course, as luck would have it, I removed the last strip of masking tape from a freshly painted hallway and two weeks later we moved away. (That’s a story for another day…)
Home renovations are exciting and something to look forward too, but often times people jump into them without realising exactly what the final cost will be.
(This is how you end up with 6 different tiles in one house.)
Estimates vary, but south African home renovations are priced at anywhere between R6000/m2 to R12 000/m2 or about R5000 to R20 000 per room for basic cosmetic renovations.
Once you move into more large scale or even structural renovations or extensions, the price can quickly go up into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of rands, depending on your material costs. (Carrara marble countertops and hardwood floors are not for the faint hearted.)
The sudden escalation in cost when it comes to home renovations have caught many a homeowner off guard. We all know the horror stories of that friend of a friend who started a renovation or new build and ran out of money.
The Art of the Deal
Ensure that you don’t become a cautionary tale around the braai by being level-headed and honest with yourself. As much as I wanted to get in an architect and redo my entire home in one go, I decided to work bit by bit and dust of my negotiating skills. I got quotes for new projects, negotiated for these quotes to be valid for 12 months (most contractors will allow this within reason) and saved up every cent to be able to complete these projects without going into more debt. Because I was a repeat customer at so many of my local building supply shops I could also negotiate for slightly lower prices or free deliver – every cent helped.
Yes, it took longer, and yes, I had to deal with the kitchen tile mosaic situation for a whole three years, but in the end the house started coming together, my careful plan and vision delivered and piece by piece the patchwork house became home.
Plan for your plan
As much as you need plans (actual building plans) to successfully renovate or extend/improve your home, you also need to plan for those plans. Going blindly into debt and unintentionally overcapitalizing on a property that doesn’t justify it, can lead to financial troubles down the road.
