Renovation Project: January 2009

Saturday, January 24, 2009

home improvement stores

lowes, homedepot, target, sears, home expo, ikea, contractors warehouse are just few of my favorite stores we used for renovation.

One advantage of renovating a house vs. buying a new house is you can renovate your house according to your own style. You can put fixtures that are according to your taste rather than buying a house that was designed by other people.

Another benefit is you can build the house according to your needs and customize the house in a way you will be more comfortable. Like for example, I don't like to see too much mess in my room so I decided to put a dresser in the bathroom to hide my make ups and other stuff. Also when I'm changing my clothes, most of the times I need to choose from several clothes so having my closet inside the bathroom have save me lots of time. Placing the laundry room away from my room also help me sleep better especially I sleep during day time.

While renovating the house there were times that I wished I should have just bought a new house because buying lights, door knobs and other little things is a headache. Plus having a choice sometimes can make you exceed more than your budget. Most of the time you will choose the prettiest thing you can see for your house usually they are the most expensive things you can see in the shelves. I didn't like it when I need to settle for the second best or the cheapest one because of budget. Now that I am starting to pay the bills I wished I just bought the cheapest one.

The biggest remorse I made is financially. Overall the renovation is not that expensive, but I wished I tried to budget tighter. But who will not choose the best things if you were given the choice right? So if we bought the house already assembled, no need for renovations or fixing anything, then there will be no more decisions to make as to what things to put in the house like hard wood vs. tiles or laminate, big living room vs. small, best equipment vs. affordable, save vs. spend. (But I don’t think I will have the same attachment to other house compared to this house we made.)

Another problem we encountered during renovation was inconvenience. We were all sick from the dust and it was very cold because there were open areas in our house. We even experienced sleeping with the ceiling open. I will never sleep again in a house during renovation.

Another nuisance was not having a kitchen. It was very costly buying food from outside and when we tried to cook with a portable stove I don't think it’s very hygienic, owing to the dust and debris flying around. Even though we are happy with the overall result of the renovation it’s inevitable that there will be things that you have an aversion to and buying a brand new house is preeminent.

At the end having a nice house that pleased your lifestyle is what matters and of course budget. It’s just a matter of contemplating with the pros and cons and which one you are willing to deal with.

I am delighted we renovated our house in view of the fact that I don't think I'll find a house like the house we have. It’s not the nicest house you can have but I can definitely say it’s our house and it’s the house that we put together. And looking at the fixtures, the cabinet and other part of the house makes you happy because I can proudly say I choose that. And we didn’t just point out things to put in the house, we researched, we read, we went to different stores, got some headaches and work really hard to reckon what is best.

Sometimes I wonder who will be the next person to live in this house. Will it be our kids or grandkids. I hope they will know I designed some of the things in the house. Or are we going to sell the house someday...whoever will buy, I hope they will be happy with the choices we made. If not I will hunt them when I’m dead hehehe

YOUTUBE ideas about home solution

Friday, January 23, 2009

next topic

When I get a chance I will talk about

1. Mistakes we made on our renovations
2.How we could have save money with our renovation.
3. Home improvement ideas.
4. My future renovation and homeimprovement project
5.

Feel free to let me know what other topic you want to be
discussed related to home renovations and home improvements

in the meantime enjoy browsing my blog :)

home renovation project

Many people wish to find their dream home only to come up empty.

So instead of looking for another house we decided to keep our house and renovate it instead.

We renovate the house to something that reflect our distinct style, all within our budget. Well we spend a little more than what we planned.

So our family put together ideas and talked how we want our house to be.

We started our renovation project last December 2008.

It was a very tidious process. I did a lot of research over the internet

searching for nice houses and designs.

I spend most of my time with HGTV.com, then I tried to show to our contractor what we wanted the house to look like by showing a house I created at sims city deluxe.

Sim city is my favorite game,

Its a game where you design your house from scratch.

You pick the wall, layout your plan and decorate it with accessories like plants, curtains and other stuff that we used in real life.

It was a fun game for me because I can use my creativity

and I can visualize my dream house.

I didnt expect though that aside from the fun the game gives me,

it actually has a useful purpose in real life.

It helped me arrange my furniture, where to put the windows,

where the bathroom and kitchen should be, where to place the bathroom cabinet,

the jacuzzi .

Choosing the area for dinning was the most difficult

part of the project because me and my mom wants a big living room.

Sim city has helped me solved this problem

after trying to place the dining table to different areas of the house.

Another problem we encountered was where to put the kitchen.

After trying several areas we finally figure out the best location for our kitchen. We decided to make the kitchen and living room a one big open area

and it created a big open space that is good for entertaining.

When I get a chance I will post some of the pictures of the house I created at sims city.