48 things people forget to include when renovating or remodeling
If you aren't experienced with renovating (remodeling) then it can be easy to overlook functional things that will improve your home and make it easier to live in.
Over my years working with clients and renovating seven of my own houses there’s lots of handy tips and tricks I’ve learned about the functional things that make a home so much better to live in.
Today I want to share a brain dump of items I have thought of that I hope help you not make some of the mistakes I made in my own projects early on :)
48 things people forget to include when renovating or remodeling
OK here’s my list! It’s just a random brain dump of things so there’s no particular order to any of this!
Hidden power for charging iPads/phones and electronics (to keep them off the kitchen bench!)
A place to store school bags - if you have the space a cubby for each child where they can hang school stuff, put hats away, store their sporting equipment, put their school bags away is SO helpful
A place for the ironing board to be put away - otherwise it ends up tucked next to the fridge, which I’ve seen soooo many times!
Power in the laundry for charging the stick or hand vacuum (inside a cupboard ideally!) - this one is a game changer and you can then run the stick vacuum around the kitchen each evening to stay on top of cleaning.
Drop zone near entry doors (including both front door and a backdoor or garage entry if you have it) - a place for handbags, shoes or somewhere to drop coins, keys, phones and (these days!) COVID masks. If you don’t have a drop zone then you risk having these things dumped on the kitchen bench - trust me, that’s where my husband likes to put them unless we have a specific zone :)
Coat cupboard in hallway for when guests come over
Put in more power points than you think you will need - and think really carefully about the placement of these. Most people rush this decision but it’s a big one to take your time with
Make sure you don't have your toilet 'on show' in bathrooms - think about door swing, what you can see from hallways etc. and move the toilet out of sight if you can
Plan for ugly things to be out of sight (e.g. I always try to put bathroom underfloor heating controllers in the overhead cabinet)
Can you fit a 'mudroom' - e.g. for sports gear, shoes, coats and bags
Pull out bins in kitchens are the BEST and if you have a large family make sure you put in a large bin! Also remember your recycling sorting as well. There are some great pull out bin systems on the market.
Plan your lighting early! Not many people think of lighting early enough in their design. Think about task lighting (e.g. overhead) as well as ambient/mood lighting (e.g. wall lights or floor lamps) as lots of options will give you the opportunity to change the mood in any room.
Also think about natural daylight - where will it come from, do you need skylights, what sort of window dressings are best to ensure you don’t block light. Lighting can very often be the difference between a home just being functional vs stepping up to feeling really high end.
Plan your window dressings early - try and hide these in hidden bulkheads if possible. If you want curtains or blinds on motors then make sure you get these wired in as part of your electrical rough in (recommended!)
Put dimmers on your light switches - especially in living spaces and bedrooms - this will allow you to change the ambience of a room really easily
Make sure you know whether your fridge will need water before you close in your walls or pour your concrete slab
If you're hanging your TV then make sure you plan for this with your electrician so they can chase this through the wall and you don’t have ugly cables hanging down.
Also make sure you have somewhere to store your AV equipment so it's not sitting on the floor!
Put lights in your wardrobes and walk in pantry - will feel high end when it’s done and it’s not an expensive thing to add at the planning stage. Put on motion sensors for even more practicality although be warned that motion sensors can get annoying and will turn on off every time someone walks past so just consider whether that’s what you want.
Plan the height of shelves around the things that will go in them. People typically forget:
a space for their laundry bucket
a space for their electric toothbrush
make their shower niches too small for tall shampoo bottles
Don't install a fridge right next to a wall if you can avoid it - the door will never open properly and handle will bang on wall and dent it (especially if you have rough boys living in your house like I do!)
Add skylights if your house is too dark
If you have a large family try to have more than one living area - you'll thank me later!
If you lay a new floor over an existing floor you will either need 'beading' around the edges (budget finish) or you will need to remove the skirting and replace (higher end finish).
Make sure you have power next to the beds - ideally with USB adaptors for charging devices.
When installing electrical sockets/power points make sure they aren’t too close to the floor as many plugs these days are quite large and they won’t fit if the socket is too close to the floor
Duct your range hood externally wherever possible
A drying rack in the laundry to hang delicate clothes on when it’s raining (e.g. clothes that can’t go in the dryer). Otherwise your living room will become the winter drying room!!
Pro tip for your laundry is to add underfloor heating so you can use this as a drying room in winter - a luxury addition but has been a game changer in houses where we’ve done this.
Make sure you double check tile measurements or you risk ending up with tiles from different batches (which can have colour variation). Same goes for carpet.
Plan for your pet - where will their stuff be stored?? Check out Pinterest for some awesome ideas for incorporating your pet in to your design (including built in joinery/millwork in laundries and all sorts of things!)
Think about which way internal doors open and what you see as doors open. Sometimes pocket doors/sliding doors can help make a room feel larger. Sometimes just switching the way a door swings makes the world of difference to a room.
Make sure you have bench space somewhere near your oven so you can place hot trays down easily
Think about how different types of doors will open in kitchen. For example:
fridge next to wall normally results in the door handle banging on wall constantly
ovens next to fridge often get in the way of each other
ensure you’ve got good space between banks of cabinetry. I like to do 1200mm if I can. This means you can have drawers on both sides open at same time without them knocking each other and two people can also stand comfortably (e.g. if you have cooktop on one side and sink on the other)
make sure you don’t choose large handles if you have cabinetry next to a wall - they will bang and dent the wall the entire time
if you have a walk in pantry will the door swing open and hit people if they are coming in/out of it?
think about functionality when deciding which ways cabinet doors swing
Do you want a built in sound system? I personally don’t ever put these in as the technology is changing so fast and you don’t want to be stuck with something that’s out of date next year - but something to consider. There’s so many nice looking portable speakers on the market these days so I personally prefer those.
Somewhere to hide paperwork, bills, kids art that isn’t your kitchen bench!!
Put lights on different switch groupings so you can change the ambience of a room by having different groupings on at a time.
Also think about double switching your lights where this will be helpful - e.g. in long corridors have a switch for the lights at both ends
Add a few electrical sockets/power points outside for random power needs - e.g. leaf blower, Christmas decorations
Think about lighting in your bathrooms so weird shadows aren’t caused when trying to apply makeup etc. A mix of front facing lighting (e.g. wall lights), overheads plus really good natural light are important in a bathroom. Overhead lights can cause nasty shadows if not placed in the correct location.
Add structural noggins in gyprock walls for heavy things like TV mounting, mirrors, wall hung vanities or heavy artworks. These can be difficult to hang later on if the appropriate structure isn’t there. This is specifically for gyprock/dry wall as brick walls are inherently strong.
If you have people in your family or who will visit often with accessibility issues then make your internal doors wider so walkers and wheelchairs can easily fit through (e.g. if you have older parents or family members in wheelchairs like I have).
If you like a bin in the bathroom then incorporate this in to the cabinetry with small pull out bins - nothing more ugly than those bathroom bins on the floor of a brand new, high end bathroom!
Take a lot of time to carefully plan the internals of all your joinery and millwork. Think about what sort of storage you need and don’t rush this step. Fro example:
hanging, folded, drawers, toy storage for wardrobes.
In kitchen think about narrow shelves for spices, where all your pans will go, do you have somewhere for all your baking trays that’s near the oven? - make sure you have a place for everything you use and need to store.
in laundry make sure you have tall storage (ironing board and vacuum) plus pull out bins for laundry sorting/ironing
in playroom think about all the toys and books your kids have and make sure there is somewhere for everything to be put away
Think about where your microwave will go - sometimes people forget this and it ends up on the kitchen bench! Same for coffee machine.
Do you need 2 sinks in your kitchen? Some consider it a nice to have but it can be nice to have a prep sink and a bar sink if you have the luxury of space
Consider your sound proofing throughout the house. For example:
do you want your main bedroom soundproofed (for reasons I’m sure we can all use our imagination for LOL!)
insulate well between lower levels and upstairs floors
soundproof media rooms
soundproof bathrooms - especially guest toilets that might be in more ‘public’ spaces (again I’m sure we can all picture why this might be important for our guests!)
if you have older kids you may like to soundproof their rooms as well so when they are up late and you want to sleep they don’t keep you awake
A place to capture dirty laundry. For example:
pull out laundry bins in the laundry itself (ideally include colour sorting option as well)
somewhere near kids’ bedrooms or bathrooms for them to put their dirty clothes before it makes its way to the laundry
somewhere in the main bedroom to put dirty clothes before it goes to the laundry
OK so that’s my brain dump of things I can think of so I hope that’s helpful….but I’m sure there’s lots of others as well!
So if you have something you’ve included in your own project that has been a game changer for you then PLEASE comment below and let me know! I would love to hear more ideas :)
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Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
