Quick and inexpensive do-it-yourself apartment renovation

In detail: a quick and inexpensive do-it-yourself apartment repair from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

Repair in the apartment is now an expensive pleasure. Some save up for it for years, while others give away their last savings and fall into a debt hole. Regardless of the financial situation, everyone is trying to save money, but in practice, not everyone succeeds in doing this. We will analyze what materials you can save on, and which ones are better not to, and learn how to expose hired repairmen who are trying to cash in on the ignorance of the owners.

The final estimate will depend on the type, size of the room and the complexity of the repair. There are three types of repairs: cosmetic, major and renovation. The cosmetic option is the most economical. This repair usually includes painting, wallpapering, floor sanding. Such work is easy to do with your own hands, saving on calling a specialist. If some specialized tool is missing, it is not worth purchasing it for one-time purposes. Rent it. Make a preliminary estimate for repairs in order to adjust it in advance and find cheaper options. When deciding to hire a private specialist, redecorating an apartment will cost you, on average, 1,500 rubles per 1 m 2, and through a construction company - 2–2.5 times more expensive.

It is much more difficult to make major repairs on your own, since many of the works require special skills and abilities. Stages of such repair: rough finish, floor screed, leveling walls, demolition and installation of partitions, dismantling of the old coating and decoration, complete replacement of water pipes, plumbing and electrical wiring, replacement of windows, doors, garbage disposal. The price for calling a master during a major overhaul increases to 6,000–15,000 rubles per 1 m 2. And that's not counting the cost of consumables.

Video (click to play).

Here are four tips to help you save money on major repairs:

1. Remove old wallpaper, tiles, dismantle the flooring, clean and take out the garbage yourself. Such work does not require special skills and tools, and the savings are significant - 5000-8000 per 1 m 2.
2. Do not rush to spend money on finishing an expensive ceiling. Just level and paint it with inexpensive chalk paint. When money appears, sheathe the ceiling with drywall or make a stretch ceiling.
3. Do not remove plaster completely. Remove it only in those places where it exfoliates. However, take into account the peculiarity of the finish. If you plan to stick photo wallpaper, the surface must be perfectly flat. It may be necessary to completely replace the plaster, in which case it will not be possible to save money.
4. In order not to waste time on paperwork and extra money for garbage disposal, collect the waste in bags and send it to the basement, shed or leave it on the stairwell in a specially designated place, it is provided. Throw away one bag every day in the general trash can, there is nothing illegal about it.

Renovation practically does not differ from capital repairs. The cost increases due to the purchase of expensive and natural materials from well-known manufacturers. The price of materials is automatically reflected in the cost of the master's work, which starts from 25,000 rubles per 1 m 2. .

If you decide to involve an experienced team of repairmen in the repair, be prepared that you may be deceived. To test this for sure, pay attention to a few important features. The information will be useful for both beginners and experienced homeowners who decide to start a renovation.

Preliminary estimate for apartment renovation

To display the exact cost of repair work, the foreman measures the parameters of your room with his tape measure. It seems that everything is fine and there can be no catch. In this case, we recommend that you give your own tape measure for measurements. Often, cunning repairmen cut the tape measure, for example, by 50 cm, and fasten it to another part of the tape, stepping back 20-30 cm or more. From a real size, for example, 2 m, your room increases to 2.3 m and, accordingly, the price increases, because the cost of work is calculated based on 1 m 2.

Upon receipt of the estimate, carefully study all positions. Often, repairmen duplicate the cost of services under the guise of other work. For example, leveling walls - preparing walls for wallpaper. Read each item carefully so as not to overpay.

Pay attention to the price for 1 m 2. Compare it with other construction companies and individuals beforehand. Prices below average should alert you. Usually, in the course of work, the repairmen who initially offered you a low price raise it and ask you to pay extra for additional services. The owner gets into a dead end, as the work is already in progress, and the estimate is automatically increased by 2-3 times.

Saving materials and increasing the cost of work is another trick used by dishonest repairmen. For example, you can put a 1 cm layer of plaster for the price of 3-4 cm, shorten the planned route for laying electrical cables or plumbing pipes, and take the rest of the material for yourself. In fact, you are overpaying for material that does not “work” for you. To avoid such mistakes when performing a turnkey repair, ask the repairmen to photograph the completed work process in detail in stages and send it to you by mail.

If you decide to put a warm floor, remember that it is not placed around the entire perimeter of the room. An unscrupulous foreman will offer you to put a warm floor under the furniture, where it is absolutely not needed, which will also increase the cost of the project.

Complete wiring replacement is another service that almost every foreman will offer you without making sure that you really need it. You can make good money on old wiring made of copper and aluminum cores.

And the last piece of advice: buy materials yourself, do not trust this business to the repair team. As a rule, they buy building materials in the market, where the storage conditions for many goods do not meet the standards. In addition, there repairmen can ask for a blank receipt with a seal, enter a list of goods themselves and their cost with an extra charge.

It is better to start repairs in the off-season - in early or mid-autumn. This period is suitable for both external and internal repairs. It is still warm outside, and prices for building materials are gradually decreasing by the winter season. Savings on summer goods reach 15-20% without loss of quality. Therefore, if you were planning to spend 250,000 rubles to renovate a room, know that in the fall and winter you can save about 30,000 rubles, which can be spent on renovating the hallway.

Promotions and special offers are a special type of service where you can save. Pay attention to non-liquids. They have a limited shelf life and do not last until the next season. Hardware stores do a good discount on such goods. If you are going to make repairs right now, look at putty, plaster, glue, sealant at a bargain price, below the market average.

Replacing plumbing affects a significant part of the repair budget. If it is in good condition, without chips, cracks, and only the surface with an old coating makes you think about its dismantling, we advise you to clean and restore the plumbing. We replace expensive detergents with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar, which destroys stubborn plaque well. The budget option for the transformation is the restoration of the bath. You can cover the bath yourself with enamel, liquid acrylic or order an acrylic liner to fit the dimensions of your plumbing.Restoration will reduce the cost of buying a new bathtub by about 4 times and, depending on the option chosen, will extend the life of the old bathtub from 5 to 20 years.

Replacement of plumbing elements

If you still decide to change plumbing, consider buying a budget option from the so-called landfill entrepreneurs. Often, upon arrival at a new house, the owners change faience and cast-iron plumbing, which is in good condition, and throw it into a landfill. Resourceful businessmen have come up with an easy way to quickly and easily make money on this. They pick up plumbing in good condition from the landfill, wash and put it in order. They do not expose their contacts directly, working on the principle of word of mouth. In the auxiliary warehouse of such entrepreneurs, you can choose the right plumbing and save a third or even half of the factory cost.

Laying the floor is one of the most important stages in the repair of an apartment.

To save money when cladding walls, we advise you to buy not edged (planed) lumber, but slabs (wood sawing waste). The croaker is sold raw and does not correspond to the quality of the usual materials. It is easy to fix this if you purchase it in advance in March-April and keep it in a dry room until autumn. In addition, slab sheathing saves money on leveling walls. In 80% of cases, it completely hides all the irregularities. Not only to save money, but also to make wall decoration practical, the option of wall cladding with croaker to the waist and pasting the walls to the ceiling with non-woven wallpaper will help. The lower part is resistant to wear and dirt, and the upper one completes the overall picture.

The most budget option for laying the floor in dry rooms is marmoleum. This material requires leveling the floor in only 10% of cases. However, for rooms with high humidity (bathrooms) marmoleum is not suitable, you will have to lay classic tiles. An alternative to marmoleum is laminate. This option is also inexpensive, looks beautiful and is suitable for laying under a plank floor. True, the floor will have to be leveled.

For wall decoration in the bathroom, choose laminated hardboard. Such material is less familiar than tile, but cheaper. The ceiling is better sheathed with plastic panels. Don't skimp on waterproofing. The money spent on it will pay off and extend the life of even the cheapest finishing materials. Instead of gypsum plaster, use a cement-plaster mixture to level the walls. It is not inferior in quality and is cheaper. When deciding to tile walls and floors, buy a solid color finish. Such a tile does not need to be often adjusted and compared with the pattern, less material is used, which is automatically reflected in the purchase price.

When carrying out major and European-style repairs, it is impossible to do without replacing the wiring. At this event, it is better not to save money and entrust the work to a professional. It is especially important to pay attention to Soviet wiring due to the high power of modern devices, which sometimes the old cable cannot withstand. During the replacement, you will have to ditch the walls with a wall chaser in order to lay new wiring with high quality. Workers charge for this service from 100 rubles per 1 m 2.

A complete replacement of wiring in a two-room apartment, on average, will cost 40,000 rubles. A private specialist may take less, but he does not give a guarantee for installation, so if a malfunction occurs, you will have to pay the master again for the work. To save money, we advise you to contact an electrician from the DEZ. Such a specialist performs the work slowly as the workload, however, the quality and guarantee of service is a definite plus for choosing this particular master. But sockets and switches can be installed independently.Wiring - an element on which you should not saveAnother job that you need to involve a specialist and not save: replacing plumbing pipes. Choose your supplies according to your budget.Attracting a plumber will cost, on average, 15,000–20,000 rubles. If you do not have experience in connecting plumbing, we also recommend that you seek help from a specialist. Image - Quick and inexpensive do-it-yourself apartment renovation

Quick and inexpensive do-it-yourself home repairs

Repair is a sore subject for most owners of country houses and apartments. It often takes a lot of investment and effort to give rooms a stylish modern look. Do not know, how to make repairs in the apartment do it yourself cheap and fast? Replacing windows, painting the ceiling, re-gluing wallpaper, covering the floor - all this can be done without outside help quickly and inexpensively. With the right selection of materials and the application of a little more effort, you can make high-quality and beautiful repairs with modern finishes.

The area that requires the participation of a specialist if repair or replacement is necessary is electricity. The most economical option in this case is to call a specialist. Installation of sockets in the apartment can be carried out without his help. The tool for repairing the apartment is the cheapest to rent.

Photo inexpensive ceiling repair

Before starting an inexpensive repair, first of all, a suitable design is determined and a plan is made. The best time for repairs is autumn. In warm weather, facade work is carried out, and internal work is carried out with open windows.

In addition, material prices are always reduced by 15% by autumn. Many materials, such as putty, plaster, sealant, mounting adhesive, leveling screed, have a limited shelf life, and the store sells it at a big discount by the fall.

Photo of an inexpensive room renovation

If it is necessary to replace old plumbing during a quick repair, you can try to restore the old one, but if this is not possible due to significant damage, chips, you can buy plumbing from hand. Many new settlers in apartment buildings change new equipment immediately after settling in, and the equipment, leaving for a landfill, is sold by employees of this organization at a bargain price.

Photo of a bathroom before inexpensive repairs

The removal of construction packages, garbage is a rather expensive repair item in the apartment, but if you wish, you can take everything in bags to the nearest trash can.

Plywood, beams, slats, boards can be bought at the building materials market. Reiki for sheathing can be taken in a non-planed form. The croaker is bought raw in advance and dried. By the fall, this material, when purchased in the spring, completely dries up. Plywood of the required thickness can be taken from waste packaging material (containers). Water resistance of the material can be given with the help of two buckets of PVA-based putty.

Photo inexpensive renovation in the bathroom

The floor is covered with foil. The temperature should not fall below thirteen degrees. The sheet is laid out. Putty is poured into the center and accelerated to the ends with a paint brush. The plywood sheet is covered with plastic, another sheet is laid, the puttying process is repeated until all sheets are covered.

Photo inexpensive repairs in the house

Oppression is laid on a stack of putty plywood (over the entire surface). A week later, the sheets are turned over and puttied on the other side, then they are also pressed. After two weeks, moisture-resistant plywood can be used. Thick timber, boards can also be taken from disassembled containers, pallets. An inexpensive option for finishing walls, ceilings, this is surface cladding with laminate, MDF.

Beautiful and inexpensive bathroom renovation

If the slab is sewn on a wooden crate, surface leveling is practically not necessary. Wall cladding in an apartment can be done at chest or waist level, the remaining space can be finished inexpensively and quickly with non-woven wallpaper.

An economical type of flooring in an apartment is marmoleum. This material is not suitable for wet rooms. For a bath, a toilet, any variant of the tile is used. When using a laminate, the floor must be leveled before laying.For the walls in the bathroom, you can use laminated hardboard.

Photo of inexpensive flooring in the apartment

If necessary, insulation, glazing of the balcony, this is done in the spring. The outer part is sheathed with siding. The inner part is finished with plywood with a self-adhesive film pasted over the surface. Wooden frames are used for windows, which can be installed independently. Windows are purchased in early spring, installation is closer to summer.

How to start an inexpensive repair

Doors can be simply updated. The door is sheathed on both sides with moisture-resistant plywood. Plywood is glued to the removed door with mounting glue, then everything is laid under pressure. Before gluing the sheets, the old lining is removed from the door. After the door in the apartment is pasted over with self-adhesive wood, varnished. The slopes are covered with the same plywood.

Old plumbing is cheaply cleaned of dirt with acetic acid and washing powder. For persistent stains, hydrochloric (technical) acid is used for quick removal. Cracked tiles are fairly easy to repair. First, it is cleaned with pemolux and vinegar.

The edges are closed with masking tape. The seams are painted with two layers (from a spray gun) of nitro paint. Splashes, streaks are removed with a solvent, the tape is removed.

Photo of a beautiful inexpensive bedroom renovation

Tiles and joints after cleaning are sprayed with silicone grease (liquid) from a can. Lubricant is applied until it is no longer absorbed. After three days, the silicone surface is wiped with vinegar. A cast iron bathtub can get a second life after painting with an epoxy or acrylic compound. The heated towel rail in the bath is cleaned to a metal surface and covered with a compound.

Useful article: DIY liquid wallpaper, paper making

Before repair, it is better to view the photo, then make a plan and get to work. You can also give the apartment an attractive appearance with the help of inexpensive repairs, which are done quickly enough.

Few people have the opportunity to order turnkey repairs and spend large sums on finishing an apartment. Fortunately, today there are a large number of ways to save on renovation repairs by doing it yourself. In this material, we have selected the best recommendations for those who want to make inexpensive, but high-quality repairs at home.

Budget repairs include mainly finishing work, updating the ceiling and floor. If the estimate allows, windows, interior doors, plumbing elements are also subject to replacement. Capital changes in the space of the apartment in the mode of saving money are not recommended. Such work should be carried out by professional craftsmen with experience in repair work, otherwise there is a risk of spoiling the appearance of the room by making errors in the calculations or running into low-quality building materials.

How to make an inexpensive DIY repair? First you need to determine what work will need to be done in the process. The standard stages of a budget room decoration are as follows:

Drawing up a work plan and estimates based on your budget;
Choice of building materials;
Preparation of the room for repair work;
Rough wall finishing and floor filling (if work is being done in a new apartment);
Wallpapering, flooring installation, ceiling finishing;
Arrangement of furniture, lamps, decorative elements.

As you can see, all these works can be done independently, with little skills in the field of construction and repair.

Following the instructions above, repairs should begin with the preparation of an estimate and the selection of suitable building materials. The estimate must be drawn up sequentially for the decoration of each room and a specific type of work. You should not buy materials with the hope that they will someday come in handy - you should proceed solely from the repair plan and budget.

The first stage of the repair also includes the release of the future room from furniture, decorative elements and part of the decoration. There should not be anything left in the room that will interfere underfoot or may deteriorate during the repair. If there are old wallpapers hanging in the room, they must be removed and preparatory measures should be taken for finishing the walls, the same applies to the floor and ceilings.

When purchasing building materials, you should not limit yourself to visiting one store - you should take into account all inexpensive centers in your city. The assortment in them can be strikingly different, as well as the prices for the same type of product. Of course, with a budget repair, it is better to turn to the most advantageous offers. You can greatly facilitate your task and save money by ordering building materials in online stores with delivery.

When choosing budget building materials, it is worth remembering one rule: what looks expensive is not always of high quality. You should not buy cheap materials that imitate wood, stone or tiles just because of their appearance. It is necessary to pay attention to the technical and operational characteristics of the goods.

Finishing in different rooms of the house has its own characteristics. Therefore, before starting repairs, you need to decide which rooms are in particular need of updating the appearance. In the living room, bedroom, nursery and hallway, inexpensive do-it-yourself repairs may include the following types of work:

Putty and plaster walls;
Pasting new wallpaper;
Wall painting;
Assembly or laying of flooring;
Ceiling finishing.

Finishing work in the kitchen and bathroom also includes:

Floor and wall decoration with ceramic tiles;
Surface treatment with water-repellent compounds.

Here we have listed the types of repair activities that you can carry out on your own, with some skills in the field of construction. However, it is often necessary to do such work indoors that should be handed over to professional craftsmen:

installation of suspended ceilings;
replacement of plastic windows;
electrical and plumbing repairs.

Although the listed works cannot be classified as economical (due to the use of additional labor and building materials), if necessary, they can also be carried out as part of an inexpensive repair.

In addition to refusing complex installation work and saving on building materials, there are other tricks that will help reduce the cost of repairs in an apartment. At the same time, the finish and interior will have an excellent appearance.

Still think that a budget do-it-yourself finish cannot look stylish and expensive? In our gallery, we picked up photos of inexpensive repairs that convincingly prove the opposite.

If you want to better understand how to make inexpensive repairs in an apartment in practice, we suggest watching a video with the process of finishing work on a real object.

Making repairs with a limited budget with your own hands is quite difficult, but doable. The main thing is not to be afraid of bold decisions, use modern and high-quality materials, and act according to the plan. And thanks to the tips listed above, you can reduce the estimate for expensive repairs.

1. A good mine in a bad game.

100% polyester silk. Stone-like tiles, parquet-like linoleum, onyx-like laminate, Trekhgorka under Ralph Lauren. Porcelain stoneware "under the python". “Artificially aged” something there ... It’s embarrassing to even think about it. Alas, the number will not pass. Look through good interior magazines. There, everywhere, stone is stone, tile is nothing but tile, and wood is exactly what wood is. If there is no money for parquet, and a simple laminate is beneath your dignity, look for a good engineering board. As a result, you will get a floor that looks much more expensive than the money spent on it. A good alternative to porcelain tiles for kitchens, bathrooms and hallways is cement tiles. The result will look more expensive a hundred times.

2. Leave the ceiling alone.

Everyone has become obsessed with ceilings! If you think sensibly, riveting attention to the ceiling, you only remind everyone of its existence. And according to his height. Ceilings with a height of two sixty will not turn, even if they crack, into majestic vaults melting somewhere in an unthinkable height. This cannot be, no matter what the "decorator tricks" promise you. Just accept it. Tall doorways can do a lot more for your home than a ridiculous five-layer neon ceiling. Let the interior doors be two, say, twenty high. And lower the door handles a little, five to seven centimeters. Having shown a non-standard approach, you will be pleasantly surprised by the result.

3. Choosing paint for the walls, consider the movement of color around the house.

Adjacent rooms should contrast. If you have a bright living room, consider painting the entryway a deep, relatively dark color. In any case, the cost of paint will be the same, and the result may look really expensive.

4. Buy modular laminate cabinets from the store, and order the doors to them in a good carpentry workshop.

This will give you significant savings, which, however, no one will ever notice. The same is true for kitchen equipment.

5. If you still purchase ready-made cabinet furniture, let the facade veneer be dark, and the door panels simple (rectangular).

Remember: light wood always looks cheaper. Avoid yellowish and reddish shades of veneer. And, saving on the furniture itself, splurge on good pens!

6. If there is no money for a good carpet, look for viscose carpet or mixed fibers, imitating a silk or wool pile carpet.

Choose the color and texture that suits you and order a piece of the size you need. For additional small money, its edges are swept with braid.

7. Plant the curtains on a thick lining.

Even inexpensive curtain fabric will seriously benefit from this. Look for fabrics that are three meters wide. This results in significant savings. If you are not ready to spend a lot, give up printed textiles (fabrics with a pattern). When cutting fabrics with a pattern, due to the need to properly join the fabrics, there are a lot of scraps. The more rapport, the more waste. Do not use curtain tape for curtains. Let the seamstress lay the "manual" folds. It's not that expensive, and the folds gathered on the braid look very cheap.

8. Set-headset-set. Identical things in the interior are allowed only in one case: if they are paired things that form a symmetrical composition. Chandeliers, table lamps and sconces from one set, leave those to whom God did not give imagination. He also - sets of upholstered furniture "sofa-two chairs" and similar tender sadness. For more details, see the next paragraph.

9. Ready-made solutions.

Bad news: there are none. At least for us. The shower room is built using the construction method because it is a room. Unless you run a student hostel or an underground massage parlor with a striptease, the shower stall (it's a sad structure of yellowish acrylic and skewed doors) will not work for you. Do not spend money on "designer" plumbing. Let the appearance of the sanitary equipment of the bathroom (kitchen, bathroom) be dictated by the function. Buy washbasins and faucets with simple shapes, without inappropriate decor. The toilet bowl should be invisible and cope with its duties. No one will love them, right?

10. Paintings, prints, prints, photographs and posters frame in simple but deep frames with glass and be sure to passe-partout.

Even a picture printed on a home inkjet printer (or a naive children's drawing) looks very significant in such a frame. Play with the size of the passe-partout. A small work in a very wide passe-partout looks very “designer”. And, by the way, cardboard for a passe-partout can be almost any color.

11. Comfort. Another collective fetish.

According to my observations, what is called “comfort” in our Palestinians is, in 99 percent of cases, poetic crampedness. In many ways, this is a bodily memory of a bygone childhood, of a warm and affectionate meager Soviet life with carpets teeming with saprophytes, a kind grandmother, Czechoslovak crystal and Dreiser, unread by anyone, in the polished Polish wall "Hanka". Moreover, expensive devilry such as a round bed with music and a minibar, a bar counter with a built-in aquarium, etc. will not add coziness. The same is true for such rich things as a lambrequin, a garland and a swag. Do not worry: in a good, thoughtful interior, coziness inevitably comes naturally. So…

12. ... Farewell, Gypsy Sera!

Duvet covers made of coarse calico in a small Nefertiti, towels in scarlet roses, pillowcases with “stray-eye” shades, nylon blankets with Shanghai leopards. All these are attributes of collective farm chic, forgive me for being direct. They don't add comfort. Motley coloring is often necessary for these things solely to hide their exceptionally lousy quality. Let the bed linen and bath towels be plain white (options: ivory, ecru). But from excellent Egyptian cotton.

13. However, with ivory, it is also important not to overdo it.

Peach, beige, sand... The average nuance range is good for chain hotels. Because their stencil interiors are bound to please everyone. Your interior should please you. After all, he is a manifestation of your essence, right? Pick up a fan-palette of any paint manufacturer. Do you feel a pleasant heaviness? These are your possibilities. Don't miss them!

The usual everyday business: the apartment clearly needs repair, but there is not enough money. How to make an inexpensive apartment renovation with your own hands? It seems to be the simplest, obvious way: surface cosmetic repairs. That is, plywood wallpaper, whitewashing the ceiling, painting, fixing the creaky floor; Possibly window replacement.

However, if you calculate the labor costs and consumption of materials, it turns out that by increasing labor costs by half, and spending money by a quarter, you can give the apartment a completely different look, and for a long time. How much you need to invest specifically depends on the prices in the region, but the general methods by which you can make an apartment cozy and elegant inexpensively are the same.

Saving money when repairing an apartment with your own hands is, like the Earth in ancient legends, on three whales and a slowly hurrying turtle under them:

We are not afraid of work. Nothing comes from nothing. Either money or labor.
Wherever possible, we do not change the capital, but the old one that has lost its appearance, but renew it.
We attribute the maximum savings to where it will not affect the quality of work and will not be visible.
We spread the costs of labor and money over time: having conceived repairs in the summer or autumn, we spend a year on preparation, and then we pile on and quickly do everything. To lay out 200-300 thousand rubles at once is a problem, but it is quite possible to break them up in parts for a year. In addition, there will be time to measure seven times - cut once.

The only area where you have to invite a specialist is the alteration and strengthening of electrical wiring if it is old and weak. Here the only way to save money is to negotiate with the DEZ electrician. He will do the work in pieces, in his spare time, but the likelihood of hack work will be even less than that of “branded” specialists: after all, he will then serve all this.

It is better not to save on electrics and wiring, however, some points, such as installing sockets, can be done independently.

A good specialized tool makes the job much easier and cheaper. But it's hard to buy. Therefore, it is better to rent a tool as needed. In terms of costs, it will come out a little if you decide in advance on the design and draw up an approximate work plan for yourself.

The best time of the year for self-renovation of an apartment is the beginning and middle of autumn.Still warm, you can do outdoor work, and indoor - with open windows. And at the same time, prices for building materials will already fall significantly on the eve of the winter calm. Savings without loss of quality can be up to 15% when selling summer non-liquid products. If, for example, 200 thousand are set aside for repairs, then the savings will be 30 thousand, and this is a hallway or a bathroom - “sweetie”.

Special mention should be made of illiquid assets. A significant proportion of the repair costs will be for finishing materials: plaster, putty, floor leveler, mounting adhesive, sealant. All of them have a limited shelf life, so construction companies, which obviously do not have leftovers from season to spring, are selling them at a bargain price. Therefore, in advance, look everywhere for announcements of the sale of building materials. Professionals do not need 50 kg of Aqualayer for leveling walls, which expires in a month, but you will have enough for two rooms. Savings will be 70-80 rubles. everything, but the hen pecks grain by grain.

For more ideas about saving on building materials, look here.

A sore point with independent cheap repairs is the replacement of plumbing. If it is still “alive”, only filthy, then it can be cleaned and painted. How to do this will be described below. But if there are chips and cracks, then, if you like it or not, you need to change it.

For such a case, here is some information for you: new settlers, especially in houses above the budget category, often start a major overhaul immediately upon entering, and excellent, completely new faience and cast-iron plumbing ends up in a landfill. Landfill operators (simply - landfill scavengers) have long turned this circumstance into a profitable business.

They do not make direct contact by office phone with strangers, but it is quite possible to get through to them using word of mouth methods. The rate is from a third to a half of the factory price for a household item. And do not think that they will take you to the dump and show you where it lies. In the back room you will be offered a choice of clean, carefully washed products, which you can sit down on at least immediately.

The next sore point is the removal of construction waste. The operation is not cheap, and requires paperwork. Exit: a basement, a barn, a cottage or a closet, and a few used bags of plastic sackcloth, bought for a penny. Construction waste does not turn sour and does not rot, it can then be poured into a container in a garbage dump in a bucket. There is nothing illegal in this.

For lathing, various ancillary work and sewing up large surfaces, you will need wooden slats and plywood. You can buy slats not planed, but slabs - waste from sawing industrial wood. The slab goes on sale raw, but if it is purchased in advance, in March-April, and kept in a dry room until autumn, it will not yield to edged lumber in terms of wood quality.

As for plywood, waste packaging plywood from dismantled used containers can be turned into waterproof in the following way:

We buy a 10 l canister or two PVA putties; it looks like very liquid PVA glue and is cheap.
We cover the floor in the country house, in the barn, in the attic or in some other non-residential premises with plastic film. The air temperature is not lower than +13 degrees.
We lay a sheet of plywood on the floor, pour a puddle of putty on its center and disperse it with a brush.
We cover the plywood with plastic, lay the next sheet, putty in the same way, etc.
We put heavier oppression on the PVA-impregnated foot of plywood; better - dispersed over the area: bricks, pieces of metal, concrete, an old TV, etc.
After a week, repeat the procedure, turning each sheet over.
After another two weeks, even waterproof plywood is ready for use. Additional exposure under oppression will improve its quality.

Boards and large pieces of thick timber can also be obtained from used containers - pallets for cargo. Advertisements for their sale are not uncommon.

A very economical repair option is to cover the walls and ceiling of living rooms with laminate; for economical owners richer - MDF. When sheathing on a wooden crate made of slabs, in 80% of cases it is not required to level the walls and ceiling, which already eliminates the high costs of labor and money.

You can save even more by sheathing the walls waist-deep or chest-deep, and pasting them up to the ceiling with non-woven wallpaper. The work is simplified and cheaper, and the bottom of the walls, which beats and gets dirty the most, will be reliably protected by resistant material.

The most economical option for flooring is marmoleum. Floor preparation for it is not required in 90% of cases. But marmoleum is not suitable for the bathroom and toilet; here you have to fork out for a tile, especially since it will take a little.

If you want to have a floor in the rooms that looks like a plank, then covering the floor with a laminate will not be much more expensive, but you may have to level the floor.

The walls in the bathroom can be covered with laminated hardboard instead of tiles - it is hygroscopic and does not require surface preparation.

If it is supposed to glaze and insulate the balcony, then it is better to do it separately from everything else and in advance: from the end of March to the beginning of May. Outside, the balcony is decorated with siding, but inside it can, instead of traditional MDF or lining, be sewn up with plywood, pasted over with self-adhesive film.

When deciding how to repair an apartment economically, you need to pay special attention to windows and doors: they account for a significant share of the costs. As for windows, here is the most economical option: self-installation of wooden window frames. It is more expedient to buy them in March-April, when prices for industrial wood fall, and to put them in late spring - early summer, when the tree dries out properly and shrinks. The technology for installing wooden windows in openings is quite accessible to a mediocre home master.

Doors would be better to update. Remember the self-made waterproof plywood? So both fronts of the door are sheathed with it, on mounting glue, laying the door removed from the hinges on a plastic litter and under oppression. At the same time, at the same time, you can cover the window in the interior door if it is not needed.

The door will become thicker. There are two options here:

Reinstalling loops is not the best way for the "lazy".
Remove the old lining from the door; it is most often made of building cardboard or thin fiberboard, and put a new, plywood frame on it. In this case, the broken corners immediately “leave”.

In both cases, the new door is pasted over with self-adhesive wood-like or with a different texture and varnished. And you will be surprised (pleasantly, of course) by her new look. And rigid plywood cheeks will provide doors durability. It is better to cover the slopes of the doorway with extensions from the same plywood: it will come out cheaper and more beautiful than re-plastering.

Dirty plumbing, if it is intact, needs to be cleaned. The rather expensive active detergents recommended for this can be replaced with much cheaper table vinegar - after all, it is also a weak acid - followed by washing the sagging stains with the most common washing powder. Just do not use detergents with abrasives - they will scratch the icing, and objects, especially the toilet, will get dirty very quickly.

For cleaning with vinegar, they make kvass - a knob of a rag on a stick. Vinegar is poured where it will not leak, or sour milk is dipped into it, and the drips are cleaned with circular movements with pressure. Particularly "stubborn" spots in the recesses are removed with a small kvass and technical hydrochloric acid. All this, of course, is done in latex household gloves, a plastic apron and with open doors and windows. It is also advisable to wear a respirator, at least a cheap "petal".

Tiles that are not chipped or cracked can be restored using a method well known to motorists; they thus update the worn plastic spoilers and bumpers:

The entire lined surface is washed with pemolux; do not use active detergents on acid!.1 liter is enough for a bathroom in Khrushchev; for a larger one, respectively, more.
After pemolux, we wipe it with a rag, abundantly moistened with the same table vinegar: pemolux is alkaline, and the vinegar neutralizes its residues.
We wipe several times with a wet rag "until a clean rag"; now we have got rid of the contaminants that have eaten into the surface.
We paste over the edges of the tiles with masking tape (“paper tape”), except for the seams.
We paint the seams from a spray gun with nitro paint in two layers; the second - after the complete drying of the first.
We remove the tape, splashes and streaks of paint on the tiles are removed with a cotton swab moistened with solvent 646 or 647.
We buy a can of liquid silicone grease at the car market or in an auto shop, and properly spray the tiles with seams.
If the grease is absorbed immediately, you will have to spray again.
If after 2-3 days silicone is still “taken” on the tile, wipe the surface with a cloth moistened with vinegar.

The meaning of this treatment is that silicone tightens microcracks and pores in which dirt accumulates. Processing is enough for 3-5 years, and then it can be repeated.

A cast-iron capital bath can be restored by repainting with an epoxy or acrylic compound. Complaints about its fragility arise from a violation of the technology for preparing the coloring composition and its application. With strict observance of the technology, the restored bathtub serves for another 10-15 years.

It is not at all necessary to change it to an expensive one made of stainless steel or brass and make a bypass (bypass) for it. The heated towel rail is cleaned to metal after cleaning the bath for painting with the same cord brush in the drill chuck. If no fistulas are found, it is painted with the remains of the compound from painting the bath. The look will turn out no worse than modern branded ones, and the durability is like that of a bath.

You can save up to 1000 rubles on fasteners during repairs by using not galvanized or cadmium (shiny), but phosphated (black). The heads of self-tapping screws and dowel-nails will still have to be sealed, and there is no rain and frost in the apartment.In order to make repairs cheaply, you must first of all know what and how to do, how the apartment should look after repair. Do not be too lazy to consult with the whole family several times, see more pictures of ready-made apartments. Design is not something incomprehensibly sublime; Most people are endowed with artistic taste. The professionalism of a designer in most cases comes down to understanding the taste of the client and guessing what he wants. And you, since you are doing for yourself, you need to understand what you want. Up to 50% of the cost of do-it-yourself repairs arise from the fact that they start at random and then correct and redo them along the way.And, finally, carrying out the work in the correct sequence makes its share in the savings on repairs: we start from afar from the front door, and in the course of work we gradually approach it. The living room, bedroom and nursery can be renovated in any order. Then comes the turn of the kitchen. We make the entrance hall the penultimate one, and we complete the repair with a bathroom. Savings are obtained on the amount of construction waste (and half of it is waste of materials for which you paid) and on the alteration of soiled and beaten with an unreasonable organization of work.Based on the foregoing, you can make a comprehensive renovation of an apartment with an original design, spending a little more money than on cosmetic repairs.