Renovation of an apartment is an expensive pleasure these days. Some save up for it for years, while others give up their last savings and end up in a hole in debt. 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, and we will 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 renovation. There are three types of renovation: cosmetic, major and European renovation. The cosmetic option is the most economical. These repairs usually include painting, wallpapering, and scrapping the floor. Such work is easy to do with your own hands, saving on calling a specialist. If you lack some specialized tool, you should not purchase it for one-time purposes. Rent it. Make a preliminary estimate for the renovation 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.
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It is much more difficult to carry out major repairs on your own, since many of the works require special skills and abilities. Stages of such repairs: rough finishing, floor screed, wall leveling, demolition and installation of partitions, dismantling of the old coating and finishing, complete replacement of water pipes, plumbing and electrical wiring, replacement of windows, doors, garbage disposal. The price for calling a foreman during a major overhaul increases to 6000-15000 rubles per 1 m 2. And that's not counting the cost of consumables.
Here are four tips to help you save money on your overhaul:
1. Remove the old wallpaper, tiles, dismantle the flooring, remove 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 expensive ceiling decoration. Just line up and paint it with inexpensive chalk paint. When the money appears, walk around the ceiling with plasterboard or make a stretch ceiling.
3. Do not completely remove the plaster. Remove it only where it flakes. However, consider the peculiarity of the finish. If you plan to apply photo wallpaper, the surface should 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 funds for garbage disposal, collect waste in bags and send it to storage in the basement, shed or leave it on the staircase in a designated place, it is provided. Throw out a bag every day in a common trash bin, there is nothing illegal in this.
Renovation practically does not differ from a major overhaul. The cost is increased by purchasing 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 can be deceived. To check this out for sure, pay attention to several 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 obtain the exact cost of renovation 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 giving your own tape measure for measurements. Often, cunning repairmen cut the tape, for example, by 50 cm, and fasten it to another part of the tape, retreating 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 on the basis of 1 m 2.
When receiving the estimate, carefully study all the positions. Repairers often duplicate the cost of services under the guise of other work. For example, leveling the walls - preparing the walls for wallpaper. Read each paragraph carefully so as not to overpay.
Pay attention to the price for 1 m 2. Compare it with other construction firms and individuals beforehand. Below average prices should alert you. Usually, in the process of work, the repairmen who initially offered you a low price raise it and ask you to pay extra for additional services. The owner finds himself in 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 technique used by dishonest repairmen. For example, you can put a 1 cm layer of plaster at the price of 3-4 cm, shorten the planned route of laying electrical cables or plumbing pipes, and take the remaining material for yourself. In fact, you are overpaying for material that does not "work" for you. To avoid such mistakes when performing turnkey repairs, ask the repairmen to take a step-by-step photograph of the completed work process in detail 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 underfloor heating 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 you really need it. You can make good money on old copper and aluminum wiring.
And the last tip: buy materials yourself, do not entrust this business to the repair team.As a rule, they buy building materials from the market, where the storage conditions of many goods do not meet the standards. In addition, there repairmen can ask for an empty receipt with a stamp, write down the list of goods and their cost with a surcharge themselves.
It is better to start repairs in the off-season - in early or mid-autumn. This period is suitable for both external and internal repair work. It is still warm outside the window, 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 on renovating a room, be aware 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 money. Pay attention to illiquid assets. They have a limited shelf life and will not last until the next season. Hardware stores give good discounts on these items. If you are going to make repairs right now, take a closer look at putty, plaster, glue, sealant at a bargain price, below the market average.
Replacing plumbing affects a large part of the renovation budget. If it is in good condition, without chips, cracks and only a surface with an old coating makes you think about dismantling it, we advise you to clean and restore the plumbing. We replace expensive detergents with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar, which is good at destroying stubborn plaque. A budget version of the transformation is the restoration of the bath. You can cover the bathtub yourself with enamel, liquid acrylic, or order an acrylic insert for the dimensions of your plumbing. The restoration will cut the costs of purchasing a new bathtub by about 4 times and, depending on the option chosen, will extend the service life of the old bathtub from 5 to 20 years.
Replacement of plumbing elements
If you do decide to change your plumbing, consider the budget option of buying from the so-called landfill entrepreneurs. Often, when entering a new house, the owners change the 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 make money quickly and easily. They take well-maintained plumbing from the landfill, wash it and put it in order. They do not expose their contacts directly, working on the principle of word of mouth. In the subsidiary warehouse of such entrepreneurs, you can pick up 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 renovation of an apartment.
To save money when cladding walls, we advise you to buy not edged (planed) lumber, but a slab (waste sawing wood). 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 cladding saves finances on leveling the 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 covering the walls with a crochet to the waist and pasting the walls to the ceiling with non-woven wallpaper will help. The lower part is resistant to wear and tear, while the upper complements the overall picture.
The most budget-friendly option for laying the floor in dry rooms is marmoleum. This material requires floor leveling only in 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 installation under plank floors. True, the floor will have to be leveled.
For wall decoration in the bathroom, choose laminated hardboard. Such material is less common than tiles, but cheaper. It is better to sheathe the ceiling with plastic panels. Don't skimp on waterproofing.The money spent on it will pay off and extend the service 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 put tiles on walls and floors, buy a solid color finish. Such tiles do not need to be frequently adjusted and matched to the pattern; less material is consumed, which is automatically reflected in the purchase cost.
When carrying out major and European-quality repairs, you cannot do without replacing the electrical 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 the Soviet wiring due to the high power of modern devices, which the old cable sometimes cannot withstand. During the replacement, you will have to groove the walls with a chasing cutter in order to lay new wiring efficiently. Workers charge for this service from 100 rubles per square meter.
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A complete replacement of the wiring in a two-room apartment, on average, will cost 40,000 rubles. A private specialist can take even less, but he does not give a guarantee for installation, therefore, in the event of malfunctions, 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 he is busy, however, the quality and guarantee of service is an undoubted advantage of choosing this particular master. But sockets and switches can be installed independently.
Electrical wiring - an element that is not worth saving
Another work to which you need to involve a specialist and not save money: replacing plumbing pipes. Choose your own consumables according to your budget. Attraction of a plumber will cost, on average, 15,000–20,000 rubles. If you have no experience in connecting plumbing, we also recommend that you seek help from a specialist.
The usual everyday business: the apartment clearly needs repair, but there is little money. How to make an inexpensive do-it-yourself apartment renovation? It seems to be the simplest, obvious way: superficial cosmetic repairs. That is, plywood wallpaper, ceiling whitewash, painting, fixing squeaky floors; possibly - replacement of windows.
However, if we calculate the labor costs and the consumption of materials, it turns out that by increasing the labor costs by half, and the expenditure of 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 costs, like the Earth in ancient legends, on three whales and a slowly hurrying turtle under them:
We are not afraid of work. Nothing happens out of nothing. Or money or labor.
Wherever possible, we do not change the old, which has lost its appearance, but renew it.
We attribute the maximum savings to the place where it will not affect the quality of work and will not be visible.
We distribute the costs of labor and money in time: having conceived repairs in the summer or autumn, we spend a year on preparation, and then we pile up and quickly do everything. To lay out 200-300 thousand rubles at once is a problem, but breaking them up in parts for a year is quite possible. In addition, there will be time for seven times measure - cut once.
The only area where you will have to invite a specialist is 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 free 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, but some points, such as installing sockets, can be done independently.
A good specialized tool makes the job much easier and cheaper. But buying it is expensive.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 plan for the production of work for yourself.
The best time of the year for self-repairing an apartment is early and mid-autumn. It's still warm, you can do outdoor work, and indoor work 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% in the sale of summer illiquid assets. If, for example, 200 thousand are postponed for repairs, then the savings will amount to 30 thousand, and this - a hallway or a bathroom - "candy".
Special mention should be made of non-liquid assets. A significant share of the cost of repairs will be spent on finishing materials: plaster, putty, floor leveler, assembly glue, sealant. All of them have a limited shelf life, so construction companies, which obviously do not have leftovers from the season to spring, are selling them at a bargain price. Therefore, look everywhere in advance for advertisements on the sale of building materials. Professionals do not need 50 kg of Aquaslay for leveling the walls, which expires in a month, but they will be enough for two rooms for you. The savings will be 70-80 rubles. everything, but the hen pecks by the grain.
Find more ideas on how to save on building materials here.
A sore point for cheap self-repair 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 whether you want it or not, you need to change it.
For such a case, here is information for you: new settlers, especially in houses above the budget category, often immediately start major repairs at the entrance, 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 with strangers by office phone, but it is quite possible to reach them using word of mouth methods. The rate is from one third to one half of the factory price for a household item. And do not think that you will be taken to the dump and shown where it lies. In the back room you will be offered a choice of clean, carefully washed products, which you can sit on even right away.
The next sore point is the removal of construction waste. The operation is not cheap and requires a lot of paperwork. Exit: a basement, a barn, a summer residence or a closet and a few used bags of plastic sackcloth, bought for a penny. Construction waste does not sour and does not rot, it can then be poured into a container in a house trash can. There is nothing illegal in this.
For lathing, various ancillary work and sewing large surfaces, you will need wooden battens and plywood. You can buy slats not planed, but a slab - waste from sawing industrial wood. The croaker is on sale raw, but if it is purchased in advance, in March-April, and kept in a dry room until autumn, it will not be inferior to edged timber in terms of the quality of wood.
As for plywood, waste packaging plywood from disassembled used containers can be turned into water-resistant in the following way:
We buy a 10 l canister or two PVA putties; it looks like a very liquid PVA glue and is cheap.
We cover the floor in the country house, in the shed, in the attic or in some other non-residential premises with plastic wrap. The air temperature is not lower than +13 degrees.
We lay a sheet of plywood on the floor, pour a puddle of putty on the center of it 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 plywood soaked in PVA; better - dispersed over the area: bricks, pieces of metal, concrete, old TV, etc.
After a week, we repeat the procedure, turning each sheet over.
After another two weeks, the smooth, waterproof plywood is ready for use. Additional exposure under pressure 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 - sheathing the walls and ceiling of living rooms with laminate; for thrifty owners richer - MDF. When cladding on a wooden lathing from a slab, in 80% of cases, alignment of walls and ceilings is not required, which already excludes large expenditures of labor and money.
You can save even more by sheathing the walls up to your waist or up to your chest, and pasting them up to the ceiling with non-woven wallpaper. The work is simplified and cheaper, and the bottom of the walls, which breaks and gets dirty the most, will be reliably protected by resistant material.
The most economical flooring option is marmoleum. Floor preparation for it is not required in 90% of cases. But marmoleum is not suitable for a bathroom and toilet; here you will have to fork out for tiles, especially since you will need a little of it.
If you want to have a plank-like floor in the rooms, then laminate flooring will not be much more expensive, but the floor may need to be leveled.
The walls in the bathroom can be covered with laminated hardboard instead of tiles - it is hygroscopic and does not require surface preparation.
If you intend 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, instead of traditional MDF or lining, you can sew it up with plywood, pasting it with self-adhesive film.
When deciding how to make an apartment renovation 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 commercial timber fall, and to put them in late spring - early summer, when the tree dries out and shrinks properly. The technology of installing wooden windows into openings is quite affordable for an average home craftsman.
It would be better to update the doors. Remember your homemade waterproof plywood? Here it is sheathed both sides of the door, on mounting glue, laying the door removed from the hinges on a plastic mat 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.
This will make the door thicker. Two options are possible here:
Reinstalling the hinges 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 on a new, plywood frame. In this case, the chipped corners immediately "go away".
In both cases, the new door is pasted over with self-adhesive wood or with a different texture and varnished. And you will be surprised (nicely, of course) with her new look. And the hard plywood cheeks will ensure the door's durability. It is better to cover the slopes of the doorway with doborks from the same plywood: it will come out cheaper and more beautiful than re-plastering.
Dirty plumbing, if 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 - with the subsequent washing off the sagging accumulations with the most common washing powder. Just do not use abrasive detergents - they will scratch the glaze and objects, especially the toilet, will get dirty very quickly.
For cleaning with vinegar, make kvash - a knob made of a rag on a stick. Vinegar is poured where it does not leak, or sauerkraut is dipped into it, and the drips are cleaned with circular motions with pressure. Particularly "stubborn" spots in the grooves are removed with small kvash and technical hydrochloric acid.All this, of course, is done with latex household gloves, a plastic apron and with doors and windows open. 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 renew the worn-out plastic spoilers and bumpers in this way:
The entire lined surface with my pemolux; it is impossible to use active acid detergents! For a bathroom in "Khrushchev", 1 liter is enough; on a larger - 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 it several times with a wet cloth "to a clean cloth"; now we got rid of the dirt stuck into the surface.
We glue the edges of the tiles with masking tape ("paper tape"), except for the seams.
We paint the seams from a spray bottle with nitro paint in two layers; the second - after the first is completely dry.
We remove the tape, splashes and drips 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 a car shop, and properly spray the tiles with seams.
If the grease is absorbed immediately, you will need to spray it again.
If after 2-3 days silicone is still "taken" on the tile, wipe the surface with a rag moistened with vinegar.
The meaning of this treatment is that the silicone tightens microcracks and pores in which dirt accumulates. Processing is enough for 3-5 years, and then it can be repeated.
The cast iron capital bath can be repaired with epoxy or acrylic resin. Complaints about its fragility arise from a violation of the technology for preparing the coloring composition and its application. With strict adherence to the technology, the restored bath will serve for another 10-15 years.
It is not at all necessary to change it to an expensive stainless steel or brass and make a bypass (bypass) for it. The heated towel rail is cleaned to metal after cleaning the bathtub for painting with the same cord-brush in the drill chuck. If no fistula is found, it is painted with the remains of the compound from the bath painting. The look will be no worse than modern branded ones, and the durability is like a bathtub.
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On fasteners during repairs, you can save up to 1000 rubles by using not galvanized or cadmium plated (shiny), but phosphated (black). The heads of self-tapping screws and dowel-nails still have to be repaired, and in the apartment there is no rain or frost.
To make cheap repairs, you first need to know what and how to do, how the apartment should look after renovation. Do not be lazy to confer with the whole family several times, see more pictures of ready-made apartments. Design is not something incomprehensibly sublime; artistic taste is endowed with most people. The professionalism of a designer in most cases comes down to understanding the client's taste 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 costs for self-repairs arise due to the fact that they start at random and then correct and redo along the way.
And, finally, carrying out the work in the correct sequence makes its share in the savings on repairs: we start from a distance 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 hallway the penultimate one, and complete the renovation with a bathroom. Savings are obtained on the amount of construction waste (and, after all, half of it is waste of materials for which it was paid) and on the alteration of the soiled and beaten with unreasonable organization of work.
Guided by the above, you can make a comprehensive renovation of an apartment with an original design, spending little more than a cosmetic repair.
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When changing your life for the better, you should start with yourself, your environment, goals, ideals, but it is important to make changes in your own home. A beautiful, comfortable, cozy house is a guarantee of a good mood, positive emotions, and spiritual harmony. Therefore, you should not be afraid to start changes in the apartment, even in the absence of financial capabilities. Repair is indeed very costly, but having organized it correctly, the result is always justified. The main thing is desire and hands.
Prices on the construction goods market have been biting lately, but with a competent approach to business, cost planning, it is easy to avoid overpayments and purchase high-quality materials. Having planned the repair work in the apartment, you should initially carefully consider the sequence of actions. Initially, you need to decide on the following nuances.
The whole apartment will be subject to change, or maybe a separate room?
With what "scope" to re-glue boring wallpaper, change linoleum or change electrical wiring, heating, make other global changes?
How to replace old furniture, is there an opportunity to restore it on your own?
Where can I get ideas for updating the interior design, ways to bring them to life with minimal financial costs?
Often, a budget renovation implies a gradual transformation of each individual room. For the case when apartment owners live on one salary, this is ideal. To repair even one room a year is already progress, do not despair when there is no financial opportunity to carry out repairs quickly.
Starting such an important matter as a budget apartment renovation with your own hands, it is worth very meticulously assessing the state of electrical wiring, water supply, sewerage, heating. After making sure that everything is fine with these communications, you can proceed to assessing the premises themselves. As a rule, the following elements of the apartment are subject to alteration.
Walls - initially, they carefully study the state of the rough plaster, if it is strong, does not crumble, that is, there are two ways to renew them.
Decorating for wallpaper - when the walls have already been pasted over with wallpaper a little easier, you just need to qualitatively remove the old ones, prime the walls and glue the new ones. If the base is uneven, you will have to putty the walls or sheathe them with drywall.
Ceiling - this part of the room should be even and beautiful, since the most imperceptible flaw on it will become a huge problem. After making sure that it is even, you can paint it with water dispersion paint or paste over with wallpaper, otherwise it is cheaper to order a stretch ceiling. Today, the price of stretch ceilings is quite affordable, and the excellent appearance, the absence of unnecessary labor costs for its installation, simply do not leave it with competitors.
When starting work, be sure to take into account the following important steps that will need to be taken.
Decide on the design, materials, working hands.
Draw up a thorough, complete list of required building materials.
Examine prices, find the most inexpensive store.
Remove unnecessary items from the room, remove old bases from the walls, floor, ceiling.
Before painting anything, it is worth taking care of an overnight stay outside the home for a family in advance, paint and varnish products are very unsafe for people, especially children.
Find a specialist who will take on those jobs that you cannot cope with on your own.
Purchase building materials and start work directly.
It is a mistake to think that the renovation of the premises begins with the ceiling, it should take its proper form last. You can start from the walls or the floor, depending on what you need to pay more attention to.
The bathroom requires a responsible approach; often, in the absence of good ventilation, it is here that such a hateful mold appears. To prevent this from happening, you should definitely check the ventilation, if it is completely absent, you need to install it. The most popular material for bathroom wall and floor cladding for many years has been ceramic tiles and their derivatives. It costs differently, it is quite possible to find a budget option, as a last resort, you can always take plastic (lining). It washes well, does not absorb moisture, is easy to install, but it “ages” a little faster. If you plan everything carefully, it is not at all difficult to carry out a budget repair of an apartment with your own hands.
Thanks to the availability of the Internet, you can find a lot of options for ideas for the decorative transformation of your home. The main thing is not to miss something that can be given a second life. For example, decorating the doors of an old wardrobe with inexpensive full-length mirrors, it will definitely not be worse than modern wardrobes. Apply mosaic, decoupage to the glass doors of Soviet cabinets, sideboards, or paint them in bright, juicy colors, paste over with self-adhesive tape. All this is quite affordable.
When there are many things or items on the farm that need to be kept away from prying eyes, you need to build a so-called wardrobe yourself, simply by attaching sheets of chipboard, OSB plates to special corners, and hide numerous shelves behind fabric screens of interesting colors or prints. An exquisite option is very fashionable today - to decorate a hall or bedroom with "wicker" curtains. It is easy to make them, there are many instructions on the Internet.
When transforming your own home, you should always remember, getting rid of the old, life will surely be filled with something new and wonderful, and order will reign in all its spheres!
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