How to make cosmetic repairs inexpensively with your own hands

In detail: how to make inexpensive cosmetic repairs with your own hands from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

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

The budgetary renovation mainly includes finishing works, ceiling and floor renovation. If the estimate allows, windows, interior doors, and plumbing elements are also subject to replacement. It is not recommended to make major changes in the space of the apartment in the mode of saving money. 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, making mistakes in 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;
Selection of building materials;
Preparing the room for renovation work;
Rough wall decoration and floor filling (if work is being carried out in a new apartment);
Wallpaper gluing, flooring installation, ceiling decoration;
Arrangement of furniture, lamps, decor elements.

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

Following the instructions above, repairs should begin with an estimate and selection of suitable building materials. An estimate should be drawn up sequentially for the decoration of each room and for 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.

Video (click to play).

The first stage of the renovation also includes the release of the future room from furniture, decor elements and part of the decoration. Nothing should remain in the room that will interfere underfoot or deteriorate during repairs. If old wallpaper hangs in the room, it is necessary to remove them and carry out preparatory measures for finishing the walls, the same applies to the floor and ceilings.

When purchasing building materials, do not limit yourself to visiting one store - you should take into account all the 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, in case of budget repairs, 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 shouldn't buy cheap materials that imitate wood, stone or tiles just because of their appearance. It is imperative to pay attention to the technical and operational characteristics of the goods.

The decoration in different rooms of the house has its own characteristics. Therefore, before starting the repair, you need to decide which rooms are in particular need of updating the appearance. In the living room, bedroom, nursery and hallway, inexpensive DIY repairs can include the following types of work:

Plaster and wall plaster;
Pasting new wallpapers;
Wall painting;
Assembly or installation of flooring;
Ceiling decoration.

In the kitchen and in the bathroom, finishing work also includes:

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

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

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

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 giving up complex installation work and saving on building materials, there are other tricks that will help reduce the cost of repairing an apartment. At the same time, the decoration and the interior will have an excellent appearance.

Still think that a budget do-it-yourself finishing option cannot look stylish and expensive? In our gallery, we have selected photos of inexpensive repairs, which 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 on a limited budget with your own hands is quite difficult, but doable. The main thing is not to be afraid of bold decisions, to use modern and high-quality materials, to act according to the plan. And thanks to the tips listed above, you can reduce the estimate for expensive repairs.

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.

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.

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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.

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 savingAnother 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.

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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.