How I did the repair with my own hands

Background. This is my first own home, as well as the first experience of similar work (in the majority), but I wanted to do everything exactly the way I wanted for a long time. Naturally, I do not swim in golden rivers, so I was largely limited by the budget. All the work, with the exception of the ceilings, glazing of the balcony, replacing the batteries and the riser, was done by myself, in some places a friend helped with a screed and putty and good friends with hard work. The whole process lasted a little over half a year, mostly due to lack of funding and time. did everything exclusively on weekends or after work.

The apartment is an ordinary one-room apartment in an old panel building. There were no photos of the original view, but in order to understand, I will say that the repairs were done there for years, some way, 20 years ago - classic, Soviet
He started by glazing the balcony, which has been open since the house was built over 30 years ago.

The plans were to move the wall in the bathroom, tk. it was planned to install an installation and a shower cabin, which did not fit in this version.

Then the valiant plumbers replaced in the kitchen my own age-old battery, an old cast-iron tee and part of a sewer riser; cut off the rotten "towel" pipe and replaced it with polypropylene with taps and a lintel. In addition, according to my idea, they transferred the tie-in to the cold water and hot water supply risers from the bathroom to the side of the kitchen.

I did the plumbing wiring myself, so I left part of the plaster box in the bathroom to drown the pipes, because categorically did not want to make boxes. The washing machine will be in the dressing room, so there is an additional canal and cold water laid there. Along the way, several layers of wallpaper were ripped off from relatives

Initially, they just wanted to putty the interior partition made of shit plaster and sticks, however, due to the fact that it was semicircular, it crumbled and, as it turned out later, stood diagonally :), they decided to dismantle it and put a new one. I chose full-bodied GWP as the material for all the walls.

It's still a mystery to me why part of the floor was wooden, because there was an opening in the slab in this place (by the way, maybe someone knows?). This pit was filled with DSP with expanded clay.
By the way, the relatives' concrete mixer, given for the time of pouring, was very helpful.

Then I took up an electrician. It was decided not to leave a single aluminum wire, so I even pulled the lead-in wire from the shield, replacing the lead-in machine and the counter. Vending machines will be installed inside the apartment, divided into groups.

A! The brave guys came and famously punched out the wall for the air conditioner route.

After that, a long and painful process of pouring the screed began, which took several times more material than planned (

53 bags of DSP). The maximum drop over the entire length of the apartment was about 6 cm. On the balcony, expanded clay filled most of it in order to lighten the load.

After the screed was completely dry, I began to erect partitions. An exciting activity, but exactly until the moment when you start to throw the plates on the last row alone. Naturally, the slabs were attached to the floor, ceiling and walls through a row.

It's time for the installation. I decided to fix it to the load-bearing wall, so holes appeared in the plaster box.

We put beacons in the bathroom. Not only are the walls, in principle, uneven, but the box itself is uneven. I began to assemble the frame and cover one of the walls with plasterboard.

A little more about wiring. I am categorically against junction boxes covered with putty and / or wallpaper, but leading a separate cable to each consumer is at least not economical. Therefore, all the switching was done in socket boxes on copper / tinned sleeves, pressed with pliers and put on in two layers of heat shrinkage.If there were a lot of connections, I used socket boxes of increased depth. With this method of installation, the cable consumption does not increase much, but access to all connections is provided.

Temporarily put a heated towel rail in order to fix the pipes before laying the tiles.

We covered the walls in the bathroom and kitchen with plaster. Then, putty in two layers and installation of the shield.

After my vacation at the seaside, I took up tiling. The project was made for me in the same place where I bought it. How can I dislike the diagonal layout ..

In the process, he again deviated from the original plans and replaced the bulky battery in the hall.

The next step was to make the wiring for the lamps and began to assemble the plasterboard structure on the ceiling.

It came down to the work wall in the kitchen.

Followed by a small insulation and finishing of the balcony.

The plasterboard construction is putty, pasted over with fiberglass and painted. Before tinting, I was afraid to choose such a dark color, but everything turned out exactly as I wanted. After drying, I cut out the holes and mounted the fixtures.

Finally, it's the laminate floor! I laid it down pretty quickly and for the first time began to take off my shoes in front of the entrance. By the way, I laid it without seams, because it was ugly. All clearances are met, six months have passed - the flight is normal.

After he began to glue the wallpaper, Artem made a branded decorative plaster on the balcony.

A small replenishment in the bathroom: hung a cabinet, a towel and a toilet.

The final version of the balcony finish. The photo looks like a daub, but in real life it is very, very good.

Fixing skirting boards after everything else is a pleasure.

Then the furniture arrived. This is worth a separate story, but in short, they only collected it for 3 days, then I waited a long time for them to fix all the jambs and waited only after meeting with them in court.

I had sex with a shower cabin for a long time. Firstly, the drain hole was located on the opposite side from the entrance to the sewer. Therefore, it was necessary to change the support pins in order to raise the cab and ensure a normal slope for draining. Secondly, after I lifted it, it turned out that now it almost rests against the ceiling, and the lid is put last, and only after that all communications are connected to it.But everything ended quite successfully.

Actually, in this form, I have already moved and began to settle in the apartment.
By the way, after finding out the prices for wardrobe systems, I got a little donkey and decided to do it myself.
I drew a project, gave the guys a cutting specification to the furniture shop, and after a couple of weeks took a bunch of pieces of wood cut to size. After assembly, it turned out exactly what I wanted. In the future, all this will be closed with compartment doors.

According to the same scheme, I assembled a shoe rack for myself in the corridor.

Well, in the final, a few photos of the received interior.

That's all
It seems that I did not miss anything, except that I did not find some photos.
I tried to calculate the budget, it turned out about 240 thousand for materials, work and part of the equipment. All furniture cost 130 thousand, appliances another 60.
Thank you all, I finished)

ZY By profession, I am not at all a builder IT specialist-general manager.

Hello to all. My name is Tucha, and today I will tell you all how I helped to make repairs to my owners.
It all started with an approved mortgage from Sberbank

And so we bought an apartment, if I knew what I was about to, I would run away during the move

These are the gray and sad walls

but such a boring and gray door, remember it

here the owner puts the plumbing. i like to swim

here he is. Name is Andrey

well, now after installing the bathtub and toilet, you can move

we begin to unload our modest belongings acquired in 2 years of their life together with the hostess.

a lot of work, but they plan to make repairs in 2 months ... goofs)

and here is my mistress Tanya. this is our first day at the apartment and we are celebrating housewarming

and here they are going to sleep. I'm shocked

Well, the repair has begun. we demolish the walls, work with a grinder and a punch

we combine a bath with a toilet

everything is destroyed and we begin to build

do not forget to put the invisible hatch

put the bath under the tap, washed, cleaned. eerie sight

and since blogs absorb moisture well, we plastered them with a cement-polymer composition.

and now a new bath has arrived. the owner installed it for 6 hours. equalized and tried)

and then the owner took the tile cutter in his hands for the first time and began to lay tiles

and here we level the floor. and why didn't they make it heated ((

ahh…. where is the toilet ?? I drink water from there!

well, it seems so fun it turns out. guess where you got the fan from

and here they have already begun to make the ceiling.

yes, three months have already passed and then I was sad in full

Well, the bathroom is ready. then I'll show you how beautiful it looks.

and here we begin to make a dressing room.

a piece was torn from the room

the dressing room is ready and immediately some rubbish began to accumulate in it

and this is the hostess pretending to be gluing the wallpaper.

and immediately we laid the laminate flooring and now we will make shelves

sheets purchased at leroy merlin

Here's a dressing room turned out. and not expensive.

Well, since we cut off a piece from the room, now we need to break the balcony.

here everything is just blackened. glue the insulation to the foam, and then plaster these sheets)

and yes, there are never too many outlets.

insulation is also placed on the floor, it is also glued to the foam. and then plywood is glued to it. and we are already putting laminate on the plywood

Well, if you say a lot, it means a decrease. here we align the walls

well, one room is ready for wallpapering

after a hard day, you can watch TV

there is no way without a washing machine. even jump into it yourself

well, the room was also plastered and wiped down. move on to the living room. she is both the hall and the kitchen

well, who will be the first to find a cat?

to say p… .ts is to say nothing.

we begin to make a box. They did not want to do it, but the wiring in the apartment had no voltage in the sockets. fake wiring. I had to hide all the wires in the box.

poor neighbors. 250 holes in the ceiling in one evening.

and the wall is perfectly smooth. I had to smear it with concrete contact and make badges, otherwise the tile just slipped

this is a flower for mistress Tanya

and I also had to put 4 bags of plaster on the ceiling. 4 see slab drop

and this is my favorite closet. it has a lot of goodies for me.

and here the ceiling is already painted. the kitchen was brought in, but they still had no horse lying around

Well, it's already more decent than it was. there is hope

like this. the owner is glad. now he can eat even more

and this is electrical wiring, we decided not to cut the walls, but just glue the cables to the wall, and then put a couple of cm of plaster

we spent the whole day with the flap and ended up lighting up our phones

I can see well, but for some reason the owner is swearing

Here you go. everything is ready and hasn't even killed anyone.

network wires hang from below. there is a hub under the flap. each room has 2 power outlets. and yes, they all came in handy.

and here the projector will hang.

how i love the warmth intel i7

the owner puts the hood in one mug. says I only get in the way

our kitchen is located in the place where the hall should be. and that is why they set up such a shaitan machine. for pumping water. 4 years normal flight

move on to the second balcony. the principle is the same. see the photo

there are already plastered sheets of insulation. we glue plastic panels on it

well, let's see what happened. exactly two years have passed

bathtub and sink made of cast marble of Russian production.

already in the eyes of the first time rippled

problems with white plumbing. there is a white tap, there is no white soul. we buy everything in parts. what we find white - we buy.

and this is the master's bedroom, they won't let me there

the battery on the balcony, of course this is not correct, but we do not tell anyone. and the balcony is well insulated

the owner sewed the curtains himself. and I helped him to put puffs, but he did not check it out

dressing room is a good thing

while this is my room. no one lives here yet

The curtain is made of a bar and painted with acrylic varnish.

the machine is in the room. later there will be a large wardrobe.

remember the front door? its owner trimmed with bamboo and painted. built a lock on the remote control and decided not to change it))

but this joke I like the most

nush favorite site) but mostly movies. sorry 3d glasses won't fit on me (((fall off

the sofa was specially taken based on its weight, so that with a slight movement of the hand it turns into a cinema seat

and this is such a loop to the TV and audio system. so you can move)

and this we tried the oven, which the owner put on) I have everything, now the owner will write a few more words, and I say goodbye to you. all meow

well, I hope you enjoyed the report. everything that you saw everything was done by me personally. photographed for themselves. just now decided to share with you. about 1.3 million were spent on repairs, but I think this with furniture, appliances and even curtains. And I also want to say thank you to my beloved wife, who steadfastly withstood the entire repair and helped me do it.

a motorized screen hangs behind the box. it is black and opaque. and yes, 2 balconies.

For a long time I wanted to buy a duplex apartment in the Loft style. It was a kind of obsessive dream and fantasy. I spent a lot of time and effort to find the best option for the ratio of area and price. And at the end of last year, an ideal option was found with a total area of ​​about 400 m2. (with 2 private terraces). Before buying, I immediately took a designer (designer) with me in order to assess the scale of the upcoming tragedy in terms of resources.

A month later, an approximate layout / project was ready. Based on the current layout and possible additional manipulations with the walls, it was decided to make 2 bedrooms (1st and 2nd floor), 3 bathrooms (1st floor: guest and bathroom, 2nd floor: bathroom with shower), kitchen-dining room on the 1st floor , a living room with a staircase, a dressing room on the 2nd floor, a work area (analogous to an office), 2 terraces (one with access to the roof from the bedroom, the second from the “study”).

In several posts I will try to tell and show what has been done.

View from the 2nd floor. Even with the old glazing from the developer. The cracks are visible. Bevelled ceiling, ceiling height 6-7m.

The first step is to install a counter.

A normal door is installed.

Building materials were delivered for the first stages.

Divided the apartment into rooms.

The scaffolding that lay in the office warehouse fell to the spot.

One of the terraces had no access to the roof. I had to do it (the wall is not capital).

The living room and kitchen were divided into 2 parts.

For a long time I had already intended to tell you about the repairs in my apartment, but I still could not get myself together. My wife and I decided to do the repairs on our own, because the repair time is not limited, and the hands seem to grow more or less from the right place.
Actually, here is the apartment:

2 rooms, a corridor, a separate bathroom, a dressing room, a large balcony and a good kitchen. The apartment was rented out with a preliminary renovation - the walls were leveled, the screed on the floor, the electrician was divorced.

I took the apartment myself. I brought a multimeter, a laser level, a bubble level and a thermal imager for acceptance (I checked the windows, since the acceptance was at the end of November). Of the jambs, I wrote only the increased voltage in the apartment. I measured about 300 V. While the acts of acceptance and delivery were signed, the jamb had already been eliminated. By the way, in the future, household appliances were on fire in several apartments, because. zeros burned out a lot, and voltage control relays set ones.

Unfortunately, a lot of photos have disappeared since the beginning of the renovation. Only a small part remains.

The renovation began with the plumbing wiring. I decided to do it on Rehau. I chose this particular manufacturer, tk. It seems to me that the highest quality connections are obtained on rehau + any person, without any experience, is able to assemble everything himself.
Metalloplast threw it away immediately (acquaintances flooded neighbors and according to the court should 400 + k for repairs), but with simple polypropylene pipes there is practically no experience, and anyway, from time to time, I hear stories about leaks or weak pressure due to poor-quality connections.
Collected the manifold assembly.

I believe that the use of water leakage systems is essential. These are two green ones. Electrical.The overlap time, if I'm not mistaken, is 12-15 seconds from the moment the sensor is triggered. Looking ahead, I will say that I installed 5 sensors - 1 in the toilet and 2 each in the kitchen and bathroom. By the way, the firm of this system is Bugatti =)
There are no reducers and oblique filters in the photo. They actually exist - at the outlet from the riser.

It comes out to power the system control unit from water leaks and lighting in the inspection hatch.

I did not take a photo of the water sockets, tk. it's not interesting to anyone))
I sewed up the whole thing with gypsum plasterboard and made revision hatches.

This is where I made the biggest mistake in the entire renovation. Did the opening of the hatch down. I had to do up. After the tiles were laid, it turned out that the door is just VERY heavy, and besides, it cannot be opened all the way down, because the edges of the touching tiles are simply chipped off. Now changing filters is very difficult.

Then I began to make a bathroom. And, a few months after acceptance, he noticed that there was no extractor hood in the bathroom. I wrote a claim to the developer. I was told that the processing time is about 40 days + another 40 days for elimination. In total, it turns out almost 3 months. Moreover, I was not the only one who had such a problem. Someone decided to wait. They waited, only they just punched a hole in the ventilation mine. Nobody did any connection to the duct, which, of course, is not correct.
I had to do it myself.
In the toilet I just had to break the wall and pull out the air duct a little. Next, fix an ordinary tee of 100mm and bring it out into the bathroom from one branch.

Of course, the draft along the branch is not so strong, but if you first close the ventilation in the toilet with a sheet of paper, then the sheet of paper also sticks in the bathroom. Moreover, there will be an electric cooker hood in the bathroom.
Further, you can proceed already to the bathroom.

Bathroom width 178.5. The width of the bath itself is 178. I don’t remember the weight of the bath, but something around 120 kg.
To install it, it was necessary to break the doorway, the help of three more people and then a jack on wheels))
Cast marble bathroom. It is considered a double. In principle, we fit there with my wife)
I had to make 5 holes for the mixer in the bathroom. The store asked for 1500r per hole. Have been sent) Elementary is done independently with the help of a feather pen or Forstner's drill.

On the bathroom, you can already see the connected waterfall faucet and the hose for the shower head. In addition, a mixer for an overhead rain shower is installed on the wall.

The bathroom is on a small brickwork, because a step in front of the bathroom was provided.
Step shape.

There will be an LED strip on the step.

I made waterproofing on the floor in the bathroom and toilet. I laid a warm floor in the bathroom, poured it on top with a self-leveling solution.
We bought a good tile (at least it seems to me so). Firm Emigres (Spain). But, before laying the tiles, I made myself a small homemade tile cutter. There is no point in buying an electric tile cutter for yourself, renting it is unprofitable. Spent about 70 minutes to create it.

The vacuum cleaner is connected and the required cut is adjusted. The minimum could be cut by 2 mm - the thickness of the disc. Enough just for 1 renovation - tiles in the bathroom, toilet and floors in the kitchen and hallway. For the entire repair, ONLY 1 tile was broken, although in all stores it is advised to take "for marriage" + 10%. These 10% now lie with us and take up space))

But, before laying the tiles on the walls, we made the floors. Wanted with a picture. We chose floors with a “3D” effect. It doesn't smell like 3D. This is the second time outsiders have been hired. And the second time was not without jambs (the first time the riser with hot water was re-soldered and transferred to the dryer). Honestly, we are not very happy with the result. The only plus is that these floors will definitely not seep through these floors. So you can not do waterproofing.

Well, then, already laying the tiles.

The tiles were laid for the first time. I think it worked out pretty well. Wherever there are cranes in the structure of drywall, manholes are made with magnets.
Was washed down at 45 degrees, also made on my machine. True, the perfect cut did not work out there, so I had to finish "to mind" with the help of a grinder.

On the top right, the boiler is already hanging. Next to the toilet there is a sink and a hygienic shower.

In the bathroom, they decided to make two countertops on their own. Outcome:

Still very dirty. The step was laid out with the same mosaic.

All communications are under the sink. Only the chrome siphon is visible. The communications are hidden in a box, which is also made on magnets, so that you can get close to the connections if necessary.

LED strip is laid in the step. Looks very cool. Creates a romantic atmosphere)

They cleaned and washed everything. Fitted with a faucet, sink, LED mirror and shower curtain. The shutter pivots and extends. Very comfortable. Rain shower over the curtain.

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Yes. I finally finished it! Those terrible days are over.
This repair as a whole took me about 2 months, and of course a lot of nerves and forces. Of course, I did all the most difficult, rough work in the summer in 2 weeks when I was on vacation. And the rest I already finished on weekends.

From the first day of my vacation, I pounced on my kitchen. Naturally, I started by dismantling old wallpaper and linoleum. I put everything neatly in a bag for construction waste, at first I even liked it. Like many people living in old houses, I have a very small kitchen (6 square meters), and besides, there is a checkpoint. Therefore, I decided to increase it a little. On one wall, which borders the room, I completely removed the plaster, wood shingles and the first layer of planks.

Oh, if you only knew how much dirt there was ... Words and photographs certainly cannot be conveyed, but still I tried to convey this horror as best as possible. Okay, for that my kitchen has increased by almost 7 cm!

True, along with the wall plaster, in some places the decorative old stucco moldings fell off.

Swept the floor, packed everything into bags. I got about 20 bags - about 25-30 kilograms. And then I realized that I just didn't have enough strength to take them to the site for recycling. I called my brother, I say save me. The one after work immediately to me. I handed all the garbage to him right out the window (luckily for me, I live on the 1st floor). Well, then we together dragged everything to the trash cans.

After all this dirt, I decided to tackle the floor. My floor is wooden and very crooked - we urgently need to fix it. I bought plywood 18 mm thick, several 20x40 bars and some kind of impregnating liquid that protects the tree from decay. Soaked all his pieces of wood, took a circular saw, a screwdriver at work, and away we go.

To begin with, I reinforced all the floorboards with long self-tapping screws, screwing them to the joists. Well, after that I made something like a frame from the bars, and screwed plywood on top. Naturally I did everything according to the level.

Leaf by leaf and the floor is ready!

Now is the time to prepare the rest of the walls. Where we should have a kitchen set, for some reason a gas pipe stretches across the entire wall, and for some reason with two exits.

I still don’t understand those people who designed this house ... But what to say, the house is more than 50 years old. As my grandmother says (she used to live in this apartment), there was a huge stove with which the apartment was heated, and over time it was demolished and switched to standard heating. In short, I went to the gas service and made an order to cut this pipe and move it to a corner. It would seem that business. But they billed me for almost 4 thousand rubles and said that the master would only be there in 2 weeks. This is how I thought the service ..What can you do, it remains to wait and while preparing the walls.

I sheathed two walls with plasterboard, putty all the holes from the screws and joints. I leveled the other two walls a little, plastered large gaps and putty. I smoothed out all small irregularities with an abrasive mesh and sandpaper. After that, I thoroughly impregnated all the walls with a primer.

After 2 weeks, masters from the gas service arrived. And we digested this pipe as I needed. Now all the pipes are in one corner where they can be hidden with a wall panel.

It was at this time that my two week vacation came to an end.
And yes, I almost forgot, before putting putty on the walls, I made a frame for the ceiling from the bars.

I decided to make it from simple plastic panels with spotlights. The rest I had to do in the evenings after work and on weekends.

We decided to make the flooring practical and put in expensive linoleum, which looks like a laminate board.

We chose a light-colored wallpaper for the fit. Glued together with his wife. I honestly hate wallpapering - for some reason this activity makes me mad.

Only the ceiling remained. We went to a hardware store, bought ceiling panels and 5 such lamps.

They took LED bulbs, since their service life reaches 30,000 hours, and besides, they are now much cheaper. He split the wires into five lamps and ran them over the frame.

I cut holes in the panels for the lamps and began to install the ceiling.

Digging around a bit and here it is, a beautiful ceiling.

Well, that's basically all. I hung up the cornice, installed the baseboards and the repair is ready.

A couple of weeks later, they installed a kitchen set and now my kitchen looks something like this.

For more functionality, we ordered non-standard tall wall cabinets. The hood was installed built-in.

And all our pipes were hidden in the closet.

In general, my wife and I like her, and I think this is the most important thing.

Of course, the whole kitchen is not very visible in the photo, but for greater effect, here are two photos from about the same angle. Before and after.

Eh, I wrote it as if everything was going smoothly, but this is just an illusion. Everything went with a headache, nerves and a terrible loss of strength, but it must have been worth it. I will cook for my blog with even greater pleasure.

Now, for the next half a year, I am definitely free from global chores around the house. Well, on my next vacation, I want to transform my corridor, which I will definitely tell you about in my blog. Well that's all, I hope you were interested.

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:

1. We are not afraid of work. Nothing happens out of nothing. Or money or labor.
2. Wherever possible, we do not change the old, which has lost its appearance, but renew it.
3. We attribute the maximum savings to the place where it will not affect the quality of work and will not be visible.
4. 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:

1. Reinstalling the hinges is not the best way for the lazy.
2. 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.

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.