Need Advice prior to Doing Renovations

[Retire]

Hi All,

Am looking at buying a i.p. to renovate.
Will repaint inside keeping colours neutral.
Do kitchen and bathroom
Landscape and do walkway.

Is there an ideas book/cd that will give me examples of what can be done either with a brick / timber house / flats/units that will actually show in colour detail.And estimates of cost as well.

That way i can refer to it, when doing any other renos.{Using other peoples ideas}

Regards,
Retire

 

[Angelo]

Hi Retire

Dolf De Roos has a book called 101 ways to massively Increase the value of Real Estate without spending much money. This book may give you some ideas you haven't thought of.

Good luck, Angelo

 

[Aimjoy]

Also you can hire yourself a Dulux colour consultant for about $100 per hour who will give you the whole colour scheme inside, blinds, kitchen bechtop colours and driveway colours if you do that.
I paid one $220 for our first IP a couple of years ago and keep doing the cookie cutter approach - although if I did one again now I'd get her back for an update because fashions change every couple of years.
Good luck with it all.
Aimy

 

[kaf]

Hi Retire

I'm in the same boat as you although we've got the property and I'm starting to see tradies next week for quotes. I've spent the last weeks going through magazines and looking on the web for ideas. I also did the reno king's course so I've got a bit of an idea of dos and don'ts of value add. Have a look on their website but you'll find also lots of hints and ideas for prices if you go through the value add section of this forum. I had a walk through Bunnings one day and just wrote down the cost for building materials etc. to get a feel for what those things cost. I've had trouble costing any larger items sofar so I'm just going to get quotes from all sorts of people and will have a builder walk around the property with me to give me at least estimates of what different things will cost.

We bought the worst house in an upmarket street on the coast so there is a certain look I'm trying to achieve without breaking the bank. I'm planning to go for a drive with my camera in the neighbourhood to get some ideas of fencing etc. for the front to get the street appeal. Luckily the place doesn't need a lot of work inside but we want to give each flat (it's a block of 3) their own garden / courtyard.

I also just arranged to get one of the Dulux consultants (thanks for the hint Aimjoy!!) to give me feedback on the colour scheme outside ($125 first h, $100 for each subsequent h) and also get a landscape designer in to draw up a design plan for the hardscaping / landscaping ($400). I've got pretty firm ideas of what I want but I reckon $500 not much money getting professional designers to have a look over my ideas to up the wow factor.

We are not planning to sell but want to revalue next year and get the rents up so the effort is going into cosmetic stuff (street appeal) and anything that improves rentability (outside spaces for each flat, garage doors for lock-up, freshen up bathrooms) and makes the place safe (stairs and balustrades are looking very shaky).

Hope this helps a bit

Cheers

kaf