Budget Living Room Re-Design 

Renovations are hugely exciting projects, and can also be wildly overwhelming if they’re rushed or not planned sufficiently. Every renovation project - big or small- should begin by asking yourself a few staple questions before hammers meet walls. What are you trying to accomplish? Here should you start? How can you help your reno to match your lifestyle? Who should you hire?

The living room features its own unique set of issues. Along with the kitchen, the living room is the most inhabited space in a home. It’s the centre of activity and the heart of the homestead, so treating it with the utmost respect goes a long way when considering changing its aesthetic. A living room must suit its owner's in more ways than one, so preparing and budgeting for a living room re-design is crucial if you’re going to benefit from the downtime needed to respect your space.

In this post, we’ve set out to guide you through a living room re-design by pointing out all of the necessary steps you should take before committing to a renovation.

Research

Pre-planning is your best weapon in tackling a new living room design. Stand in the space and ask yourself what you’ll stand to gain by altering the existing room, and which aspects can be permitted to remain the same.

Consult websites like Pinterest and Houzz for some design inspiration and to gauge what types of looks are current and in-touch with the times. Search for ways to make each style of design your own. Assess the architectural structure of your living room and ask yourself if a change to the current layout is a good place to start thinking about your re-design. Layout changes are a good way to begin thinking about how to improve your square footage, flow, and how you use your living room.

Consult colour trend reports to begin researching a new paint colour for an accent wall or a complete coat. Begin to think about materials as well - what’s going to hold up to abuse? What’s stain-resistant? What’s in style?

Ask yourself how natural light plays a role in your redesign. Can you allow for more light if you rearrange your furniture or tear out a wall? How will your current living room fare with increased light and space?

All of this preliminary research will help you to stay on track as your re-design progresses, so don’t skip out on the chance to use your own foresight to help offset potential roadblocks or obstacles.

Lifestyle

During your research stages, your lifestyle will inevitably come up. Redesigning your space to suit your specific lifestyle is critical to ensuring that you’re going to benefit from your labour. You could find the most alluring living room design in any number of magazines or websites, but if the aesthetic doesn’t match your lifestyle, you’ll inevitably feel as though you’re living in someone else’s home. If you have dogs and kids, an all-white living room is probably going to be a bad idea; alternatively, if you love neutral tones and industrial materials like steel and brick, a colourful space with wood accents isn’t going to match your lifestyle either.

Consider how your tastes and circumstances have changed in the last five years to get a sense of how your design prowess has evolved - try to project your lifestyle forward to help you lessen the impact of a big change in your personality and family structure. Remember that the living room is for living, so make sure that you’ll be able to do lots of it when your re-design is all said and done.

Furniture

One of the biggest and most daunting tasks in a living room re-design is budgeting for furniture. Furniture pieces like sofas and coffee tables can quickly become the focal point of the room and if they don’t match the energy of the space they can bring attention to themselves for the wrong reasons.

Aside from materials, consider the many different styles available today. If your space allows for it, a sectional may be a great way to direct focus onto an accent wall, or encourage conversation when entertaining. A smaller room may flow much better with a new set of matching loveseats set up facing one another; a new chair may help to spread out your seating capacity and make a larger room seem fuller.

Quality is another big issue to think about. Inexpensive, low-quality furniture may save you a few bucks to offset other costs associated with your redesign, but down the road you’ll need to either repair or replace your discount furniture. Good quality furniture pieces address six main pillars:

• Practicality
• Aesthetics
• Cleanability
• Durability
• Design
• Cost

Your furniture needs to be easy to use on a daily basis, appropriate for a number of purposes, look good, and be easily maintained and cleaned. Further, it’s got to be priced well, built well and remain useable for years to come - it shouldn’t ruin your back when you sit on it and there should be a level of pride in ownership whenever you walk into room.

If you don’t have the majority of these factors covered in your choices, keep looking; there’s plenty of fish in the sea and good furniture selection is often half the battle in re-designing your living room.

Contractors

Budgeting for contractors can be troublesome. When you’re not capable of doing the work yourself, contractors can quickly become the largest expense of your renovation or redesign.

A good contractor should be able to both help you to realize your vision, and do it with a budget in mind. If you’re able, tell your potential contractor up front what you want to spend of your re-design. They’ll be able to tell you straight up if you’re expecting too much for your dollar, or if more can be done for the same coin. A reputable contractor will also want to better their portfolio, and should never make you feel as though working with you is a chore - select a contractor that’s excited about the prospect of earning your business - if they drag their feet through the design process and are pushy to get you to sign a contract, keep looking.

They should be able to tell you which walls could come out with minimal additions to structural supports, and how to help light bounce the right way in your space. Most importantly, a contractor with no sense of artistic vision shouldn’t be trusted with your redesign - being able to swing a hammer is a far cry from someone you want to trust with helping the energy and aesthetic of the most used room in your house. Contractors should be able to contribute their own artistic and aesthetic ideas towards your build - it should be an active collaboration. Budget for a contractor who is going to add opinion and value to the home.

Lastly, have a set of questions to ask your contractor - make sure they’re licensed, insured, and have experience in the type of redesign you’re undertaking, and have good references. Make sure they can accommodate your schedule and are willing to maintain open communication with you throughout the process.