Moving Into a New Home? Prioritize These Updates.
You’ve just purchased a new home. Now it’s time to focus on packing and the actual move. One thing you absolutely want to avoid, if possible, is moving all the furniture twice. It’s a lot of work and movers can be expensive. Once furniture is in a room, most homeowners and business owners don’t have the bandwidth to even think about moving all that furniture again for a very long time, which means some impactful improvements will be put on hold.
Refinishing Wood Floors
It’s not uncommon for us to work on a home that’s over 100 years old. As a result, many of our clients want to have their wood flooring refinished during their renovation.
This is also an opportunity to have the wood flooring extended into an updated space like a kitchen or an addition that the previous homeowner had built. Some homeowners, like our High Contrast Geometric client, also decide to change the color of the wood flooring at the same time. In any case, this improvement is a process and involves moving ALL the furniture out of the spaces.
Updating Stairs
Stairs are similar to wood flooring in that it’s often worth the investment, but in the midst of the update, it can be very disruptive to your everyday routine. If the stairs themselves are in good condition, a refresh shouldn’t take too long. However, if some of the risers or treads need replacing, that’s going to take a lot longer. If your stairs are under carpet, you won’t know their condition until carpet removal.
If all your bedrooms and full bathrooms are upstairs, then you’ll need to be out of the home for a few days while your stairs are being updated.
Updating Electrical
Since electrical runs through the entire space, any improvements can create a domino effect. These types of updates include getting rid of knob and tube wiring, updating other types of old wiring, adding fixtures and relocating or adding switches.
Electricians need to make holes in the walls and ceilings in order to fish any new wire through a space. That often means you’ll have holes in the walls and ceiling that will need to be patched. Electricians don’t typically patch drywall after completing their work and if they do, it’s usually not great because that’s not their expertise. That being said, if you plan on having your interior repainted, I suggest you have this done after any major electrical work.
If you still aren’t ready to commit to any decorative light fixtures, you can still have the electrician run the power as needed and install a temporary ceiling box cover. For example, if your dining room currently only has recessed lights, but you know you’re going to want a chandelier centered in the room, the electrician can run the wiring appropriately. When your chandelier is selected, the box cover can be removed and all the wiring is ready to go.
Painting
It’s so much easier to put on a fresh coat of paint without any rugs, furniture, pets and people to work around. Furniture can be moved to the center of the room and protected with tarps, but then you’re often paying for the furniture to be moved an additional time and there’s always the risk of damage to your belongings.
If any painting is completed before moving into the home, you can also avoid the smell caused by VOCs (volatile organic compounds). If you need to be in the home while painters are working, I suggest selecting a zero-VOC paint. There are several paint lines are completely VOC free, while major paint lines often have collections that feature zero-VOC options.
Final Thoughts
We’re all about efficiency at SG23 Design, so that means being strategic about the order in which improvements happen. There’s a reason that most construction schedules follow roughly the same order of events. When we work with a client, we’re always thinking about exactly how the project will be executed to ensure your project runs as smoothly as possible. If you’re moving into a new home and aren’t sure how to create a long-term plan to make it your own, contact us so we can provide some guidance.
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