The Ultimate Guide to Renovating Your Home

One of the principles of building renovation is its ultimate beauty and strength, which can increase its life. All buildings and structures deteriorate over time due to continuous use, quality of materials and wear and tear, which makes people renovate their buildings.

Like all other constructions, home renovation has rules, regulations, and various tools that people must follow to achieve their desired results.

What are the basic principles of building reconstruction?

Conceptually, the word reconstruction is a term used to describe the preservation of the structure of any object and has different meanings depending on the context or discipline in which it is used. You basically renovate the building in order to make changes in diversity, repair or restore the building and perform a series of actions to maintain it.

In renovating a house, you can change a specific part of the house or the whole house. Renovation of a property increases the added value of the building due to increasing its useful life, renewing its appearance and making the spaces more functional.

House renovation steps

1. Design and planning

You can start this step by sketching a basic plan on paper, creating a full-scale architectural plan, or sketching out a set of ideas about how the home renovation process should go. Remember that correcting mistakes or incorporating changes on paper is much easier and cheaper before starting the project. Along with what you are designing, you should ensure that the budget you will spend on home repairs is sufficient.

Create a simple yes-or-no list to separate the operations and projects you want to do yourself from those you want to delegate. For things you want to avoid doing yourself, look for an experienced renovation contractor. I suggest Happy Construction Company, with more than 20 years of experience in GTA.

2. Roof, foundation, water problems, siding, windows

You should always prioritize steps such as rebuilding or replacing the roof, repairing the foundation by underpinning, preventing water leakage, using materials on the exterior of the building or improving it, and repairing or replacing windows because later operations are greatly affected by these things.

Before undertaking any internal renovation, you must ensure that the home will be protected from a weak foundation or fundamental structural problems. You need to ensure that the interior space will remain dry due to the lack of water penetration from the house's roof, exterior and windows for future repairs.

• Secure and reinforce the foundation. Make major repairs to vulnerable sections of walls, beams, and joists. You can benefit from Happy Construction's expertise in underpinning.

• Repair or replace the roof

• Replace windows with new ones that may hinder the home renovation process. If the windows are not in such bad condition, postpone the repairs until the next steps.

• If the exterior or siding of the building is damaged enough to allow water to seep in, repair or replace it. But if the problem is not severe, postpone working on it to the next steps.

3. Destruction

Now, it's time to demolish parts of the house and deal with the components that will replace them. Be careful when demolishing all or part of the house you intend to renovate. Be very careful when destroying surfaces that have been painted with lead materials because the dust from these surfaces is dangerous and harmful. Rent a large container to collect and transport construction waste.

4. Structural carpentry

At this stage of the house renovation, basic carpentry operations are performed. This step includes the following:

• Moving wooden walls

• Construction of new wooden walls

• Adding beams to improve the weight-bearing capacity of the upper floors

• Carving to create new doors (or remove old doors)

• Adding a frame to install new windows or change the size of the window openings

5. Air conditioning channels, electrical system and plumbing

This house renovation stage is dedicated to installing the three primary systems mentioned above. Systems that you can install when ceilings and walls are open. First, you must install the air conditioning ducts for the central heating and ventilation system. Now you need to launch the installed systems so that experts can review and evaluate their performance.

6. Windows

At this stage of the old house renovation, you have to decide whether to install new windows or replace them with the same structure as before. Installing windows in the whole or part of the house is almost always a permanent fixture in remodelling projects.

7. Insulation

At this stage, you should insulate the walls and ceilings in a suitable way. Place insulation in walls, ceilings, and the upper parts of the columns. Insulation works quickly, so ensure the contractors who will do the next step are ready. In this regard, you can contact the expert consultants of Happy Construction. They will inspect your building for free and estimate the number of repairs and their cost.

8. Drywall

A drywall is a compressed sheet of gypsum that professionals use to build interior partition walls and ceilings. At this stage of the house renovation, install, plaster and smooth the drywall on the house's walls. After a second inspection of the electrical system (and perhaps the plumbing system), you will receive permission to close the borders.

9. Final carpentry

This stage includes those minor carpentry operations that do not affect the following process. Installing cornices, inlays, decorations around doors and windows, and making wooden elements in the house's interior, such as bookshelves, computer desks, and wall panels, are among the crucial actions you should do at this stage.

10. Interior decoration

You must do interior painting, wallpaper installation and other interior decorations at this stage. Remember that these should be the last things you do because doing any of them ahead of time can disrupt the process of home renovation. You should always prioritize the structural measures first and take more detailed measurements in their context.

11. Flooring

In this step, you repair or replace the final floor covering of the building. This cover can be laminate parquet, tiles, engineered wood, and stone. The advantage of final flooring in home renovation is that it protects the floor surface from all kinds of damage.

12. View of siding and gutters

At this stage of the house renovation, you perform all the actions related to the exterior space. It makes more sense to renovate the siding of a house where other renovations have been completed. You should only do this step early if necessary. Doing it ahead of time can damage the building's siding.

13. Construction of subsections

In this stage of the house renovation, you repair everything that can be separated from the main building and is not a central component of it. These sections include swimming pools, a sunroom garden and a yard.