I'm not renovating yet. What should I do now?
If nothing's drawn, nobody's quoted, and the walls are all closed, you're in the cheapest week there is. Everything that's expensive about a renovation is expensive because a decision got made late. Right now nothing's been decided at all, and there's a short list of things to do before that changes, none of which cost money.
1. Write down your day
Walk the house on an ordinary day and notice what it charges you: steps, reaches, transfers, minutes, hands. Which rooms you avoid. What you do when both hands are full. What's hard on a bad day that nobody else in the house notices.
Three sentences per room. Put the list somewhere you'll find it. This is the list that the whole renovation will check itself against, and the earlier it exists the more it shapes what gets drawn instead of what gets patched.
2. Pick five
You'll have a page. Choose the five lines that cost you most right now, in order. That's what the renovation is for. Anything that doesn't touch one of those five is a change you'd be paying for that doesn't change your day.
3. Turn each one into a requirement
"I need a walk-in shower" is a product. "I need to wash without stepping over anything and without standing the whole time" is a requirement. Write the second kind. A requirement can be met more than one way, and it's the thing a contractor can price and an architect can draw around. Products get chosen last.
4. Learn which of your requirements closes first
Some of what's on your list is decided the moment a drawing is approved: which floor the bedroom is on, how wide the doors are, where the entry is. Some is decided while the walls are open: wood behind the bathroom wall, where the drain goes, where the switches are. Some can wait until you've moved back in: handles, a grab bar into wood you already put there.
Sort your five by what closes first, not by what matters most. The thing that closes first goes on the drawing first, even if it's the least exciting item on the list.
5. Write down the four numbers
Before anyone quotes you, decide four things about the money: what you'd like to spend, what you could spend, what you'd stop at, and what you're keeping back for the thing nobody predicted. Write them down now, while nobody's asking, because the first quote resets what feels reasonable.
6. Decide who decides
If the house belongs to a parent or a partner, or if their body is the one the renovation is for, they answer the questions in steps 1 to 3. You can hold the budget and make the calls. A house planned around somebody who wasn't in the room turns out worse.
What you don't need yet
A product list. A decision about the bathroom. A diagnosis. A contractor. Measurements. Any of the things people think they need before they can start. All of that comes after the list, and most of it comes from other people.
What changes when you do this now
The next time somebody says "we're thinking about redoing the bathroom," you have a page that says which floor, how wide, no step, somewhere to sit, wood behind the wall, switch at the door. It goes to the architect before the drawing and to the contractor before the quote. The things that would have been change orders are lines in the price instead. That's the whole difference, and it's made now, in an evening, for nothing.
The free guide, The Decisions Your Renovation Makes Without You, is the version of this with the stages laid out, so you can see exactly what closes when. Short, large print. Sign up and the download is yours.
