How To Renovate

EP37 New Year. New Home?

• Tash South • Season 1 • Episode 37

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Hello! 
And welcome to 2025! 

I’m not usually one for New Years’ resolutions, but I do love the feeling of a fresh start that January brings (although I don’t so much love the London weather!) 
Maybe this year your goal or resolution is to finally sort your home that may be driving you crazy! But perhaps you feel a bit overwhelmed about where or how to start? 
Don’t worry - you’re in the right place! Join me inside this episode for 6 ways you can get started and get motivated to finally take that step towards that home renovation you’ve been dreaming of. 

So hit play and let’s get going on making 2025 the year your dream home makes it into reality!

Masterclasses mentioned in this episode
How To Create Strategic & Intentional Style Boards
How To Draw Easy Scaled Floor Plans

Also Mentioned:
RenoVersity

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Hi I'm your host, Tash South I'm an Interior Designer and Renovation Consultant.
Each episode of How To Renovate is short, but brimming with practical advice to help you manage your renovation project with confidence and success.

Grab some more renovation advice & free resources and become part of the South Place Studio Renovation Community at
https://www.southplacestudio.com/freebies

Everything I teach about renovation falls within my Five Pillar Process for A Successful Renovation, to learn more about the process, head to
https://www.southplacestudio.com/pillars


Or if you want to get social, you can find us here:

Instagram: @southplacestudio

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/south-place-studio

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/southplacestudio

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello everybody, and welcome back to how to Renovate and Happy New Year. I hope that you've had a really joyous festive season, full of family, delicious food, great company and, hopefully, some relaxation as well. Welcome to 2025. Oh, my goodness, I wonder what this year holds for us all. Now, I'm not usually one for new year's resolutions. I tend to try and make goals as I go through the year. But I do actually love this time of year because it feels like a new start, a fresh start, a chance to kind of get some new things in motion, some new projects started. So I do actually like this time of year. Now, I won't say I like the weather here in London this time of year. I find it quite a lot. Generally in February it gets dark really quickly, it's cold and it's kind of just the wrong side of winter where I just want it to be over. But a few more months and we'll hopefully be heading into lighter, brighter days, but getting back to those January goals you may have set. So in this episode I want to talk about whether you're thinking about doing a renovation in 2025. Is 2025 the year you've said, finally, we'll sort our home out, we'll do that renovation, we'll do that extension so that we can make this home function better for us and our family. So if that's you and you feel like your house has been driving you crazy and I feel especially after the festive season where you may have had house guests and loads of visitors and extra people and things into your home I find that generally sometimes people are really looking forward to just clearing out all that clutter, getting rid of the Christmas decorations, having a bit of a breather and then thinking about how they can improve their homes. So in this episode I want to talk about a few things to get you motivated if you're thinking about starting a renovation, a few things you can start on, you can think about so that you feel like you're making some progress, and some things to get you on the right track and moving in the right direction for a home renovation. So I hope you enjoy this episode.

Speaker 1:

I have six points for you here on where to start if you want to feel motivated about starting your home renovation. So let's get into the episode. So number one I would say is to assess your budget, because, of course, without the budget, you can't do your renovation, you can't do your works. So firstly and I do realize it's straight after christmas everyone's thinking, oh, I've spent so much money after the festive period getting presents and spending on whatever you've spent on. So January is always a tough time to look at the budget.

Speaker 1:

But as part of getting motivated, it would be really good to just assess how much money you may have towards your home renovation project. So obviously there's various avenues and various ways people have or find the money for their home renovations. So I think that would be the first thing to start with To think about your avenue that you would need to provide the funds for your home renovation, any steps that you might need to be able to secure that money or get that money or access that money, and then, of course, just get an idea of the big picture budget, which is the total amount you may have to spend on your home renovation project. It just gives you something to work towards. It gives you an idea of what you could or couldn't achieve, perhaps in terms of what you would like to do to your home. So I think just assessing the budget is a great place to start and then next up number two is to identify those key areas. So by this I mean those areas that are really, really bothering you, that you really feel like if you change them they would improve the way you used your home, they would create more space if they were designed better. So those areas you're you're finding really frustrating in your home, perhaps it's the kitchen. That's generally a big one for people. The kitchen is not functioning, it's not working properly. Or perhaps it's the bathrooms, perhaps it's your whole home or the whole floor of your home. So if you just identify which areas are your priority and where you would like to spend your money or where it would be most beneficial to spend your money, then of course that gives you a great place to start on planning for your design, for your project. So identifying those key areas are my next top tip.

Speaker 1:

So next up number three is to get motivated with a vision board. So I sometimes call it a style board as well, or a mood board even, but for me, the thing that gives me the most clear idea usually of what a client wants from their renovation project is a vision board. So this is just a series of images that really speaks to them, that really shows what they would love their new home to look like. You can go so far as to include materials on this board, but this is a really, really great place to start, and also it's quite a fun place to start because you can start looking at some images, you can start bringing some ideas together. You can perhaps involve your family. So I find this is a really lovely place to start. Not only is it fun, but it's also useful for whether you're going to manage your project yourself or you're going to get a designer or an architect to help you. These boards are really beneficial.

Speaker 1:

If you need some help creating a vision board or a style board, go and check out my masterclass. It's called how to Create Strategic and Intentional Style Boards, so that one's for sale on the website at southplacestudiocom. Forward slash masterclasses, and this masterclass will show you exactly how to create a style board, not only one that looks pretty, but one that's actually functional as well and that will help you create this tool that will help you manage, plan your renovation project from start to finish, and you will be able to use that board to convey your vision for your project to your architects, to your builders, to anyone that needs to see what you might have in mind for the end result of your projects. So I really recommend going to check out that masterclass. But ways you can do this is just to find just a few images. I always say not to overload it with too many images because that becomes confusing. It can muddle up your vision so it makes it confusing to relay what you really want to others. But if you really focus on just a few key images to start off with and then perhaps go and check out that masterclass, you'll really really create for yourself a really useful document that you can use all the way throughout your project.

Speaker 1:

So number four is to experiment with layout. So by this I mean actually get your floor plans into your hands so you may be able to find some online that you perhaps had from when you purchased your property. Usually the floor plans will be on the agent's details. You may have a paper version that was given to you when you bought your property. Usually the floor plans will be on the agent's details. You may have a paper version that was given to you when you bought your property. You may have had some drawn out for any other reason in the past or you could create your own by measuring and just drawing out every room.

Speaker 1:

So by experimenting with layout I mean is to start with that original floor plan to what you have right now and then play around with it and experiment, move things about remove walls, add walls, see how you can make your space function better for you, think about how you want to live in the space, how you want to use the space, and then think about how you can make changes to the layout to meet those requirements. And I do have a masterclass on this as well. It's called how to Draw Easy Scaled Floor Plans. That's also at southplaystudiocom forward slash masterclasses. So in that lesson I give you the simplest formula that you can copy and use and draw floor plans to scale. It also shows you how you can experiment and play around with your floor plans and there's a few examples in there of bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens. So if you need some help with that and you don't quite know where to start, that's a great place to start to learn how to do scaled floor plans. It's also a really easy way. So I've made it the simplest way possible so you can go there, check it out and have a go at experimenting with your layouts.

Speaker 1:

For example, you may want to make your home more open plan. You may want to add an extension and you may want to see how that extension is going to then integrate into your existing home and your existing floor plan. So playing around with the layout and I always say even before you get an architect on board just so you can get a feel of how you want to use your space, because architects don't always have time to help experiment with you all the way through, from start to finish. They don't really have the time to ask how you live, how you use the space, and if they do, they're going to charge you for that time. So I would say, if you can do it yourself, do experiment. It's not going to be your final plans that your home is going to be built to, but it will give you such a good idea, going through the process, of how you want your home to function for you and your family.

Speaker 1:

And then number five is start asking around for recommendations. So you may think this is a bit early to start asking for recommendations, but believe me, sometimes it can take months and months to find the right people for your project. So start asking friends and family who you know have carried out a similar project to what you intend to carry out. Ask them how they found working with the people they used their contractor, their architect, their trades people. If they would recommend them, you could even start meeting these contractors and architects quite soon to get a feel for whether you might want to work with them, if you might get along and just go on your gut feeling on how you feel about meeting them at this early stage and how you feel it might be to work with them. So this very early stage is a great time just to get recommendations. It's not saying you have to hire anybody just yet, but it can take a long time. I've known some people get to planning stage perhaps they've even received their planning permissions already and then they think they could just quickly hire a contractor and get started straight away, not knowing that it could possibly take three to six months to find someone they feel comfortable working with. And then when you find that person, they might have a waiting list. They might have a project or projects they have signed up to finish first before they get to yours, so they might not even be able to start for a long time. So asking around for recommendations, even at an early stage, is a great thing to do.

Speaker 1:

And then number six everybody. It's what I always talk about Plan, plan, plan and plan some more. So think about what your renovation might entail. There are so many aspects to a home renovation and if you start thinking early about your vision board, your layout, who you might work with, what exactly you might like to achieve from your space, try noting these things down, make some notes, get your floor plans together, get your vision board together, start as you wish to go on. So start with a file, whether that's a digital file or a paper file, and just start gathering all these documents and all these things together so that you really do feel like you have made an actual start on your renovation and, you know, start thinking about how disruptive the project might be to your daily life. Would you need to move out? Can you stay there? Think about, perhaps, how it might affect your neighbours and do you need to start talking to them about your plans? So there are so, so many aspects to start thinking about before you start your renovation. So I would say, the sooner you can start planning, the better.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, if you need help planning your renovation, you must check out my brand new online renovation course called Reniversity. It is launching at the end of January, so at the end of this month and if you need help renovating, if you don't know where to start, if you want to save time, save money and grab all my resources, templates and calculators that I use for my real professional projects every day, then go and check out Reniversity. It's really going to help you with your home renovation project. It will just help you plan, it will help you design, it will help you manage your team on site. It will help you put your team together. So do go and have a look at that. You can find out more at southplacestudiocom. Forward slash renoversity. I will link to it in the show notes. But that brings us to the end of the episode.

Speaker 1:

Everybody, I hope this super quick episode will help you get motivated if you're thinking about starting a renovation project in 2025. If you need help, I'm here to help you. I hope you have a renovation project in 2025. If you need help, I'm here to help you. I hope you have a great week and I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now. For more information on my five pillar process for successful renovation, you can go directly to southplacestudiocom forward slash pillars, where you'll find an introduction to the process which covers each of the pillars and what they cover. We also have a number of other free renovation resources. Go now to southplacestudiocom forward slash freebies. I have created some amazing freebies for you there. There is one on the process, like we just said, there is one on planning permission, there is one on kitchen design, there is another one on lighting planning. Go and check those out. There's so much free information there to help you with your renovation.