There are always going to be things that bug me now that the renovation has finished. Things we didn’t quite get right, that we missed, or that we just couldn’t visualise with everything else going on. Fundamentally the number of components, decisions and changes in a renovation make it near impossible to get it 100%. We got all the big things right; walls removed, doors installed, bathroom fittings, etc, but some of these small things I can’t help but wince every time I look at them. Easy mistakes to make, and that’s why I want to share them with you, so you don’t forget the little things…

Door Furniture

“What the hell is door furniture?” I hear you ask. Well I asked the same thing! It is door handles, locks, hinges etc, and the builders like owners to choose and buy these items so that they source exactly what they want. Fair enough, but wow was there a lot to learn about door furniture. The range of hinges is one thing, different metals… I could go on! What I think we messed up this time was that some of our doors have “silver” door furniture and some have “brass”. The latter was in keeping with the Victorian period features, most of which are upstairs, and the silver is a little more modern downstairs. However our living room has both silver and brass on two different doors and I wish we’d realised this would clash. I know I know, probably no-one will notice… but I will!

Painting details

When you decide to re-paint, you really need to create a painting schedule which lists every part of the room that is going to be painted, and in which paint. For instance; skirting boards in Dulux Vivid White Semi Gloss, downstairs hallway in Dulux Puhoi Half Low Sheen, upstairs hallway in Dulux Whitsunday Island Low Sheen, and so on. The more detailed and extensive the list, the closer your painters should get to fulfilling your requirements. However, sometimes it’s hard to know whether to paint a wall one colour, or another. I really think we should have painted the inside of the front door in the same blue colour of the walls. Easy fix, I know, just means I have to get the paint out myself now!

In addition, I didn’t really consider how our interior blue feature colour would look next to our exterior colour, which is a grey-blue. There is one wall in the back of the house, only which is separated by the glass bi-folds next an exterior wall. The colours don’t look wrong together but it’s a lot of blue and maybe I would have painted the internal wall white instead…??

Light fittings

I think we did pretty well, choosing some really interesting and effective light fittings for each room. The front room light fitting is a bit bland, but that was sort of what I was going for so I can only really blame myself. However, while I love the light fitting in the upstairs hallway above the stairs, it is too small for the space. I should have measured the space and the light fitting and realised it needed to be bigger, it just doesn’t fill it well enough. Google “light fitting size of room” for some really handy guides.

In addition, the down lights in the kitchen and sunroom are not in one line. I kept harping on this with the builder but the message obviously did not get through to the electrician… this one really bothers me as it’s not an easy or cheap fix and one we definitely won’t be investing in changing.

Architraves, cornices, door frames etc

We didn’t do too badly here actually. We selected new skirting/architraves for the entire downstairs and I didn’t think to match them with what was upstairs but you wouldn’t notice the difference thankfully. Something to look out for next time though. The builder however, in his infinite wisdom, managed to forget to put a door frame around the downstairs bathroom door. He installed beautiful door frames that match the skirting around the new bi-fold doors we put into the front room but somehow didn’t think the new bathroom door needed a door frame. I don’t know why. And the render finish on the wall around the door is not great so I can’t help but cringe every time I walk through the door…

New outlooks

We installed a deck in the backyard and it’s fabulous but what I didn’t consider is that the view from the deck would be much higher and further out into the backyard than the original old concrete steps. And I didn’t realise that the outlook from this deck looks straight into the neighbour’s backyard and into the back lane. And conversely, the neighbours and passers-by can sort of see into our deck too. I should have raised the brick work higher on the fence bordering our neighbours. However we needed to include this in the DA so technically I can’t fix it now…

Sticking to the budget

We didn’t have an endless budget so opted not to change the ugly aluminium balcony door in our bedroom to a more traditional wooden style, however with all of the tradies onsite at the time, it would have been easy and much cheaper. Now when we do it later we will need to get a carpenter, renderer and painter to complete the small job and will pay a premium. Ah well!

Not a huge list, most of which we can fix, but little things I wish I had thought of along the way. As exhausted as we were from making decisions on every possible thing, we really mustn’t forget the little details.