Kitchen renovation can be costly. Not only do you have all those costly appliances to buy, you have to pay for somebody to work out where they are all going to go. And then work out where all the cupboards are going to go around the appliances!

The best piece of money saving advice I can give you when it comes to kitchen renovations is ‘refurbish, don’t replace’. Take a good long look at your kitchen. Try the cupboard doors. Open a drawer. Is it just that you are tired of the tired looking worktop, a drawer doesn’t open and you have a hole in the cupboard door? Those are no reasons for a new kitchen!

Most DIY books will give good instructions on fitting a new worktop (Tip: When cutting, remember to place masking tape firmly along the line you are cutting to help prevent chipping!). The cupboard doors can be replaced, or better still, sanded down and re-varnished in a colour of your choosing. The hole can be filled with a small chip of the same type of wood. Oh, and the drawer probably just needs a new runner. It also goes without saying that a lick of paint can go a long way to improving a room.

Grab a pen and paper and write down all the things you dislike about your kitchen. Include everything. Obviously items like cookers and dishwashers may need replacing, but these are rarely the heart and soul of the kitchen. If the final list, to you, represents a somewhat doable list of DIY tasks, then congratulations, you have just saved yourself a lot of money! All you need to do now is have a glance at some kitchen websites or perhaps some design magazines and choose some styles that you would like to recreate.

Remember the less money you spend on perfecting your home, the greater your overall gain at time of sale!

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With the recent tightening up of mortgage lending and the slowing down of the housing market, a lot of people are looking at renovation and home improvements as a way of strengthening their property investment. It is pretty well accepted that there is no greater way to add value to a home and by carrying out the work yourself, you stand to make a greater gain at the end as the overall costs are lower and property value higher.

Keeping the renovating cost down is not always easy. Some tasks require professional workmanship, often for your own safety amongst other reasons, which can drive the cost up. There are, however, a plethora of improvements to a home that can be carried out yourself and help keep the cost down.

If you are capable with most DIY tasks and are happy to undertake some tasks yourself, you leave yourself in complete control over the tools and materials used, offering further potential cost reductions. Here are my top 3 tips to achieving lower renovating costs:

1.Reuse as many materials as you can. Look under your house. In the garage; the shed. Even other peoples’ skips can hold treasures for your home. Obviously always knock and ask the owner before removing something from a skip! Before you chop up that piece of timber for the fire, ask yourself if it carries any other potential purpose in your home, like, perhaps, skirting repair or even a small shelf. The reusing of any materials already owned, or available free or at low cost, can massively help drive down your renovating costs, so give this some thought.

2.Now, I would never suggest trying to skimp when it comes to purchasing tools. I have had too many heads fall off hammers for that. What I would suggest, where logic prevails, is the purchasing of second hand tools. Check out your local flea markets, you never know what you might find. I recently bought a recently sharpened chisel for $5 NZD (About $2.50 USD) from our local village market. I would also recommend charity shops for any DIY/home improvement books you may want along the way. Popular techniques have barely changed over the years, so it often doesn’t matter whether you’re buying the fifth edition, or the first.

3.Keep doing what you are doing and stay online! The internet is quickly becoming a massive resource for renovating techniques and cost saving ideas. There are plenty of sites out there that can inspire, guide and inform on the job you wish to carry out, so keep your eyes open and remember: the more informed you are, the less it will cost.

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We have something of four gardens here. That is, if you count decks as gardens. Which I do.

Leading up from the drive on the left, there is a front deck. Which spans half the width of the house and sits in front of the patio sliders. Down the right hand side of this deck and the house is a strip of land, running the depth of the house, at about 5 metres in width. It is scrappy, messy land that I am tempted to describe as wasteland. What the heck! I will.

Out the rear of the house is a large rear deck, which extends round to the front left, by the drive. the fourth ‘garden’ is truly that. A large amount of native bushland. Very green.

Of the four, it is the messy wasteland that I want to sort out first. Not only is it a complete waste of land, but also it looks messy and depressing. Nothing helps add value to a home more than the first impression on offer, and being at the front of the section, this plays a very big part in the first impressions of the house.

A brief dig under the surface of the grass has revealed a load of stones, which have presumably been there since the house was built, put down to support vehicles and machinery used during the building.

I want to tidy up this area and cultivate it with plants and vegetables. It is sloping down a hill, so I will have to section off parts and fill and level with soil and compost. Luckily there is plenty of wood under the house that will do for sections. The pebbles will have to go, but the topsoil looks in a good state. The shed is ok for now, but will definitely be replaced with something that can stand up straight when the budget allows.

To allow enough sunlight in to this area, the development options are sadly limited to little more than a driveway on this side. There is a half-hearted attempt at a driveway already there, but we are thinking two rough looking brick lines may look nice. Or perhaps that could be the use for all this leftover gravel?

The improvements have got to allow access under the house, which, as you can see here, won’t be too much of an issue. It also has to allow access to the septic tank, located under the plywood cover halfway up. I have asked a number of people about the septic tank and the dangers associated with its proximity to the vegetable garden, but nobody has expressed concern. Apparently they are located too deep in the ground for any hygiene issues.

One last thing, you may have spotted in the rear of two of the pictures a large blue barrel. That’s our compost bin, which I must confess, I produced within 48 hours of living in the house. It’s doing a grand job and I will show you how to make your own very soon.

Tags: gravel, introduction, planning, septic tank, topsoil
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