Renovation Ideas
Aug 3rd, 2010 by admin
Where do you find renovation ideas?
Many people get them from the wide range of shelter magazines available at the supermarket, but there are many other sources you can use to come up with great ideas for your own renovation projects.
Houses – other people have created thousands of renovation ideas which you can see all around you in their houses. Simply walking around your town or city will give you plenty of ideas for exterior renovations, especially if you visit up-and-coming areas where a lot of upgrading is in process or recently completed. For interior ideas you need to go inside, and you have many choices from friends’ houses to show houses to house tours to simply knocking on the door of a house you love and asking them about their renovation.
Home shows – while these are mainly set up to sell you products and services, you can get a whole slew of great renovation ideas from the displays and brochures. Don’t sign up for anything while you’re there, but collect useful info and take a camera with you so you can take pictures of ideas which strike your fancy. Sometimes you may need to ask permission of the stall-holder, but usually they will be happy for you to get a picture if it’s for your own personal use.
Books – visit the library or a good bookstore and you’ll find hundreds of books containing an infinite variety of ideas. The big advantage of the library is that you can read the books without having to buy them all! Again, having your camera at the bookstore will let you take pics as you browse books, but you won’t want to spend hours doing this and bookstore owners might object. Note down titles of especially interesting books and see if you can get them from your local library or an inter-library loan service. Used bookstores are also a good source – even though many of the decorating ideas and finishes will be out of date (orange laminate kitchen counters, anyone?) the actual projects can often still give you useful ideas for your own home.
Web sites – as well as renovation or remodeling sites, bookstore sites like Amazon sometimes allow you to look inside books right on the site. Decorating and shelter sites often have great pictures and project instructions. There’s even at least one complete website devoted to millions of pictures of remodeling ideas and decorating ideas for different rooms.
Magazines - both the supermarket-checkout shelter magazines and the monthlies have inspiring pictures, stories and projects. Even back issues can work, the same way as older books: garage sales and used bookstores may give you piles for cents on the dollar. Or ask friends if they have back issues they no longer want.
TV shows – these can have some useful ideas if you filter out the crazy uber-decorator projects and stick to the practical. Take notes as you watch the show, otherwise your ideas will leave your brain, never to return!
Other people – Talking to other renovators online and offline is a great way to get ideas and to improve your own. Online forums exist that discuss every possible renovation project in exhaustive detail, with problems and solutions, and allow you to ask questions and get answers from many different points of view. Just make sure the answers you’re getting are coming from people who know what they are talking about, not some random passer-by!
So, as you can see there are many, many sources for great renovation ideas. In fact once you get going, you’ll find that you have more ideas than you can use, and you’ll be able to pick and choose the ones which work best for you and your home. Happy dreaming!