Homeowners across the country have started to plan renovations to their homes and property. Whether you’re adding minor finishing touches or doing a complete overhaul, renovations require detailed planning and budgeting, and can be expensive. In fact, according to a study by the Altus Group, Canadians spent a record $63.5 billion on home renovations in 2013 - a 2.7 per cent jump in spending from 2012.
Growing up, I always wondered how my mother managed to accumulate so much ‘stuff.’ Our house seemed to be filled with the toys my sisters and I no longer played with, our closets with the clothes we no longer wore. Then I became a mother myself and finally, I understood.
If you have ever lived through a renovation project, you will know it’s not an easy thing to do. There are people in and out of your home, there’s a mess and it typically gets worse before it gets better.
I recommend anyone planning home renos add a little to the budget for marital counseling - or at least a vacation in the midst of it all! A kitchen reno has been on my to-do list for years. As a food writer, I spend a lot of time there testing recipes, styling and photographing them, besides the usual preparation of breakfast, lunch and dinner for the family. My kitchen was small and sunny, with an old workhorse of a GE electric stove, a hand-me-down fridge from my parents and old, splintering wood countertops that were at one point salvaged from the U of C science lab. The problem was, I couldn’t do without my kitchen - I’m always working on cookbooks or articles. But at one point, we decided to throw our hat over the fence. On a trip to Italy last June, I told my husband to tear it all out while I was gone - that would force us to renovate.
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