With the great success of property development programmes such as Property Ladder and Grand Designs, more and more people are digging deep inside to find their own architectural flair and are endeavouring to refurbish their homes themselves.

Renovating a house takes a lot more time, effort and money than most people think so there are a few things you should do before embarking on any house building or renovating process.

Planning is everything and if you do not know exactly what you plan to do and know the realistic time scales for it then you will get into trouble. A lot of people just start on a room thinking it will all come together and several years later the job is not complete.

Budget control is another crucial element. Work out how much money you have overall and allocate a specific budget to each smaller project. Be sure to include labour and materials for each one and always have a contingency budget.

Think about the finished room as opposed to just the fact that you want a new kitchen or bathroom. Being able to ‘vision’ what a room will look like when it is complete will partly help to ensure that no major design mistakes are made at the early stages.

To make things a little easier on the wallet, try to bulk buy on things such as tiles. If you are using tiles in multiple rooms then if you plan ahead you can purchase all tiles at once and get a discount.

At the Online Tile Shop we provide tiles and floor coverings for use in all rooms in the home so it is effectively a one stop shop for flooring and wall covering needs. Purchasing all your tiles at once also means you have got a big expenditure out of the way in one go.