The costs of remodeling your house can quickly rise if you’re not careful about planning. Think about design, timing, and materials to help save yourself hundreds or even thousands of dollars. One easy way to go over budget is to make changes while the initial project is going on. Careful planning and applying some creative money-saving ideas will lower the cost of your remodel.

1. Make Your Kitchen More Efficient

By reorganizing and reequipping your kitchen, you may not need to do any major construction to add square footage and more storage. Before removing walls, try replacing large shelves with 8-inch-wide cabinet-height pull-out drawers. You could add three or more horizontal planes in your cabinets where you previously had only one or two.

Upgrades to your kitchen’s storage system include lazy susans, pull-out pot trays, and dividers. Expanding your kitchen’s size by 200 square feet could cost as much as $95,000. Opting instead for efficient, custom-designed cabinets, on the other hand, costs around $35,000.

2. Consider the Long-Term Costs Instead of the Short-Term Gains

An example of considering the long-term costs is when using clapboard siding in your project. You can save in the long run by paying more for the pre-primed and pre-painted styles of the board. Pre-primed and pre-painted clapboard siding costs 10 to 20 cents more per foot, but you’ll save on painting costs.

Factories apply finishes to dry the wood under controlled conditions. The initial job of installing unfinished siding requiring two paint jobs cost about $5,000. However, using pre-finished clapboards requiring only one coat of paint at installation costs about $3,750, which saves you around $1,250.

3. Talk to Your Contractor About Their Material Sources

New flooring for your house remodel can be pricey, but you could talk to your contractor about any odds-and-ends stock from other projects. The subcontractor could make some calls and find out if the flooring you’re looking for was used in any recent jobs.

The different flooring sizes are usable after planing them to uniform thickness and then sanding and refinishing the floor. The cost of new flooring during a project costs about $19,200. Your contractor using discards of flooring can be as low as $10,500, which saves you close to $9,000.

4. Consider Wood Look-Alikes

Mahogany is a popular wood for house remodeling, but Lyptus is a natural eucalyptus hybrid that feels like mahogany. You can buy Lyptus as tongue-and-groove flooring, planks, and sheets for millwork or cabinetry. Mahogany costs about $808 for 100 board feet. Lyptus, on the other hand, costs about $395 for the same amount.

Remodeling a house can become more expensive the longer the project goes on without a plan beforehand. Stay focused on the long-term costs instead of short-term gains to reach your goal. We partner with our customers to make their residential and commercial projects a reality. If you’re planning a house remodel in Norman, OK, call us at SH Renovations with any questions today.