You’ve been living in your house for the past 10 years. But after watching tons of home makeover shows on TV, you’re convinced that it’s time to spruce up your place, get rid of the mess in your backyard and finally uproot the tree that has been blocking your view of the city.
That’s the great thing about renovations – you don’t always have to spend a million dollars to buy your dream home – you can make do with the one you already have. All it takes is having a contractor check out exactly what you want and come up with a quote, so that you can save up and create the type of space that will have you feeling like you’re living in a hotel.
And depending on what you want to change, renovations usually take weeks or even months.
Kake Kashe, who works at House of Kashe, a building and construction company, focuses primarily on landscaping and interior decor but also does small to medium-sized renovations.
“You need to find a niche in the market,” he said.
Thinking about doing landscaping? Kashe’s advice was as follows: “Landscaping should only be done when you don’t want to change anything else in the house. The main house should be renovated first.”
And the kind of job Kashe and his team does is making sure that the homes are always clean, even when doing renovations.
But should you take the risk and renovate?
“Sooner or later, you feel like your house is closing in on you and your family is growing bigger,” Kashe mentioned. “The current trends include earthy colours and modern designs.”
And seeing that most people like to renovate their living rooms and kitchens, earthly colours and palettes are known for creating a cosy environment. “Most clients request that, but everyone has their own taste. People also like different shades of grey. It’s a dream that they’ve always had.”
What a contractor does is visit someone’s home, figure out what they want and give advice. “It really depends on the client,” he said. “For example, they would want grey cupboards. And you would give them suggestions. They would choose the colour scheme and from that comes the budget. If I give you a few designs, I would give you a price estimate. But we would discuss it – what is your budget and what exactly is it that you want to do?” Kashe stated.
Luckily, the completion of a renovation doesn’t take forever. “A modern kitchen can be done within a week, two at most,” Kashe confirmed. “It really depends on how big the house is. But landscaping usually takes a week. It’s also about what you want to do like enlarge your sitting room, etc.”
His work schedule is quite busy, but his team shows great enthusiasm for the job. “We work every day. I’m one of the lucky people to have a great team. There was one employee who worked until midnight because he wanted to get things done, but I told him he had to go home and sleep. He showed up at work the next day still.”
Another professional contractor, John Nekundi*, said a small investment in your home can often increase the value quite a bit.
“I would recommend people to renovate as it adds value to properties after a while. And a new feel and look is needed. Imagine driving a car that you don’t service. It will surely die on you one day. Renovations are more like a service to the property, I would say.”
Although renovating is a dream come true for most, it has its fair share of challenges as well. “Challenges are endless, starting from clients. They never know what they want, knowing that their budget is limited,” he said. “Second, the limited building material supplies lead to the few market players setting prices high since competition is limited in their trade. Lastly, the fact that big projects keep going to the Chinese, we are left to do close to nothing as the market is controlled by the Chinese.”
For Simon Nakapunda, who recently renovated his place, it was a necessary process. “The old owners of the place didn’t really take care of it so a lot of the things were broken and needed fixing.
“Also, I wanted to modernise and personalise my own space to my liking because they were all built en masse with one design in mind.” But it requires a set budget, otherwise you will struggle.
“It can be very costly, just how costly depends on the materials you use. The fancier you want it to look, the more it will cost you.”
