- What do you want it to look like at the end?
Some people are blessed with being able to see the end vision of the renovation before it starts. If this is you, great – just write it down so you don’t loose track of your vision throughout the process.
If you don’t have this skill, spend some time thinking about what you want it to look like at the end. Write all of the things that come to your mind in point form. Sort through the points and put them in order of how important they are to you. If visual things aren’t your cup of tea at all – get your plans drawn in full colour and 3D style – you can easily do this through an online service such as elance.com or through your architect/draftsman/builder.
Also, be clear about the details – do you want every gap filled prior to painting, must every corner be exactly 90 degrees? Think about what tolerance level you are happy with. If one paver out of 50 is 3mm out of line, is this OK or do they all have to be within 1mm of each other? Bear in mind, the more exact you want the finished look the higher the cost – simply because the extra amount of time required to get something 1mm perfect compared to 3mm perfect will be approximately doubled.
If you don’t know what you want it to look like at the end, how can you possibly expect your tradesmen to deliver from their end as you need to communicate to them what you want?