Before You Renovate Your Home
Renovating feels exciting the moment you decide to do it. New paint, new furniture, maybe a whole new layout. But here’s what I’ve learned over the years: the most expensive renovation mistakes aren’t bad taste — they’re skipped planning. A wall gets knocked down before anyone checks if it’s load-bearing. A layout gets locked in before storage was ever considered. Money gets spent twice because the first version wasn’t actually thought through.
Before you do anything, walk through these six steps with me. They take a fraction of the time a full renovation does, but they’ll save you from most of the expensive mistakes people make.
Observe How You Actually Use Your Home
Before anything else, find your why. Write down every issue the space currently has and why it actually bothers you. Then picture the opposite — what mood do you want to walk into? Calm and airy? Warm and social? Focused and quiet?
This step feels small, but it’s the foundation for everything after. Once you know how you want a space to feel, choosing colors, textures, and materials becomes so much easier — they’re no longer random preferences, they’re decisions in service of a feeling. If you don’t know how you want a space to make you feel, how do you expect to know when it’s finished?
Understand The Bones Of Your Home
If you want to do anything bigger than paint, you need to know the limits of your home first. Start with load-bearing walls.
Load-Bearing wall: are walls that carry the structural weight of the floors or roof above them, as opposed to partition walls, which just divide space.
Removing or moving the wrong one without reinforcement can compromise the whole structure. A structural engineer or contractor can confirm which walls are load-bearing in about an hour, often for the cost of a single consultation — always worth it before you swing a hammer.
The same goes for windows, doors, fireplaces, and sinks: moving any of them usually means rerouting plumbing, gas lines, or electrical, and sometimes altering the exterior structure. Pull your home’s permit history or blueprints (your city’s building department usually has them on file) to see what’s actually behind your walls before you commit to a change.
Finally, find your studs. A stud finder tells you where the wall framing sits, which matters for hanging shelves, mirrors, or cabinets securely later on.
Plan Storage Before Decoration
Once you know your home’s limits, it’s time to get it on paper. Sketch a simple 2D floor plan of the space, it doesn’t need to be professional, just accurate enough to visualize where furniture, cabinets, and plumbing will actually sit.
Before you draw in a single piece of furniture, work out your storage. Sit down and list what needs a home in this room: towels, cleaning supplies, everyday clutter, seasonal items. Then sketch it directly onto your floor plan — extra space under the bathroom sink, a separate linen cabinet, a bench with hidden storage in the entryway. Get specific about what goes where.
Storage is what makes a home livable day to day, not a fancy rug. Solve that first, and decoration becomes the easy part.
Don't Choose Materials Individually
Paint, flooring, tile, stone, countertops, hardware — none of these should be chosen in isolation. Pick a countertop today and a tile next month, and you’ll often end up with two “pretty” materials that clash the second they’re in the same room. They all need to work together in tone and undertone, whether that’s warm and earthy or cool and minimal.
The easiest way to test this: grab samples from your local home improvement store (actual physical swatches, not photos) and lay them next to each other in the room’s natural light. Move them around. Live with them for a day or two. There’s no universal “right” combination here; it only has to make sense to you, because you’re the one who has to like it every day.
Mixing wood tones trips people up the most, if that’s you, I wrote a full guide breaking down exactly how to do it well.
Design For Five Years From Now—Not Just Today
When you’re choosing what to furnish a space with, be intentional. Ask yourself: will I still like this in five years, not just this season? This doesn’t mean everything has to stay frozen in time, it means your big-ticket, compound pieces (the couch, the dining table, the bed) should be chosen for their staying power, not a passing trend.
Trends belong in the things that are small and easy to change, like pillows, art, accessories, a fresh coat of paint. Your furniture shouldn’t be one of them. Designing with purpose like this means you’re not replacing a couch you got tired of in a year. It saves you money long-term, and it’s simply more sustainable.
Know What NOT To Change
If you’re building brand new, this one doesn’t really apply to you. But if you’re renovating a home with a past, slow down before you strip everything out. Look around for details that show character — original mouldings, wood carvings, hardwood flooring, old window frames, any architectural detail that tells a story. These are worth keeping, because this is what makes your home unique and gives it more value.
It’s no secret that older craftsmanship was often built with more care and more detail than what gets mass-produced today, which is exactly why original features tend to hold and even increase a home’s value. Don’t renovate that history away. Use it to your advantage, and build the rest of your plan around it.
Every step above exists to save you time, effort, and money, because the real cost of a renovation is never the paint or the tile, it’s the decisions made without a plan. And design is so much more than candles and plants on a shelf; its structure, function, and intention working together, which is exactly why it can feel overwhelming to plan alone.
That’s where architects and interior designers come in. We help turn an overwhelming process into an achievable plan. I help with exactly this: taking a space from an initial thought all the way through space planning, mood boards, sample boards, and a real budget. If you’ve been thinking about redoing or renovating a space, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Whether you have questions, want a hand with the planning, or just want a second opinion. I’m always around to help, so that in the end, the space where you spend the most time can actually serve you, and help you become a better version of yourself.
SZANTÉA’S WEEKLY FAVOURITES
Products I’d actually use in my own home.
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely use, trust, or would confidently recommend to others.
No more ugly floors → CLICK HERE
A warm, linen-inspired wallpaper moment without the commitment → CLICK HERE
The backsplash upgrade that looks way more expensive than it is → CLICK HERE
A stone-look backsplash without the renovation → CLICK HERE
Finally, a shower corner that actually deserves to be seen → CLICK HERE
The Pottery Barn storage cabinet that makes clutter look intentional → CLICK HERE
Turn your shower bottles into a luxury hotel moment → CLICK HERE
A two-tier stand that makes even everyday serving feel special → CLICK HERE
The pumpkin-shaped Le Creuset your fall kitchen has been waiting for → CLICK HERE
HAVE A QUESTION?
Not sure which option is right for your home? Feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to answer your questions, offer advice, or point you in the right direction.
If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover in a future article, I’d love to hear your suggestions too.
Or get in touch through the Contact page on Szantea Studios.
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If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover in a future article, I’d love to hear your suggestions too.