KATE WATSON-SMYTH, INTERIORS EXPERT AND RED COLUMNIST, ON THE SIX KEY THINGS SHE’S LEARNED FROM RENOVATION PROJECTS
1 Spend money on the architectural features. There is no point blowing the budget on a fancy sofa that sits in front of a draughty or leaky window. When we moved into our new house, there was such a gale blowing through the frames that I wore a woolly hat to watch TV. Likewise, there’s no point paying to heat the street outside. Invest in good windows and you will never regret it.
2 Cast-iron radiators are worth the extra expense. For weeks after ours were installed, I was shouting at people for leaving the heating on during a cost-of-living crisis, only to discover it had gone off two hours earlier but the radiators were still warm.
3 Touch is one of the five senses that is often overlooked when it comes to renovations. Nothing beats the satisfying clunk of a good light switch and white plastic sockets are never pretty. Invest in your hardware and you will interact with your home on a pleasing level every day. We used the bronze range from Corston.
4 While you should always spend the most you can afford on sofas and beds, you can dress windows with affordable linen curtains that will diffuse the light and provide privacy. I have hemmed flat sheets and added ruffle tape and hooks to ready-made tab-top curtains. If you have good windows, curtains are there for decor rather than draught-proofing.
5 Replacing floors is a big job that you need to do first as it’s a massive upheaval to do later. If you are keeping floors you don’t love, then cover as much as you can with sisal or jute, as you can layer more colourful rugs over the top. But don’t forget to check your door clearances. If the budget won’t stretch to large rugs, buy large pieces of patterned (or plain) carpet and have the edges whipped (hemmed), which is a much cheaper solution.
6 You will have underestimated the amount of dust. Not only will there be more than you thought, but it will keep falling for weeks after the builders have left. It’s als
