Some ways to cut costs when renovating your home

Busting the budget is everyone’s biggest fear when it comes to home remodels. And with good reason.
Even if you follow the essential advice we’ve been doling out for years—build in a 20 percent cushion to cover the nasty surprises, get contractor references and check them, banish the words “while you’re at it” from your vocabulary—it’s hard not to end up shelling out more than you want to.
With some strategic thinking about design, materials, and timing, you can cut costs without cutting corners. Below, we’ll show you the ways, from the big to something as small as choosing a wall sconce over a recessed light.
But another universal truth about home improvement is that every little thing adds up. So another important consideration to start with is to decide whether or not to demolish the whole house and start from scratch.
Cheaper to remodel or build a new house?
“Most clients don’t want to hear those words,” says Paul Irwin, design director with Landis Construction, in the Washington, D.C., area, “but it really needs to be considered on major remodels. “In one case, for example, plans for a 1,300-square-foot addition revealed that the house’s existing foundation wasn’t up to code and would have to be replaced—a $30,000 proposition.
After crunching the numbers, the owners concluded that it would cost as much to update the house, a former summer cottage, as it would to reproduce it new. “For a relatively small additional cost,” says the owner, “we get all the benefits of new construction while preserving the character and feel of our old house.”
• Cost to remodel: $570,000
• Cost to replicate: $588,000
• Saved: For $18,000, the owners gained as much as $60,000 worth of new living space, plus improved safety and energy efficiency.
If you’ve weighed your options, and have decided it’s better to remodel your home, here are our tips.
Increase efficiency, not size
If you can reorganize and equip your kitchen for maximum utility, you may not need to blow out the walls to gain square footage. Start by replacing space-hogging shelves with cabinet-height pullout drawers 8 inches wide, containing racks for canned goods and other items.
“You’re getting three or more horizontal planes where you might otherwise get only one,” says Louis Smith Jr., an architect with Meier Group, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
You could easily shell out a few thousand to outfit cabinets with upgrades like dividers, pull-out pot trays, and lazy Susans, but you’ll save many times that amount by skipping the addition you thought you needed.
• Cost to expand kitchen by 200 square feet: $48,000 to $95,000
• Cost of super-efficient, custom-designed cabinets: $35,000
• Saved: Up to $60,000
Bring in natural light without adding windows
Before cutting a big hole in the side of your house and rearranging the framing, consider less invasive—and less expensive—ways of capturing light.
To brighten up a windowless bath or hallway, for instance, you can install a “light tube,” which slips between roof rafters and funnels sunshine down into the living space.
• Cost to add a double-pane insulated window: $1,500
• Cost for a light tube: $500
• Saved: $1,000
Hit the recycling center
Do-it-yourselfers can reap big savings with recycled or lightly used fixtures and building materials. Habitat for Humanity operates about 400 ReStores nationwide, which offer salvaged materials at half off home-center prices.
One caveat: Many contractors won’t work with salvaged items, or homeowner-supplied materials in general, because they don’t want to assume the liability if something goes wrong.
That said, if you’re doing your own work, you can find anything from prehung doors to acrylic skylights to partial bundles of insulation. (To find a ReStore near you, visit habitat.org.)
• Price of 4-by-5-foot insulated window in a home center: $600
• Price at ReStore: $300
• Saved: $300
Donate your trash
Before you begin a remodeling job, invite the local Habitat for Humanity chapter to remove materials and fixtures for later resale. “About 85 percent of a house is reusable,” says B.J. Perkins, Habitat’s ReUse program manager, in Austin, Texas. “We can do a total takedown, or do a cherry-pick job and take the cabinets, the tub, the sink, and so on.”