Another 10 Repair Mistakes Nobody Warns You About

The renovation in this three-room apartment located in the Warm Spring district of Moscow lasted four and a half months. Throughout the entire renovation, designer Lyudmila Danilovich conducted author's oversight of its progress to avoid obvious and not-so-obvious blunders that are often discovered after the renovation is completed. That's why quality control at every stage of the renovation is essential.

But who will conduct author's oversight if you do the renovation yourself, without a designer? Lyudmila Danilovich explained and demonstrated what important points you need to pay close attention to if you're hiring contractors to do the renovation yourself.

Here, a solid oak board and ceramic granite were laid. It's important to lay them at the same level so there is no step that you will trip on later. If the board is laid with adhesive, we can beautifully finish this joint: use a cork compensator or parquet sealant.

If you are using laminate or laying parquet boards floating, you can't do without a threshold because the edge of the parquet board must be securely fixed to use a cork compensator or parquet sealant. Therefore, the advice here is to use as little tile as possible, create a single covering in separate zones, and lay tiles only in 'wet' zones: bathroom, toilet.

There should be a gap between the floor covering and the door opening. However, if you don't use door casings (or use them only on one side, as in this case), it may become a problem, and the gap will irritate you for life. Therefore, it's important to make a perfect joint between floor coverings in these places, whether it's tiles, parquet, or laminate, so there are no gaps or cracks.

Now, in bathroom finishing, it's popular to use tiles in combination with painting. Often, contractors lay the tiles up to the door frame edge, and you have nothing left but to install the casing on top of the tile. Where there's paint, a gap remains that you have to fill with something, then spackle and paint it, resulting in a different thickness and looking unattractive. If you have tiles, for example, a 'boar' tile, the tile's edge won't look good. Therefore, we do this: don't lay tiles on both sides of the door opening, then install the casing, and only after that lay tiles in a tight fit.

If you plan to install a double sink or two sinks, it's important to have a separate water supply line from the manifold for each mixer. Otherwise, when one mixer is turned on, the water pressure in the other will drop, making it impossible to use both sinks simultaneously.

Outlets and switches near the bedside tables should be installed only after you have chosen and ordered the tables. If you don't know what model you'll use, then install outlets as high as possible, for example, at a height of 90 cm.

They are needed in long corridors, on staircases, in passage wardrobes, as in this project. Ceiling lights in the bedroom and lighting in the wardrobe, if you forget about them, can be turned off without getting out of bed. Such solutions make life much easier.

Wallpapers from the same batch may differ slightly. Therefore, it's important to use wallpaper only from one batch for one room. For the wardrobe in this project, one roll of wallpaper wasn't enough, and it had to be purchased from another batch. It was lucky that the shade matched, but it doesn't always happen. Therefore, it's better to be more careful or buy a little extra wallpaper.

They are always forgotten, but Lyudmila Danilovich always includes such outlets in her projects. You'll be happy to have them before New Year's: it's convenient to plug in holiday garlands into these outlets. As designer experience has shown over many years, every client finds a use for this outlet: plug in speakers, a table lamp, or an electronic candle, or just charge a phone.

Often, a light outlet is placed on the wall that cannot be turned on, or, conversely, a switch that doesn't turn anything on. This is an error. You need to plan the lighting layout and switch attachment in advance. If there's an extra wire, you can use a wall sconce with a built-in switch.

Before ordering the entrance door, make sure it will be installed at the same level as your finished floor. For this, during the rough work stage, you need to mark the level of the screed with a laser and add the thickness of the floor covering. This will be the point from which you'll take measurements.

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