Top Summer Renovation Ideas for Your Home

Summer is the best time of year to complete home renovations, due to the season’s warm, mostly dry climate. Summer home improvement ideas can be as simple as sprucing your backyard or as complex as renovating your kitchen or bathroom. Here we’ll look at four of the most popular ideas for summer home renovations, along with timelines to help you schedule your project.

Kitchen Renovations

Kitchen renovations are popular summer home improvement projects — a new kitchen adds value to your home and transforms your living space. Before you embark on your kitchen renovation, be sure to set goals that match a realistic budget. Full-scale kitchen renovations can become expensive quickly, and you don’t want to run out of money partway through the project.

If you’re not planning a complete kitchen re-do, there are a number of kitchen-related easy home renovations that add value to your house, from refinished cabinets to replacing faucets and sinks. For a larger project, measure your space and talk with a kitchen designer for some expert insight. A well-thought-out plan keeps you on track throughout the project. Get bids from several contractors before choosing one, and apply for the proper building permits.

You’ll need to pack up your kitchen and establish a temporary kitchen for the project’s duration. Once renovations start, construction will follow this approximate timeline:

• One to six weeks for rough construction, including demolishing the existing kitchen, framing the room, and building new structural features.
• Three to five days to rough-in plumbing, mechanical, and electrical components.
• One week to install drywall and paint.
• Two to three days to install flooring.
• Three to five days to install cabinets, drawer slides, and kitchen organizers.

  

• Two to four weeks to measure, produce, and install countertops and braces.
• One to five days to install appliances and fixtures.
• One to two weeks to finish details, cabinet knobs and pulls, and other hardware.
• Two to three days to install backsplash
• One to two days to clean the new kitchen and remove any remaining construction waste

Remember to add several days to your kitchen renovation schedule to account for unexpected delays or construction issues: no summer home renovations run exactly on schedule.

Bathroom Renovation

Home renovation ideas often include bathroom renovations. A complete bathroom renovation can take anywhere from one to two months, depending on whether you do the work yourself or hire a contractor, in addition to the inevitable delays that arise during any summer home improvement project. With no delays, your timeline for a complete bathroom summer renovation should look like this:

• Two days for demolition.
• Two days for rough carpentry work, if needed.
• Two days for plumbing rough-in work, including removing the existing tub/shower stall and toilet.
• One to two days to rough electrical components.
• One day for the first inspection. While an inspection takes less than a day, difficulty scheduling inspections can slow your project.
• One to two days to insulate walls and install drywall.
• Two days to finish drywall by applying joint compound, sanding joint compound, and repeating if necessary.
• One day to paint bathroom walls.
• One day for the final inspection (presuming you don’t encounter scheduling delays).
• Two days to complete tile work, if applicable.
• One day to install cabinetry, bathroom hardware, and trim.
• Two days to install flooring.
• Two days to hook up the sink, shower stall, and toilet.

Outdoor Kitchen

One of the most popular home renovation ideas is installing an outdoor kitchen. A great addition to your outdoor living space, an outdoor kitchen takes approximately two to three weeks to complete but you’ll want to start the process six months beforehand to brainstorm the design you want.

An outdoor kitchen project is generally broken down into four phases:

• Installation of paving or natural stone to act as a foundation.
• Constructing any planned walls, railing, benches, countertops, and roofs
• Installation of grills, appliances, sinks, and lighting.
• Countertop installations and finishing details such as stainless steel hardware.

 Spruce Up Your Yard

Not every summer home improvement project needs to be a major renovation, of course. Minor landscaping and yard projects are easy home renovating ideas that take only a few days to complete. Possibilities include:

• Pressure washes the exterior of your home and your driveway, patio, fence, and walkways.
• Refinish your deck or fence and refresh your gate hardware.
• Hang outdoor string lights.
• Prune trees and shrubs
• Build a shed.
• Clean gutters.
• Add flower beds along the walkway to your front door.
• Update your porch and add curb appeal with stylish new house numbers, and door accessories.

Summer home improvement projects are much easier when you work with a trusted hardware store. Whatever your needs are for your next project, our team of knowledgeable representatives is ready and eager to assist you. Contact us today!