This post follows from a post we shared on our instagram page a while ago. The most successful project are those with defined brief
What’s a brief?
A brief is detailed outline you create that highlights what you want to do to your house, your room of for specific home improvement projects that you’re undertaking. This brief then forms the basis for how you engage with an architect, quantity surveyor, builder or tradesperson
The benefits of a brief include:
- Gives a detailed overview of what you’re looking to achieve
- Instils confidence in the consultants and tradespeople you engage with
- It ensures everybody you engage with is on the same page
- It focuses the conversations you have with consultants and tradespeople
- It outlines other things like when you want the work to be completed
Here are some sample briefs
Full Home Renovation
To remove all of the existing doors, floors and kitchen presses. Strip out the bathroom. Demolish the wall between the kitchen and dining room to create an open plan kitchen dining room.
Rewire the house in full, Fit new windows and doors. Install a combi boiler, new radiators and heating controls
Put new insulated plasterboard on all window walls throughout the house and insulate the attic.
Install a new ground floor WC under the stairs accessible via the hallway and fit a new fully tiled bathroom.
Lay carpet in the bedrooms and fit a timber engineered floor throughout the ground floor.
Hang new door sets throughout the house and fit new skirting boards. Fit a new kitchen with a stone worktop.
Paint the interior of the house throughout
We’d like this work started in early January and finished by March 17th as we have the loan of a house to live in during that period of time
Notes on the above - the brief above is detailed and would act as a solid starting point when reaching out to a consultant ot tradesperson. During those conversations questions will arise like would you double or triple glazed windows, 50mm or 100mm insulated plasterboard and this will help to define the brief further and begin to shape the scope of works
In such situations were a brief is altered with a tradesperson or supplier for example if you asked window supplier A to price you for double glazed and changed your mind and asked window supplier B to quote you for triple glazed, it’s important to go back to supplier A and ask them to change their quote from double to triple glazed
Home Improvement Project Brief
We want to get the interior of our house painted in full. We want to use a different colour in every room and we want to use a good quality scrubbable paint as we’ve young children and we need something durable
We want the bedrooms and kitchen painted during the first week in August because we’ll be away that week. We are happy for the other parts of the house to be painted the following week when we’re home
Notes on the above - this brief gives a painter a clear idea of what you want and when you want the work done. Two questions any painter will have will
- What colours have you selected
- What brand of paint would you like to use. To note there’s a substantial price difference between standard and premium paint brands so if budget is a priority we’d advise going for a good standard brand
Having a clearly defined brief will help you to find good tradespeople to work on your home as by knowing what you want instils confidence in the tradesperson you’re dealing as they know they won’t have to spend time helping you to figure out what it is you want
