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How to Get Started With an Exterior Remodeling Project

How to Get Started With an Exterior Remodeling Project

If you’re thinking of giving your home a makeover, there’s no better time than the present to get started with the brainstorming process. The housing market is booming, for one; according to Redfin, a real estate company, “in April 2022, home prices were up 15.3% compared to last year.” If you’ve always been dreaming of a certain exterior renovation, why not embrace that dream and go for it?

At Budget Exteriors in Minnesota, we offer a complete range of home exterior remodeling services from replacement windows to exterior trim and siding. In this post, we’ll help you get started planning your beautiful new home exterior.

Where Do I Find Inspiration?

It might seem simple, but sometimes the best place to get started is to begin with a simple web search. If you’re looking for home exterior remodeling ideas, there are countless outstanding ones all available on the Internet to inspire you. You can search by your home’s architectural design to check out homes with a similar style, or you can search by look if you’re envisioning something like “farmhouse” or “modern.”

Be sure to save all of your favorite ideas so you can share them with your exterior remodeling contractors. You can download the images to your computer, save them to a website like Pinterest, or go old-school and print up the ideas you want to revisit.

Keep Up With the Joneses (If That’s Your Thing)

Another great way to generate ideas is to take a drive around your neighborhood. This will give you an idea of what you love in the context of your housing style, neighborhood, and region. After all, some ideas can look amazing on Houzz or Apartment Therapy but might not be right for your area.

Be sure to take phone pics of the houses you like and save them in your idea book. It’s also a good idea to make sure your HOA doesn’t have any specific restrictions before committing to an idea.

Of course, at the end of the day, what matters the most is that you’re happy with your home. You don’t need to do what everyone else is doing if you’re renovating simply for your own enjoyment.

On the other hand, if you’re planning to move out in the near future, it might benefit you more in the short-term to look at your upcoming renovation from a ROI standpoint. If you won’t be living in the house long enough to enjoy your new renovation, after all, what’s the point of personalizing it? You’d be much smarter to invest in what will sell your home now and save the dream renovation for your new pad.

Connect With a Contractor

Once you’ve generated plenty of ideas and you have a sense of what you like, it’s time to find out what’s available from your exterior remodeling contractor. Your contractor can fill you in on the color and design options they carry and make recommendations based on your wish list.

Ask your contractor to refer you to their manufacturer’s website. Most siding companies offer plenty of images of their products in action online. Additionally, some window and siding companies offer online tools to let you try out their products on an image of your home or a home in a similar style.

At Budget Exteriors, we’re proud to offer these products:

●        Soft-Lite® windows

●        ProVia doors

●        Alside™ siding

●        And more!

We’re also insulation contractors, and as our blog on the subject explains, we highly recommend you invest in the stuff during any home renovation.

Read and Sign the Contract

When you’ve finally settled on the exactitudes of what you need done, your contractor will hand you a detailed, info-heavy document which you are to sign. This document outlines everything from the scope—the extent—of the work to when payments are due to what happens if your contractor discovers additional prerequisite work that needs doing before the renovation can proceed.

It might be tempting to just go ahead and sign, as you and your contractor have already discussed your project at length. Take our advice as a home exterior contractor, though: slow down! You may think that you and your contractor are on the same page, but this contract is what truly proves or disproves it, so it benefits you to go through it thoroughly.

Take note of any payment dates—you might want to plug them into your phone so you don’t forget—and don’t hesitate to ask for clarification if you’re confused. A good home exterior remodeling pro will be happy to answer questions and to take the time to explain what it is you’re signing. When you know exactly what’s expected of you and your exterior contractor, you’ll feel so much more at ease when the big day comes and they finally get to work.

Contact Budget Exteriors Today for Top-Quality Home Exterior Renovation Services

To connect with our Budget Exteriors siding and replacement window installers, give our Bloomington office a call at 952-887-1613, or contact us online to get your free quote. You’ll love what we can do for your home!

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