The preparation of a room prior to any home improvement is essential. While we’re not suggesting you plaster a wall before the tiler arrives, or knock down a wall for the builder, there are things you can do that will save you a considerable amount of time and money.

If you call in a tradesperson the prices they’ll charge for doing a job will vary dramatically according to the preparation they have to do. Most trades will charge an hourly rate for laborious preparation stages which, in plenty of cases, you could easily do yourself.

Most trades will charge an hourly rate for laborious preparation stages which you could easily do yourself

Some prep work is obvious and some not so, here are some examples of time consuming jobs you could do yourself that would otherwise cost you in time added to the job:

• Declutter workspaces
• Move furniture
• Remove rugs
• Remove pictures
• Place newspaper/old sheets down
• Measure the room
• Remove wallpaper and wash the walls - if a room is wallpapered, the paste will remain on the wall if it is not washed off. If wallpaper paste is left on a wall your tiles might not stick.
• Remove doors or plinths (especially for tiling)
• Fill small screw holes or digs in a wall
• Remove wall plus (Rawlplugs) before decorating
• Remove old tiles
• Remove old paint
• Sand a surface to be painted

It’s not essential that you do these tasks firsts, but remember, if you leave the work area cluttered for the tradesperson, they have to spend time clearing up before they can even start the work you’ve hired them to do.

Do you really want to pay someone to remove clutter from your kitchen worktops?

If you leave the work area cluttered for the tradesperson, they have to spend time clearing up before they can even start the work you’ve hired them to do.

These are of course small things but they all add up, if you plan ahead and can manage to save even just a couple of hours per trade you will be surprised at how much it can help reduce costs.

Book a Local Hero now