You can achieve so much more from your renovation if you let professional architects and designers provide their input. This will allow you to make full use of the opportunity you have to make something of your interiors. London architects and designers are fabulously creative people and when they look at your interiors they will already have ideas on how to improve them.

Obviously your designers will work according to the brief that you set them. Communicating with them effectively is a big part of getting project started. You will explain what you want out of the project and you tell them some of the things you consider necessary in terms of your tastes and in terms of the practical changes you would like to make.

Your team will then give you more ideas concerning the project – things that perhaps only professionals in the field would be able to pick up on. Their advice is really valuable at this stage. All drawings they produce as a result of the meetings you have with them will be presented for your approval and when you agree on a plan they can put it into action.

It is possible to renovate your kitchen and have an extension carried out at the same time. What a lot of people value at home is a spacious kitchen that actually backs onto a conservatory which in turn sets up a wonderful transition between house and garden. This is a fabulous way of making more of the space at the back of your house – something that is particularly attractive in London homes.

This is partly because a lot of London homes have plenty of character, but not too much in the way of open space. You can change this by extending into your garden, admitting more natural light with a nice conservatory and renovating your kitchen so that it backs openly onto the conservatory and makes the two rooms part of the same space.

This allows you to make the downstairs of your home that much more sociable and more comfortable. The brightness of this arrangement is incredibly appealing visually and it enables you to make something more of your kitchen instead of it fulfilling merely practical functions. Renovation teams are generally very experienced in this line of work.

When you house is starting to show its age you may find that you have to address problem after problem. In many cases, having people in to take care of all these things represents a significant cost and it does not always leave you with fantastic results. Too much work conducted by too many separate outfits can leave your home with a somewhat fragmented maintenance history.

In order to keep everything together, it might be worth trying to get all your repairs in each part of the house carried out at once. For instance, if it becomes apparent that your insulation downstairs needs sorting out, but you also want to re-plaster the kitchen and sort out the floor in the dining room, you could just have the entire ground floor renovated.

This represents a big investment, but it sorts all your problems out at once and gives you the opportunity to re-design the space at the same time. This often proves to be a positive way of doing things and it leaves you with results that could never be described as underwhelming or fragmented.

One of the things that really helps to add value to your home is the inclusion of a really nice big kitchen. A large kitchen is something that a lot of people really prioritise because they recognise the central role that the kitchen place in domestic life. The kitchen is meant to be extremely functional but it is also a sociable space and extra room is very important to ensure it fulfils your expectations.

It is worth extending your kitchen if you have outdoor space that you would like to make more useful. Space is always at a premium in the capital and if you can make your home more comfortable and roomier in the right places then you will have a better time of it at home. The difference will be noticeable immediately.

On top of this advantage, you may also notice that the value of your home increases. In this sense, the work you have done is more of an investment. You will make good use of the change, but you will also see financial reward when you come to sell up if you move to pastures new.

The previous post addressed the fact that many people decide to renovate their homes when they have kids because they are aware of the vast difference between life before and after having a family. Renovation is a good way of making your home more spacious and more functional – two considerations that may well take centre stage when it comes to providing for your family.

However, there is another reason to renovate when you have children on the way. Your home may not benefit from an interior environment that you consider perfectly healthy and if you think about how much time your kids will spend in the house, it becomes apparent how important it is that the interior environment is safe, dry, comfortable and private.

Many renovations are put into effect as a means of promoting a healthy environment for children so that parents can rest easy when it comes to the wellbeing of their children at home. This is something that is well within their control and all it takes is a bit of investment in interior design, maintenance and repair work.

It has become quite a trend for very conscientious home owners to take the environment very seriously. This is not something that is reserved to people who take a very active role in eco-friendly practices. Ordinary individuals are also taking a keen interest in finding ways they can reduce their carbon footprints and the battle starts at home.

You could even say that it has become fashionable for people show their commitment to the environment and this is no bad thing. Anything that helps fortify plans for a greener future has to be looked on as a positive and it is not actually that difficult to get in on the act.

A few changes at home can make a very big difference. If everyone renovated their interiors, for example, then the amount of energy saved due to high standard insulation and new building work would be constitute a significant proportion. This energy would otherwise be wasted.

There is a financial motive for renovating your home to make it greener. Preventing energy waste means paying less for your energy bills because everything you are paying for is actually being used in a productive manner, i.e. to heat and light the house.