Repair an apartment with your own hands where to start

Repair of the apartment with your own hands where to start - this question at least once in my life each owner of the apartment asked himself. As a rule, positive emotions are the upcoming event that causes those who have received or purchased their own housing for the first time. Those who have already encountered works to bring the apartment in order, knows how much trouble they bring, and how much effort will have to be applied to achieve the desired result.

But, if it's time to start updating the apartment, you'll have to be patient and with a decent amount, the size of which depends on what type of repair the decision is made to make.

Types of repairs in the apartment

Repair can be capital or cosmetic, cover the entire apartment or its individual premises. But you should know that repair in some rooms can become more laborious and will require more effort and effort than work in other rooms.

Overhaul

Capital works involve repair from scratch in a new apartment or redevelopment with the replacement or transfer of installed elements in the old housing. The scope of work will depend on what changes are decided to be made in the apartment.

The total amount of work can consist of the following activities:

• Layout of the apartment. It can include the demolition or installation of partitions, the unification or separation of rooms, the transfer or expansion of doorways. If at least one of the listed actions is planned, then it is necessary to consult with a specialist who will determine whether it is possible to produce this process. All repair work related to the dismantling or installation of walls in a multi-storey building must be confirmed by the permission of the commission of the managing organization.
• Replacement and relocation of plumbing fixtures, radiators, electrical outlets, additional lighting.
• Replacement of windows and doors.
• Replacing the old finish of the ceiling of walls and floors.
• Embedding furniture, if this process is included in plans.

Capital alteration in an apartment is a lengthy process that can not be done in two days or a week, and you will have to empty the rooms of furniture and all things, as they will interfere with the work or may be damaged by building materials. It may be necessary to carry out repairs in turn in each of the living rooms, in this case, you will have to take care of buying a dense polyethylene film for curtain doors from construction dust and dirt. But, as a rule, major repairs still suggest that the family at this time will have to live elsewhere.

Cosmetic repair

Cosmetic repairs usually involve replacing decorative finishes in one, several or all rooms. Perhaps removing the old cover, you will have to adjust the corners, ceiling surfaces, walls and floor.

. When performing a cosmetic repair option, preparing surfaces for new decorative materials can be called one of the most important processes. No matter how expensive the selected wallpaper, linoleum or paint, if they are laid or applied to uneven surfaces with shards, the expected effect from them will not work. Therefore, to ensure that the decorative finish looks properly, without leveling the surfaces with a putty or filler floor is indispensable.

Choosing a repair option that is suitable for a particular apartment, you can move on to further work.

Drawing up a repair plan for

The first thing you need to do is to draw up an apartment plan in which you will see accurate data on the area and height of the ceilings of each room, with or without partitions, in a word - in the form that the apartment should appearcarrying out of repair work.

General rules for planning repair

In the design project should show the desired color of floor coverings, wallpaper, as well as at least an approximate arrangement of furniture. Using this plan-project, it will be easy to calculate the necessary building materials and accessories for each of the apartment's premises. Of course, everything will not be taken into account, but this will prevent some errors that are typical for non-professional masters:

• Given the arrangement of furniture and various household appliances, immediately it is necessary to determine the location and number of electrical outlets and switches.
• You should try to avoid the lack of those or other finishing materials, because if you have to buy them, it will be very difficult to perfectly match the shades of the same tile or wallpaper.
• Having made the project in color, you can visually verify the correctness of the decorative coatings selected in color, and how they will harmonize with the shades of furniture.

In the process of drawing up such a plan, many ideas for the design of premises may appear, therefore it is recommended to make the project in several color scales, and then choose the most pleasant option.

The plan can be compiled using a computer program or on a regular A4 sheet. It must be done with observance of the dimensions corresponding to the present, but on a reduced scale.

If the plan is drawn up manually, then drawing it once, then you need to make a few xerocopies, on which you can apply different shades or different arrangement of furniture.

You can make a plan of the whole apartment to see its color solution in full or to make a design design for each of the rooms.

In addition, it is very convenient on each of the plans to put the number of the stage, and on each of them to schedule a certain work. For example, one of the drawings can show the redevelopment of walls, on the other - electrical wiring and placement of outlets, as well as the connection of various devices, the third - the future arrangement of furniture and color solution.

Division of the room into zones

To know where to start repairing each room, you need to determine what will be in it.

• In the children's room it is desirable to separate, if the area allows, a sleeping place from the playing area or from the place for the child's occupation.
• The kitchen should be spacious, so it must also be properly divided into zones, defining the working and dining areas, as well as the installation of various appliances.
• If you plan to separate or combine the bathroom, then on the first drawing is to measure and specify its dimensions and arrangement of accessories.

• zones is necessarily taken into account. If a redevelopment of a one-room apartment is planned with the desire to divide it into two separate rooms, it is necessary to carefully measure everything on the drawing and on the spot. In this case, you need to immediately determine the thickness of the partitions, since they also occupy a certain area.

Sometimes this redevelopment can affect the entrance hall, as in some apartments it occupies a large enough area. It is important here to determine what kind of structure the partition separating the hallway from the rest of the rooms has. If it is a capital one, then it is impossible to touch it without permissive documents.

• If there is no possibility to divide the room by a partition for some reason, you can install a cabinet or a rack as a "barrier".It is also worth noting on the plan.

Selection of materials for decorative finishing

The next plan-drawing is to deal with the finishing material and its color, as these factors will determine the comfort of being in the room. Determined with the finish, you need to choose it competently. Naturally, the most safe for human health is a natural material, such as cork, wood, paper, ceramics and the like, however, some species are not always obtainable because of the high price or inconsistency with the chosen design. So, what materials can be used for different rooms:

• Children's room and bedroom for adults. For premises of this designation it is necessary to make maximum use of natural finish, which does not cause allergic reactions, "breathing" and possessing soundproofing qualities. If major repairs are carried out, then before walls can be fitted with a decorative finish, walls can be provided with a soundproof layer - materials such as "texaund", acoustic drywall, cork and others are suitable for this. As a decoration of walls and ceilings, it is best to use plastering and coating with paint or water-based paints or pasting paper or cork wallpaper. Today in building stores, these materials can be found for every taste and color.

• Living room. For this room, you can choose a wider range of finishes. Here, linoleum, laminate, parquet, carpet, cork and other modern materials can be laid on the floors.

What you need to know about linoleum?

Despite the fact that many new floor coverings have appeared, linoleum is not going to give up its popularity positions at all. Useful information about types and rules for choosing linoleum is placed in the special publication of our portal.

For the decoration of walls, plaster and painting, corking, paper, non-woven, vinyl, textile, fiberglass and other varieties can be used.

The ceiling can be plastered, covered with a stretch ceiling, a single- or multi-storey suspended structure or also covered with wallpaper.

Modern solution - suspended ceiling!

In this issue, perhaps, there is no limit to the fantasy of creative hosts. In a special article of the portal dedicated to independent installation of the suspended ceiling , you can find a lot of useful information and even, perhaps, choose one of the options for the design of your own apartment.

• Entrance hall. Materials for the walls and floor of the hallway should have a strong resistance to abrasion, and be easy to clean, since dirt and dust from the street first of all falls into this room.

The floors can be laid linoleum or laid ceramic tiles.

Walls are pasted with vinyl wallpaper or covered with plastic, wooden or laminated lining.

The ceiling in the hallway should be made light, as in this room most often there is no natural light. Therefore, a light-colored suspended ceiling with a built-in illumination is perfect here.

• Bathroom. The combined or separate bathroom should have a moisture resistant finish, which is easily liable to wet cleaning and is not afraid of household chemicals. The traditional material for these premises is ceramic tile - it does not hide the already small area of ​​rooms, and is also durable, non-abrasive and easily washable. Ceramic tiles are perfect for finishing both walls and floors.

In addition to the tiles, for the lining of the walls of the lavatory, plastic panels are increasingly being used, especially since today in the shops there is a wide range of this material.

The ceiling in the bathroom can be made of the same plastic panels, moisture-resistant plasterboard for painting, but the best option for a bathroom or a combined bathroom will be a stretch ceiling.

Special requirements - to the ceiling in the bathroom!

High humidity, high probability of direct water jets - all this imposes specific requirements for finishing. How to determine the type of ceiling in the bathroom - read the special article of our portal.

Colors

An important role in the design of apartment rooms is the color scheme, as it should fully contribute to the creation of a comfortable environment. Therefore, this factor must be carefully thought through.

Harmoniousness of the design of rooms will depend on properly chosen shades. In this process, you can focus on this table.

To make the room light, you should choose soft white and beige warm shades. Especially it concerns the ceiling surface, as its light color enhances the electric lighting. Therefore, quite often in modern interiors, the plafonds of lamps and chandeliers are turned not downwards, towards the room, but to the ceiling.

I always want to make a child's room bright, so that its coloring evokes joy and optimism. However, one should not get carried away, it is necessary to remember that the child will not only play in this room, but also have a rest, therefore it is recommended that the rest zone be decorated in calmer tones.

The bedroom for adults should have rest, and therefore it is recommended to decorate it in pastel soft and light enough shades, which in the evening will help to pleasantly fall asleep, and in the morning - to wake up with an optimistic mood.

Color selection affects the psychological and physical state of the body, since if a person does not get enough sleep or rest properly, then his vital activity and immunity decrease, so one should take into account the selection of shades in all seriousness.

Dark shades in combination with lighter colors can only be used in a well-lit room, otherwise they will act on the psyche, especially the children's, very depressing.

After determining the materials and their color range, measure all areas of surfaces on which the selected finish will be made. Further, a list of required materials is compiled with an indication of their quantity.

Tips for acquiring

materials With a compiled list, you can go shopping for necessary materials.

• One should immediately say that it is not necessary to purchase everything necessary for repair in spontaneous construction markets, where, although lower than the price, no one will guarantee a quality guarantee. Counting on this "economy", sometimes you have to pay a double or even triple price. The cheap material applied to the walls or laid on the floors is not known how to behave, and, probably, it will soon have to replace it with a quality one. And this is not only waste, but also lost time and energy. To clean the surface of a new substandard finish is an extremely unpleasant occupation, as the mood will be completely ruined. Therefore, it is recommended to purchase building material from a trusted seller who can provide quality certificates for all products.
• You need to purchase the material with a margin, about 15% of its total calculated volume. Such an approach will help to do the job calmly, without fear that something is not enough. By the way, you can immediately specify whether the store takes the remaining surplus back - this approach is often practiced.
• When choosing products for quality, it is worth very carefully examine them, as well as examine the certificates that you need to ask the seller. For example, when purchasing materials such as ceramic tiles, laminate or wallpaper, it is necessary to check the lot number of the goods on the package - it should be the same, otherwise in different packages the products may differ significantly in color and even in quality. This difference can sometimes be noticed only in the process of work, combining a number of piece specimens or paintings from different parties - this point can also complicate the process of quality repairs.
• Very seriously it is necessary to approach to the choice of new doors and windows, as to replace them subsequently will be quite difficult and expensive, since this process will necessarily affect newly refurbished surfaces.

Reliable entrance door - guarantee of safety and comfort

The entrance door not only protects from uninvited "guests", but also ensures the maintenance of a comfortable microclimate in the apartment's premises. It is not expensive, and in order not to make a mistake when chooses the front door, see the useful information in a special article of our portal.

• Carefully you need to choose and accessories for the bathroom. It is not necessary to succumb to the trends of fashion to acquire plumbing items made of newfangled materials, since they can not always be suitable for specific cases. At first it is recommended to study their characteristics and to calculate all the "pluses" and "minuses".
• The heating radiators are also carefully selected. Nowadays, these devices manufactured from various materials can be found on sale, but not all of them can be suitable for installation in a central heating system. Buying radiators, one should rely not only on their operational capabilities, but also pay attention to the manufacturer and the availability of a quality certificate.

Useful information about

heating radiators These heat exchangers can not be chosen only in terms of their appearance - their operational capabilities and heat output, depending both on the area of ​​the room and on some other important criteria, should be taken into account. All this is in the special publication of our portal devoted to the choice of heating radiators for .

• A few words need to be said about the formulations that will be needed for surface treatment before installing finishing materials on them - these are various primers and antiseptic solutions. Such tools will create better adhesion between materials and protect the walls and ceiling from mold stains.

After the required materials have been purchased, repairs can be started in a phased repair.

Stages of repair and construction work

Surface preparation

One of the most important stages in carrying out any type of repair is the preparation of surfaces, since this will determine how accurately and tightly the finishing materials will adhere to the walls and ceiling. The preparatory stage includes such measures as cleaning the surfaces from old coatings and fixing the discovered flaws that could appear during the operation of the housing.

1. The first step from the walls is removing old wallpaper or paint.

Wallpaper can be removed in several ways, depending on how tightly they fit to the wall:

• Using a spatula, which the canvases are picked up and neatly removed completely or in large pieces.
• If the wallpaper is glued securely and do not want to come off, they need to be wetted with a roller using water, and carry out these manipulations several times. When the paper gets wet, it can easily be removed with a spatula.

• The third option is suitable if the wall is securely pasted vinyl wallpaper, which is sufficiently resistant to water. In this case, they can be stripped off with a special device - ironing or steam generator. If there is no such device, but there is an iron with a steaming function, then you can use it, but you can not apply a metal surface to vinyl. It is brought to a distance of 100 ÷ 150 mm to the wall and treated with steam. After that, the old decorative coating should move away from the wall and it can be carefully removed with a spatula.

The paint coating is removed using a construction hair dryer or sanding machine with a brush attachment installed.

2. Next, you can proceed to cleaning the ceiling. If the ceiling plaster has cracks and chips, and it is not planned to make a false ceiling, then the old whitewash and sometimes the plaster will have to be removed. This process is quite laborious, and it is also carried out with water, which first wet the surface, and then remove the old coating with a spatula or a grinder with an iron brush.

. If the hanging structure is to be installed, it is not necessary to remove the coating from the ceiling - it will be enough to treat the surface with an antiseptic and strengthening primer.

3. The next step is to remove the covering from the floor. However, doing cosmetic repairs, sometimes this process is not carried out, especially in those cases when the floor is in good condition and quite comfortable with the owners.

4. After removing old coatings, cracks or other large defects are necessarily found on the walls and joints of the planes. They must be sealed, otherwise they can appear through a new decorative finish.

For this, small cracks expand, are primed and closed with cement mortars, fillers or sealant. Wide cracks or crevices, which sometimes appear on the joints of surfaces, can be filled with mounting foam.

5. After the walls are cleaned, the electrical cable is routed, if it was planned to reinstall the sockets. For cable laying in some rooms, it may be necessary to cut out the strobes in the walls in order to hide the wiring in them.

6. If the heating circuit is replaced, while the walls are cleaned, the markings for the radiator brackets are made, and the holes in the walls are prepared. It should be done on the walls without finishing, then to not spoil it.

Replacement of windows and doors

The process of removal and installation of these interior elements is usually done by specialists, as this is a laborious task, requiring certain skills and precision, special tools. Therefore, if there is no similar work experience, it is better not to undertake such work independently.

. This recommendation especially applies to window frames, since it depends on their quality of installation how much the apartment will protect from the cold.

Installation of the entrance door is also better to entrust to qualified specialists, because the reliability of its installation will largely depend on the safety of housing.

Interior doors are installed at the final stage of work, so this work can be postponed for now.

Dismantling and installing partitions

The next stage is the dismantling or installation of the partition, if it is planned and permissions have been obtained for these works. Both the erection and demolition of the wall can be carried out independently.

How difficult is it to build a lightweight interior partition?

With the knowledge of technology and careful execution of work with a similar task, you can fully manage on your own. How to build an gypsum plasterboard , and what materials are needed for this - this information with detailed instructions can be found in a separate portal publication.

You can also dismantle the partition between the bathroom and the toilet yourself if it is built of bricks or gypsum boards. For this process, you need a puncher, a sledge hammer and, possibly, a Bulgarian with a metal disc - if the partition is reinforced with a reinforcing bar.

It can not be said that this work will be easy, but as a result, you can get a large enough room, in which it is possible to carry out the planned redevelopment.

Leveling of the ceiling and walls

When the windows and doors are installed, and the cracks and gaps are completely dried, you can proceed to priming. This process is not complicated, it can be performed by any person - the main thing is to conduct it accurately, without missing a single section of surfaces. Primer is carried out by a roller, and hard-to-reach places are processed by a brush.

Then, after the primed walls and ceilings have dried completely, they need to be leveled. To perform this work, you need some experience, therefore, before you plant a large amount of putty, you should try your hand at a small section of the wall, applying a little solution.

If the walls have a sufficiently flat surface with small flaws, it will be sufficient to use a putty compound. But in the case when the surface has large misalignments, the alignment will have to be carried out by plastering the beacons. However, if the area allows the room, then the walls can be leveled with sheets of drywall.

. Whatever the process of leveling the surfaces, after the layer of plaster and putty has dried, the walls and ceiling should be primed once again.

The ceiling requires an ideal alignment if it is not planned to be closed with a tension or suspended ceiling.

How to properly level the ceiling surface?

The process of alignment of the ceiling for painting is quite complex and requires special skill. Therefore, if it is decided to do this work independently, it is worth paying attention to the recommended article of our portal.

The process of leveling surfaces also includes finishing slopes on window and door openings. They can be gilded with plasterboard, plastic panels or plastering.

Floor leveling

The next, the fifth stage, the floor surface is leveled. This process in an apartment can be carried out in different ways: it is a self-leveling self-leveling mortar, a dry screed or a floor installation on logs, followed by closing it with plywood or other sheet material.

All these processes can easily be carried out independently, after a thorough study of the technological instructions that can be found on our portal.

Using self-leveling building compounds

One of the methods of leveling the floor surface is the use of special building mixtures. The technology self-leveling floors is described in detail in the relevant publication of our portal.

If there is no certainty that it will be possible to cope with such work qualitatively on its own, then it is better to contact specialists.

Decorative wall decoration in living rooms

The next stage is finishing the walls - pasting them with wallpaper or painting. These works are not so complicated, and they can be executed by their own forces, so they can be saved.

If the finish is done by wallpaper, and they have a certain pattern, you need to immediately calculate its step so that the wall on the wall matches perfectly.

Before you cut the canvases, the layout of the wall is made vertically and horizontally. Lines are beaten with a colored cord along the ceiling and one of the corners. On the vertical extreme line, the first cloth of the wallpaper will be leveled, and the next ones will already be oriented to it and to the upper horizontal color strip.

If you want to paint the walls, then it is carried out using a roller, which is put on for convenience on a special bar.

Adhered and dried wallpaper on the walls are framed on the top line by foam or paper curbs, which gives completeness to the overall design of the room.

. Installation of flooring in rooms.

. The process of laying the flooring must be done very carefully so as not to damage or stain the decorative finish of the walls. If the flooring is carpeted with linoleum or carpet, then before laying it on the glue or under the baseboards, it is laid out and left for about a day, in order for it to be dealt with. The cloths of this material are cut lengthwise, about 10 ÷ 12 mm less than the length of the room, and width is laid to 5 ÷ 7 mm from the wall. Such gaps are necessary for free temperature expansion of the material.

It should be noted that any material laid on the floor should have similar gaps. So, when laying a laminate, special inserts are used, which are removed only after completion of the floor covering over the entire area of ​​the room.

Completing the installation of flooring installation skirting.

Installation of interior doors

Interior doors are installed at the last stage of the work so as not to be mistaken in the height at which the door will be installed, since the leveling layer and the floor covering will raise the floor will change the floor level.

Rules for installing interior doors

If you still want to save money, you can try install interior doors yourself .To do this, we recommend using the tips posted in a separate portal publication.

In the listing of the stages of work, the question of repairing the bathroom was deliberately omitted. This event has its own nuances, which must be considered separately.

Bathroom repair - a specific event

This room has a lot of features that must be taken into account when repairing and finishing. In detail about repair in the bathroom will tell a separate publication of our portal.

This is the approximate order of preparation for repair in the apartment and its phased implementation. It is understandable the desire of the owner of housing to do it with minimal costs, hoping for their own strengths and abilities. But nevertheless it is necessary to soberly estimate the possibilities - it is not excluded, that the optimum decision becomes the reference to experts.

At the end of the publication - an interesting video clip with the advice of a specialist in the initial stages of repair in the apartment.

Video: where to start repairing in apartment