When it comes to your home, there’s always room for improvement… at a cost. Luckily though, not every construction project has to empty your pockets and send you to Vegas (thoughwe must admit, the latter consequence doesn’t sound so bad!). Whether you’re trying to keep costs down or just looking for a good value on a small project, the following are some more affordable options for home improvement.

Paint

            On the surface, painting is as simple as picking out a paint color and spending a weekend slapping it on. Sure, you can probably get away with painting a small room or two yourself, but as anyone who has ever tried paintinga house’s exterior or multiple large rooms can tell you themself, it isn’t always that easy. More often than not, a professional is your best bet for carrying out a quality, efficient, and affordable paint job.

            However, there is one big factor to keep in mind when it comes to cost: paint grade. Depending on the grade of paint you want applied, your costs may be significantly more or less than you’d normally anticipate. The amount of area you want painted matters too, but that’s generally pretty established and not as flexible (because when you know what you expect to be painted, it can be hard to willingly alter your plans.) With this in mind, it’s recommended that you contact your local construction company and find out what they charge per square foot for each paint grade, before you decide on a particular color/grade.

Tiling

            Tiling is probably the most fun project you’ll ever have the chance to carry out yourself… just kidding. The tiling process is tedious, painstaking, and can be incredibly frustrating if you don’t know what you’re doing. Painting can fit all of the foregoing descriptors just as well, but quality tiling required renting a tile saw, mixing thinset, and measuring and laying tile — all of which are even less straightforward than painting, and are thus even better left in the hands of professionals.

Similar to painting, the main thing to keep in mind when consulting about tilingis the grade of the tile. Accordingly, the same concept regarding paint is also true for tile — the grade can drastically increase or decrease your prices. Therefore, it’s important to know what your local construction company charges per tile for each tile grade, before you get your heart set on a certain grade.

Landscaping

            Talk of landscaping typically brings to mind one thing: hours and hours of manual labor. In truth, you could wrangle up a bunch of friends and family and try to knock out all the work in a day or so, but would you really want to put your loved ones through all that misery? Outsourcing your landscaping needs to a landscaping or construction company can make the process significantly faster, definitely way easier, and of much better quality — and, it can be affordable, too.

            Regarding cost, the main factor to consider with landscaping is the amount of labor that will be involved. The more work needed, the more the job will cost — simple as that!

Ryan G. is the owner of Cameo Construction, offering affordable construction projects that won’t hurt your wallet.