Penny Andrews
A Pinterest board isn't a renovation plan
Last updated: October 1, 2026
Ask most people starting a renovation what their plan is, and they'll show you a Pinterest board. If you're extending or reconfiguring you might have an architect's drawing, but their focus is planning permission and the internals are all placeholder. If you're like me you may have made a rough sketch in Keynote or Canva, but really it's a vision at best, not a plan.
Add an in-person chat and a WhatsApp thread, and that's the whole brief for most projects. Little to none of the important details.
Specific enough to feel done, not specific enough to check
If you're lucky, you might get back a schedule of work full of words you've never heard of: carcass, upstand, tanking, first fix, mitre cut. It feels thorough and specific, so gets accepted at face value. Most of us can't check it against what we actually want, and the inevitable mismatches don't become obvious until well into the job.
There's a vision, a schedule of work, and a massive gap in the middle where everything falls down.
What a real plan needs to do
A real renovation plan bridges that gap: simple enough for everyone to understand, specific enough to quote and build from. Structural changes, plumbing, electrics, insulation. Who's sourcing and buying versus who's installing. What's staying and what's going, who's stripping tiles and wallpaper, making good or re-plastering.
Why the gap causes rework
The lack of a plan is the primary cause of rework. Nobody specs the edging, so the tiler grabs whatever is in the van, and has to redo it once someone looks at it. Nobody knew to mention they've ordered a wall hung toilet - now a concealed frame is needed in the wall behind that's already been re-plastered: rework costing more time and money, discovered too late to be avoided.
Houzz's 2026 UK Houzz & Home study, covering renovations completed by homeowners in 2025, found:
- 36% finished on or under budget (not without compromises)
- 38% went over budget
- 26% hadn't even set a budget
A UK and Irish construction benchmark survey found that 25% of typical project time is lost to rework. The same gap, hitting the homeowner's budget, the trade's margin, or both.
Closing the gap
The renovations that go well close the gap with the right people inputting into and then working to a single point of truth plan, so nobody's left guessing what's agreed or pricing for one job and delivering another.
It's not just homeowners and trades
The right people aren't just homeowners and trades. We should include architects, designers and key retailers too. Handing over a render of a new bathroom or kitchen, making the sale and hoping for the best is easy. Adding real value is having your designers and installers input directly into the customer's wider plan, joining up the layout and fleshing out the installation spec.
That's what actually helps a homeowner: not a better vision, but the right people collaborating on one plan, so nothing's left to chance.
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