Six ways Homeowners can save money and time on their Home Makeover projects - anywhere in the world and whatever size of project.
The two biggest pains Homeowners experience when executing home build projects are losing money and wasting time. There’s no question about that. Statistics suggest most home build projects run over budget. On average, that could be by as much as 10% to 15% and they almost always go long … which typically has all kinds of unfortunate consequences … both costly and impacting family life in negative ways.
This is true of a lot of construction projects – even the high profile ones managed by dedicated teams of highly qualified and experienced professionals. And if they can get it wrong, what chance do inexperienced Homeowners have.
Imagine a Home Makeover where you’re remodelling your kitchen, upgrading a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms and maybe adding a small extension – like a single storey home office. And let’s just say the total cost of the project will be around $ 100,000. That’s quite a significant budget but by no means as big as they get.
If you went over budget by 15% - an average overrun, on that total cost, you’d be paying an extra $ 15,000. I reckon that will be a pain for everyone. No one wants an unexpected $15,000 extra cost.
Drawing from the past six Blog Posts, here are six ways you can save money and time on any and every home makeover project, no matter where in the world you’re running your project and no matter how big or small.

Home Makeover projects are, by nature, complicated. There are lots of moving parts. And each of them carries a risk of derailing the project and costing extra or wasting time.
It’s just like legal stuff, going to court to sue someone who owes you money or like filing your tax return … it’s not really rocket science but you do need to know what you’re doing or you can come unstuck with nasty consequences.
When I pop the hood of my car and stare at the engine. I literally have no clear idea what’s going on in there. If you said “carburettor” or “air filter” then I’d be like “Nope, means nothing to me”. I mean, I’ve heard of those things but I really don’t know exactly what they do and what they even look like. I’m just not mechanically minded.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t always stop me from getting my hands dirty … I’ll optimistically jump in and start poking around and unscrewing stuff … the result is usually some kind of catastrophe. And mostly ends up requiring a professional mechanic to turn up and solve the problem.
Frustratingly, on my own most ambitious Home Makeover Project, I followed this same “fake it ‘til you make it” approach … you know, just trying to wing it, in the hope it would all come together in the end. And that’s in spite of being a successful construction professional for many years.
This flawed mindset left me in a heap of trouble I could have so easily avoided.
I know lots of people take this same, gung-ho approach – friends, neighbours, relations and colleagues.
So, before diving in and sharing Six ways to save money and time on any and every Home Makeover Project, I want to share the Core Strategy that you must follow to save money and time on Home Makeover projects.
The inspiration comes from professional cycling – one of the most demanding endurance sports. You may have heard of the Tour de France, one of the most gruelling cycle races in the world. Run every year during July since 1903 … except during the two world wars … the competitors ride about 2,200 miles (that’s around 3,500 km) across 21 stages in 23 days. The stages include some epic routes through the mountains, challenging the fitness of the riders as they push themselves to the limits.
In developing a way to win in these and other super competitive cycling events, the concept of aggregated marginal gains was adopted. Aggregated Marginal Gains.
If that sounds a bit “rocket-sciencey”, it isn’t really … but it is very effective. Basically “aggregated marginal gains” just means that you look at every little component – in this case of cycling – and then looking for just a tiny 1% improvement on all of them. And that’s related to everything the cyclists do. No detail or component is overlooked and none are deemed to insignificant to investigate.
The success delivered by the pioneers of this approach has lead many others to embrace and then develop the concept and methodology further. It’s been the foundation to Great Britain’s cycling dominance at the past three Olympic games – topping the cycling medals tables in 2012, 2016 and recently in Tokyo.
So how do “aggregated marginal gains” apply to Home Makeovers ? Well, my secret strategy at the core of saving you money and time on construction projects, is to apply aggregated marginal gains by doing the right things every step of the way through your Home Makeover Project – the things that keep the costs as low as possible and the time as tight as possible. And just like it guarantees winning Olympic Gold medals in cycling, you can save money and time against what would be the outcome if you did not take this approach.
This concept is neither new nor revolutionary – it draws from improvement science, which has actually been around a long time. The management genius, W.E. Deming who lived from 1900 to 1993, said “It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”
If knowing what the right things are that you need to do is fundamental to succeeding, then my goal is to show you what you need to do, step by step, across the whole home makeover project journey.
Drawing from Blog Posts 1 through 6, here are six ways you can apply the principles of aggregated marginal gains to save money and time … and remember, they will work on any and every Home Makeover Project, anywhere in the world. I’m just focusing on the key lessons here so if you need to go back and revisit the previous Blog Posts, you’ll find them on our website at www.thediypm.com .
In Blog Post One, I shared why I’ve launched this Podcast series and revealed that the secret to Home Makeover Project Success is following a reliable, proven, step-by-step strategy to deliver any Home Makeover Project. I explained that winging it, making it up as you go along, hoping for it all to work out in the end on a fake-it-‘til-you-make-it basis just doesn’t work. Even for a construction professional like me. I proved this point the hardest way – it hurt then and although we achieved a successful end result, against the odds, it still hurts now, because all the stuff I got wrong, the money and time wasted could have been avoided. It was all unnecessary.
In January 2015 Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgensen free-climbed The Dawn Wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. At the time, their gruelling 19 day ascent was considered by some as the hardest successful rock climb in history. But before they experienced the joy of reaching the summit, they had spent 6 torturous years exploring and developing their route and making failed attempts. If you haven’t seen the epic documentary film of their exploits, just search online for “The Dawn Wall”.
I would hate for your Home Makeover Project to feel torturous and I definitely wouldn’t want you to have to spend six years trying and failing to get your dream home across the line.
Just as other climbers have benefited from the trail blazing exploits of Caldwell and Jorgensen, you can learn from my mistakes and avoid all the frustration, disappointment, embarrassment and very real anguish that can crush you when things go wrong.
So my cost and time saving Lesson 1 : Don’t wing it – follow a proven, step-by-step methodology from start to finish.
In Blog Post Two, I exposed the Number One source of Project Calamities – it’s the people involved in projects, including Homeowners themselves. We are our own worst enemies. In that Blog Post I shared three essential strategies that control and limit the damage we humans cause and to unlock the positive potential of the teams you work with.
So cost and time saving Lesson 2 : intentionally apply Proactive People Management, focus on Detailed Design Planning and ensure Crystal Clear Communication at all times. Blog Post 2 covered lots more so make sure to go back and read it if you haven’t yet done so.
Then in Blog Post Three we visited the Circus and I revealed the skill you need to master to control your project successfully. Juggling. Because you need to juggle the four competing forces that dominate all projects and I explained that project success can only be achieved through keeping them correctly balanced.
So cost and time saving Lesson 3 : Constantly evaluate and balance the four forces of home makeover projects - time, quality, health and safety and costs. Maintain awareness of how decisions you make affect each of these forces and recognise that, when you make bad decisions, one or more of these forces can start to tumble out of control with nasty time and cost consequences.
In Blog Post Four, I introduced the 5 areas of local laws that you must obey to stay legal on home makeover projects. Not all of these laws apply on every project and other local laws may also have an impact but these are specifically construction related laws. Obeying local construction laws will save money and time because the impact of getting it wrong and getting caught out if you don’t stay legal, can be significant. This could include being refused permission to occupy your home, being forced to demolish a newly constructed addition and lots of other similar catastrophes. When these laws are broken – whether by mistake or deliberately, it usually costs lots of money and takes tons of time to get things sorted out. And it’s worth adding that breaking these laws can even result in jail time in some countries.
So cost and time saving Lesson 4 : Make sure you obey local Planning, Heritage, Building Code or Building Control, Quality Standards and Labour laws.
Then in Blog Post Five, I launched the first of a series of Blog Posts focusing on growing Homeowner understanding of Project Costs. I started by introducing the five main project cost stages. I explained that maintaining cost focus through each of these stages … applying the principles of aggregated marginal gains … is how costs can be controlled and contained. And when costs are well managed, we avoid the nasty negative consequences of out-of-control Project Costs on our project timelines. When the money gets out of control, the timeline usually follows.
So cost and time saving Lesson 5 : Focus on controlling and containing costs through the 5 key stages of Project Cost Management.
And finally, in Blog Post 6 last week, as the second part of my exploration of Project Cost, I shared in more granular detail about how construction costs work, what they consist of. I touched on overheads and profit mark-ups. I explained that Materials, Plant or Machinery and Labour are the three main components of cost.
By expanding your understanding of project costs, Lesson 6 continues the theme of focusing on and controlling costs at a granular level throughout the project.
By highlighting for you the powerful concept of aggregated marginal gains and explaining my secret strategy at the core of saving you money and time on construction projects you are beginning to understand how you can leverage these principles throughout the management of your home makeover project.
As we continue our exploration of Home Makeover Projects, I’ll be going deeper and focusing in more detail on the principles we have touched upon in this and earlier episodes.
In closing, I’d like to leave you with the encouraging words of mountain climber supreme, Tommy Caldwell, who said, “We are capable of so much more than we can ever imagine”.
You CAN do this. Once you know what to do and do your best, you have the ability to succeed at whatever Home Makeover Project you attempt.
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