Renovate your house this spring

SPRING is approaching. Though the recent cold snaps, which have frozen much of the nation to a standstill may have you thinking and believing otherwise, the seasons they are changing and spring can frequently turn out to be the busiest of the lot.

Primarily, this is down to the ominous spectre of the big spring clean looming large on your horizon – yes, it's already that time of year again. Time to start thinking about completely gutting all your cupboards, getting stuck in amongst it all with some good old fashioned elbow grease and, essentially, starting afresh all over again.

It's the same in millions of households up and down the country as kitchens and living rooms are stripped bare and the strong smell of cleaning solutions hangs in the air, a powerful odour serving as a constant reminder of your task so far and the jobs that remain.

There is however, one question: why stop there? If it's the perfect time to make the interior of your house sparkle, then surely it's also the perfect opportunity to alter the infrastructure and undertake more manual, laborious tasks? By killing two birds with one stone and combining your dusting with, say, bricklaying jobs, by the time summer rolls around you'll be sitting pretty with a spanking clean, spectacular looking new house.

After all, there's nothing worse then toiling away in the outdoors on a swelteringly hot day when you could be relaxing with a cold drink, enjoying your handiwork and congratulating yourself on your forward planning.

Of course, not everyone is cut out for manual labour, in both the physical and knowledge departments. It's therefore important to find the right people, whether they're bricklayers or something else, who will do the job for the right price and most importantly, do it well.

To this end it is always important to put some considerable thought, time and effort into researching the different possibilities. Reputations count for a lot in the building trade and, once a good one is earned, that company or individual will do their utmost to keep it.

We've all seen those television shows that act on behalf of disgruntled and let down customers, exposing and humiliating cowboy builders before bringing them to justice. To avoid getting stung yourself, find reports from other customers, feedback and evaluations from people who have previously used their service.

There's an awful lot of information out there and a comprehensive guide to everything; from quality of work to personal nature which can enable you to make the best informed decision possible.

Another way of ensuring you get the right workforce for your job is to be as specific as possible about what you require. This will bring what you want done to the attention of specialists in that field, whether it's carpenters and joiners or painters and decorators.

Forget the idea of a jack-of-all-trades, every job is someone's speciality and, ideally, you want that person working on yours.