Say you’ve just built a house. It’s nothing but walls, floors, and doors. Now you’ve got the job to fit it out into a house suitable to live in. How do you do that? What do you need? Can you do it all by yourself? Yes, for the most part, you can do it all yourself. What you need and how you do it, that’s a different story. It depends entirely on the fitting you are looking to make.
Making a house livable isn’t that easy. Modern conveniences take a while to install and get working. If all you’ve got is the house structure, then you’ve got a lot to work on. Finishing the job could take months. That said, it’s well worth it to have finally a finished home you can be proud of. So what needs to be done? We’ll provide you a guide to the basics.
Plumbing
Above all else, plumbing needs to come first. Plumbing is what you have to plan everything else around. So let’s start at the beginning. You need to place the sinks in first. The kitchen sink should be your first job. Ideally this is where you’ll have the shut-off valve for your water mains too.
Now, you’ll also need a sink in your bathroom. How many bathrooms do you intend to have though? You may want to have more than one toilet in your home. If you’ve got a toilet, you’ll need a sink too. Once the sinks and toilets are out of the way, then think about showers and baths.
If you’re going to have more than one bathroom, you should think about having a shower in one and a bath in the other. If you’ve got space, you could try having both in one bathroom or a combination unit in both.
Gas
Whether you’re using it for heating or your oven, you’re going to need gas. A certified gas fitter needs to do this. For insurance and safety reasons, you cannot do it yourself. There could be an accident where the house burns down due to a gas leak. The insurance would not pay out without the paperwork showing a certified gas fitter had done the work. Not only that but you may be charged by the Police for arson too.
What you can do after the gas is fitted is buy a carbon monoxide detector from BES. Poorly fitted or damaged gas heaters can spread carbon monoxide. It is deadly, and often you won’t even know you’re breathing it in. If there is a leak and you go to sleep in the vicinity of it, it is unlikely you’ll wake up.
Electrics
Now that the plumbing and gas are sorted, you can move on with the electrics. Why does the electrics come behind the other two? Well, you need to work around water and gas, not the other way around. The water and gas come in from specific pipes. The electrics can be flexible due to being wired and work around them.
The wiring should ideally be done by a professional. Much like the gas fitting, there are numerous safety and legal reasons why you’d want a professional to do this. If you were to accidentally leave a wire uninsulated, it could begin to spark. The spark could ignite materials within the walls. Then you could be left with a raging fire with a damaged structure of the building. Not only could the house burn down, but it could collapse too.
The placement and number of electrical plug sockets in a room is somewhat up to you. Too many plugs may overload your switch box and blow a fuse. Your electrician should be able to tell you the maximum amount of plug sockets you can have in any one room. You can even have sockets in the floor rather than the wall, but those are ideal for computers rather than other appliances.
The number of lights depend on the size of the room. Just trust your electrician on this. You can always switch out the light fixtures at a later date anyway.
Basic Appliances
Before you start fully furnishing your home, you need to start filling it up with the basic appliances. This can mean anything to a washing machine to a freezer. The appliances you absolutely need to get by with.
Home Furnishing & Decorating
Once the bathroom and kitchen have the basics fitted, you can move on to furnishing. The details of your furnishing are up to you, as is the decoration. The furnishings are just as important as the fittings when it comes to making a livable home. Who cares if you’ve got the lights fitted in your living room if you have nowhere to sit?
Phone Line, Internet, & Cable Television
A phone line connection isn’t as essential as it used to be with the advent of mobile phones. That said it is still good to have a landline enabled, so you have a home phone number. If you don’t intend on using your home phone so much, try to get the cheapest deal available or have it as part of a television and internet package.
The internet is essential to the modern home. Even if you are not a big user of it, the internet is an invaluable tool. Not only is it a great source of knowledge but it’s also a helpful tool in everyday life. Don’t have enough time to go food shopping every week? Just order online and have it delivered to your door.
Other Appliances & Decoration
Your home is liveable by all means of the word. Now it’s time to fill it up with your stuff. Pictures of friends and family collected artwork, books, your television, the list goes on. A lot of the groundwork in fitting a home is done early on. The further in the process you get, the easier it is. It doesn’t happen overnight. Over the process of a month or so though, you can turn a barren empty house into somewhere you’re proud to call home.
