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Wendy Moore's top renovating tips from House Rules

House Rules judge Wendy Moore.

House Rules judge and Home Beautiful magazine editor Wendy Moore's top three renovating tips from the series

1. Planning is key. "Without a really clear vision you will be fighting an uphill battle every step of the way," Moore said. "If you have a really strong map of how the room will work (including furniture layout), a really good idea of how the room will be used, and a mood board that conveys the style, theme and colour palette then you are well on your way to success. Lisa proved that when she made a mood board for the kitchen in Maddi and Lloyd's home - you could see how easy it was for her to stay on track when she had a stack of images to refer back to."


2. When it comes time decorate, know when to stop. "It doesn't matter how beautiful or right an idea is, if it's completely overwhelmed by everything around it, then you shoot yourself in the foot," Moore said. "For Bomber and Mel, the idea of a climbing wall sounded so great at first, but they had to make so many compromises along the way that it just lost its purpose. You need to be able to walk away from an idea when it clearly isn't working anymore."


3. Keeping on top of your budget is critical. "When you first start on a project, start a ledger, either in a notebook or on your computer (I prefer to use Excel so I can keep a running balance)," Moore said. "Start by putting in broad estimates for the work, and as you go through the process keep adding more and more detail. It's the only way you'll be able to catch any overspends at a time when you can save them. If the teams even spent the time doing an estimate on the back of an envelope on the first day it would have saved many of them quite a bit of time returning items to get back on track."