This article was written by me for private craftsmen, small teams and owners of repair companies who are experiencing a shortage of orders for apartment renovations or an unstable flow of orders (sometimes thick, sometimes empty).

I have been working in the construction field for quite some time in different areas, in particular, with the direction of repair and finishing of apartments/cottages, and, analyzing the requests I receive, I see that the situation for each person applying is the same, despite the fact that clients are from different regions and , often truly masters of their craft, caring for high-quality results for their customers.

Each of them experiences real difficulties in attracting customers - below are the main formulations of this need:

• how to attract clients for the decoration and renovation of apartments,
• how and where to look for clients for apartment renovations,
• how and where to find clients for apartment renovation,
• how and where to get clients for apartment renovations.

Word of mouth is unstable, Avito has stopped working, paid advertising (Yandex Direct, website and its promotion) are expensive, but the money is flowing out, and there have been no requests.

In this article, I will share with you effective online methods of attracting customers to your repair business.

Remember! If some method does not bring you results, analyze why. 95% that you are using this tool ineptly. We need to test different approaches, analyze the results, and test further. As soon as the result starts, think about how to strengthen it.

Video presentation:

10 offline ways to attract clients for apartment renovations

Before writing this material, I studied what others wrote on this topic. And I was surprised that there simply weren’t any decent, full-fledged materials. The same thing is rewritten from article to article...

Therefore, at the very beginning, I will provide a short list of offline methods (hackneyed, mentioned on the Internet) of attracting customers to the repair business. The effectiveness of a particular method varies and depends on the advertising message (offer), design, location, etc.

I cannot give any specifics on these methods, because... I specialize exclusively in attracting clients from the Internet. If any method interests you, look for details on its implementation on the Internet.

The methods are as follows:

• promotions and leaflets;
• advertising in entrances, elevators, on fences;
• cooperation with designers, architects;
• partnerships with companies in related fields (who have your target audience);
• advertising in regional print media (newspapers, magazines);
• word of mouth (this is “for dessert”, it appears when a reputation and satisfied customers are developed).

And now let’s move on to the most interesting and effective - online ways of attracting private orders for renovation and decoration of apartments.

How to write an advertisement for apartment renovation

Right now go to Avito or any other bulletin board and scan the advertisements in the apartment renovation section, I saw this quiet horror:

What do you think? Impressive?

What do you think:

• Do ads with prices of 100-800 rubles look effective and realistic?
• Is it good to optimize ads for queries that users type (in particular, I typed “apartment renovation”)?
• Are the images of any ad catchy?

Of course, this is all subjective, but for the most part it doesn't work well.

I'll give you a few basic things you should know when composing (writing) advertisements for bulletin boards or printed flyers:

• Forget about general words, promises, “guarantees”. Almost all advertisements are full of this. Not only do they not believe in this, they don’t pay attention to it. Focus solely on what is really important to your customers. Remember what clients ask you in communication. What do they pay attention to? What are they afraid of, etc. And focus on this in your advertisements.
• Write briefly, clearly, to the point. Forget about “watery” and empty headings and texts. This does not work. No one will read “sheets” of text, especially if they are not formatted (not broken into paragraphs). Turn your ad into a set of clear talking points.
• The headline should catch your attention and make you click.. The headline should attract further reading of the ad. You must “hit” the potential client. To do this, you must know your audience and feel their pains and needs.
• Catchy photo of the announcement. Think about how you will stand out and what will help your ad be chosen and clicked on?
• Create a lot of ads and test them. Create at least 10 different ads with different headlines and announcement photos. Turn them on one by one and measure the result in the form of views and quality of requests. Enter the result in a table (Excel or Google Docs).
• The ad text must be written in the language of benefits. Forget about “quality building materials” and similar clichés. Turn it into “building materials with a written 25 year guarantee”, etc.
• Don't make mistakes in the text. Errors are a deterrent and dramatically reduce conversion rates. You immediately form a negative opinion about yourself.
• 1 service = 1 advertisement. If you are engaged in “repair of bathrooms”, you should have separate advertisements for “repair of combined bathrooms”, “repair of a separate bathroom”, “combination of a bathroom”, “repair of a toilet 1.5 sq.m.” And in each individual case, you must adapt the description to a specific service. If it is possible to indicate prices for a ready-made solution, do so.
• Enter your real name + add a personal photo. You want people to believe you and pay money in the future. So don't hide. Remove the distance between you and the client. Show that you are a real person.
• Do not replace the service description with a link to a site with this description.. Take the time to write an ad for the bulletin board. You will lose the lion's share of your audience by posting links to third-party resources instead of posting a description here and now.
• Use keywords in your ads. In the title and text, organically include phrases related to your ad.
• Respond promptly to requests. Be it personal messages in your personal account or calls via SMS. Stay in touch and don't freeze.

Where to place an advertisement for apartment renovation (bulletin boards)

Method 2. Avito.ru

Essentially a free method with the opportunity to buy various advanced packages with advertising functions (highlighting in search results, raising, etc.).

Register and post your ad in the “Services” section. Make it as selling as possible in the sense that:

• show the benefits of your offer;
• handle the most common objections;
• answer the main questions that come up;
• show the high value of your offer;
• Give examples of your work.

Method 3. Exchanges for orders for apartment renovations (aggregators of repair services)

I have made a selection of such exchange platforms for you. Register, fill out your profile efficiently, find opportunities to increase the impact of your account on a specific site. Earn a good rating and go ahead!

24+ exchanges of orders for renovation and finishing of apartments (aggregators):

Method 4. Social networks (Vkontakte, Facebook, Instagram)

Focus on photo publications (examples of work from real objects) describing what you do, how you do it, why you do it. All these nuances will show your potential customers your professionalism and attention to detail, this is very important.

For promotion use:

Each method works and brings clients. We just take it and implement it!

Method 5. Global and local company directories

Global catalogs are usually either a separate section of a large portal or a separate portal.

There are both general thematic ones (i.e., divided into various thematic categories, including “apartment renovation”), as well as specialized ones, where exclusively construction sites are hosted.

Usually all directories are linked to the region.

However, also pay close attention to local and regional directories.

For example, in Moscow, districts have their own forums and catalogs. Place yourself in them.

Or, for example, you are from the city of Lyubertsy in the Moscow region, they have their own resources with catalogs. Placing them on them will give maximum effect.

Below I will give several TOP free resources for placement, both general thematic and purely construction ones.

5 general thematic company catalogues:

You can collect other catalogs by entering the request “ company directory add website” and the like.

5 construction company catalogs:

You can collect other construction catalogs by entering the request “ directory of construction companies add website”, “construction company catalogs”, “construction site catalogs" etc.

Method 6. Regional thematic forums

Create an account on the forum, fill it out and help inquiring potential clients, answer their questions. Do not engage in aggressive advertising, it will only alienate you or you may simply be banned for violating the rules of the site.

This method is not fast, but takes a long time. Make it a habit to monitor new topics every day or every other day and respond.

Method 7. “Mom” forums

This method is not entirely honest and consists in the fact that you find forums where topics of “scammers” or generally unscrupulous repair teams are discussed.

You register under the guise of a “local” forum member, make a dozen posts in different threads for naturalness, and then share your invented, but as realistic as possible, story of unsuccessful cooperation with a private team that took the money, did nothing and disappeared.

As a result, I had to contact the company based on the style of work I liked, etc. and so on. Surprisingly, they did everything clearly, the workers were clean, cleaned up after themselves, polite... They gave a guarantee... The main thing is NOT to write the name of the company =)

Method 8. Virtual tours, panoramas

The method works great in this niche! Ideally, make identical BEFORE and AFTER panoramas, as well as virtual tours for the website (displayed on mobile phones) and on Facebook.

With their help, you can show all the beauty of the renovation, what potential clients love.

Yes, this needs to be done for every project and it is an additional expense (although I prefer to call it an investment), but it will ultimately work for you.

Method 9. Youtube channel with thematic videos

We notice that, starting last year, people began to contact us much more actively after watching Youtube videos. At the same time, one feels that the line of mistrust has been completely or almost completely destroyed.

Therefore, become bloggers! Record useful videos, answer questions from current clients (they are repeated by most, if not all), promote your videos!

The faster you start, the more targeted views you have, the greater the “exhaust”.

Method 10. 2-step sales

Despite the fact that this has already been talked about for several years, 99% do not implement it, hiding behind distrust (in fact, laziness) in this “action”.

What is two-step selling? This is when, at the first stage of dating, you offer a potential client something valuable for free in exchange for his contact information (usually an email/phone number).

To be free, to be actively downloaded, it must have a very high value for a potential client. It should “hit” right at his core pain.

As an example, I will give “hackneyed” topics - “ How to save up to 30% on apartment renovation!" or " How to distinguish an unscrupulous contractor and save hundreds of thousands on repairs!”

But subscribing is half the battle! Next, your task is to build trust between you and the potential client, to remind about yourself until the decision is made. A conversion action can be to call a surveyor to the site and develop a repair estimate.

Method 11. Yandex Direct for apartment renovation

This is probably the most famous method, which almost everyone has tried, but at the same time, it brought disappointment to 97% of those who tried it.

However, seeing how those who failed set up Direct, I don’t see anything surprising in this.

Important! Recipe for failure: Add 10 words, create 1 ad for them, set a bid per click and deposit money into your account...

Yandex Direct, when used correctly, gives very cool results both in Moscow and in the regions.

Important! In Moscow, the minimum cost of an application for apartment renovation is 250 rubles.

However, to achieve this result, you need to work closely both on advertising and on the site itself. You must understand that the conversion to an application and its cost directly depend on your proposal and portfolio.

Yandex Direct has a number of tools:

• (in search results on Yandex);
• (on information sites);
• (return of visitors who meet the conditions you require);
• (show advertising to a database of potential clients collected, for example, using two-step sales);
• (show advertising to the audience according to certain rules in the desired geo-location).

8 stages of setting up Yandex Direct:

1. Competitor analysis;
2. Studying your potential clients;
3. Collection and development of basic key phrases, from which we will subsequently collect a wide range of queries (in other words, parse);
4. Parsing, cleaning, ungrouping requests;
5. Writing selling advertisements;
6. Setting up web analytics and;
7. Uploading advertising campaigns (AC) to your Yandex Direct account + setup;
8. Managing advertising campaigns after launch, finalizing and optimizing advertising campaigns.

Method 12. Google AdWords

This channel is not yet widely used in RUNet due to its greater complexity, but in some cases it is more profitable and cost-effective than Yandex Direct.

Google Adwords has a huge range of tools for displaying ads for a variety of conditions.

To describe them, you will need a separate huge article or a mini-book of more than 1 dozen pages.

But, since I want to give you benefits within the framework of this article, I have made for you a selection of articles on third-party resources, which I recommend for study:

And finally, a few tips on what audience interests you can advertise on:

• competitors;
• residential complexes in the area;
• developer;
• etc.

Method 13. SEO promotion of a website for apartment renovation

Perhaps the most profitable way to attract potential clients. Keep in mind that by promoting your own site, you are investing in your tool.

You can promote your site either independently or with the help of specialists (the main thing here is to find someone who is responsible and cares about your results and not to fall into the hands of a streaming agency that “cuts” money from gullible clients without producing results and without carrying out any work aimed at your achievement of results).

The main thing to remember is that such a specialist will not work for the price of a streaming agency! There are exceptions, of course, but they are exceptions!

So, what work needs to be done on the site in order to become a leader in the niche:

• analyze competitors in Yandex results (we use the service);
• collect a semantic core(a list of search queries by which people are looking for a solution to their problem and which you are solving);
• clean and ungroup collected queries, so that the result is a group of queries, for each of which a separate website page will be created (for working with the semantic core, I recommend and);
• create a competent website structure based on the resulting groups of requests;
• draw up technical specifications for the text based on an analysis of the current Yandex results;
• write text according to the compiled technical specifications (we use the text exchange and);
• post everything is on the site;
• perform SEO optimization of pages(SEO tags title, description. keywords, h1, internal linking);
• speed up page indexing in Yandex and Google;
• install analytics systems: Yandex Metrica and Google Analytics to the site, set up goals;
• tune robots.txt;
• configure webmaster panels: Yandex.Webmaster and Google.Webmaster;
• register a site in reputable company/website directories;
• carefully select sites for placement of paid perpetual links in exchanges and (to select links we use tools and);
• regularly add thematic and interesting articles to the site, thereby expanding the reach of your target audience;
• regularly analyze site positions by search queries (we use services and);
• install CallTracking and work with your client base in CRM (we recommend a simple all-in-one system or a more advanced one)
• conduct site analytics on a regular basis using Yandex Metrica/Google Analytics.

Method 14. Selling website for apartment renovation

I recommend having a website and constantly working to improve, fill and promote it. A website is your asset, which, with the right attitude, grows and grows your business, attracting the clients you need on autopilot!

Method 16. Analytics and strengthening of effective channels

I recommend using Yandex Metrica, because... it is easier to understand and currently has very serious functionality that allows you to conduct good analytics and identify problematic aspects of a website or advertising campaign in order to correct them.

conclusions

To beat most of your colleagues in the industry, you just need to start doing a little every day!

Start implementing what I have listed one by one, step by step. And very soon a trickle of potential clients will come to you on an ongoing basis with progression.

Your task will be to “fine-tune” the strategy for attracting and filtering the incoming flow of applications, as well as to do one action every day according to the planned plan.

It sounds simple, but it is true!

Let me give you a simple analogy - if you carry out specific repair work on a site every day, then after X days (substitute the necessary one depending on the complexity of the repair) - the repair will be completed! If you purchase materials and postpone repair work, the room will remain without repair.

[Express analysis] Critical problems of Landing and Yandex Direct in the niche Apartment renovation Repair-Apartment-in-Tyumen.rf [Apartment renovation] 105 negative keywords out of 1900+ for SEARCH and 30 negative sites out of 171 universal for YAN

DIY apartment renovation aslan wrote in February 15th, 2018

I’ve been meaning to tell you about the renovation of my apartment for a long time, but I still couldn’t get it together. My wife and I decided to do the renovation ourselves, because... There is no time limit for repairs, and the hands seem to grow more or less from the right place.
Actually, here is the apartment:

2 rooms, corridor, separate bathroom, dressing room, large balcony and good kitchen. The apartment was rented out with preliminary renovation - the walls were leveled, the floor was screeded, the electrics were installed.

I took the apartment myself. To the acceptance I brought a multimeter, a laser level, a bubble level and a thermal imager (I checked the windows, since the acceptance was at the end of November). The only problem I wrote was increased voltage in the apartment. I measured about 300 V. While the acceptance certificates were being signed, the jamb had already been eliminated. By the way, in the future, household appliances were on fire in several apartments, because... The zeros have burned out in many places, and the voltage control relays are set to ones.

Unfortunately, a lot of photos from the beginning of the renovation have disappeared. Only a small part remains.

The renovation began with plumbing installation. I decided to do it at Rehau. I chose this manufacturer because... It seems to me that rehau produces the highest quality connections + any person, without any experience, is able to assemble everything himself.
I immediately discarded the metal plastic (my friends flooded their neighbors and according to the court they owe 400+k for repairs), but I have practically no experience with simple polypropylene pipes, and still, from time to time, I hear stories about leaks or low pressure due to poor-quality connections.
Assembled the collector assembly.

I believe that the use of water leakage systems is simply necessary. These are two green ones. Electrical. The overlap time, if I'm not mistaken, is 12-15 seconds from the moment the sensor is triggered. Looking ahead, I will say that I installed 5 sensors - 1 in the toilet and 2 each in the kitchen and bathroom. By the way, the company of this system is Bugatti =)
There are no reducers or oblique filters in the photo. They actually exist - at the outlet from the riser.

It turns out it conducts to power the system control unit against water leakage and lighting in the inspection hatch.

I didn’t take photos of the water sockets, because... this is of no interest to anyone))
I covered the whole thing with plasterboard and made inspection hatches.

This is where I made the biggest mistake in the entire renovation. I opened the hatch down. It was necessary to go up. After the tiles were laid, it turned out that the door was simply VERY heavy, and besides, it could not be opened all the way down, because... the edges of the touching tiles simply chip off... Now changing filters is very difficult.

Then I started making the bathroom. And, a few months after acceptance, I noticed that there was no hood in the bathroom. I wrote a complaint to the developer. I was told that the review period is about 40 days + another 40 days for elimination. In total, it turns out to be almost 3 months. Moreover, I was not the only one who had such a problem. Someone decided to wait. They waited, but they just punched a hole into the ventilation shaft. No one made any connection to the air duct, which, of course, is not correct.
I had to do it myself.
In the toilet we almost had to break the wall and pull out the air duct a little. Next, attach an ordinary tee to 100mm and lead it from one branch into the bathroom.

Of course, the draft along the branch is not so strong, but if you first close the ventilation in the toilet with a sheet of paper, then in the bathroom the sheet of paper also sticks. Moreover, there will be an electric hood in the bathroom.
Next, you can proceed to the bathroom

The width of the bathroom is 178.5. The width of the bathtub itself is 178. I don’t remember the exact weight of the bathtub, but something in the region of 120 kg.
To install it, it was necessary to break the doorway, the help of three more people and then a jack on wheels))
Bathroom made of cast marble. It is considered a double room. My wife and I basically fit there)
It was necessary to make 5 holes for the faucet in the bathroom. The store asked for 1500 rubles per hole. Were sent) Easily done independently using a feather pen or a Forstner drill.

The connected waterfall tap and hose for the shower head are already visible on the bathroom. In addition, a mixer for an overhead rain shower is installed on the wall.

The bathroom is on small brickwork, because... a step was provided in front of the bathroom.
Step mold.

There will be an LED strip on the step.

I waterproofed the floors in the bathroom and toilet. I installed heated flooring in the bathroom and poured self-leveling mortar on top.
We bought good tiles (at least it seems so to me). Company Emigres (Spain). But, before laying the tiles, I made myself a small homemade tile cutter. There is no point in buying an electric tile cutter; renting one is unprofitable. Spent about 70 minutes creating it.

The vacuum cleaner is connected and the required cut is adjusted. The minimum could be cut to 2 mm - the thickness of the disk. There was just enough for 1 renovation - tiles in the bathroom, toilet and floors in the kitchen and hallway. During the entire renovation, ONLY 1 tile was broken, although in all stores they advise taking “for scrap” + 10%. This 10% now lies with us and takes up space))

But before laying tiles on the walls, they made the floors. They wanted it with a pattern. We chose floors with a “3D” effect. It doesn't smell like 3D. This is the second time outsiders have been hired. And the second time there were problems (the first time the riser with hot water was soldered and moved to dry). To be honest, we are not very happy with the result. The only plus is that water definitely won’t seep through these floors. So there was no need to do waterproofing.

In the toilet:

In the bathroom:

The tiles were laid for the first time. I think it turned out pretty good. Wherever there are taps in the plasterboard structure, hatches are made with magnets.
I cut it at 45 degrees, also made on my machine. True, the perfect cut was not obtained there, so it had to be brought to perfection with the help of a grinder.

On the top right the boiler is already hanging. Next to the toilet there is a sink and a hygienic shower.

In the bathroom we decided to make two countertops ourselves. Result:

Still very dirty. The steps were laid with the same mosaic.

All communications are under the sink. Only the chrome siphon is visible. Communications are hidden in a box, which is also made with magnets, so that it is possible to get close to the connections if necessary.

The step contains an LED strip. Looks very cool. Creates a romantic atmosphere)

Everything was cleaned and washed. A faucet, a sink, a mirror with LED lighting and a curtain for the bathroom are installed. The curtain rotates and extends. Very comfortable. Above the curtain is a tropical shower.

Arithmetically minded people have long developed for themselves a simple definition of repair: one repair - two moves, two repairs - one fire. It sounds pretty depressing, but I, like Mulder and Scully, hope that the truth is out there and it's not all that bad. There are some pleasant sides here too.

However, no matter how you look at it, the process of re- and improvement of your own home always breaks down into two unequal stages: a pleasant creative one (design and Manilov’s flight of fancy) and a complex practical one (implementation of the plan). Let's call them design and repairs and let's see what is on the Internet on this topic.

Frankly, I was somewhat surprised by the fact that most sites dedicated to architectural design and renovation have a very unprepossessing virtual design. However, why be surprised? Apartment renovation and website construction are completely different things. Hence the rule - do not trust the site to the builder, and the apartment to the webmaster. In the latter case, you risk finding on your door a friendly inscription “Best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x or higher”; upon entering you will be asked to watch the splash screen and select the encoding, and then you will wander around your apartment for a long time, getting used to the new “intuitive " navigation. However, I digress. It doesn’t matter that the website’s decor is poor, the main thing is that the content is good. That's what we'll talk about today.

One of the most voluminous and complex in structure is the portal. This project is an example of what evil tongues call a “horizontal-vertical portal with diagonal content.” Let me explain. The site has a two-level structure. At the first level, all information is divided into 21 sections, such as “Windows and doors”, “Finishing materials”, “Stairs”, etc. In turn, each section is like a mini-site dedicated only to a specific topic. That is, in the section, say, “Stairs” you will find a catalog of stairs, a list of manufacturers, articles about stairs, regulatory documents about them, sales announcements, links and a special “staircase” conference. In a word, everything. Agree, it’s quite convenient, especially since there really is a lot of information here. Suffice it to say that 1,531 companies from 87 regions of 16 countries are currently represented on the portal. Prices, addresses, instructions, consumer properties - you will find all this on the portal. The impression is slightly spoiled by the abundance of colorful advertising on the portal, but where to go? - the site has too good targeting (Sorry Shishkov, I don’t know how to translate).

One famous blogger posts photos of his apartments after renovation. He pumps in a lot of money, even takes into account trends, but in the end everything looks like a bathhouse on a collective farm. Do you know why?

There is a great Russian tradition: once every ten years, make cosmetic repairs in an apartment or office. I decided not to wait so long, my heart demanded a change. I turned to a designer for help, both in order not to rack my brains, and in order to travel abroad, and not to the construction market.

1 Meet Zhenya Matveenko - architect-designer and my friend. We discussed not only my renovation, but also the secrets of designers and misconceptions of clients. It turned out to be an interesting story, in the spirit of “mythbusters”.

2 Interior design is expensive! Misconception number one. The cost of the designer’s work is only 10-15% of the cost of repairs. A small price to pay for no headaches.

3 “Why is it needed at all? I myself know what color the wallpaper should be!” Zhenya says that usually her services are used either by very rich people, or vice versa - by students who are “mortgage holders”. For the former it is a matter of status, for the latter it is a rational approach to arranging their 20-meter studios. But the middle class is most often conservative and distrustful. They hire construction crews, but entrust the selection of materials to a consultant from Leroy Merlin.

4 “Masha, tell me, did you go to courses!” Another scourge of society is repairs on the advice of friends. Someone somewhere heard about it or went to a month-long interior design class. Compared to them, a typical renovation from a developer is a standard of style. The wife, after six years of hard study at the Moscow Architectural Institute, happens to have to do a lot of work for the owners’ “girlfriends” when the new apartment turns out to be unsuitable for living.

5 The work of an architect is not just finishing. This is, first of all, organization of space. She helps make the apartment as comfortable as possible for living. The task of a designer, like a doctor, lawyer, hairdresser or any other specialist, is to solve the problem professionally and effectively. You really can choose the color of the walls yourself.

"Before and after"

6 “My husband wants one thing, I want another! We won’t do any repairs until we reach an agreement.” Most of the time is spent not on working on the project, but on reaching an agreement with the client. Sometimes you even have to act as a family psychologist. Men have a strategic approach and global thoughts. Wives are closer to reality; in our society, they are often the ones who do housework. There are many disagreements. So repairs are like testing relationships.

“I have a test for women,” says Zhenya. - “When I work with a woman, I ask a simple question: is she ready to wear a red dress? If she says “no,” I will not offer bold and bright solutions. Even if she likes the picture, then it will be difficult for such a person to live in such an interior.” .

7 “Everyday life kills any repair!” And this is no longer a delusion! It’s not enough to make a beautiful design and implement the project: often after six months the owners of the apartment disfigure the interior so much that it is unrecognizable. Shelves filled with knick-knacks and dust collectors, a refrigerator covered in magnets, things piled into a corner... but if the first is easy to get rid of, the second means a “jamb” when designing. It is important to immediately create as many storage spaces as possible. In a properly organized space, you won’t want to start a fight; it itself calls for order. Even a coffee cup or dirty plate left on the table will be annoying.

“I’ll freshen up my apartment with accessories!”

Zhenya wrote a good article about how everyday life kills design. The first tip is to get rid of the magnets on the refrigerator, and the kitchen will sparkle differently. I decided to try it, what do you think?

8 “Honey, I have nowhere to store my clothes, I want a dressing room!”

"Before and after"

A dressing room is good, but excess clutter is bad! Feel free to get rid of what you don't wear. Order in the closet means order in the head.

Zhenya gives excellent advice on how to get rid of really unnecessary things, because it’s a pity... just turn the hooks on the hangers over! If you put on your clothes, hang them back as usual. After a month or two, you can see what clothes you are not using. This should be safely thrown away and donated!

9 “I know where every client’s safes are!” A designer has to be more than just a psychologist. Zhenya told several stories from her practice. For example, that in all large Moscow offices, in the offices of the general director, there is always a secret exit. In case of an UBEP check or other need to go unnoticed.

10 So why do you need an architect to renovate an ordinary apartment? To make your home comfortable and beautiful, plan the space so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time on simple household tasks. So that the house becomes a place of rest from routine and schedule, and not a springboard for wars with “everyday life”. You need to relax at home, and this can only be done in an apartment made wisely.

Are you thinking of doing renovations?

Alexandra Savina

Anyone who has started a home renovation, knows how difficult this task is - from finding an idea to its implementation. Fortunately, now it’s easy to find any information about design and decor - from the endless expanses of Pinterest and Instagram to special resources. For those who can’t get enough of the famous Apartment Therapy, Design Milk and Inmyroom, we have collected several more sites and blogs about renovation and design.

Decor8 is a blog by American Holly Becker dedicated to design. Here you can find decorating tips, stories about interesting interiors and designers, mood boards for inspiration, DIY tips, as well as a whole section about the role of color in the interior. The blog assumes a more personal format, so Holly not only describes trends, but also shares her thoughts about them.

Lonny is an online magazine about interior design and decor. There are stories about impressive houses and apartments, tips on decorating and how to decorate your home yourself, and how to live in an updated home - for example, "How to grocery shop like an adult." For those who are not in the mood to read and are used to Pinterest, Lonny has a gallery with different interiors.

Enjoy Home is a Russian design studio. The site contains not only information about her projects, but also a rather useful blog, where, in addition to the standard sections for such blogs, there is, for example, a section about movie interiors and useful books for those interested in design. There are also practical tips - for example, how to work with bright orange and dark blue colors in the interior. And inspiration can be drawn not only from American houses, but also, for example, from an apartment in Chertanovo.

A website dedicated to interior design, staffed by an impressive team of editors and authors. There are practical guides for those who are starting renovations (unfortunately, so far only about kitchens and bathrooms), and a section with the self-explanatory title “Steal this look”. The editors also recommend repair and design specialists - however, mainly in Europe and the USA.

The blog of American Grace Bonnie Design*Sponge is more than ten years old - several editors are currently working on it. It is dedicated not only to the interior, but also to travel, business and recipes - everything that fits into the concept of “lifestyle”. The interior design section deserves special attention: there is an interior gallery from which you can draw inspiration, as well as a “DIY” section with stories about interior remodeling. The editors pay special attention to the design of premises for people with disabilities.

Erin Hiemstra started a blog ten years ago to tell how renovations were going on in her house - that same apartment 34. Since then, Erin managed to move to San Francisco, and her blog turned into an independent lifestyle publication. Erin’s blog is worth browsing for inspiration (for convenience, the “Decor” section is divided into categories: bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, etc.), as well as to get design ideas and life hacks - for example, what can replace the usual bedside table and how else to use it tiles in the interior.

Coco Kelley founder Cassandra Lavallee also owns Emerald, an interior design and event design studio. The blog is worth looking for tips on how to refresh and improve the existing interior, rather than starting from scratch - for example, how to combine posters with patterned wallpaper or use stripes in the interior. Lavallee explains the principles of design using specific examples - so if you wish, it’s easy to order “that very” lamp or pillow.

A well-known magazine about renovation and interior design - here you can find what most design blogs lack: for example, recommendations from professionals for renovating a wide variety of rooms and simple practical tips (how to deal with scratches on a wooden floor, how to fix a leaking faucet, and so on) . Plus lots of interior photos and ideas for inspiration, as well