The designer warned about hidden space losses during the renovation

When buying a home, each square meter costs the owners a substantial amount, but during repairs, part of this area often turns into absolutely useless "blind spots". Olga Manukovskaya, the designer of the Level Group, told Izvestia on April 11 about how to avoid such situations and provide functional spaces even at the repair stage.

According to the expert, most often "dead zones" can be found when engineering communications are blindly sewn in bathrooms and kitchens.

"In practice, we see the following situation: builders take pipes, risers or vent boxes and simply sew them into a flat rectangular box made of drywall. There is a lot of empty space inside the box, hidden behind the tiles. It can become a storage space for household chemicals if you make hidden hatches and organize shelves there bypassing pipes. In addition, you can hide a boiler or a water filtration system in the same box, thus using the space to the maximum," she explained.

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Manukovskaya said that one of the common mistakes during repairs is the incorrect location of the doors. For example, in self-planning, doors are often installed in narrow corridors so that they collide when opened, and the space behind them remains unused. The designer explained that this problem can be avoided even at the roughing stage. To do this, it is recommended to install hidden pencil cases with sliding doors extending into the wall, or use rotary structures — a combined version of swing and sliding doors, which is suitable for small rooms.

The third reason for the "dead zones" are the niches between the supporting columns (pylons) and the "wrong" angles.

"In monolithic houses, load-bearing columns may protrude. During repairs, people simply paint them, leaving non-functional niches 15-20 cm deep, where no standard cabinet fits. To make this space usable, at the repair stage it is necessary to build up the wall with drywall flush with the column, but not with a blank wall, but by making built—in shelving, hidden niches for lighting or integrating a workplace there," the expert explained.

Manukovskaya also added that it is necessary to fight for the ergonomics of the apartment long before choosing wallpaper and upholstered furniture. A thoughtful design of interior solutions and attention to unobvious voids can return up to 3 square meters of really useful and functional space to the owners.

On March 29, Artyom Iskra, Managing Director of Renaissance Insurance, told Izvestia about the mistakes made during construction and repairs. According to him, the first thing you should not skimp on is the supporting structures and the foundation when building a private house. Foundation problems go beyond local cosmetic defects and create a risk of damage to the house as a whole. The most common cause of foundation problems is incorrect calculation of loads and parameters without taking into account the actual characteristics of the soil on the site.

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