Posted on January 07, 2022

Office Renovation Expenses: A Guide to Savings

What are the usual office renovation expenses? This article lists them down and includes tactics to minimize costs. Read on.

Renovating your office can be quite an expense, especially if you aren’t prepared for it. However, there are ways to save on your office reconfiguration if you know what you’re doing. Keep reading for our best tips on ways to minimize the office renovation cost without sacrificing what you really want.

Potential Renovation Expenses for Your Office

The cost or expense behind an office renovation depends on multiple factors, but the top 3 are your materials, your labor, and how large of an office space you are renovating.

Costs of Labor and Professionals

An office renovation can be a big step, but a necessary one. After all, a well-designed office space that looks pulled together makes a great first impression to your clients.

To make the most of your renovation, always hire true professionals to assist you with labor and design. The hourly rates of your professionals will be added into the total cost of the renovation project.

Professionals like interior designers and contractors will be needed. Even if you opt to design the interior yourself, you’ll still need skilled contractors to perform the renovations.

On average, the hourly rates of a contractor starts at $30 per hour, and goes up with experience and location. However, by finding the right skilled contractor, your overall project expenses can significantly decrease, because you won’t be paying later for mistakes created by less experienced help.

Price Per Square Foot

The price per square foot refers to the total area of the space you want to renovated, measured in square feet. Thankfully, it’s not a complicated process. The easiest way of calculating your price per square foot is to measure the area of the space, multiplying length with width.

Once you have the square footage, you can easily estimate your price per square foot based on pricing offered by your contractors. Multiply the price of a single square foot with the total square foot of the renovation area and the end result will give you your estimated budget for your office renovation.

Material Costs

The costs of your renovation materials should also be added to the overall cost of the project. For example, materials for renovating your walls, floors, fixtures, and more.

The price of these new materials will depend on what you want exactly. Some materials cost more than others.

Also, pro tip: the more experienced and educated your contractor, the less you’ll wind up having to pay. This is because a good contractor can often hook you up with wholesale sellers, resulting in a significant decrease in pricing.

They’ll also be able to guide you about which deals are fair and which are a waste of money. This can save you quite a bit in the long run.

Equipment Costs

Depending on the scale of your office renovation, you may need to change and upgrade your equipment, including related software.

Granted, the main focus for a renovation is more about the layout and design of a space. Many renovation goals are to make building modifications and do enough maintenance work to give your office a new, fresh look.

But part of a renovation can also be replacing old, used equipment with newer, updated models so that you can run your business more efficiently.

As for decor, you can use as many of your previous design elements as you like, or bite the bullet and update everything.

Also be on the hunt for good quality furniture, but remember you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg for a room to look professional and sleek. There are plenty of budget-friendly options to choose from.

Additional equipment to include in an office renovation budget might include things related to security and safety, your roof, computer systems, and even vehicles and other types of tangible property.

Take Advantage of Tax Breaks

You might be asking, "can I write off furniture on my taxes?" This one is huge and makes all of the above significantly more worthwhile. In particular, take advantage of section 179 of the IRS tax code.

Using this tax code is extremely important for small businesses, because it allows you to write off different purchases made for use in your business, including purchases and costs associated with an office renovation project.

The maximum deduction you’re allowed to take in 2021 is $1,050, 000. To qualify for these deductions, you’ve got to buy or finance and begin to use the things we’ve outlined here during 2021. In other words, you can’t write off past or future office renovation expenses like these. You can only write off those that occurred within the calendar year you’re claiming.

However, taking advantage of this tax code can be a great way to save money while renovating your office, without cutting corners and costing yourself more in the long run.

Whether you're renovating a whole office building, small private offices, or conference rooms, there are different office designs ideas to create without high office expenses. For more office design and office furniture solutions, we're here to help.

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