Whether your dream home is scattered in dog-eared HGTV magazines or neatly saved on a Pinterest board — home improvements can be intimidating. Homeowners may be ready to revamp their space but unsure where to start or how much they want to invest. Enhancing your home doesn’t have to mean gutting entire rooms or changing everything from floor to ceiling.
Renovations can be scary, but they don’t have to be with the right help. Home improvements can be done with a limited budget, and still make a huge difference to a space. Smaller projects can even add value to your home with a simple paint job or hardware replacement. We talked to two local business owners who shared their advice when it comes to affordable renovations and popularprojects in the area; here’s what they had to say.
Brazos Valley Home Improvements owner Tony Cruz was raised in Bryan and says he has always been handy just like his dad. He says that networking is how he meets most of his subcontractors and that he’s always looking for the best quality work from the most reliable people. After starting his own landscaping business in high school and moving onto painting for a decade, he began general contracting in 2018.
“I had a crew that I was running, they would clean the carpets, clean the unit, I would do the painting, my dad would do the maintenance,” Tony says. “[We have] all those things kind of tied together, and people like that. Whenever I offer my services, they get the whole package.”
Much like Tony, Chris Aversa was raised by three generations of home builders and was sanding hardwood floors by the age of three. Born and raised in Boston, Chris moved to the Brazos Valley to attend Texas A&M University studying construction science. Chris says he needed to intern at a construction company for part of his degree, but working for someone else wasn’t in the cards. Instead, he asked for special permission to start his own business as credit for the internship, and that’s the origin of Aggieland Contracting. “
I’ve been pretty blessed to have our core group of guys that’ve been with us for many, many years,” Chris says. “I think people just tend to lean towards doing business with local businesses and local business owners.”
Chris says he has seen a large number of people doing additions to their existing homes rather than looking to sell and buy new, which he suspects is a direct result of the current interest rates. He says people are trending toward refreshing their kitchens and bathrooms, or even adding a couple more bedrooms for families outgrowing their space.
“Half of our customers will come to us and they’ll say, ‘here’s exactly what I want,’” Chris says. “‘Here’s the photos from the internet. I want these cabinets with this granite.’ But we also have, probably 50% of our customers who say, ‘We’re really looking for your insight. We know you do this every day.’ Either way, we’re happy to get involved in the design process with them.”
With such high interest rates in the housing market, Tony agrees that people are better off doing renovations than trying to sell right now. Both business owners say that the kitchen and bathroom are most commonly renovated.
“It all revolves around the kitchen and the bathrooms, because that’s where people are at the most,” Tony says. “Even if they’re trying to fix up their home to sell it, the main thing they want to have updated is these spaces. Tiling, like a kitchen backsplash, that’s something that you can easily do. It can change the area and it doesn’t require a lot of investment.”
Tony says that a lot of customers don’t know exactly what they want to do and he suggests everyone get two to three estimates before selecting a contractor, though the cheapest may not always be the best. Brazos Valley Home Improvements has a showroom on Texas Avenue that clients can make appointments to go take a look around at the different options as well as taking home samples to test different looks in their own space.
“Just a simple paint job to your cabinets will change a room completely,” Tony says. “LED lights and a little paint job can change a kitchen, you don’t have to always do new cabinets or countertops or something major.”
Echoing this idea, Chris says that older-stained cabinets can be painted and it’s much more economical than ripping them out and starting over. For those looking for a bit more of an intense project, he says that new countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms can make a huge difference in the home as well as updated flooring. He typically likes to get an idea of what the client wants for their house before speaking to Aggieland Contracting suppliers to see the options for materials, and the client is involved every step of the way.
Something as simple as a new front door or a freshly painted exterior can greatly increase the value of a home. In fact, an investor recently told Tony that after he painted the exterior of a home, she was able to get $10,000 more than the original asking. Tonysays he is good at finding areas where he may be able to save the customer money like patching cracks rather than redoing a ceiling or suggesting pressure washing to give a new look for a cheaper cost.
“A lot of people sometimes have low budgets, and they want to get the most bang for their buck,” Tony says. “I just look at their space and give them a few suggestions, and then they go from there. A little bit can go a long way.”
Chris says everything depends on what the customer wants. The work he suggests is completely dependent on the customers needs and what they hope to achieve with the improvements. Chris says he is very involved with each client and he is available 10 hours a day, six days a week.
“I’m a very hands-on owner,” Chris says. “Typically I will go out and meet with the customer, talk to them about exactly what it is they want done. [After] they agree to the quote, then I will be involved in the material selection. Or one of my project managers will be involved [with] them. If there’s any issues, they call me directly. I’m happy to help in any way.”
Photos of previous projects by Tony and Chris can be found on each of their respective websites, brazosvalleyhomeimprovements.com and aggielandcontracting.com.
