For those who've undergone home renovations...

[NewEnglandLady]

I'm wondering if you can share your experience with me. How long did it take between thinking "you know, we should remodel x" to actually DOING it? Did you hire an architect to go review your plans? Did you do any work yourself or have a contractor do all of it? How long did the project take? If you had multiple renovations, how did you prioritize?

There are 3 - 4 fairly extensive renovations I'd like to do to our home. I'm trying to prioritize them based on budget and need, which means I have no idea where to begin since I'm cheap and none of them actually need to be done. Essentially I have a few drawings of what I'd like to do, but have no clue if they are feasible or not. DH thinks we should take a little more time since we've only been in the house for 6 months, then focus on one project per year as to not overwhelm ourselves logistically or financially. So, I'm mostly interested in hearing about others' experiences if you don't mind sharing!

 

[DivaDiamond007]

When I still lived at home with my parents they were always remodeling the house - and it sucked! My dad always did the work himself and it took forever. There was always a room that was in some stage of remodeling.

In my parents' current house they've repainted the entire house, replaced all of the flooring with Pergo, added on to an exisiting bathroom to make it a full bath (as opposed to a half bath), built a second detatched 2 car garage and currently have the larger, full bath totally torn out. They also want to remodel the entire kitchen, take down the wood paneling in the family room, do something with the family room fireplace, build a patio and add a backyard garden area.

I agree with your husband that you should focus on only one project at a time, and make a list of your priorities. My parents house is/was completely livable, but very outdated as the previous owner was elderly and never made any upgrades at all - hence the wood paneled family room, blue tiled bathroom, Pepto-Bismol pink carpet and teeny wall oven in the kitchen. I also think it's important to consider how long you plan on being in your house. If you're planning on selling then don't blow the budget adding high end extras if the things you have currently are in good working condition. If this is the house, your forever house, then I think that's different since you'll be there a long time.

Finally, my dad is very handy and can do all sorts of things so my parents have never paid another person to do the work for them. When they built the 2nd garage they had to have the city inspect it and get a building permit but that was it. Everything else was 100% them. It has saved them a lot of money over the years, however, my dad moves at a snails pace so it can be irritating when "they" (meaning my dad ) starts on a seemingly simple project and it takes 2 years to complete.

 

[Pandora II]

I'm wondering if you can share your experience with me. How long did it take between thinking "you know, we should remodel x" to actually DOING it? Did you hire an architect to go review your plans? Did you do any work yourself or have a contractor do all of it? How long did the project take? If you had multiple renovations, how did you prioritize?

There are 3 - 4 fairly extensive renovations I'd like to do to our home. I'm trying to prioritize them based on budget and need, which means I have no idea where to begin since I'm cheap and none of them actually need to be done. Essentially I have a few drawings of what I'd like to do, but have no clue if they are feasible or not. DH thinks we should take a little more time since we've only been in the house for 6 months, then focus on one project per year as to not overwhelm ourselves logistically or financially. So, I'm mostly interested in hearing about others' experiences if you don't mind sharing!

We knew we needed to do some bits when we first moved in... unfortunately we were thrown into a hellish court-case for a year a couple of weeks after we moved and I had a baby in the middle of that. It did give me time to 'live' with the place in the meantime which really helped with the plans.

We started doing the kitchen in November 2009 - as in the builders moving in - but I'd spent several months before hand sourcing appliances, tiles, worktops, flooring, cabinets etc and drawing up the plans. Our kitchen is very small (10ft x 7ft) and we needed a lot of storage without making it look overly cramped. I am a designer so I did all the project management, plans and sourcing myself. It took 3 weeks to gut the room, rebuild, have the worktops cut to order (solid marble) and my builders to paint all the solid oak cabinets (IKEA) in Farrow & Ball paint which involved sanding them back first. New boiler and new plumbing were also done at this time.

The new kitchen made the rest of the house look worse than it was, so we then did everything: bathroom, sittingroom, hallway, 2 bedrooms and shower-room. The plans and sourcing took 5 months and the build was around 4 months, although the builders went away for weeks at a time when we were waiting for things to arrive (bathroom tiles and taps took over 6 weeks). They redecorated throughout, built cupboards, bookcases (huge numbers) and painted them all for the sitting room; built new fitted cupboards in our bedroom to match existing; built bookcasing and cupboards into Daisy's room; complete renovation of bathroom including fitting a custom printed wall of tiles (without breaking any!), new cupboards, bookcase, vanity top (carrara marble) and plumbing.

Financially it was possible because I won a good settlement from the courtcase that paid for a lot of it and we had a lot of savings. DH and my's big thing is buying things for the house (we don't drink or go out much) and we have expensive tastes - custom printed tiles, solid marble worktops and amazing lighting aren't cheap - BUT, I am a massive bargain hunter and tracked everything down for a good price - it did mean waiting 2 months for the sale to get 30% off the lighting but saved nearly £1k. I also have a fantastic Bulgarian builder who is a total perfectionist and I pay in cash so his prices are extremely reasonable. He and his team worked 8 to 5 with two 10 minute breaks all day - unlike most British builders who are expensive, always on tea-breaks and don't do as good a job. He has got a lot of work through me so I also get special rates!

I think it's a good idea to do major rooms like the kitchen on their own, but for the rest we did the lot together as it made more sense as the builders could move from room to room while paint was drying, things were gluing etc. - we have 2 bathrooms so that helped!

If you are living in the house while the renovations are going on, I really recommend using good paint like Farrow & Ball as it doesn't smell badly. We slept in our bedroom the same night as it was painted. It is expensive, but coverage is so good that you don't need as much as other paints and the depth of colour and finish are so fabulous it's worth every penny IMHO!

So, best part of a year - and now I'm twiddling my thumbs and Daisy misses her friend the builder!

ETA: I am extremely tolerant and do not mind living in a building site for nearly a year. I also changed the plans as we went along and am really glad I did as they made better use of the limited space (we live in central London) than the original ideas would. My plans were millimetre accurate and drawn up in the same way as an architect would do, I know how we live and I would always design myself rather than pay someone - but if you don't have those skills then calling in a professional could save money in the end.

 

[anchor31]

The work we did when we moved had to be done ASAP, so it was done within 6 months. The roofing, we left to professional roofers. The deck also needed to be redone because it was rotting and didn't respect building standards. DH is a certified carpenter, so he did it himself with some help. Saved us a lot of $$. If I get a job soon, I want to save for paint. The house needs to be painted very badly. The walls are lime green and (wait for it) raspberry red. Puke. We want to remodel the basement eventually, but we'll buy materials gradually and do it ourselves later. Might take a while. My father's an engineer and he can review the plans to make sure it's structurally sound.

Anyway, our way to prioritize is if some things are more urgent than others. Then, things we prefer to be done faster.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Diva, neiher DH nor I are handy at all. In some ways, I do wish we were handier, but sometimes I'm glad that we know what we can't do, thus don't take on a project that could take years to complete! Bravo to your dad for everything he's done! I'm not sure if this is our "forever" house, but it could be. We bought a house big enough to raise our future children in and specifically bought in a town known for its school district. The plan is to stay at least 10 years. Still, we want to be smart about the renovations--I'm really focused on keeping the charm of our home since it's an antique, but expanding a few areas to fit our needs.

Pandora, how was it renovating with a baby in the house? DH and I will be starting our family soon, so this is definitely a consideration for us. The four major renovations we have in mind are: expanding the size of future kids' play room, remodeling future kids' bathroom, expanding the kitchen and expanding the master bath. Part of me thinks we should tackle the kids stuff first since we won't be using those rooms as much in the beginning. On the other hand, I personally use the kitchen and master bath every day, so getting those renovations done off the bat would be nice. The biggest downside is that the master bath and kitchen were all very recently redone--so the kitchen has nice granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, new cabinets, etc. and everything in the master bath is brand new, too. It's just that I need them both to be about 30% bigger. Anyway, I'm just curious as to whether you felt it was really disruptive having the renovations done with a baby, especially the kitchen renovation since that's such a big one.

 

[packrat]

We do it ourselves, tho we did have people side the house a couple years ago b/c JD was working 7 days a week and it would've taken 4 months to do it at that rate. We don't really have anything planned out. It's more like, I'll be watching tv and think, oh hey, we should build Trapper's bed instead of buying one. Or, I'll be washing dishes and decide the living room needs to be burnt orange. It's just random. I come up w/the ideas and then JD does it. Usually w/dad's help, but not always. We don't have a lot of money and no amount of budgeting is going to allow us to have the cool countertops and cabinets I'd SO love to have, but I think we manage fine w/laminate and unfinished cabinets that are stained. The whole interior/exterior of the house is so completely different than when we moved in, it's almost impossible to see it as the same house. We can't afford to do a lot at once, so like, in the kitchen the dining part used to just be open, now we've added a bunch of cabinets and countertop (part of which is my cool computer area), and the rest of the kitchen has the cupboards that were there when we moved in, painted. They'll be switched out..eventually. It seems like when we start something, we rush in and kick butt on it, then we're done and it's months before the next project comes.

The back garage is going to be expanded out, I want to enclose the back porch, but not into the three season craft room/library we'd planned, I want to insulate it and make it a dining room, and add more cabinets/computer areas to what is now the dining area of the kitchen..and turn the attached 1 car garage into the laundry (freeing more space in the basement for the kids)/craft/library for me.

None of what we've done has involved gutting rooms so far..the bathroom will b/c of a leak that nobody wanted to listen to me about for 3 years so instead of replacing the faucet like I asked 3 years ago...hm...now I will have an entire new bathroom!

 

[partgypsy]

Darn I wrote out a long reply but it got eaten (maybe I hit preview instead of submit?)

We have an old house and basically had to do everything to it to get it up to speed. We did all the critical items in the first 6 months, (walls, electricity, the main bathroom, and kitchen). Then we saved up money and did the the rest of the jobs as we saved up the money. So for example we had to wait a couple years before we had central air and heating.

It sounds like none of the ideas you have are a criticality issue, so I would list them by how much they are bothering you/want the change, and do them one at a time as you save up for them.

But, I've also known people who took out loans and had multiple rooms or additions to their house done at the same time. You have to figure out what you (and your husband) are comfortable with.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Anchor, how nice that your father is an engineer--that would be really helpful. And I do understand the paint issue (though I guess it coudl be worse...wallpaper). I've only painted one room, but was so glad when that was done.

Packrat, it sounds like you and JD have tackled so much and have some great projects in mind. Again, it's so nice that you're both handy, though I'm sure that makes the "honey do" list much longer!

Part gypsy, I definitely think that doing this in stages is good. And if we don't start for a couple of years, I'm okay with that. I'm not willing to take out a loan for the work since our goal is to pay this mortgage off and be out of debt, not add to it. In fact, I'm already struggling with setting aside money for renovations instead of paying down the mortgage, but I'm weighing all of my options. So yes, this is definitely cash only and I'd like to spread it out over time in order to keep me sane.

 

[Pandora II]

Diva, neiher DH nor I are handy at all. In some ways, I do wish we were handier, but sometimes I'm glad that we know what we can't do, thus don't take on a project that could take years to complete! Bravo to your dad for everything he's done! I'm not sure if this is our "forever" house, but it could be. We bought a house big enough to raise our future children in and specifically bought in a town known for its school district. The plan is to stay at least 10 years. Still, we want to be smart about the renovations--I'm really focused on keeping the charm of our home since it's an antique, but expanding a few areas to fit our needs.

Pandora, how was it renovating with a baby in the house? DH and I will be starting our family soon, so this is definitely a consideration for us. The four major renovations we have in mind are: expanding the size of future kids' play room, remodeling future kids' bathroom, expanding the kitchen and expanding the master bath. Part of me thinks we should tackle the kids stuff first since we won't be using those rooms as much in the beginning. On the other hand, I personally use the kitchen and master bath every day, so getting those renovations done off the bat would be nice. The biggest downside is that the master bath and kitchen were all very recently redone--so the kitchen has nice granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, new cabinets, etc. and everything in the master bath is brand new, too. It's just that I need them both to be about 30% bigger. Anyway, I'm just curious as to whether you felt it was really disruptive having the renovations done with a baby, especially the kitchen renovation since that's such a big one.

Daisy was nearly 6 months old when they started work and it wasn't really a problem. The main builder has a little boy a year or so older and loves kids so he was always playing with her. She in turn thought he was the best thing other than her daddy and also loved the power-tools. That was what really got her crawling and cruising... trying to get to the drills and saws!

As I said earlier, I don't have an issue with living in a building site and a house full of dust and other crap, I let my DD play on the ground, eat biscuits she's dropped on the floor etc and am pretty laid back. In turn the builders tidyied up after themselves every evening, vaccumed the whole place and stacked everything neatly. They also hung dust-sheets to minimise the dust getting into other rooms and were really careful about not leaving dangerous things at Daisy level.

She was older when they did the last lot and again she loved having them around - she also helped paint the walls... and the floor... and herself at every available opportunity.

One thing I must say is that Daisy has never been on a schedule and rarely naps during the day. If it was really noisy or hectic we just went out for the day. If you plan to have a baby on a schedule and having naps at x time during the day then you will either need to have a house big enough that drilling isn't an issue in another room or cancel the schedule!

 

[Italiahaircolor]

We did a lot in the house a few years ago...

I knew that my priority was the kitchen, flooring and the bathrooms.

I hired a designer to help me make choices, plan it out, and execute it. She also recommended my GC who provided the workers. It was pretty stress free because I got one price for everything and I wasn't looking for individuals to do certain tasks. Reno's are extremely expensive, but working with one time helped to keep costs down.

I've continued to do one off jobs as I've felt inspired around the house and better defined my personal style, but I found it way easier to do the whole lump of major work at one time. If you hire a large enough team, you can tackle a lot in a shorter period of time. I also refused to let any work begin until all materials were in my possession. That really kept things rolling, because as one project was finished the workers had what they needed to move on immediately.

I also recommend having a very tight contract. Penalties for showing up late, not finishing in a reasonable period of time...I know that sounds very rigid, but it's important to keep it running like a business because you have to live there.

Start where you feel most inspired. Pick the areas that are most important to you. It's nice to see the pay off in quality of life sooner rather than later.

 

[Tuckins1]

We completely gutted and renovated our house before we moved in... We worked for 18 months to get it "livable", and have been doing projects ever since (going on 4 years!) No, we didn't have an architect look over plans, but we did have to have city approval for some things, like moving walls, electrical, porch, floor joists, etc.... I will say that it's much better to do work if you are NOT living there. Work seems to slow down if you're living in it...

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

Tuckins started a great thread earlier on in the year about DIY renovations that has lots of great pictures for you to be inpired by!

[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/attention-all-diy-ers-what-are-you-working-on.148026/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/attention-all-diy-ers-what-are-you-working-on.148026/[/URL]

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

We started quite a few different projects over the last 2 years since I moved in with DH. He has been in this house for over 12 years and like a typical single man hadn't really done much to the place but live in it. The house was built in the 70's so was very dated. When he moved in it had a fire engine red sink and toilet with an egg plant bench top, thank goodness he replaced them, but the kitchen had these apple green bench tops that were really bad!

I had been thinking about renovating the kitchen well before I moved in. But the actual renovations didn't happen till about a year after I did. We planned and talked for a couple of months and then finally started the renovation process in about October last year. We did a lot of it ourselves in stages and the new kitchen was installed just before christmas. There are a few photos on the thread i linked earlier. We had contractors come in and do the rendering and plastering, bricklaying, plumbing, electricity and kitchen installation.

We tried to do as much as we could ourselves, we gutted the old kitchen, pulled up floor boards that were later relayed and helped the contractors (friends) to reduce the costs. It probably would have been a lot quicker if we had had the kitchen people do the whole thing with their own contractors, but the cost would have been twice as much.

We also did our own driveway about a month before the kitchen. We were quoted $23000 to have a company come in and do a polished concrete driveway. I convinced DH we could do it ourselves and it only cost us $12000 and it looks amazing.

With smaller jobs I tend to get a bee in my bonnet about something and then the next day I am on to it. The last time that happened we pulled up the floorboards in the bedroom and relayed them in the kitchen, painted the bedroom and had carpet layed over a 3 day weekend.

We haven't done anything since but i started holidays today and can see a few more small jobs getting done over the next month.

The next major job will be to enclose our old carport to make a new room which will probably be a cinema / spare room. No plans to make that happen in the near future though.

 

[MrsHope]

DH and I bought a our house last year Sept. 09, we bought it knowing that we wanted to take out the wall between the kitchen and the livingroom and redo the floors, counter tops and raise the ceilings. We also want to redesign the masterbath/closet and put in a pool in the backyard.

Out of these three projects we decided that we would do the kitchen/livingroom first since I love to cook, it would make the house much more open and livible, and I DID NOT want to be doing a kitchen renovation with a newborn.

For the past year we talked about design (my DH has a design background) and started looking for cabinets, counters, flooring, paint etc and in Oct we ordered the cabinets. We have hired a contractor to start ripping out the kitchen, tiles and removing walls in mid January . It is supposed to take 8 weeks for the kitchen and living room to be complete.

As soon as we recoup our savings we will start the bathroom (hopefully starting in Fall/Winter of 2011) and then the pool in 2012. During all of this we want to start TTC this spring and we also need to purchase a new car in the next year. I can only hope we can keep our spending down to save as much as possible to make all of this happen.

ETA- to add that like Pandora, DH and I don't spend a lot of money else where and we are excited to make our home the best that it can be so we are ok not doing other things so we can live in a house we really really love (at least for the next 10 years).

 

[janinegirly]

It took us about 1 year from just *thinking* to doing. I am including utlizing the architect in this one year of thinking. I would absolutely recommend an architect, this is not something you want to wing in order to save $. Of course it depends on the scope of what you want to accompliash- architects also help with coding, variances required etc, which also saves time and money.

Once our project actually kicked off it took 5 months. We did use a contractor but he is a family friend, so DH did alot of the managing of subs on his own. DIY stuff done was minimal. Our project was extensive though, and we basically rebuilt the house inside and out. DD and I did not stay in the house during much of the work (DH was in and out of the house as needed) so the baby had no exposure. I completely understand why your DH would want to take it easy for a bit (having gone through all the headaches of purchase/closing/moving) and taking the renovation in stages. We took our time before we broke ground but then went full throttle on everything after that. That's a personal choice I guess-I'd rather deal with alot of inconvenience over a shorter period rather than stretch it out over years-which I have seen people do. I also like knowing what we spent and that we are d-o-n-e. Except for furnshings and decorating of course..eek.

PS You're starting your famiy soon? Catch me up .

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Italia, I am taking a note of your preparedness--brilliant to have all of the materials first. And also good planning on your part so that you had the next project lined up as soon as one was completed. I think doing it all at once could be a good option for us if I were really organized. And usually I am, but with something as extensive as multiple home renovations (which is all new to me), I'm not terribly confident. I do thin, however, that I could at least combine the kids stuff into one project. Also, good advice about the contract, thank you!

Tuckins, that sounds like a project!!! Also, good point about the permits--I know we would be hiring an architect for our project and I'm hoping he can help us out with that stuff.

HOT, I remember your pics from the DIY thread, you guys did an amazing jobs. I do think I could some of the the demolition work ourselves, but not until our plans are 100% solid. And that's about as handy as I'll probalby get Seriously, kudos to you and your DH, you guys took on a lot!

MrsHope, I feel like we're in the exact same spot right now. Except I didn't have any major renovations in mind when we bought our house, they've just developed over the past six months. Still, we are also going to be TTC this spring, need to purchase a new vehicle (so the money set aside for vehicle won't be touched) and plan to stay for at least 10 years. I'm so glad to hear things have gone well so far, I'm really interested in how your masterbath/closet renovation goes since that's exactly what is on my list. In our case, the masterbath has a shared bath/shower and I'm hoping to separate them, thus I want to tear out my walk-in closet and rebuild it elsewhere in the room. Our master is large, but the footprint is a little odd, so I have some issues to work around.

Janine, I'm so glad you chimed in since you recently went through this! I agree about an architect, for us it's a critical part of the process. Our house is centuries old, so I know I will have a bit more to work around than most (I don't want to tear out the original flooring, etc.) and an architect that is well-versed in antiques is a must for me. I don't mind holding off for a bit and doing it all at once--again, the master bath and kitchen are both brand new, so I hate to tear them out righ now. Even he kids bath is brand new except the tub, so I'm really struggling with doing anything right away. I know it will all get done, I'm just eager to start getting some solid plans on the table for what can and can't be done.

And yes, we're going to start TTC soon. D is actually pretty excited about it, which is a lot of fun given that he was a complete commitmentphobe about the engagement. Before I accepted his engagement we talked about how I may kick him in the shin if he freaked out about buying a house or having kids and he assured me he was excited about them. So far, it's the truth--he loves the house and is excited about kids, which is so much easier than packing up my stuff and leaving again!

 

[Clairitek]

NEL, I shared about my bathroom renovation experience earlier this year. I also haven't read any of the other responses yet so forgive me if I'm repeating advice already given.

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/the-big-diy-bathroom-renovation-picture-heavy.140403/

We've since sold that house and moved to the Bay Area. Looking at that thread made me a bit misty for my old home, but we had to move. Anyway...

I am a DIYer. I'd rather do something myself not only for money reasons but also for the bragging rights and sense of accomplishment. However, there are a few things I would never do on my own.

1- Removing or redoing structural beams (or taking out studs in a load-bearing wall and replacing them with a post and beam situation to open up a floor plan).

2- Running brand new wiring. We replaced some old stuff with the bathroom reno but that was just a matter of buying new stuff, cutting out the old stuff, and connecting the new stuff. It wasn't difficult or scary. Somehow I don't trust myself or DH to run a new wire from the panel.

3- Moving plumbing. I removed and replaced an old faucet and we ran a new drain vent in our reno, but thats as far as I take it.

I found that reading home reno blogs helped boost my confidence when we made the choice to DIY. Hey, if those non-technically inclined people could do it, I can too, right? It helped us to get tips from regular people and not just contractors or construction-related experts online. We also evaluated the "If we screw this up will our house fall down?" aspect of our project. We knew that what we were doing wasn't so insanely crutial to the functionality of the house that if we screwed it up we could put the brakes on and get in a professional to fix our mistake without it being too costly.

To answer your question about timing from "Lets do this renovation." to "Hey look, we are finally done."- We started thinking about a bathroom renovation seriously in late summer. Then DH went on an extended business trip (3 months of back and forth between PA and NC) so that put things on hold. Then we found ourselves with a week off in the holiday season with nothing to do. So we drew up some plans and got a permit. We knocked down our first wall on January 9th (Well DH knocked it down while I was at the DC PS GTG) and we considered it complete on April 9th when we put our house on the market. So about 7 months total but 3 months of actual work. This was a total gut job (save for removing the tub) and included a lot of finish work and details. We slacked MAJORLY in February and then when I got the job offer in March we put on the turbo boosters and worked constantly on it. I think if we had worked straight through and not done anything else with our nights and weekends we could have finished it in 4 weeks.

I think that your DH is on to something with the one major project per year. We thought our bathroom renovation would cost us about half of what it ended up totaling. We forgot to factor in one or two expensive things (like a dumpster to get rid of everything we tore down). So when you do your budgeting tack on 25% just to be safe. It may seem like you need to tack on more based on what I said about my experience but since my project was a relatively inexpensive reno its easy to blow out the budget. I would start with the stuff that will have the largest effect on your quality of life in the house and will have the largest effect on a baby (meaning, do the stuff that will be the most bothersome to do while having a baby around NOW and save the more benign, less bothersome things for after you have a baby).

Sorry for the rambling. Good luck in your renovations and I can't wait to see what you do with your already amazing home.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Aww, Clairitek, I loved your bathroom renovation, you guys seriously did an amazing job. I showed those pics to D back when we had just bought our place and said "they did this all by themselves!!"

If we were doing something somewhat superficial...e.g. laying tile or putting in a backsplash or something, I would go for doing it myself. I want to take those types of home-fix-it classes, anyway. Even redoing some wiring sounds like something I'd like to tackle, but I'm with you on plumbing. Plumbing is serious and tends to go wrong more than it goes smoothly--plumbing would likely need to be moved in the kitchen and master bath projects (since we'd be expanding both). With an architect's help, I'm hoping we can keep keep the current plumbing in the kids bath. My father was helping me fix a leak in the kids' bathroom this fall and noticed that the plumbing was hooked up for a toilet in the exact area where I'd like to put the toilet. They must have moved it when they remodeled the kids bath a few years ago, but that makes me worried there was a good REASON the toilet was moved. The only project not involving plumbing is the kids play room, which needs the ceilings raised to expose the original beams and a dormer added and that's too much for me to take on, too.

And I agree about budget. I'm such a stickly for the budget that if I don't put in ample breathing room I'll have a heart attack. All of these are going to be expensive (blah!) and I'd be more comfortable with at least 33% of "padding". I just really worry since it's an antique and you never know when you've opened up an expensive can of worms!

 

[Tuckins1]

NEL- I would love to see before/during/after shots of your projects! Try to document as much as you can, it's so cool to look back and see what has changed!

 

[Pandora II]

Ditto Clairtek on everything - especially the budgeting. It's the stupid things that cost a lot - like plates for the front of sockets... I managed to spend over $500 on them alone... I'd add a good 25% to your budget.

I'm also a DIYer - have my own boiler suit and power tools - but DH is not. He also won't let me do big stuff as he wants things done and finished in weeks not years! However, having the DIY experience I have, having learnt carpentry and having watched my parents put a 400+ year-old property through a 10 year renovation and knowing a fair bit about plumbing and electrics meant that I could have very detailed conversations with the builders about everything that was being done and when they called with a problem I knew what they were talking about, so it's worth looking through some DIY books just so you know the gist of how things should work.

Although our current property is modern it is a pastiche of Regency style and the developers were very true to the period in terms of proportions, cornicings, windows etc and so I wanted to keep the period feel but with modern fittings. I spent a year looking at books on Regency style, visiting houses of the period and getting ideas of what paint-colours etc to use.

If you have an old property I would really suggest spending a lot of time reading and looking at similar properties. I also really want to reiterate my advice on using good paint - companies like F&B specialise in paint for period properties and it really is worth the extra money, as the difference between paint made with the proper old pigments and modern paint is enormous!

 

[pennquaker09]

Unless you're dealing with modifying exterior walls, you don't have to hire an architect. A licensed interior designer has the qualifications to do anything other than that. That's a money saving tip for you.

If it were me, I would do the kitchen first. You don't want to have kids and be without a kitchen. Plus, if you plan everything out, you won't be without a kitchen for months.

Since I worked in home construction, I know more than the average homeowner about doing different things, but my instead of overseeing one house being built, I was in charge of like 30 or more at a time. So, it's all about finding a good GC to keep everyone moving at a good pace for things to remain on schedule.

What is it about the kitchen that specifically doesn't make it large enough? The same for the restroom? You might be looking at it one way, but when looked at collectively, it may be that something else could be done to make it better.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Tuckins--I agree about before and after pics, I'm usually bad about taking them, but for these projects, since they're so big, I definitely would.

Pandora--I'm jealous of your handywoman skills! I agree about good quality paint. When I was in college I painted my apartment with some cheap paint from Home Depot. It took 3 coats and I was painting on top of white! I recently painted our bedroom in this house and bought nice paint and it made such a difference. I really only needed one coat (with a few areas that needed retouching) and it went on soo smoothly.

Penn--I didn't realize you had a background in home construction. Or maybe I did and completely forgot. I know you're in the midst of figuring out a kitchen renovation and can feel the pain Especially with a newer kitchen that doesn't really need a renovation, you know?

I think we may have to add an exterior wall if we want to expand our kitchen and then build a new dining area. I don't know. Our kitchen is just small--it runs along two walls and then there is an island. The oven and stovetop are both on the island and there is no vent, which I hate. I'd love to have more wall space in the kitchen so that I can have a double oven and a vented stovetop. Here are a couple of pics--the first is our tiny kitchen and the second is the dining area which I'd like to use to expand the kitchen, then build a separate dining area. Either that, or turn that room with the Christmas tree in it into a dining room (it's an extra family room we don't use).

 

[partgypsy]

This is probably not what you want to hear but I wanted to say I think your kitchen looks beautiful
Personally if a kitchen gets too big I think it gets less efficient. And you have the classic triangle of stove, sink and refrigerator going on.
The only thing(s) that bother me is the lack of ventilation for the stove, and that the stove is not gas (I have to have a gas stove).

I know, not very helpful.

When you say the kitchen is not big enough, think about exactly what you mean by this. More counter space? More cabinetry, more seating area? Appliances you want to add (double oven).

There may be ways to fix that without changing the structural walls, etc that the kitchen resides in, which is the most expensive option.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Aw, PartGypsy, thanks so much. I definitely don't hate the kitchen, I just wish it were slightly bigger for storage purposes. And I would love to have a bit more wall space so I could move the oven and range to a wall so that I could have a double oven and gas stovetop (with vent). Again, the kitchen renovation isn't something that has to be done right away, just something I'm tossing around in my mind.

 

[pennquaker09]

Now that I have a visual, I can see why you want to change some things, and I do agree. The oven is definitely in the wrong place. I'm generally not a fan of having the sink in plain view, which is why I tend to hate open floor plans, but I don't understand why the previous owners didn't put the sink in the island. Also, the fridge is too far away from the sink. The first thing I thought when I saw the picture was that the work triangle needed to be tweaked.

With all of that said, I do think the entire room is pretty.

 

[Tuckins1]

Now that I have a visual, I can see why you want to change some things, and I do agree. The oven is definitely in the wrong place. I'm generally not a fan of having the sink in plain view, which is why I tend to hate open floor plans, but I don't understand why the previous owners didn't put the sink in the island. Also, the fridge is too far away from the sink. The first thing I thought when I saw the picture was that the work triangle needed to be tweaked.

With all of that said, I do think the entire room is pretty.

Just curious, but what do you mean about the sink being in "plain view"? Is your sink hidden?

 

[moxie.moo]

I have such kitchen envy now. I am going to live vicariously through your reno for sure! DREAM!!!!!!

 

[NewEnglandLady]

There is a window that looks out to the brick patio and back yard over the sink, which is the main reason I think the previous owners wanted the sink there. That being said, I'd rather have the oven/stovetop along the wall and have he sink in the island as well. I dislike having the oven/stovetop on the island for several reasons--lack of vent, no option of double oven and I don't have a lot of space to maneuver when opening the oven door. I found a pic of the window from the listing...

Also, I found a picture of a remodeled kitchen in a 1750's with a similar layout and really like how they did it, so I'm continuing to think about it. There is a house a couple of town south of mine that is for sale and the listing pictures indicate the floorplan is similar to ours, so if I they have an open house I might sneak in for ideas.

 

[swimmer]

NEL, I'm shaking my fist at you! My new kitchen is soooooo much smaller than yours! I understand about the annoyance of no vent, that blows (ha!) and i have that same stove in our new house and it drives me batty keeping it clean when I love a good old gas top! My one thought is we added tall cabinets to our bar area so it only fits 2 stools but gave me a ton more cabinet space. But woman, I only have one drawer! so you and your too small kitchen....phbbbbbbbbt! But yes, Penn is dead on, why are the sink and fridge so far apart? Love your fireplace!

My parting thought. With a baby around I am unable to even install the towel rack I got 2 weeks ago. So do strive to get as much done as soon as possible. Today putting together a babygate while watching the baby try to eat parts of the gate and crawl around...I thought I'd get more than 6 months before the baby tried to eat power cords and lick outlets!

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I wish I had a picture of the ugly blue bathtub in the future kids' bathroom saved to this computer--that's a room that really does need some help.

I agree with you about renovations before kids vs. after kids, which is sort of what is driving me to think about this stuff. I'm afraid if we don't do it soon (i.e. before kids), it will likely be put on the back burner for a loooong time.