Here’s the sitch.
- The house needs a lot of work.
- Our apartment lease is up in March.
That leaves us with a window to get work done in. But,
- What can we get done in that relatively short window, and
- Who can we find to do it in such a hurry?
Our search has turned up additional big questions:
- What mystery items might we discover that also have to get done?
- Will those leave us any money to do the items we started with: the items that we want to get done?
We have interviewed (aka walked around the house and talked with for hours on end) two electricians and four general contractors. That’s all been disheartening, to say the least. One guy smelled drunk; same guy seemed inept, whether drinking or not. One guy seemed great, but his only crewman is his 75-year-old dad. What happens to our project if something happens to either of them? One guy seemed fine, but he tugged along an interior designer who you could tell graduated from the school of Pinterest (and just recently, at that).
The one thing in common with all these guys is that they each kept telling us that more and more and more needs to be done to the house.
This weird support brace in the basement? That’s bad! That has to go!
This knob-and-tube wiring? That’s actually everywhere in the house! And, I’ll have to knock holes in the walls and the ceilings to rewire!
Or,
I want you to bring in a guy to suck up all the insulation from the attic so I can rewire from there.
Insulation guy:
I can’t come for three months and I’m going to charge several thousand dollars!
On and on it goes, so we’re scared to even walk around the house with anyone, and we certainly don’t feel good about hiring any of them in particular.
I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This
I was really hoping we’d find our contractor because he’d say,
I’ve seen this before in an old house. I know what to do.
Instead, we heard a lot of,
Whoa. What the Sam Hell is going on here?
Let me tell you, that is not reassuring. If you want the job, I recommend refraining from doing a “I’ll be damned” whistle when you see something. Dude(s), we need confidence in the face of weirdness.
The bathroom upstairs. It’s very, very small. We need it to be the master bath and the guest bath, all in one. Instead, it’s more like a small closet, with a claw foot tub wedged inside that all designers ooh and ahh over and all builders say,
This is going to be close-to impossible to deal with.
We might have to do a custom, tiny shower build.
We might have to have the door widened.
There’s no room for that.
We might have to resort to who knows what.
It’s made me offer to Tracy that we fix a few things then put the house back on the market. But he agrees, the location is too good, and it’ll be hell trying to find another like it in better shape. (That one we loved that we let get away from us still haunts us.)
What If?
Those were the words uttered by the guy we met with yesterday that changed our mindset. We were prepared to hate this guy because he runs a big outfit, has a bunch of sales staff, and offers lots of bells and whistles that we don’t want to pay extra for. Fancy, in other words. Hand-holding. But damned if one of those bells and whistles didn’t ring just right.
We were looking at our unpleasant kitchen that’s tucked away at the side of the house and the giant dining room beside it that we really won’t use. This guy said, “What if we put the kitchen where the dining room is and turn the remaining space into a bedroom?”
HMMM. Not a bad idea.
A few minutes later:
HEY, that would accomplish a lot!
For one thing, our guests wouldn’t have to stay in the teeny bedroom upstairs and could now be downstairs in a room big enough for a queen bed.
Plus, we’d have a downstairs bedroom for when we get decrepit and can’t get upstairs any more. Big bonus, there.
We’d also be able to have the thing we loved about that house we let get away, which was one long great room down the side of the house, starting with the living room, moving into the dining room, moving into the kitchen, with an eat-at island delineating eating and lounging areas. We’d have flow.
A major obstacle is that we’d have to remove the walls between these rooms. Not a big deal between the living and dining rooms. But a bigger deal between the dining room and the mud room behind that.
It can be done, we’re pretty sure, but would doing so leave us with enough of our budget to do the big thing we have to do: tackle that tiny bathroom upstairs?
Or the small things we want to do, like build a walk-in closet here in the master bedroom?
We get bids from all the contractors soon, and in three weeks we meet with this guy with the what-if idea and get his bid, too. In the meantime, we reckon with how much we really want this what-if, and will we be satisfied if we don’t choose it and carry on with our old ideas.
P.S.: I love hearing your renovation stories! I am not looking for advice, though.
I feel your pain. Our first house was a 150+ year old antique. Horsehair plaster, lead paint, nothing level or square…My worst fear was a contractor who I’d hired to do something “small” tapping me on the shoulder saying “can I show you something.” I would say fix only what you need to make it safe and inhabitable before you move in, then figure out what you really want to do once you’re in there. At that point, you’ll know if you want to focus on upgrades for resale or “forever home” changes.
I think that would normally be very good advice, and I thank you for it. Problem with this house is that wiring has to be replaced, which means holes in all the walls and ceilings, which means we might as well move things around while we’re at it. We need to refinish the floors, too, and would rather do that once all the work is done we’d like to get done. It’s kind of all or nothing, and we need something, so it’s going to have to be all.
Got it! Our antique house had updated wiring when we bought it. Fingers crossed you find a great contractor who loves older homes. 🤞🏼
Ultimately, Tracy’s right; you guys were all about location, and you’ve found the perfect spot. Sure, it’ll take some doing to get all those issues fixed, and the house renovated to your liking. But considering this will (probably) be the last house you ever own, it’s a worthwhile investment…even if it takes longer than you’d like.
Just my take anyway. 🙂
In that third photo down, what am I even looking at? A wall behind a wall? Is that a bathroom? What’s the story there?
You’re supposed to whistle at that and say, What in Sam’s Hell am I looking at? LOL. It is a wall behind a wall. Possibly to allow for plumbing for the upstairs kitchen, when that was its own flat. We could leave that alone if we move the kitchen to the dining room, but if we leave the kitchen in its current place, we’ll knock out one of the walls to make room, and then the mystery will be solved.
Not to argue, but the time and hassle really boils down to money, and with us being retired, this is the only money we’ll ever have. How long will we live? Will we need assisted living? What mystery expenses will we have? Why would we want to make a high investment on a house we might never sell? It’s actually a hard call.
I’ve never been able to whistle, so that won’t ever happen. But I have definitely been known to utter an occasional “What in Sam’s Hell am I looking at?” from time to time. That’s just…weird. Or to be more optimistic, one might say the house has “character.”
I understand the money situation. You guys have to do what’s best long-term!
Speaking as someone who’s lived through nightmare renovations… get that knob and tube wiring replaced first. You don’t need contractors in there with heavy power tools blowing circuits left and right. Next up should be structural… walls, beams etc. All the decorative things can wait. Yes, it’s a hassle to live in a house you’re remodeling, but it can be done. And hey – it’s extremely blog worthy.
😉
For sure we’re getting the wiring done first, but we’re told that it’s so extensive it will mean holes in walls and ceilings. We want to do walls and the kitchen next so we can do the floors right before we move in. We do actually have this decision-making in hand (we’ve both remodeled before) but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy decision to make. Blog-worthy for sure!
It’s a lot all at once. Easy to get overwhelmed. Be sure to keep us posted!
Sorry, I just reread your post and saw the “I don’t need advice” part I missed the first time around… which is why I gave advice.
My bad.
🥴
No, I put that in after I received so much advice, here and on facebook. Which I thought was funny, because I didn’t ask for it. My “newsletter” email thingy goes out to readers at the end of the week when the bulk of my smaller readership reads that post, and I thought I would nip that in the bud as much as I could with that amended comment. Of course people will give me advice anyway; I give unsolicited advice all the time. We want to help our friends and we like to see our experiences put to use, I think.
I just try to keep friends from making our mistakes. But I’m sure you’ve got it well in hand.
👍
I act like I do because I can be super defensive instead of open to good suggestions. Working on that. Thanks though!
That “what if” is why some professions exist, we saw it in action with our architect before the remodel (we just wanted a garage to start with) and our landscape designer. And then we saw what subsequent owners did with our previous house and it was similar to what your guy has suggested – swap room use around and knock out a wall and it was fricking *genius* because the floor plan in that house had never worked efficiently.
I also see a lot of wants mixed in with your needs and I think once you sort those out it won’t be so bad maybe? It’s a process that takes time, which I’m terrible at but like in my garden, unless you want to pay a kazillion dollars to knock it out all at once, after the bones are in then you just proceed when you can. When the landscape designer laid everything out Mat said “well that’s a 10 year project”, the designer looked aghast, and I replied “f- off!” He was wrong, it was 5 years but I got there! And it was done better than anyone else could do it. So you forgo knocking out all the walls at once and only get them taken out when there’s the money. Painful when you have a vision I know!
Your guy might be big for a reason, he’s just got the vision that most of us lack and he knows people like a certain amount of hand holding which is very smart. That might also mean he hires competent people. Crossing my fingers for him!
You have a lot of good points here, and I love thinking about your garden as a clear and beautiful example.
I do really like this last contractor, and your points explain why.
Our issue is that we do want to spend all to get all done at once. Neither of us is making money anymore, and both of us are feeling the pressures of “how much longer do we have?” so we want to enjoy what we can ASAP. The fact that I jerked us off the road means we have this year-long interruption in where we’re living, and I want to get the most from that interruption; neither of us wants to drag this out.
I’ve at least partially renovated every house I owned except my Taos house (and that’s only because I just bought it a year ago). I guess none of the renovations were quite as extensive as what you’re planning, but all were significant. My two cents on financing:
1. Whatever estimate you sign up for, it will end up being more, probably in the 25-30% range.
2. To ease the crunch, DIY parts can help, and dividing the work into phases that are individually more affordable can, too. Example: tell the contractor you’ll take care of finishing work like painting, and do the kitchen this year, the bathroom in two years, etc.
Good luck in Madtown!
Mark Kennet
We’ve got the financing decisions under control (this is Tracy, after all) but we shall see what the contractors come back with. Good point to assume it will cost that much more. Thanks for the wishes!