Decorating & Renovating
pmontgomery87
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Full home renovation???
Just wanting to know if anyone has ever taken an unlivable home and completely remade it. My BF and I have found a property (going to see it in person Saturday) and are considering taking it on. We LOVE home projects (we have done a lot of things to our current townhome by ourselves). I just wanted to get some insight from someone who has done this personally or knows the ins and outs of doing something like this. Thanks!
Re: Full home renovation???
What exactly needs to be done to this place? Is it cosmetic- replacing carpet, cabinets, paint, etc? Is it structural- foundation and load bearing walls need to be redone? Is it urgent- roof is caved in, knob and tube wiring, bad plumbing?
Thanks for the replies! I will definitely have it inspected by a professional before we move forward with anything else. As for your questions Becky...the house would have to be completely redone. It is gutted on the inside so we would not be able to live there until it was finished. It would be an investment property until it was complete and we could move in :-)
Just plan on it taking twice as long as it's supposed to and have a comfortable slush fund in your budget for when things go awry.
Do the most important rooms first- kitchen, bathroom, livingroom, and one bedroom (doesn't necessarily have to be the master). Then when you get sick of working on stuff, you'll be done enough that you could move in if you wanted. Additional bedrooms, office, basement, etc can be worked on slowly over time.
The house I bought two years ago, although not a gut job, did (and still does) need a lot of repairs/renovations. It's a duplex. I needed to totally replace the floors on one side and refinish the floors on the other. I also had to totally rewire one side of it. Fortunately, the bathrooms and kitchens were useable, though not great.
Refinishing the floors and rewiring needed to be done before I moved in. That took about one month and the costs ended up being more than the quotes, but only by about 10% more.
A big mistake I made was trying to install the laminate wood flooring on the tenant side myself. I wasted two months (plus two months of rental income) trying to do that only to have to hire someone in the end anyway. ARGH!
I recently replaced the gutters...came in exact to the quote...and replaced the siding/installed insulation. The siding/insulation ended up being twice what I was originally quoted because of damage to the house frame. Super bummer.
With all that said, I think doing a complete reno can be a fabulous opportunity. But, of course with more reward comes more risk. Make sure the money is right, both for the purchase price and the estimated repairs. Keep in mind there will probably be "surprises" that will run your costs up. Be conservative with both the expectations for money and time.