My Rules to DIY Old House Renovations on the Cheap
1. Never assume the big box store is the cheapest and best deal.
This is especially true if you want something unique or different - they may have the best prices on 4x4 white field tile but may not be the best place for blue recycled glass tile, fencing, specialty lumber, carpet or tin ceiling.
MANY specialty dealers have sale rooms of overstock custom orders that are a far better deal than a special order from Home depot or Lowes.
2. Buy big ticket tools you will use multiple times but rent stuff you will only use once or twice and make sure to check out local rental centers - again the big box stores are not always the best deal.
3. Use contractors, use them wisely but go ahead and get estimates for big projects or tasks you aren't 100% comfortable with or tasks that could have severe negative consequences if done poorly or wrong.
For example, I hired someone to install a new front door - I essentially understood the tasks for installing a door but under no circumstances wanted to be stuck without a door overnight because I ran into something difficult. AND when you are talking old houses, you can almost always expect to find something unexpected when you start pulling stuff down.
I also hired a company to paint the exterior of my house. I had to get a couple of estimates but it ended up costing only a few hundred dollars more than it would have cost me by the time I rented equipment and hired someone for the repairs I couldn't do myself PLUS they whipped it out in three days and I figured it would have taken me MOST of the Summer.
4. Second rule for contractors - find one experienced working on old houses, they know tricks and are not freaked out by the quirks and "character" of old houses. They often have a good sense for what should be fixed and what really should be pulled out and redone.
I had a door installer from one of the big box stores come and look at my front door, he had never dealt with old plaster or old brick work before and I could tell it made him uncomfortable, at the end of the day he wouldn't take the job which was the best thing for both of us. I went with a recommendation from a friend of someone who started in the business back east working on REALLY old building - my house didn't freak him out at all and in an afternoon I had the door installed PLUS he repaired the damaged threshold for me AND custom trimmed the exterior - all because he knew what he was doing for less money than the big box store would have done the same work without the custom touches!
5. Demolition is not always your best option PLUS it is incredibly messy and someone has to clean it up! I try to approach most projects with a Preserve, restore, renovate mentality.
For me this means walls - I have tried just about every option for dealing with damaged plaster walls and so far the best, most inexpensive results are the walls I opted to fix - not tear down, not cover with wall board - just repair. It can be time consuming but the results are quite good and the materials are very affordable. I am going to put out an article detailing my discoveries with wall repair soon.
6. Triage your projects - sources of water damage should always come first - roof, gutters, plumbing. This is stuff that could cause HUGE, expensive damage to your entire structure and MUST be fixed. PLUS any repairs to paint or walls will be moot if the source of the damage isn't corrected. This one is common sense but I thought it bore repeating - I wish I had fixed my porch issues right away instead of waiting - turned out to be cheaper than I expected I could have halted some damage to my brick if I had acted sooner.
7. Always remember when evaluating projects - cosmetic does not mean trivial!!! I bought my house because really all it needed was cosmetic fixes and how bad could that be right? Well it is a ton of work!!!!!!!! Especially since I am doing it all myself!!!!
8. When estimating jobs remember to include logistics - especially if you are living in the house while doing the repairs. Do you need to rent or borrow a truck to move materials? WHERE are you going to store materials if you don't whip that job out in a single weekend? If your kitchen is torn out will you be content with cup o noodles or will you blow more money on eating out? If you are doing it all yourself, the act of buying and loading materials becomes a pretty significant task on it's own - for whatever reason I can toss around 60lb bags of cement pretty easily but trying to deal with 50lb 4X8 sheets of drywall completely kicks my ass.
9. Just like demolition isn't always your best option, starting from scratch isn't always your best option either. What I mean here is it isn't always worthwhile to strip the 1/4 in of paint off the woodwork, or scrape the 7 layers of wallpaper from the walls. In some Anglo Saxon work ethic weirdness many of us have the misguided idea that somehow suffering through these terrible chores means we are "doing the job right" - well that isn't always true.
When I did my living room, I decided I was going to strip and stain all of the beautiful woodwork. I had the tall baseboard and extra wide door and window trim. I spent something like a week full time stripping paint - chemical stripper, heat gun, sanding - you name it, I used it. AT the end of all of that I had pretty fir trim that wouldn't really take an even coat of stain in my nice but not historically significant middle class home. The pay off was not worth the expense and effort.
My trim had probably always been painted - contrary to popular myth not all Victorian trim was stained. Because it was a soft wood it would have taken more effort to prepare it for new stain - something I didn't know until the new stain had already been applied and honestly and truly, it looks just fine painted. WITH very few exceptions, I DO NOT strip paint anymore. Infomercials lie, there isn't an easy way to strip 100 years worth of paint, and unless you know for sure your effort will be worthwhile, I wouldn't bother.
Stripping paint is expensive, messy and potentially dangerous. Traditional chemical strippers are incredibly toxic, water based strippers make the wood swell, heat guns can ignite things inside your wall and you still have to deal with sludge NOT to mention the possibility of creating toxic fumes from lead based paint. OH and ripping it all out and having it dipped? Possibly more expensive than just putting in new! PLUS ripping trim off can compromise the integrity of your plaster walls thus creating a whole new repair!
If you are convinced you really, really want to strip that trim work I HIGHLY recommend doing a small piece first to see if you really will get the results you want. Obviously if your house is historically significant, or you only have one or two coats of paint to clean up stripping may be worthwhile, I'm only saying don't always assume it is your best option - take everything into account before embarking on such a miserable project.
10. Seriously, we have all heard it but it's true - Measure twice (or three times, or four) and (hopefully) cut once. Sure that door stop trim may only cost .87 cents a lineal foot BUT man all of those little odds and ends start adding up. Save money, save frustration check your measurements
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