It seems every time I flip on the boob tube, there’s another happy couple—well, generally happy, but momentarily disgruntled couple—undergoing a home reno while TV cameras roll. Welcome to prime time, where homeowners and professional renovators flip the ugly, the outdated, the unlivable into a contemporary nest in less time than it takes most of us to re-tile a small bathroom.

If home reno shows have done one thing well, it is to expose the bad guys in the business. But while they have raised the status of a few good men, and women, these shows have also given off the impression that renovation is a card game where you need to call bluffs and gamble your savings.

Money Blue Book, a blog about “smart investing, frugal living and credit card offers” offers up what it considers the best house-flipping and house-hunting TV shows. But it should be noted that “best” here refers to “most entertaining.” For example, here’s Blogger Ray (no last name) on A&E’s Flip This House: “I love the show and found it irresistibly entertaining due to the endless stream of scam and fakery controversies [including] Atlanta “real estate developer” Sam Leccima and his Season 2 housing-flip scam debacle. His on-the-air house flipping prowesses were later exposed and discredited as shams by news investigators when it was revealed that he had duped many investors in an elaborate flipping cover up.” “Ray’s” passionate analysis continues on the site.

But I don’t mean to just focus on the negative. Instructional TV has come a long way since the days of Bob Ross reminiscing about wartime while painting his latest water-colour masterpiece. While we’re inundated with a few too many shows these days, there are at least a few worth your half hour.

Canada’s HGTV carries a wide selection of less glamorous, more realistic reno shows, even if they are slightly sped up—hey, come on, it’s television. Most notable is Holmes on Homes, starring contractor Mike Holmes as the tough-talking, bicep-wielding here-I-come-to-save-the-day pro.

The original reno shows belong to This Old House, the New England program starring everyman Norm Abram. Beginning in 1982, this is probably television’s longest-running reno show.

Of course, we can’t really talk TV without mentioning the Kenny Rogers of DIY, Bob Vila. This guy can sell, and unlike us regular folk, his hair never seems to grey and his golf shirts never seem to fade.

—Jay Somerset

If you are considering renovating your home, buying a home to renovate, or flipping a house, this will give you some incite as to what it really takes to do a total home renovation.

Week 3 and 4
After gutting the entire interior of the house, the wiring, and pluming, needs to be replaced. Seeming these are not things that I am willing to allow my husband to do, in fear that he might blow himself or the house up, we brought in the professionals!

After these two weeks, the stress scale hit a nine on the stress “o” meter. Some problems we came across were:

Issue 1 was finding a good plumber and electrician. No easy task! There are a number of excellent resources available such as http://www.homerenovationguide.com/, that can make the search easier, but we knew that with the amount of work that was apparent, both these teams would be in the house for at least a week each.

The Plumber!
The plumber was great in the end. After 5 days they had completed all that was needed (which was everything!!!). Every pipe in the house was replaced, as it had been 80 years since anything had been. Additionally, the hot water tank needed to be move to open up the space in the laundry room, the basin sinks relocated to accommodate the washer dryer, and a drain needed to be dug up in the basement and run out side, to eliminate further water damage, and the list ran on, and on, and on.

Issues Encountered
The main pipe that ran from the basement, up through the kitchen, and then up into the bathroom, was rotten! This was something that we thought (the plumbers and us), would have been okey as it was the original cast iron pipe. Of course with replacement, come added costs, and more time. However, replacing this also eliminated the smell of urine that was so predominate.

The second major problem we ran into was in the basement. As mentioned earlier a drain needed to be created out side that would act as a place for the water run of too go instead of into the basement. Once they began digging the way for the pipe, they realized that the pipe they were going to link to, was broken. So add another day, and more money.

Over all because we supplied the materials, and were able to work out flat rates with them, we were only $245.00 over the plumbing budget, but still had significant savings from what the first quote was.

Electrical
Well, knob and tube is just as confusing as it sounds. Who really knows how it work, and why it was legal? With the condition of the knob and tube, the house would have burned down long before the breaker went…words right from the electrician.

Again, we supplied the materials, which helped save money, was also time consuming because there were things that we could not find easily. That said here are some of the “fun” in counters we ran into: time, these guys are not timely! As patience is a virtue, one in which I try hard to possess, with out success, this was terrible for me! They make there own schedule, and seemed to have dragged things on for over two weeks, which could have been done in 5 days if they worked consecutive days.

Of course, there were problems! Trying to feed the new lines through the house was casing some harsh words muttered under the breath of the electrical team. Because of the board and baton walls that currently existed, it was not easy to get the lines up. Moreover, the existing electrical in the house was sparse, so there were a lot of new light fixtures, switches and outlets put in, to make the house up to code.

In the end, the electrician has to come back once more after the dry wall is finished to put the faceplates and futures up.

Well, these two weeks were not as exciting as next week, when we stop demolishing and start rebuilding! Yep, the walls are going up, and the exterior is being started.

Suggestions
Here are a few suggestions to make sure that your stress “o” meter doesn’t hit the 10!
Ask if you can supply the materials, this saved us a great deal of money by avoiding the mark up of at least 10%. Ask if you can pay flat rate instead of by the hour, that way they want the job done speedily as well. Get at least 2 quotes to hear out any suggestions that they may have, they can tell you how to save space, money and time if you listen, and you can see what they offer that is different if the prices really vary. Lastly, you are going to have to interact with the people you hire, so like them! Money is not always the deciding factor, your sanity is too…
See you next week!

If you are considering renovating your home, buying a home to renovate, or flipping a house, this will give you some incite as to what it really takes to do a total home renovation.

Week Two

The homes interior needed to be completely gutted. After speaking to some of the neighbours, we discovered that there were 10 illegal immigrants renting small sections of a room, so they wound up dividing bedrooms into 2 or 3 very small spaces to rent out more spaces. Along the way there were some surprises; here is what happened.

Knowing that it was a physically challenging job, and that don’t come close to having my husbands strength, we started with the upstairs. This way the thinks that took the most energy I could do right away.

The small room on the upstairs addition previously used as a second kitchen to accommodate more people. We removed the sink, walls, and ceiling. One pleasant surprise was the ceiling under the pressboard. It was actually usable! Updating the windows to create a beautiful solarium looking over the back yard, this can be an office or baby area. The exposed brink will add a unique feeling to a small but great space.

The bedroom attached to this area was sectioned off, creating a walkway to the makeshift kitchen. We took down the way, and we very happy to see that they had not destroyed the hardwood floors that we are refinishing. They did however reinforce that wall into the molding around the door, so all of that has to be replaced.

Once we were able to open the room up a bit, we starting by demolishing the wall connected to the bathroom. Any stress that I had, I put to good use, as this wall was all board and baton plaster so required some serious strength.

One thing to remember when working with board and baton plaster, WEAR A MASK, or you get the black lung! It’s messy and not pleasant to breathe in!

Meanwhile, in the other 2 bedrooms all the T Bar ceilings had to go. It is okay of an office but not a home. Both the master and the larger of the other two rooms had limited closet space, so the master bedroom is getting a new wall-to-wall closet that is both functional and accommodating. The existing closet in the master bedroom now opens into the second bedroom so there is one large usable closet for added storage.

Now on to the fun stuff! The upstairs bathroom, in all its pink glory was completely town out, including the floorboards. This is where we noticed the weak floors that we need to replace. No light duty here, the tiles in the bathroom weighed a ton and was dragged down stairs and out the back into the dumpster.

After day one, the upstairs was finished and we were on to the main floor. In the front entrance, we decided that the hardwood was too damaged to repair, so marble tiles will be laid. Easier to keep clean and an warm welcome home. After removing the hardwood, we found more hard wood! Still too much damage from the 100+ nails per square inch, but it was a nice surprise that will save some money by not having to redo the entire area.

Next, we took out the living room doorway. It closed off the entire space and the fireplace in the living room can now be seen as soon as you walk in. Again, board and Baton plaster.

The dining room was already in good shape. Little needs to be done here so we were off to the Kitchen.

No small task, we tore out the kitchen. Cupboards, counters, and floor all needed to go. There was previous water damage so we took out some walls to ensure that everything was sealed up properly. We have yet to decide how to handle the century hardwood floors we found in the kitchen, originally we had intended on tile, however, the beautiful floors we discovered are priceless, and we hate to cover them up.

A small area of the kitchen converted to add a second bathroom, not a bad idea, however they had no lights so they added (and poorly) glass planes to allow the light in. Both the tub and toilet had to go. Its still a mystery where the sink was suppose to be. After much deliberation, we decided to move the bathroom into the back addition and make it a half bath, leaving much more room in the kitchen.

Day 2 was a long day spent mainly on the living room and kitchen, but will be worth it in the end.

By the end of the week we were tired, and swore, however the feeling of accomplishment was there making it worthwhile, and why the stress scale was only a 7.2.

Come back next week as we start framing and the electrical. Good bye knob and tube wiring.

This is a 20 week story of a Total Home Renovation!

If you are considering renovating your home, buying a home to renovate, or flipping a house, this will give you some incite as to what it really takes to do a total home renovation.

I would like to introduce the Stress Scale. This is a scale from 1 to 10 that will let you know how stressful phase of the Total Home Renovation is.

This is the Front of the house. Its an attached house with “solid bones” but needs a lot of work.

This week we will be gutting the house.

We look forward to your input, and I am sure that you will find some valuable information over the weeks to come.

Here are some things to consider when you decide to do spring renovations.

Think about the problems you are trying to solve.
Evaluate the structure and condition of your house.
Work with the strengths of your home.
Keep it simple.

• Don’t just focus on the upfront costs.
• Don’t cut corners to save a few bucks.
• Will your additions blend into your neighborhood?
• Don’t worry about trends!
• A renovation can only be as good as its upfront planning.

These suggestions are courtesy of
By Design General Contracting

nrollins@homerenovationguide.com

Home makeovers are becoming all the rage in the housing market. It is easy to see why this has become such a big hit. There are several different home makeover shows on television today making the process look so simple that many are trying it themselves.

Interestingly, we really only see the success stories on the home makeover or “quick flip” shows. It would be interesting to see some data on all of the homeowners that have watched these shows, become inspired and purchased their own home project, only to find out that they are not actually professionals and that “flipping a house” is more difficult than it appears.

There are so many factors involved in the remodeling of a home that are often overlooked by the common do-it-yourselfer. Our rule here at HomeRenovationGuide is to plan properly before you renovate. So before you go out there, buy a home and fix it up yourself , plan out all costs, talk to the professionals and work with them to help build your house properly.

Home buyers should also ask many questions prior to buying a house that has just had a makeover. What materials were used in this quick reno? Were corners cut to make sure there was enough profit in the project? Were the proper means put in place so that the renos completed are built to last? Are there warranties and receipts for the products used during the quick turnaround? What fixtures were put in place?

To find contractors in your area visit HomeRenovationGuide.com - The complete guide to home renovation