I'm about to embark on my first home improvement project.
It's a family members house that needs doing up which I will be moving into when all the work is done
I'm planning to revamp the kitchen, 3 small bathrooms, and 3 bedrooms as well as the living room.
Essentially it will be taking everything out and replacing it with more modern units and sanitary ware.
What advice can you give me?
Thanks in advance!
Posted Aug 27, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC
If you don't have much experience, start on the smallest project that is the most of of view/value of your house, it'll allow you to learn the "tricks" and if something goes really bad, is not as much pain to re-do. Think ahead in terms of how you want the final product, so you do your framing, plumbing or supports right. Document, document, document, from the type of lumber, subfloor, backboard to the fasteners you use.
Have a plan that you can go after, and take pictures along the way (I take daily of any progress I make). Good luck
Also if you have never tiled, buy a sheet of cement board and try to tile over it. See if you can fet everything level and looking good before you try to do it inside.
Also buy some drywall and practice installing it outside on a fence. Tape and mud the edges them try to texture.
Living through a kitchen remodel is miserable, doesn’t matter if it’s diy or pro. Plan accordingly. But good luck it’s worth it on the other side!
Yup. Rinsing or washing dishes in the laundry sink is not fun at all.
Check out the clearance racks at Home Despot and Lowe’s. Sometimes designer fixtures/finishes get returned and discounted as much as 75%. Most importantly have a rough plan sketched up of what your existing floor plan is with measurements and another one of what you would like it to look like. Also start small one project like a small bathroom to “learn” how to do this. I’ve owned my own home for over 23 yrs and started with a small bathroom remodel just replacing sinks, cabinets and medicine cabinet/mirrors and now every room has been remodeled with that original bathroom being redone 10 yrs later for a full remodel after learning how to do plumbing, tile, drywall/concrete board, flooring, paint, insulation, texturing, and light electrical work. Get some HD plumbing, electrical, and remodeling books. Take their free in-store classes on the weekends. Don’t rush it. Buy and USE safety equipment. Invest in good tools. Get ideas from neighbors and friends houses. Good Luck!!!
Be aware of your limitations, be they physical, skills, financial, or time. Have a good set of contractors you know and trust just in the event you get in over your head and need a bailout, many tradespeople don’t enjoy fixing DIY screwups and will overcharge (the F-you you rate, or go away rate), have some you know and trust to treat you fair and they may even show you where you went wrong. This also applied to cost. There are some jobs that are just worth hiring a pro for, such as drywalling large areas. They can get the materials cheaper, do it faster, and it’ll be a better end product. Be aware of safety issues as well. Construction is dangerous, and you only have one of you. Take the time to understand risks before doing a project. Those could be typical shop safety things (saws are sharp, lumber is heavy, ladders can be fallen off of), or more specific to your reno (asbestos, lead paint, narrow passages, etc). Get permits if you need them. They are there to protect you and others. If you do unpermitted work and then need to sell the house you will likely need to get the permits then anyways which is harder and many inspectors will be more critical. Try and enjoy the process. If you hate every minute of DIY work it’ll be sloppy and you’ll always be unhappy with the results.
Develop a budget based on the best information you have. Then quadruple it.
Seriously.
Because renovations always ( ALWAYS) have surprises.
Then Develop a timeline for a project. And quadruple it. Seriously. Because renovations aways have surprises. (ALWAYS)
Set on a budget and stick with it. And get at least 5 quotes on materials that includes the counter tops to nails. And be sure that for the plumbing you don’t have to move it. The cost of plumbing would affect the cost of the project. And get everything planned out ahead of time.
Plan, plan and plan again. It's really helpful to have figured out what the end result is to look like.
Reason is, if there are any modifications, you need to know where everything goes. It's all well and good to have a loose idea, but when it comes to doing it, you need to know where exactly to drill, or where to cut. Tiles for instance, are also important because you want to avoid slither cuts, so it's useful to plan ahead and figure out precisely how everything gets layed out and where furniture goes.
Last thing is, it's also good to have all your messy works done in one go. If you're doing a lot of drilling or sanding, anything that generates a lot of dust, do all the work in one go, that way you clean up once and reduce your amount of dust moving around.
Also, consider doing any electrical or networking works now as well.
What’s a slither cut?
Really narrow bit of tile to finish an edge.
You want to avoid this because having a really narrow strip on the edge doesn't look good, but also if walls aren't very straight or plumb, this will make it much more obvious, and lastly tiles can be really annoying to cut very thin, so you may end up scrapping a few just to get one successful thin cut.
Thx
Get a contract. Get your electrical looked at in light of all kitchen /bathroom changes- older kitchens and bathrooms did plan for modern kitchen appliances or blow dryers, straighteners, curling irons and electric toothbrush’s to be plugged in. They are often on a single circuit. My master bedroom blows its breaker if use the blow dryer when I have the iron plugged in and lights on in the bedroom.
Any renovation we've done has always had something unexpected. Especially when dealing with previously owned homes. Always plan in some more budget and more time to deal with something you hadn't planned on replacing.
Do one room at a time, or at least one project at a time. Expect to find issues, some of which may be expensive. Allow way more time than you expect, and take breaks too, otherwise you’ll burn out. Hire trades for things that are beyond your skill set. I hire plumbing, electrical, and drywall finishing.
I am just finishing a massive renovation. 3 baths, kitchen, replacing load bearing walls with post and beam, replaced all electric wiring, plumbing (supply and waste), converted a small bedroom into a large master bath
I highly recommend buying things at the moment you need them and not before.
It's easy to buy future-needed things and feel like it's progress but it's not progress, and it makes everything else more difficult. If you buy something heavy or bulky before you need it, you will have to keep moving it from here to there. I bought my tub, cement board, tile all way way way before I needed them. Then they sat useless and taking up valuable space (one of many examples of the same).
Oh, and get a laser level that puts out a horizontal and a vertical plane (I used vertical 3x more often than horizontal) The more you use it, the truer all angles/distances will be, the easier things will be that come later, attach to or go on top of your studs - particularly of course where there will be tile.
And if you buy something far in advance and it ends up not working for some reason, you're past the return window and stuck with it
True true