DIY Projects

DIY Ren­o­va­tion Pitfalls

You are a happy home­owner, but you could be hap­pier look­ing around your home. Why? The avo­cado kitchen remodel vogue in the 80′s makes your morn­ing cof­fee taste bad and that sink, those cup­boards. Ugh!

The Under­tak­ing

Wield­ing that sledge­ham­mer or new extreme fubar imi­tat­ing the scenes of smash­ing cab­i­nets and impal­ing walls often depicted on DIY or Home Flip shows is not a good idea. Other struc­tural dam­age to fram­ing, wiring, gas lines, heat­ing, ven­ti­la­tion or plumb­ing can occur. A world of unseen mis­ery may be lurk­ing in that wall. Murphy’s Law is still Murphy’s Law.

You watch tele­vi­sion shows and com­mer­cials pro­mot­ing the ease of ren­o­vat­ing. You ask your­self, is this some­thing I can do? Should I bring in some pro­fes­sional help? You have heard of con­trac­tor hor­ror sto­ries and wit­nesses first­hand the failed attempts by friends. A lit­tle knowl­edge is dan­ger­ous get­ting you into the project but not enough to get you out and fin­ished. What is the answer?

Before you start any ren­o­va­tion call RELAINCE HOME INSPECTION SERVICES. Save your­self from a world of hurt, frus­tra­tion and pos­si­ble finan­cial loss.

The Top 12 Mis­takes Ama­teur Do-It-Yourselfers Make

How to Avoid Them

1. Under­es­ti­mat­ing Project Complexity

Can I do this? This by far, is the first ques­tion you should ask your­self. The answer you give will dic­tate how well you pre­pare for your project. The project needs exam­in­ing with a “big pic­ture per­spec­tive” one that incor­po­rates all of your skills, or the lack thereof, and the mul­ti­tude of pos­si­bil­i­ties that the project may entail. If I want to sell in the future, what ques­tions or prob­lems can arise from inex­pe­ri­enced and ama­teur DIY undertakings?

The scope of the project and your skill-sets needs match­ing. Obvi­ously, a kitchen demol­ish remodel with all of its tasks is far more com­plex than a bath­room paint job, or installing a ceil­ing fan or fix­ing a drip­ping faucet.

2. Unre­al­is­tic Budget

Always start with a bud­get in mind. Explore your options in the mar­ket place to deter­mine what fits within the bud­get set aside for the project. Now add another 15 to 25 per­cent as con­tin­gency over­run should the project become more com­pli­cated than anticipated.

Take into con­sid­er­a­tion mis­matches, mis­takes, improper cuts, mate­r­ial waste, spills, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, short­ages, mis­or­ders, dulled drilling bits, bro­ken cut­ting blades or tool edges, burnt out power tools, unex­pected tool rentals or pur­chases. Expect the unexpected.

(Images: The Join­ery; Josh & Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod; Phoebe)

3. Dis­cov­er­ing The Unforeseen

If you are work­ing in an older home, some phys­i­cal dam­age may need repair as part of the project. Plas­ter lath walls or the fancy ceil­ing scroll or plas­ter mold­ings are an exam­ple or worse, a sud­den crack appear­ing in the base­ment wall. Shift­ing loads on weight-bearing struc­tures can pro­duce unex­pected results with new prob­lems sur­fac­ing. What had set­tled became unsettled.

The new upscale stain­less steel Pro­fes­sional Chef Series appli­ances arrive only to dis­cover you have inad­e­quate wiring and require a larger elec­tri­cal ser­vice panel. The plumb­ing is in the wrong loca­tion. The dish washer requires a dif­fer­ent con­nec­tion. The gas line needs to be moved and length­ened or short­ened and requires mod­ern fit­tings. The domino effect is in play.

One area often requir­ing exten­sive repair is a bath remodel due to water damage.

Other unseen fac­tors encoun­tered such as lead pipe or cor­rod­ing gal­va­nized pipe, frac­tured cast iron, weep­ing or miss­ing wick­ing or flexrock pack­ing on pipe sec­tions, leak­ing seals, inef­fec­tive vent­ing or dete­ri­o­rat­ing plumb­ing in general.

The dam­aged area may not be exten­sive, but still needs repair to pre­vent rot and mold, unpleas­ant musty smells or poten­tial health issues. Less rep­utable builders, or a well-intentioned but mis­in­formed handy­man may cover it up or ignore it com­pletely. Your nose may become accus­tomed to the odour but per­spec­tive buy­ers will notice it imme­di­ately. Elim­i­nate any obsta­cles that pre­vent your home from selling.

Proper repairs and peace of mind for the home­owner will with­stand the test of time. The solu­tion is plan for the unex­pected and bud­get accord­ingly. Call RELIANCE HOME INSPECTION SERVICES to act as a neu­tral third-party to assess what really needs to be done. Its More Than Money™.

4. Project Scope Creep

This con­di­tion com­monly occurs in projects where a con­trac­tor is doing the work, and espe­cially with DIY projects. There is a dif­fer­ence between what is nec­es­sary ver­sus optional extras and mod­i­fi­ca­tions expand­ing the project, expense and timelines.

Projects can become stress­ful and exas­per­at­ing. Resist the urge to expand the bath remodel into a whole house makeover. Start and fin­ish one project at a time. You will appre­ci­ate the down time to recover your wits, and let the home remodel fund increase and per­haps pre­vent untold aggra­va­tion and per­haps save your marriage.

5. Lack of Tools or Skills to Use Them

Crafts­man­ship and proper tool use comes with years of expe­ri­ence. If you reg­u­larly work on all types of projects such as cus­tom cab­i­netry, fur­ni­ture, tile and hard­wood floor­ing, trim car­pen­try, and fram­ing etc. you will be famil­iar and have accu­mu­lated most related nec­es­sary tools. You will have the proper mus­cle tone and mem­ory to pre­vent fatigue and accidents.

Safe use of hand and power tools is pre­req­ui­site. Black­ened fin­ger nail beds, sharp-edged slices into flesh, injured or bro­ken fin­gers and inad­ver­tently cut­ting through power cords is not an option.

Chances are you are a home­owner work­ing in another occu­pa­tion and will not have all the spe­cialty tools, knowl­edge or expe­ri­ences that make a job go by quickly and safely. This applies to the week­end war­rior as well.

If you need to rent or bor­row tools, you may have a steep learn­ing curve, and there is no sub­sti­tute for expe­ri­ence, proper guid­ance and instruction.

If a 250 pound 220 Volt scream­ing floor sander intim­i­dates you, get expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sional help. Run­ning a howl­ing floor sander devour­ing lay­ers of fin­ish can be a reward­ing expe­ri­ence but can quickly turn into dis­as­ter, becom­ing the ele­phant in the room.

Can it not only scour, burn or gouge the beau­ti­ful wood mak­ing up the floor cre­at­ing new prob­lems like turn­ing the sur­face into rip­ples resem­bling sand at the beach or it can jump, scat­ting like a scared feline, punch­ing a big hole in your wall if it gets away from you.

Wear­ing the proper apparel and foot pro­tec­tion will help pre­vent per­sonal injury.

6. Over Build or Under Build

Select­ing fine Ital­ian Mar­ble for the kitchen or bath­room or decid­ing what type of designer upscale hard­wood floor­ing will look great in your liv­ing room is one of the fun parts of a project. The beau­ti­ful wal­nut may not be the right choice for a small room, mak­ing it appear even smaller when fin­ished. The mar­ble although incred­ibaly attrac­tive may not be the best decision.

The les­son here is to bal­ance the mate­ri­als and appli­ances with the style and value of your home. If you have a small kitchen, the food tele­vi­sion show six-burner pro­fes­sional oven, although appeal­ing, may not pro­por­tion­ately fit. Con­versely, an inex­pen­sive faux tile floor will not work with gran­ite slab coun­ters. Keep things bal­anced and equi­table with the rest of your home.

7. False Economy

Upgrades are rel­a­tive to the value of your home and those of the neigh­bour­hood. The sub­stan­dard or clear­ance mod­els are false value when they under­value or devalue the poten­tial invest­ment value of the ren­o­va­tion. The $12,000 bar­gain base­ment kitchen remodel that deval­ues your home $44,000 is not a wise project for the sake of new­ness or mod­ern appear­ance due to lim­ited funds.

Other fac­tors weigh­ing in is the handy­man friend who did the elec­tri­cal for pocket-money or the one mov­ing the gas line for beer and pizza and last but not least the friend — you know the one — with all of the tools who did the plumbing.

When it comes to resale and proof of work, what is the story line?

False econ­omy is false value.

8. Point of Dimin­ish­ing Returns

Real­is­ti­cally asses the value of your home and com­pare it to sim­i­lar homes in the mar­ket place. Invite your favourite Real Estate Agent over for a cof­fee and they will be glad to help you find the infor­ma­tion you are look­ing for quickly. You will find it is time well spent. Will the $45,000 spent on remod­el­ing your kitchen increase your prop­erty value pro­por­tion­al­ity? Should you start look­ing for the home that has the ameni­ties you are look­ing for?

Accord­ing to Today, the aver­age cost for a kitchen remodel is $15,000 to $20,000 — with­out the appli­ances. We’ve read else­where that the aver­age kitchen ren­o­va­tion costs $45,000.

An informed deci­sion is a good decision.

9. Aggres­sive Timeline

The most com­mon error is time esti­ma­tion. The devil is in the details. Most projects will take longer to com­plete than first thought. Chances are your “day job” occu­pies the week so your project demands week­ends and evenings — wear­ing you down quick. After putting in up to 12 hours or more at your day job, com­mut­ing, hav­ing din­ner, do you really want to sand dry­wall for another 3 – 4 hours in the evening? What about your weekends?

Moti­va­tion seeps away quickly as this pat­tern erodes your enthu­si­asm, tem­pers flare, stress increases, fatigue sets in and slows you down with the temp­ta­tion of tak­ing short cuts becom­ing an attrac­tive alter­na­tive. Plan for it!

10. Improper Sequence of Tasks

Home­own­ers seek­ing con­trac­tors to fin­ish projects is com­mon­place; moti­va­tion and inspi­ra­tion exhausted with ten­sions high. Often tasks com­menced out of sequence com­pound the task dif­fi­culty and increase expense and time lines. For exam­ple, the car­pet install sched­uled before the dry­wall com­ple­tion and paint­ing. It may seem obvi­ous, but it hap­pens espe­cially when time lines fall like domi­nos. This same type of sequence holds true for just about every type of project. There is no sub­sti­tute for pro­fes­sional under­stand­ing and experience.

11. I Want It Now.

Imme­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion is hard to con­trol espe­cially when the impulse of ren­o­va­tion is first and fore­most in the mind. The paint is on sale and if pur­chased in the morn­ing can be com­pleted later the same after­noon; when fin­ished it will look like the room on the tele­vi­sion show. Maybe change the light­ing, put in the sink, change the taps, and replace the counter at the same time. They are all on sale and shouldn’t take long. It looks so easy and fast on the tele­vi­sion show.

Before com­menc­ing, take a step back, look at the whole room, and con­sider the entire home. Plan your actions; ask your­self, do I want to replace any light­ing, fix­tures, cab­i­nets? Once you have the scope set, do the proper prep work, patch or repair the dry­wall, if needed, clean the walls, remove fix­tures etc. Do I have the proper tools and all of the nec­es­sary com­po­nents? Be real­is­tic about the time demands and the amount of effort and skill level required.

Call for RELIANCE HOME INSPECTION SERVICES to assess your under­tak­ing and help pro­tect your invest­ment. Now you are ready to paint, get your painter’s hat.

12. I Changed My Mind.

What ini­tially seemed a good idea now needs to be changed as new ideas or sug­ges­tions from oth­ers enter the pic­ture. Many times hid­den obsta­cles or com­plex­i­ties alter the ren­o­va­tion land­scape requir­ing more aggres­sive or spe­cial­ized con­struc­tion and alter­ations than orig­i­nally deemed nec­es­sary. Inde­ci­sion on a project is a con­sid­er­a­tion as well with new infor­ma­tion neces­si­tat­ing new deci­sions and plan of action.

Thoughts to Consider

If you’re a brand new home­owner, become accus­tom to your new sur­round­ings before con­tem­plat­ing any ren­o­va­tion. Those who pur­chase with redesign oper­ate with a dif­fer­ent mandate.

Remem­ber, before any ren­o­va­tions call RELAINCE HOME INSPECTION SERVICES.

Prior to mov­ing in, it’s safe to do some sim­ple things like paint­ing, but don’t start alter­ing walls as they may be load bear­ing and can cre­ate tremen­dous problems.

Liv­ing in your new space, feel­ing the day-to-day breath of the house, along with the ebb and flow of the sea­sons you will begin to appre­ci­ate what is right for your lifestyle. You might like the way the win­ter sun reaches back into the din­ing nook. Then after you and your home have bonded, think of how to make it more your expres­sive style. It is your home, and with proper plan­ning and some sound advice, you will fall in love with it over and over again.

Make you plans and assem­ble your ideas in an orga­nized man­ner and call RELIANCE for your Reno Inspec­tion. Save your­self from grief, day one, with an informed and edu­cated approach that will add value to your home and safe­guard you from heartache when it is time to sell.

Pro­tect­ing Your Prop­erty Value

RELIANCE HOME INSPECTION SERVICES hope you have enjoyed read­ing the Top 12 Mis­takes The Ama­teur Do-It-Yourselfers Make, and How to Avoid Them. The fact that you found this arti­cle shows that you have put some thought into your project. Con­grat­u­la­tions and all the suc­cess with your endeavours.

A build­ing per­mit is one thing, a RELAINCE HOME INSPECTION is another. We act in your best inter­ests iden­ti­fy­ing short­ages or inad­e­quate­ness that can impact the value of your home and poten­tially make it harder to sell in the future. Be safe, have peace of mind. Call today.

RELIANCE HOME INSPECTION Its More Than Money™

Sched­ule Your Inspec­tion