Anyone ever regret performing a major renovation to all/part of their home? And I don’t really mean the “Darn. We should have gone with the blue tile,” kind of regret. More along the lines of “Hmmm. We sunk $50,000 into this renovation but now when we’re selling the house we’re not even close to getting our money back. Guess we should never have bothered,” kind of regret.
We’re thinking about building out our basement and putting in a room that will probably be used as our master bedroom as well as a full bathroom and walk in closet. The problem is with the sticker shock we’re experiencing from the subcontractors estimates for the work. Initially, we thought we could get away with 40k for the whole project. Now it looks like just the heating and plumbing will be that much and the final tally will come closer to 70k. If I knew we’d get our money back at some point, I wouldn’t feel as bad about shelling out the cash now. There are plenty of other much nicer houses in the area (West Lakeview area of Chicago), so it’s not like we’re making ourselves the biggest/nicest house on the block and/or pricing ourselves out of the neighborhood average. And I’m already acting as my own general and plan to do as much work as I can myself (framing, trim, electrical, etc.), so I’m not certain that I can really cut the costs down.
I’ve done a bunch of research on recoupment of costs (basements generally recoup 70% of their cost upon resale of the home), but really wanted to hear about the experience of other Dopers…
You’d save a bundle if you do most of it yourself. Turns out to be relatively easy. Heating/cooling are contract work. Carpet & vinyl would be too, in my book. Almost all else is DIY stuff.
I’ve sunk about $1000 into a bathroom remodel that would’ve been easily three times that (or more) if I contracted - though it would’ve been much faster with a professional.
Since this thread I’ve laid new ceramic tile, painted, replaced the vanity & mirror & shelving & lighting. The only original item in the bathroom is the toilet itself.
The new bathroom is really snazzy, we’ve gotten comments that include the word “classy” which is exactly what we were going for.
Since then I’ve built a new closet in my daughter’s room, & we refinished that. I’ve been replacing the old flat-slab doors around the house with new six panel doors that look much nicer. The project for this autumn is to knock out a wall in the kitchen a build a new pantry.
It’s an adventure to do it yourself but it can be very rewarding and, without a doubt, much cheaper.
Sorry, this isn’t a tale of regret, but just the opposite.
Two years ago, we put our house on sale and didn’t have much luck. One of the big problems was that most people want a separate dining room for the price we were asking. There were several other problems such as an ugly sliding glass door.
Back in 1989, an architect had drawn up plans that eliminated all of the bad points and added several pluses. Problem was at the time we couldn’t find a contractor that was willing to take on the job. When we decided to take the house off the market, I hired a man to come in and paint a ceiling. While he was here the plans were mentioned and before we knew it we were remodeling.
It cost us $50,000, but it has made a vast difference in the house. Besides getting rid of all the mentioned and non-mentioned bad points, we suddenly found out what a wonderful view we have from the back of the house.
I’ll never regret it, but maybe that isn’t fair since I don’t care if I recoup the entire cost. Also what we got for $50,000 here in Mississippi could probably cost double or more in some parts of the country.
I think we’re planning on keeping the house for a bit, so it may be worth it just to make living there nicer, but the practical side of me keeps telling me that were talking about a big lump o’ money and that you better look at it as an investment that makes sense.
Belrix- I’m planning on doing almost everything myself with the exception of the heating, plumbing, and laying in the new slab. I’'ve considered trying to do the plumbing myself (new drain lines, moving the main stack, rough in new domestic lines), but I’ve never done it before and am too worried I’d screw something up that would cause a big mess later on. I fully intend to do all the final connections myself (install sinks, toilets etc).
Congrats on your classy bathroom. Hopefully we’ll achieve the same results if we decide to pull the trigger.
Only do a major remodel if you plan to live in the house. 70% is actually a pretty high recoup on investment. Some remodel projects recoup much less, depends on the rooms done. Can you recoup a larger % if you do the work yourself? Yes. I fixed up my first house doing most of the work myself.
Would I do it again if I was planning to sell? No. It took all my spare money and ALL my spare time. For YEARS. And then, as soon as I finished the portion of the project I was on, I got a new job and moved.
And immediately ripped out the kitchen in my new house. And a TV room. and Bedroom. And then started having kids. I am not a very smart man.
So now, 6 years later, I still need to mill out a hardwood edge for the countertop, there are a few misc wires poking out from boxes in the ceiling, and I need to put in a new back door since I never got around to painting the fist one and the dog proceeded to chew through the primer. But we are far happier with the new kitchen and bedroom than we would have been with the old. I just can’t actually finish the jobs or it will be time to move again.
Note that this is not uncommon. Few people who do the work themselves actually EVER get done.
So, if you plan to live there and can put up with losing all your spare time for quite a while, go for it. It’s all pretty easy. Read a lot of books, watch This Old House, go to the hardware store a lot. Depending on where you live, sometimes the local building inspector is very helpful, if you call on them in the planning stages rather than after they have served you for failure to obtain a permit.
pipper, I have no cites, but I would guess you’d have to stay in the house for 3-5 years before you wouldn’t lose some money on the remodel. I want to do some remodeling but $$ is a little too tight for it. I have no worries about the investment as i never plan to move…