8 Things I Learned While Renovating Our Fixer Upper
We have been in our home three and a half years now and we’ve been renovating it pretty much the whole way through. It started off with just a lot of scrubbing and a lot of painting, but over three years later, project by project, it’s a totally different different house! I have learned a lot along the way and I am sharing it with you!
Be patient
Unless you bought your fixer upper with tons of extra cash laying around, it will take some time to see all your visions come to life.
We renovated slowly. The master bathroom first (it still took almost a year to start it). Then the guest bathroom a few months later, then the back deck a few months after that, and finally the kitchen, right at the 3 year mark.
The kitchen was the bane of my existence for three years! Ours was 100% original from 1986. The fridge and dishwasher were newer but I seriously think even that stove is original!I wanted so badly to tackle the kitchen first, but it’s the biggest and most expensive project, so it ended up being one of the last. We finally just finished it a couple months ago, thank goodness.
I’ve had to practice a lot of patience with this home because I, like most of us, love instant gratification. I wanted it just the way I envisioned, from day one. But alas, we had to save for each project along the way, and the good news is - it was all worth the wait!
Pay for small renovations with cash
Put that credit card away, sister! Lord, was it tempting to just “put it on my tab” when our sad master bathroom needed love so, so badly. We knew this would be our first project and it killed me to wait almost a whole year to do it. I mean, look at what we were living with?!
But, it just doesn’t make financial sense to finance thousands of dollars and pay 16% interest on that project. Save, save, save, price it out, even get estimates from contractors in the meantime, but wait until you have the cash before you do it.
3. Know when to hire the pros
Maybe you are, or have, a husband that loves to DIY, tinker and figure things out on his own. That’s great! But not for every project. My father was in construction for many years and my husband is really handy, so thankfully we were able to utilize their knowledge and skills for many projects.
We had to draw the line somewhere, like the showers. Could they have demo’d the showers and tub themselves and even tiled? Sure. My husband did tile our bathroom floors. Would it have looked professional? Probably not. Could they have knocked something out accidentally, like plumbing, while demo’ing? Possibly! Not worth the risk or potential extra expense of doing damage in the process.
It was really tempting to try to let “the boys” attempt many projects first before hiring someone, in an attempt to save money. We really had to learn where to draw the line and I am glad we did, even if it emptied our pockets a bit more.
4. There are other ways to save money!
There are several ways to renovate and save a little money in the process. Here are a few tips I personally learned along the way:
Check your local Habitat for Humanity for supplies like interior doors, tile, butcher block countertops, cabinets for small rooms like laundry rooms, or flooring for smaller rooms.
Sometimes you can find 10% off Lowe’s coupons for sale on Ebay for just a couple bucks. These are great for bigger purchases like appliances.
Try to shop a big sale like Labor Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July etc for appliances.
Shop Facebook marketplace for resale items like lighting, sinks, hardware, or leftovers from other people’s home improvement projects like mulch, pavers, etc.
5. Consider a HELOC for the big projects
A HELOC is a “home equity line of credit”. It it essentially a “credit card” containing up to 90% of the equity in your home, that you can spend on renovations. The interest rate of paying back a HELOC is about 1/4 of the interest rate of a credit card. There is some risk involved, so I highly recommend you do your research and speak to your bank or local lender, but it is something to consider.
We considered doing a HELOC for the kitchen renovation since it was the biggest and most expensive project but we ended up going another route.
6. After renovations, you could potentially lower your mortgage payment
Once you have done some renovating, you may be eligible to refinance and remove your PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance), thus lowering your mortgage payment. If you did not put 20% down when you purchased, you are paying PMI, which increases your mortgage payment. After renovating, you have likely increased the value of your home.
For example, if you bought your house four years ago with a 10% down payment, and the home’s value has risen 15% since then, you now owe less than 80 percent of what the home is worth, and the bank doesn’t need to charge you that additional fee anymore.
Refinancing isn’t free, so you’ll have to speak to your bank or local lender about closing costs and/or rolling closing costs into the new loan, and decide if it’s worth it. But again, something certainly worth looking into.
We refinanced after about half of the renovations in our home were complete and our mortgage payment went down a couple hundred dollars!
7. Hire contractors from personal references
Sure, Google can be really helpful, especially the reviews part. But, I have found it’s best to hire contractors that other people you personally know, have personally used. Ask around. Even post in a neighborhood Facebook group! Folks are typically happy to share who they’ve hired and liked, because we all know it truly can be tough finding good, honest contractors these days.
8. You can make the house your own over time; make location a priority
My husband did not like this house when we first saw it. He didn’t have the vision for it that I had. There was soo much work to do. All he saw was dollar signs and an aching back. But it was the only home that had popped up recently in our budget in our top location. Location was really the most important thing to us. We saw plenty of much more updated homes in other parts of town, but they weren’t quite where we wanted to be. We kept an open mind during the home search process.
Including location, this house checked off just about all of our boxes, except the fact that it needed a ton of (cosmetic) work. Thankfully I was able to convince TJ that this is a great house for us, with lots of potential.
We are both so so glad we picked this house. It’s exactly the location we wanted, and over three years later, we are still so grateful we are here. It’s been expensive, a labor of love, sometimes painstakingly slow, but 100% worth it!