Six Home Renovation Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Aug. 6, 2023Twelve years ago, my husband and I bought a 140-year-old fixer-upper in Gowanus, Brooklyn and started a soup-to-nuts renovation. I thought I knew the rules—get multiple bids, pad your bottom line and don’t forget to send presents to the neighbors.Subcontractors defected, architects dropped dead , budgets ballooned, appliances busted. In the end, the project took 16 months—and what felt like 16 years off my life.

To protect yourself from conflict, delays and liens, check multiple references, time payments to reflect appreciable progress and always ask subcontractors for receipts.Maybe you got a good deal on custom carpentry a few years ago; don’t count on the same luck today. Bottom line: The old advice to budget 10% to 15% for unforeseen overages is hopelessly outdated. Think 25% to 30% instead.“Boilers, plumbing, wiring—that’s where you say ‘I just spent $17,000 and everything looks the same’—but the underpinnings are everything,” said Kelli Suozzo of Bowerbird Design in Red Bank, N.J.When social worker Sara Goodliss started renovating her Dover, Mass., home a few years ago, she was adamant about one thing: heated bathroom floors.

I know because I bought almost nothing new for my first house. Which is why my bathroom doors never closed completely.Don’t underestimate the exhaustion—both physical and decision fatigue—that long-term disruption to your home can cause.

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