Where to Start When Renovating your Home
First Time General Contractor Here
If you’re like me and have never taken on a large home renovation project with multiple moving parts, then you’re probably also like me and don’t have a clue on where to begin. Home renovations always sound so fun initially, but then once you start diving in head first it can become a bit daunting.
Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about my upcoming goals and the action steps that are needed to get there. I’m excited for everything I’m about to learn! What I’m most nervous about though is the unknown of the city of Minneapolis and what the turnaround time for signing off on my project plans will be.
I plan to remove a wall between my dining room and kitchen. To do so, I need to hire a Structural Engineer to access if it’s a load bearing wall or not. If not, then we should be good to go. If so, I will need to partner with the Structural Engineer to get the plans drawn up, stamped with their approval, and then submitted to the city for sign-off. Side note: I’ve been waiting for the city to sign-off on a basement renovation for 9 months, so you can see why I’m a bit nervous at this point. It will all be okay though! I keep reminding myself, I have two backup plans and the world isn’t going to end. Now, if only I could tell that to my control and planner subconscious mentality.
what order to plan your renovation
As with all of my blog posts, I ultimately want to share my experiences along the way to assist you in your own endeavors. To help us both, I’ve spoke to a few of my favorite reno experts and got the down-low on the best way to plan your renovation.
Demo + Structural Engineer (if applicable)
Framing
Electrical + Plumbing
Insulation
Drywall
Paint
Flooring
Gaining this knowledge helped me outline all of the steps I need to subcontract out to align with my timeline as best as possible. Keep in mind, every project is different, and setbacks are bound to happen. Once you start opening up walls, ceilings, and floors, surprises will pop up and you will need to adjust. I’ll be over here thinking happy thoughts though and manifesting positive outcomes!
renovation Timeline
If you didn’t check out my renovation priorities list from the other week, head on over and take a peek. You will see I’ve outlined a high-level overview of what house project I trying to tackle this year. I, of course, can’t do them all at once, so instead I’ve broken them out into “smaller” groups to help me manage timelines, contractors, city requirements and the like.
To get started on my first priority group of house projects, I took the renovation experts’ advice and outlined a general timeline. It was important for me to build in a bit of buffer in-between each contractor to ensure if unknown issues pop up or people don’t show, my due date wouldn’t be thrown off too drastically. Plan for the worse and hope for the best.
My first focus in my house is to repair old wall and ceiling plaster, add some additional light fixtures and swap out old lighting, paint, and refinish the hardwood floors. I will be closing on my home April 2nd, and then renting my new home back to the sellers until April 30th. From there I’ve built in 4 weeks of “work” time to allow for these first initial projects to be completed.
Day 1-2 | Demolition + Electrical Rough In
First on the docket is demo. This shouldn’t take more than a few hours, but I have added buffer. I will be partnering with a small crew to demo out a main floor wall and upstairs bedroom wall that is showing some inconsistencies in the plaster. This wall also has the chimney so I’ll be checking for any water intrusion from the cap of the chimney or broken mortar after this wall has been demoed.
While this is taking place, I’ll have an electrician “channeling” an overhead light into the living room ceiling. It is not uncommon for these old homes to not have overhead lighting in every room so to add this an electrician has to run wire up the wall and across the ceiling. This causes additional drywall repairs and will be coupled up with my chimney wall repair.
Day 3-8 | Insulation + Drywall
Once any water concerns have been addressed with the chimney, new insulation will be added to both the main floor wall and upstairs wall. From there the walls and living room ceiling will be sheetrocked, taped, and mudded. In addition, I will be having my crew do the same thing to the dining room ceiling. (This ceiling is showing more settling cracks, being that the home is 101 years old, and I would like to cosmetically address it.)
The process of applying drywall spans across a few days because there are various steps involved and “dry time” for the mudding process. You will see that I’ve outlined this portion to be a total of 5 days. However, their start time will be determined by what we find with the chimney and how long those repairs take before closing up the wall.
Day 9-14 | Paint
An easy task, but time consuming task that I would like to do is paint EVERY wall in the home. This is typically done before flooring, but can be flexible. To help save on costs, I hope to do a good majority of the painting myself with the help of my parents. I will most likely prioritize the first floor to be professionally painted over the upstairs bedrooms, if I do hire out a portion.
Day 15 - 22 | Flooring
The last big hurdle before my big move is flooring. I plan to have all of the floors on both the main floor and upstairs level, sanded and stained. Currently, there are two different hardwood color tones. They contrast quite a bit on the transition from the stairs to the upstairs threshold. They will be a consistent tone when I’m done with them. I’m leaning towards a medium stain, but you’ll just have to check back to see my before and after!
Day 29-30 | Moving Day
You may have noticed I skipped a week in my timeline. This is because once the floors have been sanded and stained, it takes a minimum of 7 days to “set”. (You learn something new every day!) To minimize indents in the top finish coat, you don’t want to set any furniture on your newly stained floors and want to minimize people walking on them. I’ll also have to try to remember to leave a couple windows cracked and have a fan or two going since I won’t be physically in the home while they dry.
May is going to be a big month! I’m excited to get started and get the move on things. Be sure to say a little prayer for me with my chimney wall. Thanks to my ongoing experience in real estate, I have a fairly good idea on what I’m about to find, but you just never know until you start opening up walls. It’s sure to be an adventure!
Cheers!
Jen
Investor // Landlord and DIYer // Realtor // Business Consultant // Globe Trotter // Converting Vegan.
