• Home
  • ABOUT
  • VIDEOS
  • Contact
  • SHOP

The Impatient Gardener

Cottage

Things to know before you reno: Part 1

October 4, 2011

Hudsonandrita

Resident supervisors Rita and Hudson posed for a photograph for the newspaper photo shoot a couple weeks ago.I’m just realizing now that somebody should have washed Rita’s feet first.

In continuing to revisit the renovation roughly a year after it got started, I thought I’d put together a list of things you should know if you are considering a renovation of your own. This list got a little longer than I anticipated, so I’m breaking it in to two posts.

1. Even though you’ve heard that every renovation goes over time and over budget, you will talk yourself into thinking that with all your planning you will be the exception to this rule. You are wrong.

We budgeted an extra 10 percent into our loan to cover the surprises. Believe it or not, this was at the suggestion of our lender and our contractor swore to us that he would do his best to bring the numbers down as the project continued. Although the financial situation got so dire during the renovation that I stopped keeping track of it all, but we probably finished about 30 percent over the original budget. As for time, the project took about 50 percent more time than we expected, due to hiccups with supplies of some items and various other issues that hung things up.

2. Have a partner.

Even if you’re building or renovating and you’re a single homeowner (and if you are, I applaud you), you need to have another person involved. That’s because you need to have a person on reserve to wear the black hat. There will be times that have an issue with a contractor and you need one person to be sweet and understanding and another person to be the nasty one pushing for things to be done correctly. I handled most of the day to day things, but when something serious came up, or when I felt like I was getting the “you’re-just-an-irrational-woman” brush off (and yes, I do think that happened), Mr. Much More Patient would step in handle it. I think our contractor knew that if he got a call from the husband he knew we were serious about something.

3. Find balance.

Throughout the entire renovation I constantly felt like I was walking the line of being a pushover or being a bitch. It was difficult to find a middle ground. Certainly you don’t want to come out of the gate swinging on a project, but you also don’t want to come across as a person who will let them slide with subpar work.

4. Make every decision you can ahead of time.

I did pretty good on this. I had plumbing fixtures chosen and delivered for months before they were needed. Tile was picked out before the bathroom was even officially drawn on paper. But there were other decisions that came up out of nowhere and needed to be made quickly. I expected to have a couple of weeks to figure out what we wanted for the roof. We ended up having a weekend to pick out the style and color of shingles as well as underlayments, etc. It’s important to make decisions in a timely fashion to keep things moving along, and I found that the contractors seemed to have a lot more respect for us when we were able to quickly make decisions. Having so many things decided ahead of time (and then not second guessing ourselves: I did not look at a single bathroom picture on the Internet after we picked out tile and fixtures because I was afraid I’d find something I’d want more) made making the quick decisions a bit easier because we weren’t thinking about tile, plumbing, lighting and roofing … just roofing.

5. But don’t be forced into making a decision you are not comfortable with.

No matter how much pressure a contractor is putting on you to make a decision, do not allow yourself to be forced into making it until you are truly comfortable with it. You may delay your project a bit, but it will cost more in the long run when you can’t stand it and have to go back and fix it. This is what happened with the shingle siding on the upper half of the house. We went back and forth on where it should be and we were getting a lot of pressure on making the decision, and what that decision would be. We were both suffering from renovation fatigue and we sort of threw up our hands and said, “Yeah, whatever,” and we ended up with the shingles starting higher than we’d like them to. We actually bought additional shingles to have it fixed, but we’ve since had a falling out with our contractor so we won’t have them do it and I just haven’t bothered to look for someone else to do it yet. Everyone told me I wouldn’t notice in a few months. I do. And it bugs me every single time I look at the house. Every day.

Check out Part 2 for more information.

remodel
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
2 Comments

About Erin @ The Impatient Gardener

View all posts by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener

Related Posts

  • Back in the renovation saddle again
  • The unfinisher strikes again
  • House tour: Guest bedroom and hallway
  • House tour: Master bedroom
previous post: Books to paint by
next post: Things to know before you reno: Part 2

Comments

  1. Rohrerbot says: October 4, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Great advice. We are constantly fixing up our place, but have halted our projects for the moment. There's too much to do…one thing at a time.

    Reply
  2. Erin Schanen says: October 4, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    @Rohrerbot: Yes, burnout definitely happens and you're right, sometimes you just have to step back and take a little break.

    Thanks for stopping by.

    Reply

Leave Your Comments Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About

The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

Here's some more about me.

CONNECT

Awards

Garden Comm award

MY FAVORITE GEAR

https://www.amazon.com/shop/impatientgardener

Instagram

impatientgardener

Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
Load More Follow on Instagram

SEARCH

Popular posts

  • HOW TO MAKE A HOLIDAY WINDOW BOX
  • Three ways to grow annual poppies
  • GARDEN TOUR: WHERE CONIFERS AND TEXTURE RULE
  • Slip slidin’ away to trash organization heaven

Find us on Facebook

Archives

  • ABOUT
  • TALK TO ME
  • TERMS & DISCLAIMERS
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • Home

Copyright © 2023 · Prima Donna theme by Georgia Lou Studios

Copyright 2009-2021 ©The Impatient Gardener