Renovating an old house can be extremely challenging but very rewarding in the end. It can be a years long process of exhaustion, budget constraints, and manual labor. It’s a decision often driven by a desire to breathe new life into old treasures or to create a home that resonates with your family character. Having navigated through the highs and lows of renovating an old house myself, I’ve come to appreciate the complexities and rewards that come with such a project. In this post, I’ll take you through what it’s really like to renovate an old house—from the initial considerations and unexpected challenges to the profound sense of accomplishment and transformation. Whether you’re considering taking on a renovation project or simply curious about the process, join me as we explore the fascinating world of renovating an old house.
For reference, we are currently redoing our 1900 farmhouse in the midwest by ourselves. We have been renovating and living in the house since November of 2023, so we are about 9 months in right now.
the process of finding the home
It can be quite a process to find a home. We spend several months looking through listings and touring houses before we found ours. Going into it, we knew we wanted some level of fixer upper. It’s very important to go into a house search with an honest and realistic expectation of what you want work wise. This heavily impacts the way that you view and form opinions about a property.
When seeing our house, we knew it required a lot of work. After jumping in, I’ve also realized that everything is always more work than you initially think. My advice would be to consider this when buying a home. Some main things we focused on were the mechanicals and other high budget items. This means heating/cooling systems, appliances, electical, plumbing, roof, windows, etc. While drywall can be replaced fairly easily, redoing a roof is a much more expensive project that will probably require professionals. Having a quality inspection done is a good way to get a baseline idea of a house’s status on these issues. It should be noted that an inspection will not catch everything, though.
This all, of course, is also shaped by your budget. We chose not to finance our renovation but to do it out of pocket as we go. We knew that our particular property would not need lump sums of money at a time, so we chose to forego the process of getting financing ahead of time. We discussed general budget guidelines and made sure to set up a system that prepared us for success. This means keeping track of project purchases, having budget check ins, and adapting plans as a project inevitably changes.
the challenges we’ve faced
Some of the main challenges that we’ve come face to face with during this renovation are time management, budget, and surprises. To a certain degree, I think all of these things are inevitable in a home renovation like ours. Looking back, I don’t think that we prepared ourselves for these things before diving in. Getting your expectations right is crucial to getting through a renovation, especially when doing it yourself.
We discovered rotted studs that required walls to be rebuilt, leaking/broken plumbing, and overall poor workmanship in several of the projects we’ve undertaken thus far. These not only set the budget back, but also our timeline for many of these projects.
It has also been a learning curve to create a work-life balance. Doing the renovating ourselves has proven to be stressful and time consuming. In the beginning, we fell into the trap of never taking breaks, stressing about projects or money, and letting our relationship slip away from being the priority. It can also be really stressful to live in a constant construction zone. Everything is perpetually dirty and unorganized. This aspect of balance has perhaps been the most difficult for me. While the material challenges will always be there, the emotional ones seem to be much harder to deal with. These struggles were something I was not prepared for or knowledgeable about before we bought our house.
the good we’ve experienced
Even through many challenges, we have found such great joy in the process of renovating an old house. It has been exciting and fun to restore an old house and incorporate it’s surviving details in our work. Curating a home is like telling a story. We have gotten to choose a theme and weave together a variety of small details that serve to further that goal.
We have also had the joy of making our home our own and creating a space that fits our character. A renovation of great scale allows you control over almost every detail of your space, which can be very fun. There are few opportunities in life to live in a space that is completely customized to your lifestyle. We find ourselves being so thankful to get to create a space that our family gets to spend time in.
key lessons we’ve learned
- Know When to Take a Break: Your progress and mental state will be hindered by pushing yourself too hard. Don’t be afraid to take a night off or step away from a project.
- Double the Cost and Time Required: When planning, always assume a project will cost more money and take more time than you think.
- Take Your Time: Even if you want a project done, going slow can keep your motivation up and provide a higher end product.
- Have Realistic Expectations: Don’t expect everything to go as planned or even to be able to do everything yourself. Ask for help and be willing to be flexible.
what we’ve gotten done in 9 months
If you’re thinking of renovating an old house, you may be wondering what’s reasonable to get done in how long. This is something I had no perspective on when buying our home. Projects always take much longer than you think they will, unfortunately.
The main projects that we have tackled are repainting the entire house, refinishing our staircase, new flooring in the upstairs, a half bathroom refresh, replacing two exterior walls, creating a mudroom with diy storage, making a laundry room/pantry, putting a fence in, building a chicken coop, and we are nearly finished with a completely gutted bathroom and back entryway renovation. This is at nine months in, doing the work ourselves with a lot of help from family and friends. We have spent almost every weekend and weeknight working on these projects and making them a priority.
in summary...
We have had many lows. We have shed tears and had many tired and sad nights when things aren’t going well. Our budget has been slashed and reworked countless times. We have broken things, forgotten parts, and started projects that turned into something three times bigger in the end.
Yet we have also learned countless skills and lessons that will come to serve us in the future when it comes time to maintain a home. We know that we are capable of so much more than we originally thought. We know that we can create a space that feels welcoming and serves us well despite any challenges that come up. Most importantly, we have been strengthened as a team because we have undergone a stressful situation together and are working through it each day to create a home we love.
If you’re interested in buying your own fixer upper or renovating an old home, I hope you learned a few things about what my experience was like. Follow along or browse my other posts to see DIY projects, homestead garden updates, and more!
