Most people repair/enhance than renovate their homes?

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rayonline

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#230787 13-Mar-2018 11:20

I guess there are more used homes than new or newish homes out there. Most people repair or enhance their homes than renovate right?

Been nearly 10yrs and now we are replacing the basin vanity in the small toilet, the previous owner had the cold and hot water knobs and the spray down spout like a public toilet - to save room I guess. With the bathroom we have only replaced the 2 taps on the basin with a single mixer now and we replaced the shower with a rail system.

But ... the house still look old right. Many bathroom and toilets might be just painted walls, or even pattern wallpaper and then painted on top, the vanity cabinets might be wooden. The kitchen cabinets are the wooden style ones and over time the drawers can stick and requires more of a push to close them.

These days we have so much renovation TV shows, magazines etc etc ... Unless one redo the flooring the walls, replace all the basin vanities, replace the shower cubes and bath tubs.

nunz

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#1973886 13-Mar-2018 11:28

if you are looking at on selling you do a renovation - and i use that term very lightly as many of those so called renovations are a cheap coat of paint and a quick move of a few items. pretty much vapourware renovations.

E.g. Add in a new kitchen unit to dump the old looking one and upgrade the shower bathroom. Both can be done quickly and cheaply. Then a slap of paint (and many times it isn't much more than a slap) and she looks like a new house. Back on the market, make a profit, move on.

I renovated my first house by scraping off 10-15 layers of paint and took it back to rimu. it had a country kitchen style look with all the wood. However I didn't do up the bathroom or add in new cabinetry (liked the rimu) and when it came to sell (too many kids so house too small) we lost out as the grounds were plain and the bathroom older.

The fact we had replaced all the leaking concrete roof tiles, fixed an underfloor joist that was rotten, removed ant infestations, removed all traces of old lead paint etc was of little value compared to if we had landscaped the garden and done up the bathroom. People prefer looks over functionality often.

reven

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#1973902 13-Mar-2018 11:51

My first house was brand new 6 years ago, sold it nearly 2 years ago, and bought a 30 year old house. that hadnt really been renovated that much (downstairs was slightly more modern, kitchen was redone). but upstairs (except a extension built 20 years ago) hadnt been touched.

I spent over a year renovating it, well I say I, I hired builders, plasters, plumbers, sparkies etc to renovate it :) I did some drywall, painted most of downstairs, some minor building work myself, but most of it was the builder.

I turned it from a 4 bedroom with an upstairs rumpus room to a 5 bedroom (rumpus room became large master bedroom/walk in wardrobe/ensuite), old master bedroom/ensute/wardrobe was split in to 2 rooms, one is my sons room and the other part became an open upstairs kids lounge.

we removed all the wall paper (to paint, i hate wallpaper), replaced a lot of gib (some was badly damaged from wallpaper, some so we could put in pink batts), installed pink batts everywhere upstairs (downstairs we didnt really touch the walls so didnt do), changed the skirting, put in cornice everywhere (old owner did it in most of downstairs, so we just continued it upstairs), removed the tiled entrance way, and the carpets downstairs/on the stairs/upstairs hall/kids lounge and replaced that with engineered hardwood. I put paneling/wainscoting everywhere downstairs, the stairway and upstairs hall/kids lounge + master bedroom. changed all the lights to led downlights, installed a ducted heatpump upstairs. gutted the upstairs bathroom/toilet, and completely redid that. Gutted the downstairs w/c and removed a wall to make it more open and tiled it. i think that was the bulk of it.

we also did some maintenance like replaced the pool filter/heatpump, put in the wire mesh gutter stuff to stop birds making nests in the gutters (had a really bad leak because of a birds nest, water was pouring out a light socket like a drain).

it cost a fair bit to do, but i plan for this to be my forever home. I would of spent way more than I would get back if I sold it now, but I aint planning on selling this house for the next 30-50 years :) Its auckland, so Ill probably end up giving it to my son to live in and retire somewhere else :)

Oh and I still want to do more stuff, just have to save up for it :) I want to move the kitchen to where the dining room is and make the lounge/kitchen an open plan area (kitchen is basically its own room now). convert old kitchen to downstairs guest bedroom (if Im old and cant make it up the stairs Ill move there), it might become a cinema room before guest bedroom, but thats just furniture..... and the family room that we dont use will become the dining room.

We bought this house knowing it needed a lot doing to it, but it had really good bones, and a great sized section (840m2), my old house had a tiny backyard that we could barely fit a swing set in, now we have a massive paved patio area that wraps around the entire house, a pool, and a decent grass area. plus theres a reserve for the kids at the end of the street. Pays to move out of central auckland to get more bang for your buck :P

What I spent on this house, would have only gotten me about a 110m2 house in ellerslie.

xpd

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#1973925 13-Mar-2018 12:40

Our first place (had for 5 years) , we hardly touched it really, bit of fresh paint in a couple of rooms, added a path and bricked garden area, fixed the side garage door so it was actually able to be opened (previous owners had automatic garage door put it and the tracks blocked the side door - we just dropped doorway down 20cm, and ta da, usable door)..... and re-did two bits of fencing.

Probably cost us $500 tops for all that.

Current house, been there 6 years, already had to reline the pool ($$$), rebuilt the deck and extended the roofing ($$$) , replace flooring in bathroom, finally found where water was coming in to the internal garage during heavy rain, re-did drainage outside garage, chopped down massive pohutakawa tree, started tidying up yard.

And we are nowhere done yet..... actual floor in bathroom needs replacing, window frames need looking at (timber), tiles in our room need some replacing or we carpet it, roof needs attention, outside needs a good wash, pool deck needs replacing, mains water pipe needs burying, side path requires redoing and and and and..........

I really want to turn the internal garage into a man cave/2nd lounge but wife wont let me until she has a spa pool (hah!).

We got a damn good deal on the house at the time, so we'll do as much as we can ourselves and get the pros in where needed - we arent looking at moving any time soon, so the time and money is worth it.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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Aredwood

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#1974331 14-Mar-2018 01:34

nunz: People prefer looks over functionality often.

So much this!!!!!!

I have seen countless flash looking houses with poor water pressure, poor internet, old wiring, drainage issues etc. But the car in the driveway cost 40K.

Yet first impressions of my house are not pretty, But it has good bones and doesn't leak. Major upgrades are to the water and networking so far. And planned major upgrades to other things as time and money allow. But until then I still have kickass water pressure and flow, and no temp fluctuations even if you are in the shower and other taps get turned on. Ethernet and WiFi covering everywhere, with both good coverage and speed. Which is also battery backed.

On my own house, I either do the bare minimum. Or go completely overkill. I will most likely still be here in 20 years time. So why not? You might as well enjoy your house.

Batman

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#1974372 14-Mar-2018 08:12

I'm a bit stuck, to renovate costs about the same or more than to knock down and rebuild!

kryptonjohn

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#1974401 14-Mar-2018 08:24

We're living in our 2nd major renovation and prior to that did a smaller first one. I have to admit we have let the scope creep bit on both, more so the current house. But they've both made an incredible difference and turned both from awful to really nice.

Both houses got new roofs, new plumbing, new wiring and new lighting. New bathrooms and new kitchens. Full interior and exterior repaint. One got half a new story upstairs, one got a semi finished downstairs converted into two bedrooms, bathroom and rumpus.

Wife already wants to sell current place and start another reno. It's my ongoing nightmare of living in a building site!

However they've both paid off pretty well financially.