Twelve Restoration Blunders to Avoid

Don't let poor planning and unrealistic expectations destroy a great old house.

- By Aaron Lubeck

With obsolete systems and failing, sometimes-unsafe structural components, old homes make for complex projects replete with pitfalls for unwary remodelers. As a restoration contractor, I feel like I’ve seen it all: homeowners who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on renovations that commence with no planning, who devalue their property by stripping away its character, or who throw away money by forgoing valuable tax credits—in short, people who miss key opportunities in their attempt to restore their old house to its past glory while making it modern and efficient to live in. Here are blunders I’ve seen often in my work, with some advice on how to sidestep them.

1 Proceeding without a plan Old-house renovations often don’t go according to plan because, too often, there is no planning.

Many homeowners question the need to duplicate existing conditions on paper, seeing the process as a waste. “Why put money into plans,” asks the owner, “when all I want is tile and cabinets?” Also, in older homes, there's a tendency to jump into crisis management-repairing termite or foundation damage, for example— without pausing to fully assess future needs.

Another persistent (and incorrect) assumption is that tradespeople will conduct logical improvements in keeping with the scope of a project, even when that scope has never been spelled out fully. For example, HVAC contractors like to put their systems in the path of least resistance—such as in the middle of a potentially finishable attic. If uninformed about future plans for that space, they're unlikely to reach the “logical” conclusion of locating the air handler out of the way.

Planning and detailing the scope of every renovation in clear, specific terms is key to success.

2 Expecting to “flip” One of the most common mistakes I've seen is an investor taking on an old home as a rehab-and-flip project.