6 Things I Learned While Rehabbing Our Home

My husband and I have been together for 15 years now and in that time we have bought and/or sold three houses. After rehabbing our first two houses, I told him we are only looking at houses that require minimal changes. We definitely stretched our budget to get into our current house at the time but I knew it would be our forever home and it was everything I wanted. In the 9 years, we have lived here, we have had to do minimal remodels and paint jobs, which let me tell you was so refreshing.

So as I mentioned, we rehabbed our two previous houses and by that I mean we basically gutted them and lived in a state of disarray while the remodel was going on.

Here are 6 things I learned while rehabbing our home:

1. Everything will not go as planned. Now, this is a given in any situation but in the case of rehabbing, we definitely found a lot of surprises as we went.

2. Don’t think you don’t need a dumpster. I tried to avoid a dumpster in our first house and just keep putting additional garbage at the curb for a few weeks but that got old and a dumpster was so much easier. Someone like Eagle Dumpster Rental makes the job of getting your garbage out so much easier.

3. Add a cushion in your budget. With surprises happening during rehabbing, there will definitely be a need for additional materials and supplies.

4. Learn to go with the flow. In our first house my husband and I had to move our makeshift bed to each room of the house as the workers remodeled. We also had to go three months without a kitchen and survived off frozen dinners thanks to a microwave. Don’t think you can plan or prepare for everything.

5. Your timeline will change. Now maybe the work will have been overestimated so it will finish sooner than expected but most likely it will take longer due to those wonderful surprises.

6. Get at least two quotes for job. It is always nice to get a second (or third) set of eyes to give you perspective on a project and what the cost will be. While it is definitely easier to go with the first contractor, always get another quote even if its a small job.

Have you ever rehabbed a home? Any tips I missed?