Remodeling an Old House on a Budget

Busting the budget is everyone'south biggest fear when it comes to abode remodels. And with good reason.

Fifty-fifty if yous follow the essential advice we've been doling out for years—build in a twenty percent cushion to encompass the nasty surprises, get contractor references and check them, banish the words "while you're at it" from your vocabulary—information technology'southward hard not to end upwards shelling out more you lot want to.

With some strategic thinking about pattern, materials, and timing, you lot can cut costs without cutting corners. Below, nosotros'll testify you the ways, from the big to something equally pocket-size as choosing a wall sconce over a recessed low-cal.

Only another universal truth about abode comeback is that every little thing adds up. And so another important consideration to kickoff with is to decide whether or non to annihilate the whole house and start from scratch.

Is it Cheaper to Remodel or Build a New House?

"Most clients don't want to hear those words," says Paul Irwin, design director with Landis Construction, in the Washington, D.C., area, "but information technology really needs to be considered on major remodels. "In 1 case, for instance, plans for a 1,300-square-human foot improver revealed that the house's existing foundation wasn't up to lawmaking and would take to be replaced—a $30,000 proposition.

Afterward crunching the numbers, the owners concluded that information technology would price as much to update the house, a former summertime cottage, as it would to reproduce it new. "For a relatively small boosted cost," says the owner, "we get all the benefits of new construction while preserving the character and feel of our erstwhile business firm."

Cost to remodel: $570,000
Cost to replicate: $588,000
Saved: For $xviii,000, the owners gained as much every bit $sixty,000 worth of new living space, plus improved condom and energy efficiency.

xix Ways to Relieve on Your Home Remodel

If you lot've weighed your options, and have decided it's amend to remodel your home, here are our tips.

1. Increase Efficiency, Non Size

If you can reorganize and equip your kitchen for maximum utility, you may not need to blow out the walls to gain square footage. Start by replacing space-hogging shelves with cabinet-acme pullout drawers 8 inches wide, containing racks for canned goods and other items.

"You lot're getting three or more horizontal planes where you might otherwise become only one," says Louis Smith Jr., an architect with Meier Grouping, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

You lot could easily shell out a few thousand to outfit cabinets with upgrades like dividers, pull-out pot trays, and lazy Susans, merely you'll salvage many times that amount by skipping the addition you thought you needed.

Cost to expand kitchen by 200 square anxiety: $48,000 to $95,000
Cost of super-efficient, custom-designed cabinets: $35,000
Saved: Up to $60,000

2. Bring in Natural Light Without Adding Windows

Before cutting a big hole in the side of your house and rearranging the framing, consider less invasive—and less expensive—ways of capturing low-cal.

To brighten up a windowless bath or hallway, for instance, you can install a "light tube," which slips between roof rafters and funnels sunshine down into the living space.

Cost to add a double-pane insulated window: $1,500
Price for a low-cal tube: $500
Saved: $one,000

three. Hit the Recycling Center

Do-it-yourselfers can reap big savings with recycled or lightly used fixtures and building materials. Habitat for Humanity operates near 400 ReStores nationwide, which offer salvaged materials at half off home-center prices.

One caveat: Many contractors won't work with salvaged items, or homeowner-supplied materials in general, because they don't desire to assume the liability if something goes incorrect.

That said, if yous're doing your own work, you tin detect anything from prehung doors to acrylic skylights to partial bundles of insulation. (To discover a ReStore near you, visit habitat.org.)

Price of four-by-v-pes insulated window in a home middle: $600
Cost at ReStore: $300
Saved: $300

iv. Donate your Trash

Before you begin a remodeling job, invite the local Habitat for Humanity chapter to remove materials and fixtures for afterward resale. "About 85 percent of a firm is reusable," says B.J. Perkins, Habitat'southward ReUse plan manager, in Austin, Texas. "We tin practise a total takedown, or do a cherry-pick job and take the cabinets, the tub, the sink, then on."

Yous relieve space in the landfill, collect a charitable taxation credit for the donation, and help a good cause. Visit Habitat to find an affiliate near you.

Cost to trash a suite of bathroom fixtures: $50 to $75
Cost to donate: Nil, plus yous go a taxation deduction
Saved: Infinite in the landfill (and a little bit of your soul)

v. Practice Your Ain Demo

Knocking downwardly your home downward may not be as plush equally rebuilding, you lot can notwithstanding shave dollars by doing some of the demolition yourself—as long as you proceed with care.

"If a homeowner wants to demo a deck, well, I am sure they can handle that," says Michael Winn, owner of Winn Design, in Virginia. "Merely when information technology comes to interior spaces, I would dissuade them from doing it unless they have done it before."

The reason: A reckless wrecker might unwittingly take out a load-bearing wall or, worse yet, plunge a reciprocating saw into live wiring or pressurized plumbing.

Cost to demo a 200-square-foot deck yourself: $450 (Dumpster rental and parking permit)
Cost for a pro: $1,000
Saved: $550

6. Consider Long-Term Costs, Not Just Short-Term Gains

If your improver calls for clapboard siding, for instance, you lot tin can relieve more in the long run past ponying up at present for the preprimed and prepainted multifariousness. It costs an actress ten to 20 cents per foot, just "you'll wind up paying for half as many pigment jobs down the road," says Paul Eldrenkamp, owner of Byggmeister, a design-build remodeling firm in Newton, Massachusetts.

The reason? Factory finishes are practical on dry out wood under controlled weather—no rain, no harsh sun. "I used prefinished claps on my business firm about ten years ago and the simply flaw in the finish is the occasional mildew spot, easily washed off," Eldrenkamp says. "The paint looks as if information technology'll exist good for another ten years, easily."

Cost of unfinished siding for a x-past-twoscore-foot addition, plus two pigment jobs: $5,000
Cost for pre-finished claps and one coat of paint at installation: $3,750
Saved: $one,250

7. Tap Your Contractor'south Sources

When it comes to things like flooring, ask your subcontractor if he has odds-and-ends stock left over from other jobs. While renovating a Civil War-era bed-and-breakfast in New Bailiwick of jersey some years back, contractor Bill Asdal needed wood flooring.

He made a few phone calls and came upward with hundreds of square feet of hardwood, in various lengths and widths, that otherwise would take gone into the trash on other task sites. Just by planing it to uniform thickness, and then sanding and refinishing information technology, he saved his client well-nigh $9,000 in materials costs.

Cost of new flooring: $nineteen,200
Toll to use someone else's discards: $10,500
Saved: $eight,700

viii. Consult an Architect

Depending on the calibration of your project, you might not need a full-on architectural commission, which involves extensive meetings, multiple job-site visits, and several sets of construction drawings, to the tune of about 8 per centum of a project's construction upkeep. You lot might be able to tap an builder's pattern savvy by having him undertake a one-time design consultation.

For instance, for a $400 apartment fee, Baton Rouge architect Kevin Harris will encounter with a homeowner, examine the problem, and sketch out a few solutions that could exist as simple equally opening upwardly a partition wall or moving a door. The homeowner can then give the sketch to a builder or take it to a drafting service, which will charge about $1 to $i.50 a square foot to crank out formal construction drawings.

Architect'due south fee to design a 300-square-pes home office: $2,250
Fee for design consultation just and plans: $580
Saved: $1,670

9. Partner With a Contractor

Though the practice is controversial among the trades, some contractors volition offer consulting and mentoring services to skilled do-information technology-yourselfers on an hourly basis.

Chicago-area builder Ted Welch charges $150 per hour for such coaching, with a two-hour minimum commitment. "The most satisfied clients tend to exist those who have skilful manual dexterity, who realize that skills need to be skillful in gild to be perfected, and who are willing to take chances making a few mistakes and then learn from them," he says.

Cost to drywall one room: $1,000
Cost with DIY consultation: $300 (2 hours of coaching), plus materials
Saved: $700

10. Brand Sweat Equity Count

Unless you've got loads of fourth dimension (and expertise) to spend on your project, the best way to add sweat disinterestedness is upwards front, by handling your own demolition, or at the back end, by doing some of the finish work yourself.

"If you want to save money, dig in and start helping out," says Tom Silva. "Yous can insulate, y'all can paint, yous tin can sand." Or better still, he says, assistance with cleanup every day. "Instead of paying someone to pick up sawdust off the floor, put your money into the fourth dimension it takes to trim the window properly," he advises.

Cost for structure crew to handle cleanup: $200 per day
Cost to do it yourself: $0
Saved: About 3 to 5 percent of the overall job cost

11. Exercise Your Own Schlepping

If y'all're doing your ain project, slash your materials-delivery fees past picking up goods yourself. No pickup truck? For about $400, you lot can purchase a well-nigh new single-axle utility trailer online, which y'all tin tow backside your SUV. Get one merely large enough to conduct 4-by-8 sheet appurtenances flat. Employ it for a half dozen trips, and it'southward paid for itself. Find trailers for auction near you via eBay Motors, or try your local classifieds.

Toll of 10 deliveries: $750
Cost to purchase a used trailer: $400
Saved: $350, plus you get to keep (or sell) the trailer

12. Don't Overspend on Wall Prep

If your walls are in such rough shape that it would take a painting contractor days of filling and sanding to make them ready for the roller, consider using materials such every bit Texturglas, from Deerfield Embankment, Florida—based company Roos International.

A breathable, nontoxic wall covering made of fine glass filaments, Texturglas has a like look and feel to the fiberglass matting used in automobile-trunk work. It's available in a diversity of surface patterns, takes paint readily, and is designed to exist installed right on pinnacle of existing surfaces, adding forcefulness while covering up dings.

Cost to patch and paint a xv-past-20-foot room with heavily damaged walls: $1,525
Cost to install Texturglas: $1,050
Saved: $475

thirteen. Consider Look-Alikes

Some imitations just make sense: Lumber giant Weyerhaeuser sells a fast-growing natural eucalyptus hybrid under the brand name Lyptus. Sustainably harvested in plantations in Brazil, the clear-grained hardwood looks and feels remarkably similar mahogany. It's sold every bit toungue-and-groove flooring and in planks and sheets for cabinetry and millwork.

Cost of 100 lath feet of mohogany: $808
Cost of same quantity Lyptus: $395
Saved: $413

14. Wait Until Contractors Want Your Business

Don't schedule your reno in the superlative of summer or between September, when the kids go back to school, and Christmas. "That's premium time," explains Lisa Stacholy, owner of LKS Architects, in Atlanta, Georgia. Suppliers tend to be busier, labor scarcer, and deliveries slower. Ane Virginia-based contractor offers discounts of between 4.5 and 5.5 percent (depending on the overall budget) on projects during his down fourth dimension, correct after the new year's day.

Toll of a major bath remodel in peak season: $25,000
Cost in January: $23,625
Saved: $1,375

fifteen. Skip the Foundation

If local code allows, you may be able to back up a pocket-size add-on on posts and beams, as you would a deck, explains contractor Dennis Gavin, of Gavin Design-Build, in Media, Pennsylvania.

220-square-foot addition with poured foundation: $40,000
Same-size add-on on posts and beams: $35,000
Saved: $5,000

sixteen. Don't Movement the Kitchen Sink

Kitchen with green cabinets and a farm sink.

Or the toilet, if you can avoid information technology. "That often becomes the biggest part of the plumbing-price increase," says Richard Trethewey, This Old Business firm plumbing and heating expert. If your new layout requires that you move the toilet, use the opportunity to upgrade the pipes at the same fourth dimension. "That volition save you money in the long run," says Richard.

Toll to movement toilet more than three feet: $500-$1,000
Cost to get out in existing location: $0
Saved: Upwards to $1,000

17. Plan with Stock Sizes in Mind

"Ask yourself, 'Why am I building something ten feet broad if plywood comes in 4-foot-wide sheets?'" says Lisa Stacholy, of LKS Architects, in Atlanta. The same applies to stock windows and doors: Use manufacturers' off-the-shelf dimensions from the starting time and you will salvage the premiums of custom fabrication.

Price of custom doors: $1,500-$2,500
Cost of standard doors: $500-$800
Saved: Upwardly to $2,000

18. Buy Building Supplies at Sale

Brian Peppel, a homeowner in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, attends ane building-supply auction each month in nearby Lancaster County. His recent finds include two pallets of concrete cake for $10 and a solid-forest prehung exterior door for $65.

"Their inventory is everything under the sun, a lot of scratch-and-dent, misordered custom items, or new overstock supplies," reports Peppel. He once watched the auctioneer's gavel fall on a big, custom-fabricated triangular window with an original retail value that he pegs at several thousand dollars. The winning bid? $1.

Toll of solid-carmine wall chiffonier at a dwelling house center: $300
Cost at building-supply auction: $10
Saved: $290

19. Make Decisions Early on

Start prowling the aisles at the hardware shop or home center way before the wrecking crew shows up. Go a practiced feeling for what you want in fixtures and appliances and what they price.

If you aren't absolutely specific up front virtually what you lot want, you lot'll accept to rely on your contractor's estimate, called an allowance, and his notion of what is adequate may be quite unlike from yours. "Ninety-8 percent of the time, allowances are too low," says Tom Silva. For instance, you may have had a glass-tile backsplash in mind, just your contractor's bid was for ceramic.

Cost to programme ahead: $0
Cost of modify orders midstream: The deviation in the detail cost, only as well time lost to projection delays and communications glitches
Saved: Upwardly to thousands