Amy P sent me a link to a blog post about DIY projects. After working for 6-1/2 years fixing up an old house and contemplating buying another DIY house, we have a lot of experience on these matters. Let me give you some advice.
I'm defining a DIY house as a house that has been owned by a granny who hasn't fixed anything in thirty years. We're talking old bathrooms, old kitchen, yucky wallpaper, yucky carpeting, possibly an old roof, ancient electricity, and an over grown yard. Why would anyone buy such a house? We would.
1. Why a DIY house is a good thing.
DIY houses are cheap. Most people look at stained wallpaper and do a U-turn out of the house. I like a bargain and I know how much it costs to fix things up, so it means that I can get a bigger house and a bigger yard for a cheaper price.
A DIY house, especially one that was built pre-war, was built by people who knew what they were doing. It will be solidly built and have spacious rooms. It will have cool details that are impossible to replicate today.
I prefer an older, bigger home to a newer, small home. We're looking at a lot of teeny houses, where the real estate agents promise us that we can put on a family room extension on the back. I hate those houses, because I've seen so many bad extensions that were put up without the help of an architect. Also, you lose your backyard with an extension. Steve and I love to garden, so the backyard is important to us.
2. Why a DIY house is a bad thing.
You have to ask yourself why a contractor didn't already snap that house up for a quick flip. Is there something terribly wrong with the place? Is it in a terrible location? A lot of older homes are built on busy streets or are too close to the town dump. If the location is bad, you'll have a hard time reselling the house later. You also will have to deal with traffic and the smells from the dump. Before you buy a DIY, you should spend a lot of time on Zillow looking at home prices on the street and hidden industrial areas. You never want to have the most expensive house on the block, so estimate the costs of rehabbing the place + the current cost of the house.
You have to have the time and the inclination to fix it up.
3. You have to have enough money to fix a house up.
When you buy a DIY house, you have to ask yourself if you can spend $100,000 to do the necessary repairs. If the house is cheap enough, it might be worth it. You also have to have enough money to heat the place and pay the taxes.
4. Projects that you can do yourself v. projects that you should pay professionals to do.
Painting is really easy. Learn how to do it right. Make sure you take the time to tape up woodwork and spackle holes. Again this is really easy, and it will save you a ton of money if you do it yourself. Steve can also replace ceiling light fixtures. I'm good at refinishing wood.
Most of these DIY homes can be made so much better with properly hung curtains and a good coat of paint. Getting rid of dusty ceiling fans is also a must. Pulling up overgrown shrubs and planting new ones is also really cheap and very easy to do.
But there are other projects that ordinary mortals cannot do on their own. A new roof costs $14,000. A new bathroom costs $12,000, but we just put one in for $5,000. It's possible to go cheaper on bathrooms and kitchens if you know what you're doing. Also, contractors are cheap right now.
Learn about plaster walls. When you want to put a nail in the wall, scotch tape the place first and then drill a hole.
5. Projects that should be done right away.
You have to deal with the invisible, but serious problems immediately. You'll know what the big problems are right away, because your bulldog inspector will give you all the bad news up front. The biggest enemy is water. It must be stopped. Leaky plumbing and a leaky roof have to be dealt with on day one or else you're looking at MAJOR problems.
The floor must be dealt with right away, before your furniture gets in the front door. Refinish the floors or replace carpeting immediately.
If you're planting new trees, put them in right away. They're inexpensive, but they need time to grow. You want to put them in at Year One, not Year Six.
Replace ancient and inefficient appliances with something from Sears.
You can't have your family living in a depressing place, so make it cheerful right away. Curtains from IKEA that are hung properly. My pet peeve is a curtain rod that is hammered into nice hardwood. You'll need to put a coat of paint everywhere. Bring in friends to help. It's also very inexpensive to have all your windows cleaned inside and out.
Clean out the gutters. Your basement will thank you.
Some people will say to upgrade the electricity right away, but we never did it. As long as I don't run the hairdryer, a computer and an air conditioner at the same time, there are no problems.
6. Projects that should be done last.
Other than a few new trees and the new shrubs that you put in yourself, leave the curb appeal stuff for last. Who cares what the neighbors think? Fix the bathrooms, before you put on aluminum siding.
Do not put in fancy kitchens or bathrooms immediately. All that granite and marble stuff is a waste of money in this housing market. Really.
Apt. 11d 
I’m still trying to work up courage to re-grout the tile floor in the bathroom. The grout is 3/8″ or so and huge chunks are missing.
LikeLike
We have to re-do the bathroom, but I cannot bear to go without a bathroom for any period of time, and we have only one bathroom. 😦 We are not DIYers. We had the kitchen re-done because we absolutely had to. My husband couldn’t exist without a dishwasher, and there was literally nowhere to put one without a total reno. But we put in Sears white appliances and some sort of solid surface counters. I’ve been spending more time on the landscaping because I enjoy it, especially in the summer when I have free time.
I’m starting to look for a new house in my town. I’d like to live closer to the HS and MS now that my youngest is at the end of 3rd grade. We want a second floor. I’m starting to think that’s my only criterion. My husband and I were doing some basement cleaning this weekend, and we decided we want a 2-story house with no basement. We should just move back to Levittown!
LikeLike
some sort of solid surface counters
Counters that had a gaseous phase, say every night at 2:00 a.m., would be just perfect. Instead of scrubbing, you could just vacuum under them in the morning.
(We have only one full bath, but the tile that needs work is in the half-bath, so I can keep it out of service for a while.)
LikeLike
Warning: there are really serious things that your inspector not only can miss, but his contract says it’s fine for him to miss… like 1970’s renovations resulting in the second floor, attic, and SLATE ROOF being held up by a couple of two-by-fours — but those were behind the drywall, so who could POSSIBLY have known?
(Cue a 10K structural engineering job during our second year in the house… but hey, it didn’t fall down! Lucky us!)
Otherwise, I think you’re spot-on.
Oh — one more thing — the energy efficiency tax credits are still available in 2011, I think, and cover more stuff than you’d expect. E.g. we were able to fit our replacement hot water heater into that box.
LikeLike
One big advantage is that you can get what you want, rather than what people think you (and everyone) should want. But always avoid aluminum siding. That stuff _always_ looks like crap.
LikeLike
Better aluminum siding than aluminum wiring.
LikeLike
Better aluminum wiring than aluminum foil.
LikeLike
You know, I once tried to cover a gymnasium with foil, senior year in high school. It was surprisingly difficult to do. I think there’s a lot more knowledge these days about how to do such things.
I wonder how all that foil effects the WiFi signal?
LikeLike
I wonder how all that foil effects the WiFi signal?
It will stop ordinary WiFi, but not the government’s mind control rays.
LikeLike
How about aluminum siding? Does that stop the government’s mind control rays?
LikeLike
I’ve already said too much.
LikeLike
Going back on topic, I’d also ask to see the utility bills before I bought an old house. I know some people who get $1,000 heat bills come February and their house isn’t much bigger than mine. If so, you want to be sure the price is low enough to cover some new windows/insulation.
LikeLike
Our house is over a hundred years old, and I would second a lot of this advice. Also, if you’re dealing with original plaster covered with wallpaper, accept the fact that you may end up painting over it; keeping the plaster is worth it for insulation purposes.
LikeLike
What is wrong with aluminum siding?
LikeLike
Jim the Realtor has a recent video showing a foreclosure that was built in 1915. The owners (who left after having been given the now traditional $6k for good behavior and leaving a clean house) did practically nothing to bring the house into the mid-20th century, except put in some razzle dazzle stuff in the kitchen. Otherwise, it’s kind of scary.
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/2011/04/24/almost-100-years/
I think flippers really need to tone down the bathrooms. How much time are we planning on spending there, anyway? There’s nothing I hate more than seeing wall-to-wall new travertine or slate in a modest 1950s home’s bathroom and knowing that the extra cost of something I dislike is inflating the price. I personally like a plain white bathroom or a pink or mint green 1950s bathroom. (I recently saw a pink AND mint tiled 1950s bathroom. It was kind of wild, but it worked.)
Likewise, easy on the patterned tile, people–times change, but your tile won’t.
My sympathies to all of you one bathroom households.
LikeLike
What is wrong with aluminum siding?
It’s hideously ugly. And tacky. And clashes with other parts of homes, making additions or sections that use it looks like tumors on older homes. And once you put it on a house, it’s hard to do anything else with it. It gets faded, dull, and dirty and is hard to make look good again. Other than that, I guess it’s fine.
LikeLike
Matt,
What are your feelings on Hardyplank?
LikeLike
A DIY house, especially one that was built pre-war, was built by people who knew what they were doing.
Pre-war houses were certainly well-built, but apparently by a rare tribe of above-ground hobbit. Mr. Ragtime is tall, but not NBA tall, and we could never walk through a pre-war house without a bonk on the noggin. We soon started crossing off pre-war houses right away.
Also, pre-war houses are often well constructed and built to last, but — just as my WWII veteran grandfather, who passed away after a full, long life — “built to last” doesn’t mean “will last forever.” The war is a lot longer ago than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
LikeLike
That’s why we keep having new wars.
LikeLike
Matt’s vociferous antagonism towards aluminum siding made me want to defend the underdog, but I could not find anything nice to say about aluminum siding (well, except for the mind ray filtering). Maybe that’s why it’s still prevalent in some places.
LikeLike
We used to own a pre war craftsman. It had some beautiful details (old glass, inlaid floors), but it also had absolutely no insulation (the inner and outer walls were filled with air, which I guess is a kind of insulation) and a foundation that was cracking. When it rained, a river would run through the basement (OK, maybe not a river, but a brook). It had a beautiful pre-war chimney made of some form of hand-crafted brick) that was ripping away from the house and looked like it was on the verge of falling (though we know that it didn’t actually fall for at least 20 years, even through an earthquake).
(Had decent height ceilings, though).
Our experience with that house proved to us that we are not, in any way shape or form, DYI’ers.
LikeLike
PS: The folks who bought the house from us did a 9 month long renovation that has supposedly transformed the house. They excavated and earthquake retrofited the foundation so that there’s a full basement. They revised the finished attic so there’s a complete second story so that the house is now a gem (or so we hear). But, we now know that such a renovation would have been completely beyond us.
LikeLike
Home improvements are dear to my heart – we’re a couple of months away from starting a reno of a Victorian semi, fools that we are! Most of the non-sexy stuff was done about 20 years ago – wiring, plumbing, heating, windows, etc. And we put a new roof on a few months ago.
We’re doing new floors and updating the kitchen and bathrooms. Since it’s just the planning stage we can imagine it all going perfectly well. Having done a back-to-the-studs reno before (this is much less extensive), I am sure we’ll be wringing our hands in a few months.
AmyP I hear you on the “earrings on a monkey” reno projects where they spend too much money on the kitchen or bathroom in a style completely out of whack with the rest of the house.
LikeLike
Good advice, Laura. I would say paint everything and don’t forget the ceilings. Skim coating plaster walls is worth it too.
We had hardy board siding put on our house two years ago. It’s really nice, comes pre-painted, and is good for longer than you will own the house. I just wish we had sprung for new windows at the same time but that was beyond our reno budget.
LikeLike
Am I too old or does “Reno budget” make anyone else think of money saved for a divorce in 1937?
LikeLike
I had to type that three times to override the autocorrect because I am slow. And I’m a 1937 divorcee who traveled through time, acquired an iPhone, and started commenting on blogs.
LikeLike
Glad to hear rebuilding a kitchen isn’t worth it, as we just elected to punt on our kitchen. We replaced the oven and cooktop, and we’ll do a few other minor repairs, but that’s it.
Aluminum siding’s not upmarket here in the north. Could it have something to do with termites & weather? Is it more popular in regions with more termites?
LikeLike
Is there a correlation between neighbourhoods with aluminum siding and those with chain link fences?
LikeLike
A Pittsburgh staple is the 6′ x 6′ “addition”, usually off of the kitchen, made up entirely of cinder blocks and aluminum siding.
Hey, MH, have you noticed that hot mess of a new house they’re building on Penn Ave? Huge, with a slate roof, but brick facade only with aluminum siding and the totally inappropriate cornices on the front?! Yikes. I can only imagine what some poor sucker paid for that thing… McMansion is too kind.
LikeLike
No, I’m rarely over that way. Too much road construction.
LikeLike
Huge, with a slate roof, but brick facade only with aluminum siding and the totally inappropriate cornices on the front?!
Except for the slate roof this could describe a huge percentage of the houses on Staten Island near where my wife takes horseback riding lessons. Also, add in some ridiculous columns.
LikeLike
Things like that really stand out in Pittsburgh because there is so little new construction in the city. On the DIY thing, I have been known to wonder what I could do with a row house in Lawrenceville before I remember that I hate having to shark for parking.
LikeLike