I am so overwhelmed with all we have to do with this house!

Maybe our mistake was getting a bunch of things done to the house at once. When you moved into your house/before you moved in, did you do all your renovations, etc. to the house all at once, either before or after you moved in, or did you space them out after you lived there awhile?

Our idea was to do everything the house needed at once, before I start back at school and have no time to oversee everything. We're not talking big renovations--just a lot of small things like replacing flooring, tiling, painting the whole house, carpentry work, etc., but all at the same time. The work hasn't started yet, but I am spending so much time dealing with contractors, interviewing contractors, trying to get in contact with them, choosing paint colors, carpeting, tile, etc. and doing all this research about these things b/c as first time homeowners we don't know anything. I am completely overwhelmed and am starting to wonder if this was just a bad idea, and if instead we should have done things a little at a time after we had lived there awhile. The reason I thought this would be difficult is because neither of us would be around to oversee the work, and I thought the work would be harder to tolerate while we were living there (i.e. sanding dust, paint fumes, etc.)

[MarissaNicole]

We decided to do the flooring before we moved in because 1) it was 25 years old and GROSS and 2) it would have been a mess to do while living here.

Other than that we are hoping to do one project/room at a time.

I think I would be overwhelmed by doing too many projects at once. Ideally if you got a contractor you could trust you wouldn't have to worry as much about overseeing everything they do.

[Cumberland]

Usually we do all the work ourselves. For our current house we had zero dinero when we moved in to do any work. I painted two bedrooms, the kitchen, and the dining room, and DH and his dad put up a fence and installed a new door. However, DH's dad is back this week and they are knocking a hole in our kitchen to put in a patio door that will lead to a deck/eventual screened porch. Yay!

[Vishenka69]

When we bought our house 1.5 years ago, I started a thread of stupid questions from a new homeowner. If anyone can find it, I tried searching but it didn't come up, please post a link.

Anyway, we did about 90% of renovations (similar to what you're planning) before moving. It took about 3.5 months from closing to moving. Since we didn't know anyone in the area, all recommendations came from DH's work. There is Angie's List for our area but it's fairly new and there isn't much on it yet. If you want to finish sooner rather than later, tackle several things at once and get different people to do specific jobs. That way while one person/company is working on kitchen, another can be doing the bathroom. Watch as much HGTV/DIY as you can, especially Holmes on Homes. It's a great way to educated yourself on how things should be done and to get some ideas. Also have everyone who does the work, explain to you in detail what they plan to do and why, don't be afraid to ask questions along the way. When hiring contractors, make sure to get a quote in writing, outlining as much detail as possible. Ask for hourly rate over the phone/email, once they find out that your DH is a dawkter the rates will go up. If you can afford to do everything at once, I would strongly urge you to get it over with. We put off finishing master bath until later and it was a nightmare. Use local showrooms to choose and compare products but order online. None of our local places stocked what I wanted and estimated months for delivery. I was able to order all the materials (tile, plumbing, etc.) online for much less and have it within days. If you're interested, I can give you the websites we've ordered from and had a good experience with.

Anyway, we did about 90% of renovations (similar to what you're planning) before moving. It took about 3.5 months from closing to moving. Since we didn't know anyone in the area, all recommendations came from DH's work. There is Angie's List for our area but it's fairly new and there isn't much on it yet. If you want to finish sooner rather than later, tackle several things at once and get different people to do specific jobs. That way while one person/company is working on kitchen, another can be doing the bathroom. Watch as much HGTV/DIY as you can, especially Holmes on Homes. It's a great way to educated yourself on how things should be done and to get some ideas. Also have everyone who does the work, explain to you in detail what they plan to do and why, don't be afraid to ask questions along the way. When hiring contractors, make sure to get a quote in writing, outlining as much detail as possible. Ask for hourly rate over the phone/email, once they find out that your DH is a dawkter the rates will go up. If you can afford to do everything at once, I would strongly urge you to get it over with. We put off finishing master bath until later and it was a nightmare. Use local showrooms to choose and compare products but order online. None of our local places stocked what I wanted and estimated months for delivery. I was able to order all the materials (tile, plumbing, etc.) online for much less and have it within days. If you're interested, I can give you the websites we've ordered from and had a good experience with.

Wow, sounds like we have similar experiences. We are doing 100% of the renovations now just after moving. We decided to do this b/c we thought it would be easier to just get it all out of the way at once before I get too busy with school to oversee everything. What renovations did you do? Ours are only going to take a few weeks to complete. Nothing major--just a bunch of more minor renovations. Like you, all our recs came from my hubby's work or from our realtor. I have gotten quotes in writing from all contractors.

So are you saying that you ordered all the materials yourself and just had contractors install it? That seems really complicated. We're doing that for things like bathroom mirrors and closet doors, but not for the tile we're having installed or the carpet we're putting in. It never occurred to me to order the materials myself and then have someone install it. Would love to hear more about your renovations--what you did and how it went. I'm finding this extremely stressful. DH is stressed too.

[Vishenka69]

The only thing that will take a few weeks is painting. I would seriously count on a few months. Most materials cost half when purchased online vs locally and our contractor was willing to pass on his discount. Here's a breakdown on what we did.

Paint - painted all trim and every wall inside and out, all materials bought by contractors
Floors - refinished existing hardwood, installed hardwood in all bedrooms (since we went with local wood it was cheaper for the flooring company to provide it)
Kitchen - new granite counters, sinks (provided by granite company), faucet (bought on ebay), cooktop, hood.
Lighting - changed all light fixtures (mix of HD, Lowes, IKEA, ebay and regular retail)
Master bathroom - new tile in shower (online), new toilet and sink (online), new plumbing for shower (local store), new shower door (local store)

I did lots of research for everything. The renovation was my full time job for those 4 months. Looking back, the number one advice would be to skip general contractor and get a licensed professional for each separate task. It will be more painful but will yield better results. We also had surprisingly good experience randomly picking people from Craigslist.

I did lots of research for everything. The renovation was my full time job for those 4 months. Looking back, the number one advice would be to skip general contractor and get a licensed professional for each separate task. It will be more painful but will yield better results. We also had surprisingly good experience randomly picking people from Craigslist.

I can see how this was a full-time job for 4 months! Wow, you did a lot! We are getting licensed professionals for each task rather than a general contractor. I really don't understand the concept of having a general contractor--I wanted to have full control over who the sub-contractors would be, so I didn't feel comfortable finding a general contractor to find the sub-contractors. I did research on my own and recommendations to find the sub-contractors, but of course that involved a lot of time interviewing and getting estimates for each task.

So when you ordered these materials online, if there had been a problem with one of them how would you have gotten recourse for that? I guess I feel wary of ordering major stuff (like flooring) online for this reason. I feel like if there's a problem and I order from a local store then they will make it right whereas it would be harder to do that online.

Did you just stay in your previous place until all the work was done or did you live in the house while it was being done?

I bet the painting was expensive, if you had all that painting done. Our painting is very expensive and we're only doing about half the house. What brand paint did you use?

[Vishenka69]

We lived in the rental while the work was done (we still had 4 months left on the lease after closing). Prior to ordering from online stores, I called to make sure that I could talk to a real person if there was a problem and to double check that they had what I wanted in stock. I also paid for everything with Amex. If there would have been a problem, I'd let Amex deal with it. We had some issues with local places, so I wouldn't necessarily bet that actual stores will offer better service.

For paint we used Sherwin Williams. I liked that they have sample pints for $5 and there are many locations around here. So far I've been very happy with it. They also offer free consultations at the house after you spend $75.