There are always lessons to be learned from a renovation project and some of them are particularly painful – and expensive – to swallow. If this is your first rodeo, know that you’ll probably waste eye-watering amounts of time and money that you hadn't budgeted for. But what’s this about mood-boarding the living daylights out of each room, only to end up with stained carpet, snaking extension cables and scuffed paintwork? There’s no white-knuckle ride quite like a renovation project.
We asked House & Garden editors and some of our favourite design-world creatives and Instagram renovators to share their cautionary tales. If you’re planning a project at home and you don’t know what to expect; this advice is gold dust. They walked so you can run (to get your orders in before everything sells out).
Zoë Carter-Mackay, @debeauvoirhome
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Although when doing our budget, we had the standard contingency of 20% in place, the advice I now give clients is to actually make it bigger. We blew through ours quickly on things you can’t plan for such as bad weather and a rise in supply costs. After that, we had to make cuts on some of the fun and emotional purchases like furnishings and fittings. Scaling back some of our choices from the outset would have resulted in less painful compromises further down the line.
Also, sourcing and decision-making take a lot of time. Don’t underestimate that. Go into your renovation with as many decisions as possible made before you even start. Not only will it keep you on budget, but it also keeps you on schedule! Nothing wastes time and money more than a contractor waiting on a fixture that had an unexpected 12-week lead time, or a decorator suddenly announcing he needs you to pick colours for your entire house today for him to stay on track!
Lisa Mehydene, @edit.58
Whilst I couldn’t have foreseen a global pandemic (our renovation was due to start the day the first lockdown commenced), nor did I fully comprehend the impact of Brexit on raw materials prices and lead times, I think were we to do a full house renovation again, I would place much more time, energy and effort on the pre-planning stage and get myself organised so that everything I wanted could be ordered and scheduled in good time.
When I think about the money I wasted on express deliveries for our home, ordering the wrong thing in a hurry (hello weird £500 shower tray with horrible non-slip base), having to ‘make do’ with an expensive but inferior alternative because the item I really wanted had a five-month lead time, or worst of all, spending too much on goods (radiators being one example) because there wasn’t enough time to do sufficient research to find what I really wanted, at a price I wanted to pay.
I would plot my bathrooms more carefully and have an exhaustive shopping list, identifying every item down to the very last basin waste before any work commenced. I would also order the kitchen sink, taps and white goods at the same time as ordering the kitchen units. I would have the decorating schedule drawn up ahead of time for each room, listing every paint and finish for every surface, and I’d definitely order enough rolls of wallpaper so they come from the same batch (yes, we were only two rolls short). Ditto the heating and radiator plan and the lighting and switches. Actually, I’m not putting myself through it again!
David Nicholls, Deputy Editor
Marine ply – even when treated with layer after layer of yacht varnish – is simply not a good choice for a sink surround or in-shower shelf. Water always seems to find a way into the wood, leaving it marked and, eventually swollen. Also, polished green marble as a kitchen countertop – what an idiot!
I genuinely wish I'd known how terribly impractical sisal flooring is. I mean, it looks great in my bedrooms and up the stairs but early on, I spilt a glass of water on it and it permanently marked, leaving a dark patch. I literally had to move the bed to cover it. Totally unfit for purpose.
Lucy Williams, @lucywilliamshome
I pored over the electrical plan for our house but I still feel like I missed a couple of places where I’ve ended up wanting to sit with my phone or laptop on charge but there’s no socket nearby, and conversely, I put a couple in places where they’ll never be used and they’re a bit of an eyesore. For example, if you have a cordless vacuum you really don’t need plug sockets in a hallway, aside from where you might place a table and lamp. I would also put in more plugs with USB ports. So practical and boring but it’s the little things that make home life easier and more seamless.
Bianca Fincham, @pembrokelodge
After renovating Pembroke Lodge, we’re now mid-renovation in London and everyone says it, but you really do need to live in a house for a few months before making big decisions. See which rooms you use most, find out what the light is like, what bothers you and where you should focus your budget. I made the mistake of painting an exceptionally narrow hallway in a dark green for a pop of colour but actually, it was just depressing coming into the house. I also removed internal doors that I now wish we had kept because of noise. They’re things you only learn over time.
Don’t scrimp on the important elements if you really want something, as you may come to regret it later. I really wanted a bullnose edge on my kitchen worktops but cancelled it to save £500 and in hindsight, I wish we’d done it. I also wish I’d invested in an architect at the beginning to give us some ideas about how to make the best use of space and light, as actually I’m not qualified to do this and I wish I’d focussed more on the structure, door openings, staircases, etc.
Visit your neighbours if, like us, you live in a terraced house and see how they’ve used the space – you’ll likely find that they’re all so magnificently different but with the same bones. Pinterest and Instagram are great sources of inspiration, but I’m often ‘influenced’ by an idea that doesn’t translate because the natural light or the scales of the houses might be different.
Caroline Bullough, Chief Sub-Editor
Replacing flooring is hard once a room is full of furniture (especially when it’s a small space). When we moved into our house, we expressed horror at the dung-brown carpet, but in rooms that we use less, we’ve never had the strength to move all the furniture out and replace it.
If you’re replacing wall lights, choose them and plan exactly where you want to have them fitted before doing any redecoration. It's quite likely that different styles will need to be fitted in a different way or at a different height, so in the dining room, we now have ugly holes in the wall.
Employing a good curtain maker who uses proper lining is worth every penny. But I wish I had known that the coloured lining I chose for the dining room curtains would fade quickly and unevenly in the sun.
Harriet Churchward, @the_quist_treehouse
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When we were piping mains water to The Quist, we installed 800 metres of the wrong diameter water pipe, all the way up Merry Hill to where the treehouse sits. That was a sickening realisation. Who knew water needs a specific-sized pipe to get itself up a hill? This is where hiring independent tradesmen – as opposed to handing full responsibility to an end-to-end contractor – can be risky. The pipe size had been advised verbally and there wasn't anything in writing to protect us. Lesson learned! Get everything in writing and triple-check any advice you're given.
I'd also advise anyone renovating that it's a marathon and not a sprint. Don't bother getting excited until the final week, or you're going to exhaust yourself. It takes immense amounts of patience to self-build, especially if you're attempting to work another job or take care of children alongside the project. Be nice to each other and keep one another's morale up. Make the trades on-site a cup of tea. I had a lovely decorator at my home recently and three cups of tea later, he told me he didn't drink tea. When I laughed and asked why he'd accepted, he said it was nice to have a chat, then stayed late and painted an extra door for me. Create a good feeling among the team and your trades will go above and beyond. That said; everyone works best when the client is on-site, so make yourself as present as possible.
Leanne Kilroy, @goodboneslondon
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I wish we had used hard-wearing eggshell paint in our front hall and all over the downstairs, actually. After only a few months, the walls painted in matt emulsion already looked pretty battered. I also wish I'd known to factor a huge buffer into our main renovation budget. Having another 25-30% would have meant many more restful nights.
Jessica Horton, @deorling_
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I wish I’d known that every task takes twice as long as you think, especially when you’re self-renovating. I found that most of the time is spent on moving things out of the way, prepping the area and tidying, rather than on the task itself. I would highly recommend anyone who is taking on a project and moving into a doer-upper, to plan in sufficient time to organise your belongings first. Be ruthless, or you will no doubt have unnecessary boxes that you’ll end up moving back and forth for months to come. Consider donating unwanted items to charity shops or even doing a car boot sale before the move begins. Find a new home for things you’ll no longer use or they could easily end up in a basement or loft for the rest of eternity. Storage space is always in demand, no matter the size of the house.’
Amber Little-Campbell, @the__trianglehouse
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As soon as we started renovating our cabin in the Catskill Mountains, it was like a domino effect and each job quickly turned into ten more. If you purchase an old house, it’s almost impossible to get through a renovation without costly unknowns popping up and our 1970s A-frame was no exception. It was built as a summer holiday home and had been locked up during the cold months for the past 50 years, so in hindsight, we’d bought a glorified wooden tent! It wasn’t designed for winter living and we learnt that the hard way. It's essential to understand the bones of your house before you start doing any work and before you set a budget.
Knowing what we know now, we would have prepared ourselves for spending most of our money on the ‘boring’ structural things that no one can see, but that have ultimately made our cabin a warm and functioning home, fit for all seasons.
Ruth Sleightholme, Decoration Editor
Always do things in the correct order! I am so enthusiastic (read: impatient) that if I have a carpet ready to go down but no skirting board paint, I’m liable to just 'get it done' and book the carpet fitter. It is SO hard to paint skirting neatly once new flooring is already down. Also, if you can, leave painting the stairways and corridors until after any planned furniture has gone into the main rooms, to avoid post-paint-job dings and scuffs.
Avoid leaving too many small jobs that you have good intentions to 'go back to', as inevitably it will be very tempting to keep on swimming and leave those snags behind. They’ll start to become invisible to you if left too long, and they will lurk and linger for years. I know this from experience!
Samantha Palmer, @the_flint_house
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When the contractor said “You’ll be in by September” he actually meant December. When we agreed on a quote with our contractor, we were fully aware that we should budget for additional unforeseen costs, but we weren’t prepared for the days and weeks of no-shows, supplier delays and do-overs. What started as a relatively simple project became a daily wrangle to keep builders on-site and an exercise in flexibility when products and fixtures were out of stock. When costs of materials were spiralling and our budget was getting stretched day by day, I learned that having three options in mind for fixtures and fittings (good - better - best) helped me stay on track, ensuring that we could still afford some of the items we’d set our hearts on, like our deVOL kitchen. Before our renovation, I would have never considered searching for big-ticket items on eBay, but we saved £7000 on our brand-new Devon & Devon bath.
When we embarked on our renovation, the garden was the least of our concerns, but as soon as the end was in sight, we couldn’t help but look out onto the muddy builders’ yard on the other side of our kitchen’s reclaimed French doors and wish that we had allocated some budget to create our dream garden. In the end, it took an extra year to save up for and complete.
I love our original floorboards and the dark stain we chose to reflect its Victorian history, however, we were unprepared for the amount of dust our house produces and the flooring shows every speck, so it requires daily vacuuming in high-traffic areas. I wouldn’t change it as I love it too much, but it’s a time commitment to keep it looking clean.
Natalie Tillison, @folie_chambre
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You’ll spend the most money on things you can’t see; new roof, electrics, new boiler, reinforcing floors, and all of this is essential before you even start on the fun stuff. It also came as a shock how expensive it is to remove and dispose of rubbish. Skip hire, permits, and waste companies are all hidden costs that you shouldn’t overlook from a cost or time perspective.
The biggest learning curve for me was how essential – and how difficult – it is to find a good joiner. They’re the most valuable tradespeople you will use. A good one can do most things in a home; lay floors, skirtings and architraves, make shower cubicles, fit windows and doors, build-in storage, fit kitchens and so on. When you find one, treat them well!
Becky Wilson, @bohomeinteriors
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My husband and I argued over ripping up the original wooden floors in our period house to properly insulate underneath them – I thought it was going to cause a lot of chaos and ruin the floorboards by crowbarring them out. Eventually, I caved and agreed to do it, and thank goodness I did because we would have frozen this winter with the cold air rushing up from beneath.
I also wish I’d put more planning into our wall lights and I really regret not adding more. We had to rewire the entire house and I rushed and hesitated about where to put them. I hate ceiling lights – I much prefer soft, cosy lighting and sometimes you don’t have space for a table with a lamp on.
Eva Farrington, Art Editor
I recently converted my loft and re-did our kitchen, and if I could do anything differently, I’d make sure that the important details were worked out properly and agreed on in advance with the architect and the builders. All builds require a bit of give and take but the sudden arrival of a loo pipe in the living room and the utter failure to organise a heat pump (which I eventually sorted myself) made me a lot less jolly.
If you have children or like tea in the kitchen, avoid light-coloured stone flooring – I can track my family using water splodges on the floor.
If you have an idea that you really want to realise, stick to it and don’t compromise. I have a secret hole-in-the-wall for drinks, hidden behind a painting, and it's my favourite bit of the house.
Emma Milne-Watson, @emmamilnewatson
I wish I’d realised that once you start the process of renovating a home, it often never ends! Windows, exteriors and render always need to be looked after, and no matter how careful you are, interior paintwork will need touching up (with cracks always finding their way to the surface). A renovation is an ongoing relationship and not a fling! I wouldn’t change my home for the world but it’s important to be realistic about the amount of future maintenance that your choices will require.
Ana Perez, @spinks.nest
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After our experience renovating both a holiday cottage and our own home, I’d suggest that you employ tradespeople who are aligned with your style, or at the very least, who respect your decisions. We had so many sneering comments and complaints because we tried to do things that were unusual and it became exhausting. But nevertheless, I’d recommend taking risks on design decisions and going with your gut as it does pay off in the end.
Make sure you’re fully aligned with your partner on budgets and priorities – renovating takes a real toll on a relationship and budgets are very difficult to stick to, so have some contingency stashed away as you’ll likely need it.
Planning issues were more difficult and time-consuming to manage than expected, especially because we were met with reluctance to accept change from our countryside neighbours.
Louise Roe, @louiseroehome
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I wish I’d thought more about our electrics at the early stages. I’ve ended up with quite a few serious extension cables because I didn’t add plug sockets in all the areas where I really need them.
Connie Barton, @studioconnie
We made plenty of mistakes when we were working on our home in London. If you’re doing a DIY job on the garden and you’re considering gravel, I’d recommend that once you’ve got your shortlist; order a full bag and pour it in place instead of admiring a little handful-sized sample. We did the latter, then hated it and it meant a painful weekend scooping it all up and starting again.
When it came to our home in Scotland, trying to keep a cedar log cabin protected from the elements when it is perched on a sea loch has been far from straightforward. We wanted it to blend in, like an old weather-beaten cabin, but without degrading the integrity of the wood. This meant two years of trial and error. You’ve got to be patient with wood! Eventually, my Swedish uncle – adept at log cabins – saved the day and shipped us some Herdins Jarnvitriol. It silvers pretty much any wood in just a few months.
Charlotte King, @lepetitfika
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Lead times will be much longer than you anticipate, so plan for that well in advance. Consider details such as taps, paint, lighting and even sanitaryware from the very beginning and order it early on. Even before construction work begins. Your choices will end up being dictated by available stock and lead times, which will be three times as long as you think.
There is also a specific order of doing things in a renovation and there’s a good and logical reason for that, so I wish we had stuck to it. It’s like a big puzzle and each piece fits carefully together but you have to be strategic about how you go about doing it, or you’ll make life harder for yourself further down the line. Plumbing first and electrics second, for example.
