9 "Gotchas" on Historic Buildings and Old House Renovations

Couple quick things!

• NEW mini-books released last week, in my store - one on kitchens, and one on getting good estimates from contractors.

• Our podcast is getting a lot of lovely reviews and feedback - I’m delighted! It’s our goal to pass along the wisdom of homeowners who’ve been through the process directly to our listeners. Called “Home: The Second Story” and available wherever you get podcasts.

• Thank you for subscribing!

When I was starting my career in construction, I felt completely overwhelmed by how much there was to learn. Every day felt like drinking from a firehose. So, I started taking notes. Things I messed up, things I saw other people doing that were really smart, stuff that the guys who’d been doing this for decades passed along to me.

And those notes? They became the basis of my architectural practice - completely invaluable!

What I found out when I started doing renovations of older buildings is that if I used to keep a small notebook back in my construction days, I’d now need many, many notebooks to keep up with all the lessons I was learning! Old buildings are both generous teachers and unforgiving in their relentlessness.

Surprises around every corner, new weird things that you’ve never seen before, and generations of terrible DIY fixes and renovations you have to untangle.

All that said? There are still patterns - and there are still lessons you can apply on the next one.

Here are 9, in no particular order…keep in mind the following:

• Your project may be vastly different than anything I’m describing here. Be sure to understand your particular context and follow the advice of your local professionals.

• This is a list of 10 out of…1000? 10,000?! I could write one of these every day for years, and not cover everything. So this is just a taste.

Ok, let’s dive in!

1. Walls and floors that aren’t plumb, level, or square.

Most old homes have a lot of challenges in the plumb, level, and square department. They’ve settled over the years, undergone damaging repairs, or just plain deteriorated. It’s important to check whether any of those issues are structural - sometimes a sloping floor is an indicator of a much more serious issue that needs to be addressed. Sometimes it’s not, though - and you can either chalk it up to “old house charm” or fix it.

Fixing these issues is often quite involved - you can’t just jack things back into place - everything is connected, and you might cause more problems by doing that. We have removed and replaced whole floor and wall systems *while the house was still standing* which is a tricky feat, and one you should only attempt if it’s absolutely necessary.

If you’re willing to live with some walls/floors that are a bit off, you will definitely save money and effort - but, your finishes will be more difficult to install. Finishes like tile, trim, and cabinetry, and other elements like windows and doors, will fight you the whole way, and may look pretty weird. So sometimes, we’ll selectively plumb certain walls [like in a kitchen or bathroom], or straighten out certain floors [like where tile might be going].

The main thing here is that you don’t assume things are square/level/plumb, and you account for that in both the design and effort/additional work from the builder to make things work.

2. Old framing lumber sizes.

This one can actually work in your favor! As you probably know, a 2x4 isn’t really 2” by 4” - but they used to be a lot closer to that dimension. That means that old framing is typically stronger - and not just because of its additional size. Older framing was cut from slower growth [or even old growth] trees, and is stronger pound for pound. When doing structural calculations, we can actually use completely different numbers for the old stuff!

So, while it’s stronger, it’s also larger, and if you don’t account for that in your design, you could get caught. If you need to sister joists, for example, the old stuff will be longer, and when you put the new stuff next to it, you’ll need to either get the next size up and rip it to fit, or hang it low and lose ceiling height.

3. Order of construction tasks - not as straightforward as ground up.

When you’re building a ground-up building, it’s much more straightforward [and predictable] than a renovation. You start with site prep, then move into excavation and foundations, then framing, rough-ins, insulation, board, finishes, trim out, punch-list, and done!

While that’s still basically how things work in a renovation, you might have to go out of order - and you may not even know the precise order until demo is complete and you can see what you’re really dealing with. Special items or equipment might need to be set earlier than you would in new construction, certain areas may need to be finished more quickly [say, if you had to open the roof or exterior walls in one area], and/or MEP install might have to happen in different orders owing to tight conditions.

4. MEP design and coordination must start in the design phase, and can’t be left til construction.

Speaking of MEP…it should *always* be coordinated ahead of the start of construction, but in residential projects, it’s often left to be “design-build by subcontractor.” While I never recommend that approach - the odds of getting an HVAC sub in particular who really understands the physics and concepts behind these systems are pretty low - in renovations it’s even more crucial to plan ahead.

Space on a renovation is usually at a premium, and there are often all kinds of things competing for that space - structure, other systems, cabinetry, finishes, etc. On older homes, you might also be dealing with lower than normal ceilings, or thinner floor sandwiches/joist bays, which makes running soffits or using the joist bays for runs even more dicey.

The key is, you need someone thinking about the space and the design as a whole, not just prioritizing *their* scope of work. Each sub is going to do what is easiest for them, not what is best for the project.

For example, on one home renovation project, we [as architects] had coordinated and planned out all the HVAC ahead of time, and then coordinated onsite with the sub and builder, during roughs. I showed up for a routine walkthrough a few days later, and the carpenters were in process of dropping the whole ceiling of the first floor by 8”. The WHOLE ceiling.

“What are y’all doing?!” I asked. “HVAC sub says it’ll be easier to run his stuff if he has eight more inches of clear space throughout this floor, so we’re padding it down,” the lead carpenter answered.

“Nope. We’re not doing that. That would make the cabinets unusable, lower the ceilings below 8’, and *isn’t what we agreed to the other day.* Y’all need to stop.”

They did, and the HVAC sub had to do what he and I discussed previously - he just didn’t “want to” and saw an easier way for himself. The super on the job didn’t really care [which is a whole ‘nother story] and wasn’t thinking about the project as whole. Only I was…and if I hadn’t been?! Pretty big disaster.

5. Allow tolerance.

This one is related to #1 - when things aren’t level/plumb/square, you need to leave tolerance - meaning, if you have a 24” opening, you can’t plan to put a 24” cabinet there. You need to place “fillers” on either side, to take up the slack of the out-of-plumb walls.

When floors are out of whack, it means you may have a variable ceiling height - at the top *and* bottom of the wall. This impacts cabinetry, equipment install, etc.

We’ve even faced situations where the stair was wide enough at certain points to carry a piece of equipment up or down, but too narrow at other points - all depends where you measure from. They key here is to give yourself some tolerance - a little slop, as we call it in the field - to allow for things to fit properly. This acknowledges real life conditions, rather than whatever is on your screen or the ideal condition.

6. Budget for a serious contingency.

When working with renovation clients, we advise that they hold 20-30% of the cost of construction as a contingency. I know, that is a ton of money! But the truth is, renovation projects - especially on older homes - are *full* of surprises. The last thing you want to do is max out your budget with the project as it is on paper, and then have to scramble [or even stop] when the first issue comes up.

On *every single renovation I’ve ever worked on* there are surprises. A seasoned pro [architects and builders alike] can often spot or predict what might be likely to be an issue, just based on experience…but not until the walls are opened up do we truly know the full story.

Rot, undersized structural members, pests, foundation issues, bad repairs hidden behind walls, unsafe electrical conditions, stuff that was hidden under a fresh coat of paint…it’s all happened on projects I’ve been on, many, many times.

The good news - with an experienced team and your contingency, you should be able to take care of any issues without catastrophe. And the other good news? Most major issues are revealed right after demolition - you don’t have to wait long into the construction process to learn what the scary surprises are. That means you can take care of things early, and get back on track with your budget and schedule, and if you still have plenty of contingency leftoever? Consider it a bonus, or maybe splurge on that fancy tile - just don’t spend it all before the end of the project!

7. Emotional impact!

I think in all my years of experience, this might be the most underappreciated, or unanticipated “gotcha” in renovations. I see it on residential and commercial projects, homeowner and developer projects, and everything in between. The emotional impact of tearing apart a building that might be quite meaningful [your home] and/or represent your single biggest investment - can’t be overstated.

Be prepared - even if you’re a seasoned client and have done many renovations - for the ups and downs of a project. It’s hard to sustain a totally even keel for the duration of the project, and it’s completely natural to feel overwhelmed, over it, and/or doubting why you did the project in the first place.

Keep your eyes on the big picture, and don’t let a bad day or a few surprises/some bad news throw you off your trajectory. If you’ve got a good team around you, and you’ve got solid planning in place, you’ll be fine. Lean on the decisions you made *before* the heat of battle, lean on your big picture reasons for doing the project, and trust the process!

8. Figure out the fixtures/finishes ahead of time, so you reduce future decision fatigue and stress during construction

Speaking of the heat of battle - once construction starts, the most important thing is to keep things moving. Delays and downtime cost money. The best way to keep things moving? Have good planning in place! Things WILL come up during construction, and you don’t want to be trying to pick out all your plumbing fixtures while in the chaos of construction.

Owners and builders are often pushing hard to get the permit in hand - they’re eager to start construction, and they say things like “oh, we’ll figure out the fixtures, equipment, finishes, colors, etc when it gets closer to the time they’ll be installed.”

NO.

Well, sure, actually, you can do that. But you will be in incredibly stressed, as you will be on a months-long treadmill of having to make hundreds, perhaps thousands of decisions, at the last second. You’ll also be severely limited with what you can choose, because everything will be needed right away.

But - this has another layer of impact, when it comes to renovations. As you well know by now, renovations are full of surprises - which means you’ll be constantly having to make quick pivots, spend more money to deal with surprise conditions, and adjust the design based on what’s found during demo.

Do you really need to ADD to that?!

Get as much figured out ahead of time, so you have brainspace and focus to deal with the surprises that come up along the way.

9. Get GOOD existing conditions drawings

Last but not least - good existing conditions drawings are the foundation [haha] of a solid project. It’s why we do them ourselves - we don’t farm it out to a third party, we don’t use an app - what we learn by spending a day inside the building to measure/document is absolutely invaluable.

Because remember, it’s not just the “floor plan” you’re measuring and drawing up. You need heights, locations of MEP, switches, HVAC registers, stairs, windows/doors, special features, all structure identified and labeled, foundation features/type/size, exterior building features [porches, decks, outbuildings, etc], exterior site features [walls, hardscape, utilities], equipment locations and types, trim/built-ins, etc etc.

When doing a renovation, especially in an old building, many of these things might be not the “norm,” and many of these things might be things you want to save. It takes time to catalog all this stuff, and if you don’t? You may make serious - and entirely preventable - mistakes.

There are enough surprises lurking in a renovation of an old building - wouldn’t you want to mitigate that risk as much as possible by starting out with a good record of what’s there?

Conclusion

Renovations are kind of like the wild west - but it IS possible to successfully wrangle even the orneriest buildings - with planning, and some renovation-specific mindset adjustments. And of course, as I always say, with the right team!

—

Now that this is a free newsletter, it’s easier than ever to share! Please do!