Based on my experience of watching many episodes of This Old House, it sounds like it would cost far more than 100k.

In New England complete renovations cost at least $125/s.f. Cleveland would probably be less.

Since costs vary so much with location no one can accurately answer your question.

Well, I wasn't looking for a cost. I was just wondering if a
nyone had done a full remodel and if they had the experience. We are just wondering if anyone had found a complete remodel worth their time as opposed to building a new home.

We are near the end of a miserable gut job, brought about by a fire in our attic following a lightning strike to a backyard telephone pole.

Yeah.

Anyway, we had great insurance coverage and a replacement value policy. While the flames didn't damage much more than the roof of our house (and some ceiling joists), the smoke took care of all the insulation and the fire department poured so much water in that most of our sheetrock had to be torn out (at least the bottom of it). And then the city code required us to rewire the whole house because of the lightning thing. Our house was well built in 1956, and we knew we had to update it some day...so that turned out to be the day.

Our insurance policy didn't cover a tear-down/build new. The payout was almost the whole value of the house, in the end, but not quite. Plus, building new in our neighborhood would have cost 2x the price of remodeling under our insurance settlement.

Even so, we thought hard about it because our neighborhood will eventually lose all of its original homes, and it wasn't clear to us that making this investment would pay off. But finally, we realized that we love our neighborhood, we couldn't afford to build new in it, we couldn't afford to buy another house in it, so there you are.

It's much cheaper to tear down your old rambling house and build a new one, but it's certainly not the "green" solution. And you'd lose all the heritage of the house. You need to determine what's important to you. You might think about what's important to the neighbors, too. If your house is the last old one, maybe it's worth keeping as an historical item. If your house is the best example of the lives lived in your part of the world, it would be valuable to keep.

We visited the home of Paul Revere in Boston last summer with our kids. That house has been through a lot of changes and was almost torn down in the early 20th century because it had become so ramshackle. But I sure am glad someone had the foresight to save it.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Karen. It gives me a lot to think about.

The major thing to me is taking out the walls (or close to taking them out) that go between the living room, and the dining room. Right now, the kitchen is closed off. We'll see how easy that is. Also, I want to replace the roof on that side of the house (the part with the living room, dining room, and kitchen are the 'new' part) with something that matches the rest of the outside, and allow us to put in 10' ceilings.

Other than that, anything else we do would be icing. I'd like to put french doors into a current first floor bedroom to make it a study, and split the first floor big bathroom into one small powder room and a master bath. I don't know.

Any changes to the front of the house from the outside will be merely cosmetic to make the house match better.

So, one day we'll have to get an architect and designer out. It all depends on how easy/hard it will be to put a new roof with a new pitch, etc. on the 'new' side of the house. We have 10' ceilings in our house in the city and I just couldn't live without them again!

So, really, when I think about it, it's not a "major" remodel, it's moderate. We'd just be removing one wall, removing some of another wall, splitting the bathroom, and that's it. I would like a larger kitchen, but the cost to extend it may not be practical.

The reason I'm weary about building a new house is because the lot that we could build a new house on that my partner owns is forested. I imagine in my head that it will be a ton of money to get those trees out, and then septic, and piping, and electric hooked up...by the time we get all that done all we'll be able to afford would be a hut! LOL.

And, of course, going "green" is a concern. I'm not an environment nut, but I am a conservation nut. I would hate to tear down half an acre of trees just because we didn't want to reno our old house. But it sure is nice to start with a clean slate. We'll see.

I just realy wanted to hear what everyone's experiences were and the ROI/cost benefit of it.

Spending wads of money renovating a classic old house is one thing. There are many pitfalls in doing something loke that to get the originality back and still include modern amenities. Bringing insulation up to modern standards can cost a lot of dollars for very little actual gain.

Spending that kind of money of a patchwork house like yours is going to be much more problematic. Unless you love the proposed expansion/additions and are willing to spend the extra dollars and time to make the current/new additions into an integral part of the final building, the result will be a house that will probably never be able to recoup the investment. New and old foundations will have to be merged. That often requires replacing much of the old foundation. That is a much more expensive job than building a new foundation. Simply butting a new foundation against an old one invites future movement and serious damage to structure.

I don't know where you got the $100K figure, but I would be shocked if that were anywhere close to the actual cost for doing what you mentioned. If you have a bid or estimate by a reputable company for that amount, I strongly advse getting two more estimates. And an architects opinion.

I don't know what we'll do. No estimates or bids, I was just thinking it would be around 100k.

The house is 1400 sq ft. There is nothing unique or "old" about the old part of the house, other than it's been in my partners family for 130 years and he doesn't want to bulldoze the whole house. I would prefer to get rid of it all, but we'll see. There is sentimental attachment, and it's still a solid house, it's still very livable. But there's no ornate woodwork or anything like that.

We wouldn't be expanding any foundations or anything, we'd just need a new roof on the "new" part of the house to match the rest of the outside of the house, and if we are going to get a new roof, I might as well raise the ceiling to 10'.

I'm not sure what we'll do. I was just thinking maybe you guys had some experience.

My partner thinks we should knock it all down except the "old" part of the house and just build a new house. I don't know what he thinks we're going to do with the old part of the house, but whatever.

I'm not worried about resale value - it will be our "forever" house. It's in a very desirable part of the metro area and it is on 30 acres. We could clear a new area on another part of the 30 acres, but I hate the idea of clearing an acre of trees. It makes me sad.

We could always build a new house though and leave this one as is with updated electric and use as a rental. we'll see. I just figured someone had experience.

Maybe I will take some pictures today so you guys can see it. Pictures always help. Not looking for estimates, just experience in remodeling and maybe even suggestions.

The ONLY addition we'd have is a small screened in porch but I'd imagine that's fairly simple.

We did a MAJOR remodel. We chose to remodel for 3 main reasons. To recycle rather than to waste, to retain 'grandfathered in' setbacks, and to preserve some unique (quirky) features of the original house. In hindsight, although we love our 'new' house, we should have torn the house down and built new! It would have provided us with a home perfectly suited to us and it would have been a fraction of the cost and work!

We are currently going through a major remodel. We're going from 800 sq/ft to about 2200 sq/ft. We live north of Boston and really like our neighborhood and our lot. We couldn't tear down and build new due to current zoning laws. For us, it was worth it. We were able to get more for our money by remodeling than selling and buying. New construction in this area is nearly non existent unless spending 1million.

I would suggest meeting with an architect or design/building company to get ideas. We were originally planning on just going up, but after meeting with a design/build firm, they suggested for not much more money to go back as well.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

I'm building a two story, 1700 square foot house. I bought a small dilapidated house, tore it down to the foundation and started over. I'll have eight foot ceilings, three bedrooms, two baths - nothing fancy - cement siding, vinyl windows, stock cabinets. I paid $30,000 for the house and lot and estimate $80,000 to complete the new house. I'm building legally, using licenced electrical, plumbing, and HVAC subcontractors, and will sub out the sheet rock. I might shave $5,000 off the budget using absolutely rock-bottom materials, but it would be foolish to do so. I've been a carpenter for 35 years. I'm doing all the work by myself. I framed it. I put the roof on. I'll install the kitchen, the bathrooms, the flooring, the windows, the doors. I'll paint, trim, clean up and landscape.

I don't think you can remodel your house for $100,000.

John

Krycek, there's no return on investment for your "forever" house. Your "forever" house should be built with money you already have, or with a mortgage you can afford, and you should plan to build the house that you want to live in. Because you'll be living in it for a long time.

Our fire renovation was done on a house that we plan to be in for at least 15 years longer. Our kids are still in grade school and we will stay in this house until they are grown and off on their own thing.... We knew we'd need the right amount of space (we're not going to add on), a big yard (we might get a pool someday) and a kitchen/dining/living space that was MUCH better than what we had before.

We were able to do all those things. We even raised our ceilings from 8' to 9' in most of the house. We moved two walls but did not change the footprint of the house. We rewired and replumbed the whole thing, also put in new windows, to improve the energy efficiency of our building.

For our fire renovation, 2400 sq. ft., we're paying (well our insurance company is mostly paying) something like $220K.

Renovated/updated houses in my neighborhood are selling for about $300/sq. ft. An empty lot is about $50/sq. ft., and the lots around here are typically 10,000 sq. ft. or more. New construction in my neighborhood goes for well over $1.5M. So you can see why our decision made sense, financially. But we are not counting on any return on this investment, not in the short term anyway.

It's not possible to advise you on this decision without a lot more information. I think it's a good idea to talk to an architect. Do you know what kind of interior style you'd want in this remodel or new construction? If you can bring some basic ideas to the discussion it will be easier to focus on the cost and feasibility of the project.

No worries - I'm not looking for an estimate. I was just looking forward to hearing your experiences and how you made the decision between remodel and build a new house. I hate living in a bubble and not learning what other people are doing and thinking about. And it always helps when other people get to see what is going on and chime in!

Two things that affect the decision are there there is a solid 5 car garage on the property already, and that the house will be passed down to us mortgage-free.

We won't tear down. Basically our choice is to remodel so we are happy with it, or rent it out and build a new house. It's a question of #'s, too, I'm an accountant so I know all about #'s!

I've attached some pictures to give you all a better idea of the house. I know whenever I see pics on GardenWeb it makes a world of difference.

Technically speaking, the only thing in the house that *needs* redone is the electrical and some ceilings need replaced. Other than that, it's a solid house, and remodel would be for our enjoyment and bring it to the modern age :).

You will probably be able to tell in the pics below what I'm talking about with the different sections of the house. The two story core is the oldest, then the side addition is second newest (contains the dining and kitchen), and then the front addition (with living room and sunroom) is newest. Which is why I'd consider raising the ceiling in the living room, dining, and kitchen, because we'd probably need a newly pitched roof in any plans that make the house more harmonic on the outside. Here they are:

View coming in the drive. You can see the front addition with the flat roof, and the part behind it that is two stories is the two story "core":

Drive-way side of the house clearly showing the core and the added on front:

The back from the driveway, showing the core once again:

This is the back of the house. The left side is the kitchen. You can see that the second additino (the whole left side) is not nearly as incongruous, but will probably need a differently pitched roof to bring it into better connection with the rest:

Side of house showing second addition (kitchen to the right, dining room):

From the side showing the new addition (living room is half the new addition and half under the old part):

As you can see now, the front addition is the part that is most ill-fitting:

This is the view from the living room through to the dining room. The wall where the china cabinet is separates the kitchen and dining. I'd like to open that all up into a great room and open kitchen. Excuse the mess, we are fixing up:

Pics always help!

We don't want anything extravagant. We just want to open up that great room area, do something with the sunroom on the front (maybe convert it to a screened in porch?), and lift the ceiling to 10' in the greatroom. And then there is the question of harmonising the outside. I have some ideas what to do with the roof pitch but a designer or architect would know best.

Also, if I wasn't clear, the "great room" section of the house, or to say, the second addition, is only one floor.

In addition to all the above we now have new and improved regulation on lead in paint and asbestos.

If this house has either, or both, you can expect significant amounts of both time and money to be spent ameliorating them.

Renos on these old homes always have issues. Nothing that can't be solved but just when you expect to change this wall to allow you to move into the next room...well that is when you find a point load missing and the entire thing held together by newspapers, plaster and some wire.

So you have to stop and listen to everyone's opinion on how to best proceed. No one will want to take responsibility but everyone will have an opinion, trust me.

Go into this with your eyes wide open.

Hi,
The group I work with did this level of remodeling on an old house last year:

The house overall, was about 3000sqft, but we didn't have to go so deep into the rear wing. We did three bathrooms and a separate laundry, kept the existing kitchen, did almost no exterior work (it's all brick) except replacing about 120 brick, moving 2 windows, and replacing some vergeboards. All the radiators were re-piped, the 1817 part you see was rewired and the upper floors got heat pumps/ high-velocity AC.
The work was done to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Restoration. The cost was a little north of 300K. The time frame commenced April 6, moved in Nov. 7. Things moved right along. When we ran into an engineering quandary (1st pic) in the front, we were able to move to the rear wing and keep working there. If not, it would have stopped work for 2 weeks.
Casey

Dh are still working on our place. The first part was built in 1875, then an second part moved to the property (actually older) and attached around 1900, then a 2 story addition added around 1925. At some point plumbing and electrical were added, but this "core" was built without it.

At one point a small cellar was excavated under one end, primarily to accommodate the plumbing. Two porches were added and then enclosed to living space, and we added an addition with a full basement so we didn't have to go outside to deal with frozen water pipes.

But the big issues we faced is that almost every wall inside the house was a exterior wall, and still has an original roof attached to it up in the attic (most of our house has new roof lines over old roof lines. Makes for moving in the attic very interesting. In a lot of places, the work was not done well and needed to be fixed. We knew the house had issues, but it had way more than we thought.

We started out trying to fix it up, but that soon changed to a total gut job - one room/section at a time.

We started in 2004 - and we're to the final stage (kitchen) now. We had to rebuild most floors and large sections of exterior walls. All new plumbing, wiring and insulation. All new roofing and siding, completey tore off all the old stuff (well, not the old roofing that is in the attic).

This was not our first project, and our kids are adults so living in this while doing it was workable. We planning things so we had the new bath usable before we tore out the old one, and did the same with the kitchen. We tried hard to contain the mess.

I've moved furniture around so many times - it gets tiresome having all of your household goods stored in half of the house, but it can be done.

Dh and I also started with many year's worth of the appropriate tools - any given project will usually need $3,000 - $5,000 worth of tools.

I could not imagine doing this with contracted help. We did it at our pace, and when we opened an exterior wall in December, we just kept at it until we had it closed back up. This project has been our life for so long - the last year is the first time I've had time to do things other than work on the house - seems rather strange!

As to cost - it's been pay as you go, and I have not kept track. Our house came with 40 acres, pasture, hay, and many outbuildings. When we looked it over, we figured it didn't matter what shape the house was in, we could deal with it. There is no way we would have been able to buy land, build a house, shop and several other buildings, plus fence pastures and establish hay fields for what we have into this place. But that is considering it's been a 99% DIY project - so little labor costs. We did hire to have a new septic system installed, and the power company to run new incoming wires underground.

However, having gone through all this, my husband tells me that if I ever want to tackle something like this again - I need to get a new husband first LOL!

Cathy

Designing major home renovations are pretty much all I do in my old age. I would say that for it to be worth the investment you would need to like the shell of the house and it's location a lot. The biggest problem with your house appears to be the modified porch (or whatever it is) that is stuck on the front. I would start with tearing that off. If that is too much for you to deal with you should probably look for another property.

Macy, are you sure we don't have the same house? LOL! We are faced with the same issue...most walls were at one point exterior walls. It was added on twice after being built in the mid-late 1800's. etc. Crazy!

The thing that drives me most crazy are the low ceilings. Our house now has 10' ceilings so now I'm spoiled.

Put simply, if we build a new house, we will get a gross profit from this house and the old house in question by renting of about 500 a month in today's money.

We will have to make a decision eventually on remodeling or building new. I would love a new home - we have the land but...this house is literally in the middle of about 20 acres, so we don't see anyone on 3 sides at the house. If we built on another parcel in that 20 acres, we'd be closer to the neighbors on one side and the old house and could see them(which would be a rental). There is also obviously the option of manufactured homes or "tract homes" instead of a fully custom home to cut down on costs of building a new home.

One idea my partner has is to demolish all but the original, old part of the house and build new either around it or next to it. What he wants to do with the original part of the house, who knows!

The one overriding issue above all of this is that I would like to retire by the time I'm 50 which will require a low mortgage/non-existent mortgage. Whatever will fit within those constraints, we will do. I am 26 so I have time to make wise investments and continue my education to make $$$.

We may want to renovate the house in a less-than-full manner to cut down costs. In MY mind (not a GC's mind LOL), it should be fairly easy to do the basics of what I want to do. One thing my partner's family did do right insofar as all the add-on's is that the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all in a straight-line/box. Therefore, there's no cut outs or weird structual walls or silly things to deal with. Even if we did nothing with the outside appearance, all we'd have to do to open it up into a "great room" is to knock out most of the kitchen wall (leaving some of it for support). I would love to put a new roof on that portion and get 10' ceilings, but I'd have to get an estimate on that before I could do anything about it.

Also, converting the left side of the front 'add-on" to a screened in porch as opposed to the sunroom it is now should be fairly straightforward. Those are two things (kitchen wall and screened-in-porch) we can do that will not be exorbitantly expensive.

Putting a new roof on the greatroom area and sunroom/screened in porch would be most of the expense. Once again we would be fortunate though that that part of the house is one story so there is no second story to worry about.

After all that, we could consider any add-on's, but those are the main things.

We are fairly handy and can do things like putting cabinets in, installing new floors, moulding, doors, paint, etc.

We shall see! I loved everyone's input! It's really interesting to see what people have gone through! I already feel more educated!

I also see I did not include the picture of the inside from the living room facing the kitchen wall past the dining room...it's messy, we are still cleaning up and getting it ready to go for a one-year rental for a family member:

I live very close in to downtown. Here there are no empty lots. So most people renovate extensively or tear down and build new. Most people that have torn down and built new, there are no regrets. (I know many..)

We exptensively renovated multiple phases. There is essentially nothing left of the old house except somed framing and foundation. We wish we had torn down and built new. We would have a better house for less money in the end..... Again, many that I have talked to say that they should have torn down and built new....

This is a cummulative experience from high end close in neighborhood. Empty lots, (5000sq ft is a standard size) if you can find it will be minimal 200k or so. Starting house price is about 600k here and up. If you have any kind of view, it will bump it to 800k or so. If a house is larger than 3000 sq ft, many will bump into 1 mil price range.

Interestingly, I was just talking to some others on the small house forum. We may have to remodel instead of building new because our township has restrictions on square footage for new houses and I refuse to build a house more than 2000 sq ft because 1. it's just the two of us 2. i dont want to pay for more sq ft than I need and 3. I don't want to clean, heat, and cool more sq ft than I need.

We'll see. I would love a new house LOL. I will have to give the township zoning commission a call.