ᐅ Planning the Renovation / Refurbishment of a 20-Year-Old House
Created on: 19 Mar 2022 00:10
T
Trautes Heim
Hello everyone,
After being a silent reader for the past few months, I would now like to discuss our house renovation plan (possibly with some partial refurbishments) with you. The project isn’t very complex, but it doesn’t hurt to get other opinions—critical ones are welcome too 🙂
A few facts about the house:
- Detached house built around 2002, slightly above average standard and maintenance compared to other properties of the same age
- No major renovations since construction (i.e., gas heating, bathrooms, etc. are original; only floors/walls in some rooms have been replaced once)
- Underfloor heating throughout the entire ground floor (tiled) and parts of the upper floor (hallway and bathroom, both tiled); bedrooms on the upper floor (laminate flooring) have radiators, basement is unheated
Before moving in this summer, we would like to carry out the following renovations:
- Painting the entire house, wallpapering some rooms (idea: smooth fleece wallpaper)
- Replace flooring in the master bedroom (idea: engineered wood flooring)
- Replace interior doors
In the medium term (within the next ~5 years, partly quite soon), we expect the following to happen:
- Heating system replacement (gas again or heat pump)
- Redesign of outdoor areas (partly new fence, planting in the front and back gardens)
- Replacement of shower enclosure & fittings in the main bathroom
- Some basic smart home features (surveillance camera, window sensors, possibly manual roller shutters replaced by electric ones)
We would like to do part of the renovation ourselves (as academics, it feels good to create something ourselves, and it also saves some money), but we will probably hire professionals for most of the work rather than attempting it amateurishly.
Currently, we are talking to various tradespeople and friends for support and trying to coordinate the schedule as efficiently as possible. Our preferred order at the moment would roughly be:
1. Remove door frames*
2. Remove old textured wallpaper*
3. Wallpaper & paint (or 5.?)
4. Remove old flooring*
5. Install new flooring*
6. Install new doors (door frames & door leaves)
The items marked with * we might do ourselves. We haven’t done all of these ourselves yet, but none of these tasks seem too complicated to me, and we would have friends with more DIY experience helping us.
Some questions regarding this:
- Is there anything in these planned tasks that can be seriously messed up as long as we don’t do anything careless?
Of course, we wouldn’t use excessive force. As I understand, the new door frames should completely fill the old area anyway, the painter will probably have to fill and sand the walls before wallpapering with smooth fleece, and when removing the old floor, we would of course take care not to damage the walls (and vacuum well when cutting the flooring).
- Does this sequence make sense or would you do it differently?
If the new floor were installed before painting, the painter would have to tape off the bedrooms more thoroughly, but I’m not worried about getting dust on the walls while cutting the flooring.
Also, I wonder if it would make sense to add as steps 0–2 (starting with early floor removal) to mill underfloor heating into the screed in the bedrooms. Currently, our plan is to keep the radiators in the bedrooms. In the master bedroom, it might be possible to operate radiators with a low flow temperature (heat pump), as we currently only heat the bedroom on the coldest winter days at a low setting. However, I am somewhat skeptical about whether this will be warm enough in the children’s rooms, since the kids, especially as teenagers, will spend quite a lot of time there.
Until two months ago, I would have thought replacing the gas heating system would be cheaper over 20 years (also due to Nord Stream II). Nowadays, I rather think the opposite. Since the system is still running (energy consumption is about 90 kWh/m²a), we can postpone the decision, but currently, both politically and from a conscience perspective, a heat pump seems more likely. In that case, it might be worthwhile to have the whole house switched to underfloor heating. What do you think?
Thank you very much for your feedback!
After being a silent reader for the past few months, I would now like to discuss our house renovation plan (possibly with some partial refurbishments) with you. The project isn’t very complex, but it doesn’t hurt to get other opinions—critical ones are welcome too 🙂
A few facts about the house:
- Detached house built around 2002, slightly above average standard and maintenance compared to other properties of the same age
- No major renovations since construction (i.e., gas heating, bathrooms, etc. are original; only floors/walls in some rooms have been replaced once)
- Underfloor heating throughout the entire ground floor (tiled) and parts of the upper floor (hallway and bathroom, both tiled); bedrooms on the upper floor (laminate flooring) have radiators, basement is unheated
Before moving in this summer, we would like to carry out the following renovations:
- Painting the entire house, wallpapering some rooms (idea: smooth fleece wallpaper)
- Replace flooring in the master bedroom (idea: engineered wood flooring)
- Replace interior doors
In the medium term (within the next ~5 years, partly quite soon), we expect the following to happen:
- Heating system replacement (gas again or heat pump)
- Redesign of outdoor areas (partly new fence, planting in the front and back gardens)
- Replacement of shower enclosure & fittings in the main bathroom
- Some basic smart home features (surveillance camera, window sensors, possibly manual roller shutters replaced by electric ones)
We would like to do part of the renovation ourselves (as academics, it feels good to create something ourselves, and it also saves some money), but we will probably hire professionals for most of the work rather than attempting it amateurishly.
Currently, we are talking to various tradespeople and friends for support and trying to coordinate the schedule as efficiently as possible. Our preferred order at the moment would roughly be:
1. Remove door frames*
2. Remove old textured wallpaper*
3. Wallpaper & paint (or 5.?)
4. Remove old flooring*
5. Install new flooring*
6. Install new doors (door frames & door leaves)
The items marked with * we might do ourselves. We haven’t done all of these ourselves yet, but none of these tasks seem too complicated to me, and we would have friends with more DIY experience helping us.
Some questions regarding this:
- Is there anything in these planned tasks that can be seriously messed up as long as we don’t do anything careless?
Of course, we wouldn’t use excessive force. As I understand, the new door frames should completely fill the old area anyway, the painter will probably have to fill and sand the walls before wallpapering with smooth fleece, and when removing the old floor, we would of course take care not to damage the walls (and vacuum well when cutting the flooring).
- Does this sequence make sense or would you do it differently?
If the new floor were installed before painting, the painter would have to tape off the bedrooms more thoroughly, but I’m not worried about getting dust on the walls while cutting the flooring.
Also, I wonder if it would make sense to add as steps 0–2 (starting with early floor removal) to mill underfloor heating into the screed in the bedrooms. Currently, our plan is to keep the radiators in the bedrooms. In the master bedroom, it might be possible to operate radiators with a low flow temperature (heat pump), as we currently only heat the bedroom on the coldest winter days at a low setting. However, I am somewhat skeptical about whether this will be warm enough in the children’s rooms, since the kids, especially as teenagers, will spend quite a lot of time there.
Until two months ago, I would have thought replacing the gas heating system would be cheaper over 20 years (also due to Nord Stream II). Nowadays, I rather think the opposite. Since the system is still running (energy consumption is about 90 kWh/m²a), we can postpone the decision, but currently, both politically and from a conscience perspective, a heat pump seems more likely. In that case, it might be worthwhile to have the whole house switched to underfloor heating. What do you think?
Thank you very much for your feedback!
ypg schrieb:
I would paint or varnish the frames and doors, for example…He wants it to look nice, after all. 😉 And if he has to hire a professional for that, I’d also say “Brand new, please.”As mentioned here before, these are mostly standard tasks done before moving in, except for the heating issue.
If it’s underfloor heating, then the entire system should be new and properly planned from the start.
But that really requires careful planning.
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