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Over the din of cicadas and lawnmowers, you may hear another sound – hammer claps and power drills. It's renovation time.
A few years ago, when planning a kitchen renovation, my husband and I knew we might discover a little oil tank buried behind our old house, but when our contractor found something the size of small submarine, I thought we'd discovered the prototype for the Hunley.
This summer, we renovated our first-floor bathroom. Being a seasoned renovator, I was ready to make decisions – if you can see it, you need to select it. This covers everything from fixtures, paint colors and tile, which one might expect, to those things usually taken for granted like cabinet hinges and even grout. I did my research, poring over catalogs and Internet sites until I thought I'd found everything.
This was just a little bathroom renovation. How hard could it be? Well, let's begin with the size. Our first floor bathroom is only 64 inches wide and 10 feet, 5 inches long. Because it is between two bedrooms, the only way to make it bigger would be to make another bedroom smaller. Of course, either bedroom could be enlarged by knocking out an outside wall, but … See the problem?
Project creep gets many a homeowner into hot water, and the only hot water I wanted was in a nice, deep bathtub. But how to shoehorn such a thing into the space available? Here is where knowledgeable sales people like Hollie Brooks at H.D. Supply come in handy. She found an old-fashioned slipper tub that was only 60 inches long. Lesson: Measure twice, order once.
Finding the fixtures was so easy that I went on an odyssey to tile showrooms on the edge of South Carolina. I ended up within walking distance of my house at Harkey Tile and Stone with Julie Maceyko-McGhee, who assembled a suite of porcelain and glass tile that all worked together.
Lesson: Don't assume a warehouse store or Internet site can beat the price and service of a reputable local dealer. Seek out knowledgeable sales professionals. Their service and expertise are worth it.
With the bathroom cleaned out, we surrendered it to demolition. Of course, we also rolled up all the first-floor rugs, dust-covered the furniture and cleared access from the work site to the outside doors. Lesson: No matter how many dust precautions you take, it is never enough.
Our workers put down heavy brown paper and vacuumed after themselves. Even so, you will probably need to periodically clean hardwood floors, first with a dust mop, then with Murphy's Oil soap and a damp sponge.
Finally, always be prepared for the unexpected. Plan on a 25 percent cushion both in time and money for the curveball your house throws you. Old houses can be quirky, but charming with a little TLC.
Reach Martha Catt at mcatt@carolina.rr.com.
