When you buy a fixer-upper house, sooner or later you
need to start fixing it up before it can feel like home. And if you’re fixing
the place up on a shoestring budget, you find creative solutions and invest
sweat equity wherever possible. You start by checking the low-hanging fruit off
the punch list, tasks like spackling mysterious holes in the original window
frames, replacing lightbulbs, and gingerly tucking the porch door screen back
into its frame with a butter knife.
Next
you move onto jobs that are a bit more disruptive and take more time and
resources, but that go a long way towards improving the look of the house.
Painting is a great thing to do at this phase. Taping window frames and
baseboards is a time consuming precursor to painting, but is very much worth it
if the color of your paint is significantly different than the wood trim, if
you’re trying to preserve the natural-wood look of that trim, or if you’re
painting an accent wall.
The
painting step goes something like this: after taping, grab some paint testers
and throw some swatches up on the wall. Abandon the entire color palette and
get more testers. Commit to a color scheme and begin transforming the look of
your walls. Have so much fun painting that you decide to paint every room in
your house. Every. Room. Because it turns out that having one freshly painted
room makes the rooms that previously looked just fine suddenly look as dingy
and dated as a 1980s B-reel movie. Oh, and remember that wood trim you spent
hours taping? Well, that needs to be repainted now too, because the charming
antique cream suddenly looks like dishwater splashed at the edges of your crisp
and tasteful grey walls.
Be
prepared for a few necessities to take priority along the way, like needing to
re-plumb a section of the nearly brand new furnace because the previous owners
cracked it and now it’s leaking. Also rip out the carpet almost immediately,
because on the one hand you have no idea how long it’s been there, and on the
other your cat has made it abundantly clear that she smells dog and she is
having NONE of it.
If
you’re lucky enough to be surprised by hardwood floors under that nasty old
carpet and if you’ve come this far on your fixer-upper journey, then it is well
within your reach to refinish those floors yourself and bring them back to
life. And if you’ve been putting off refinishing the floors for several months,
give yourself a deadline by ordering furniture for those rooms that’s too big
to fit through any doorway except the front door.
In
all seriousness though, when faced with the logistics of refinishing your own
floors, the project can seem huge and daunting. With a plan in place, advice
from experts, and more than a little moxie, the whole job can be done in a
weekend. To prepare for refinishing your floors, you’ll want to patch any
broken or damaged boards and pull out any lingering carpet staples. With a
hammer and nail punch, go all over your floor and pound down any nails that are
at or above the surface of the existing wood; refinishing floors yourself can
save a lot of money, but damaging the rental equipment on protruding nails
would be very expensive.
Being
a DIY-extraordinaire, you may be tempted at this point to use a hand sander to
sand along the walls. I implore you resist this urge and spend the extra $25
for the room edger rental, since it will save you hours of labor and is really
fun to use. Also invest in ear protection, a set of cushy comfy knee pads, and
extra-strength Tylenol. If at all possible, try to find a local family-owned
rental shop to rent the floor sanders and refinishing accoutrement. Big box
hardware stores will also rent the necessary equipment, but by working with
professionals who have specialized in this sort of work for years you’ll get
expert advice and tips that make the job that much easier.
Top
tip: if you’re refinishing a floor that still has an old stain and or finish,
and that also has mastic or glue from old floor tiles, skip all other grits of
sandpaper and go straight to the heavy-duty 20-grit paper. The person renting
you the equipment may advise that you can get away with 36-grit alone, and it’s
true that 20-grit paper is so intense that you really cannot let the machine
stop moving or else you’ll wear a groove in the wood, but good gracious does it
ever work like magic.
My
final advice is that even though the sawdust catchment bags on these industrial
sanders are actually quite good at gathering nearly all the sawdust, you will
need to dust mop your walls after the project is done. Also your windows,
baseboards, and ceiling beams. You may want to hang sheets over fixtures that
can’t be moved, and over open doorways. Other than that, have fun and make sure
you still have a way to get to the bathroom when the polyurethane is drying on
your beautiful new floors!
Luckily
the library has much more detailed and professional advice than mine when it
comes to home improvement and DIY projects. Though dated, “Grand Finishes for
Walls and Floors” by Matt Nikitas has indispensable sage advice like the sort
you’d get if your dad were a finish contractor helping at every step of the
process. “Installing & Finishing Flooring” by William Spence is worth a
look, as is “The Complete Guide to Flooring” by Black & Decker. For more
general home maintenance and DIY how-to’s, try “How to Fix Anything” by Popular
Mechanics, “The Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement” by Black &
Decker, and “The Ultimate Guide to Home Repair and Improvement” by Creative
Homeowner. If you’re not quite ready to roll up your sleeves and are looking
for inspiration, we have tons of books about decorating, organizing, and refreshing
your space and furnishings, such as “Weekend Furniture Facelifts” by Helen
Carey and “Styling with Salvage” by Joanne Palmisano. I also highly recommend a
few DIY magazines available through Flipster, such as “Do It Yourself,” “The
Family Handyman,” “Better Homes and Garden,” and “Flea Market Decor.” There are
even more magazines available through the Libby app by Overdrive, such as “HGTV
Magazine,” “Country Living,” “Elle Decor,” “Good Housekeeping,” and “House
Beautiful.”
Good
luck, fixer-uppers! As Red says in the classic Canadian comedy, “The Red Green
Show,” I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.
