Imagine you are renovating your home, you have big dreams and plans and you begin tearing out walls and creating a dusty mess in your home.
It is very exciting! Those first steps – demo days as the home and garden TV people like to call them, are alive with possibility and can be more exciting than the actual finished product. Your resolve is strong and energy is high, it is time to do this!
The days between demo day and what I observe is a mystery that I have yet to understand.
Various life circumstances can thwart a renovation project and stop it dead. When this happens, the quick fix is usually the answer and the results are always less than I’m sure the homeowner intended at the start. There have been some eyebrow raising finishes I have observed over the years which make me scratch my head and wonder what happened?
One home had a beautiful new bathroom installed with flooring, fixtures and beautiful custom tile work except for the shower.
With all the beautiful finishes in this room, they chose vinyl flooring for the tub surround. Oh wait, it gets worse! The vinyl wasn’t long enough to enclose the entire shower so they added a different piece on the end. Vinyl flowing isn’t a suitable surface for a wet area and what happened that this beautiful renovation found its demise with a cheap piece of plastic for a tub surround?
Picture a beautiful, bright new bathroom.
Pretty white tub and tiles, new flooring and modern lighting fixtures. All the bells and whistles applied and the client loved it! Sealed the deal and he moved in.
The next morning when he was showering in his new bathroom the white tub began to run down the drain! Here this poor man is standing in a puddle of latex paint while his lovely teal bathtub is revealed all around him. This is the kind of surprise you don’t want to see in your new home.
I have seen drywall ‘repairs’ so large you could fit a person through the wall.
What makes me scratch my head is why a person wouldn’t add a new piece of drywall rather than try to hide it with layers and layers of patch and spackle.
The time, effort and money it takes to try to fill in a large hole with filler makes no sense when a piece of drywall and a little patch would be less expensive and less time consuming. Also, it is far more stable and there is less chance of someone falling into your patch work mess when they lean on the wall.
Carry on with your renovations and your dream projects but make sure to plan all the way through until the end.
Your quick fix generally becomes the headache of someone else. The amount of time and energy it takes to rig up a poor substitute could be better spent by doing things the right way.
Slow down and try to quell the panic that may arise when you run into a roadblock and make informed decisions towards all aspects of your renovation. You will never regret walking away from a job well done and personal satisfaction feels great compared with shame and regret.
Kim Wyse is a Central Alberta freelance designer. Find her on facebook at ‘Ask a Designer/Ask a Realtor’.
