Reno Diary #3: How I Prioritized My Home Renovation Projects
- nvilu7
- Apr 16
- 11 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
17 days to closing—and the reality check I needed
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On Friday I finished turning my home inspection report into a reno plan. Today—Monday—I was going to walk through the house again, this time on my own, to determine my personal reno priorities so I could add those to the plan.
That would give me a few days to get quotes, figure how much it was all going to cost, when things needed to get done, and decide whether I wanted to move forward before the Friday deadline for backing out of the sales agreement.
Last week I wrangled approval from the owners to have unlimited access to the house. I met my agent at the house to pick up a set of house keys and do a solo walk through.
My Goal Wasn’t Perfection
I already knew from the home inspection report which systems needed to be fixed or replaced. My objective during this walk-through was to decide what other changes I needed to make before moving in to make the house work better for me.
Would the changes keep me safe and secure?
Would they function in a frictionless way (i.e., not become RTTPYOs)?
Would they keep me comfortable?
Would they fit my personal aesthetic (or at least not offend it too much)?
Could I live with the system as is for several months without compromising my safety or patience?
I would categorize my findings as projects to be done Pre-Move or Post-Move. I added an Action Items category for items where I needed more information before assigning to the Pre- or Post-Move list.
With those criteria and categories in mind, I drove from my condo to the house to start my evaluation.
Entry, Living Room, and Flooring
I started with the front door. While the house was midcentury in design, the front door was colonial in style. I was OK with living with the door until spring except for the fact that at some point someone had attacked it with a hatchet, with the resulting dents probably affecting its insulating ability and structural integrity.
Also, the door was windowless and when closed turned the entryway into a Pit of Dark Despair.
Voila. I had my first personal reno priority—replacing the battered front door with a midcentury-style windowed door.
Walking through the door into the living room, I noted the new, cheap, ugly wall-to-wall carpet throughout most of the house. Based on all the evidence from the inspection report, I figured it had been added to hide something horrible underneath.
How right I was—but that’s a story for another day.
I had replaced the flooring in the condo while living there and knew how hard that was, so I decided that replacing the floors with hardwood should go on the Pre-Move project list.
Looking up, I noticed that all the windows had old, broken, filthy venetian blinds covering them. I would replace them with clean, crisp white mini cellular shades to safeguard my privacy before move-in.
The original front windows had three huge single pane glass sections in non-standard sizes that were drafty as hell and would cost the earth to replace. I needed to research ways to make the existing windows more efficient. I could work on that post-move.
Next I stood in the living room and looked right and left. To my right was a fake-woodgrain-paneled wall disguised by peeling paint. On that wall was a makeshift coat closet door made out of the same ugly paneling, secured closed by a metal hook.
HATE.
Added to the Pre-Move list.
I walked to the living room fireplace, blackened by umpteen years’ worth of smoke, bent down toward the hearth, and tapped on one of the tiles. The tile fell off the hearth.
Great.
The mortar was completely shot. Now that I was standing there, with my nose 3 inches away from the hearth, I saw that a lot of the tiles were cracked.
I laughed out loud. I hated those tiles and now I had an excellent justification for replacing them beyond simple aesthetics.
Even if I liked wood fires (which I didn’t), the mortar and tile situation was a safety hazard. Tile replacement and painting the fireplace went on the pre-move list.
Surprisingly, the door covering the fireplace was reassuringly heavy and very high quality, unlike anything else in the house. Did it “fall off” a truck? Whatever—it was a keeper.
Dining Room and Kitchen
The opening between the living room and dining room was generous but could be widened to bring more light into the living room. What would it cost in money and time to do it? What would I lose in the kitchen if I did it?
I decided to investigate the pros and cons before deciding, and added the task to the Action Item list.
I walked into the kitchen. The house’s original cabinetry on the inside wall was attached directly to the concrete block, which I knew was illegal.
The drawer I had opened on my initial walk through—and been unable to close—was still open. I tried to close it. No dice.
Like the front door, the refrigerator door had ax marks in it. Replace along with the non-working stove.
I shone my flashlight under the sink and saw a gleam of water.
Fantastic.
The kitchen was a gut job. Added to the pre-move list. I would need to sort out the cabinetry layout before deciding on whether or not to remove some of the kitchen wall.
Facing the back of the house, I looked at the original wooden back doors, one in the dining room and one at the end of the kitchen. Like the living room windows, they were original and single pane and would be very drafty in the winter, but they were in good shape, with no ax marks. And I loved the design on the dining room door-window combination.
Then I opened the doors one at a time and looked down. Neither door had an exterior threshold. Yikes. That was a sprained ankle waiting to happen.
I decided to keep the current exterior back doors but install new exterior thresholds post-move. And I would replace the doors as soon as I could with energy-efficient alternatives.
So far, none of the decisions I had made were solely aesthetically-driven. Safety and function have their own beauty. Once I got those right, beauty would follow.
Laundry Room and Garage
I measured the space and figured that I could fit a tower washer and dryer and a good-sized steel sink and cabinet in the space. I would replace the current repurposed bathroom sink and cabinet with cabinetry that matched the kitchen to tie the spaces together.
I added that to the pre-move list.
I went into the garage. It was surprisingly large for the size of the house, so I could store all my gardening equipment, set up my treadmill, and park my car in it, all at the same time. Luxury, after being garage-less for decades.
The garage contained the gas furnace and electric water heater, both about 18 months old.
I wanted an all-electric home, which meant replacing the gas furnace. I also wanted air conditioning but wouldn’t need it until the summer, 9 months away. I decided to use the furnace until early spring, when I would replace it with an electric heat pump plus air conditioning. The water heater could stay.
It was surprising how making those decisions relieved a lot of the pressure I was feeling at this point in my personal tour.
The garage door was original and had a hole in the middle 3 inches in diameter, possibly due to the ax murderer who attacked the front door and the refrigerator door. There was homemade but serviceable cabinetry on the wall shared with the kitchen.
I decided that the garage needed nothing but a new door with an opener and outlets added for the treadmill and refrigerator. Add to the pre-move list.
Hallway and Bedrooms
I went back into the house to check out the bedrooms. En route, I saw the hallway contained a telephone niche that was original to the house.
I remembered the elegant walnut-framed telephone niche in my grandmother's1920s house. As kids, we used to have pretend conversations on her fabulous old Bakelite phone.
This niche did not have that glamour, but I resolved to repurpose it to celebrate that childhood memory.
The hallway also contained all the interior doors made of highly-varnished wood. They were original to the house and were astonishingly heavy and super-fugly. I decided to remove them pre-move and replace them post-move.
This was one of the very few decisions I made solely for aesthetic reasons. I hated those doors on sight and preferred looking at nothing to looking at them. Plus, living alone, interior doors were not a must-have-now until after I was done unpacking and started welcoming guests into my new home.
In the bedrooms the closet doors were mysteriously gone. Another post-move project. I was fine with looking at my hanging clothing for a few months.
In the interest of being thorough, I looked behind the interior doors and found that each bedroom had its own towel bar.
Who does that? I resisted the sudden impulse to tear them out of the wall.
After measuring the bedrooms, I decided to use the front room as my bedroom because it would better accommodate my king-size bed. The second bedroom would become my office and would need additional outlets for my laptop and other work electronics. I would discuss that with the electrical estimator. Add to my Action Item list.
Bathroom
My list was already long and I hadn’t gotten to the bathroom yet.
I was beginning to wonder if I would have the time, energy, and funds to do everything on my list so far AND the bathroom.
I knew from the condo that updating bathrooms was time-consuming and spendy. I sighed, squared my shoulders, and walked in. The bathroom door opened inward. In order take a bath or shower, you had to open the door, walk in, and shut the door.
Great.
I mentally applauded my decision to remove the doors as part of the pre-move.
Fugly bathroom door shut behind me, I turned on the wall switch to start the bathroom fan. It was so loud you had to shout to be heard over it. Replace pre-move with a quiet fan from the current decade.
I then saw the lone towel bar was the one next to the sink. That explained the towel bars in the bedrooms.
I estimated that the bathroom sink and cabinet were around 20 years old and in reasonable shape. A couple of coats of paint would make it livable. Good.
On the other hand, the medicine cabinet was original to the house and so rusted and gross that I put on heavy-duty rubber gloves to inspect it. The sink faucets were Moen and, according to Google, hadn’t been made in 20 years. Both were pre-move chores but much less spendy and time-consuming than replacing the sink and cabinet.
The pair of wall lights over the bathroom sink were original, super-ugly and huge but (surprise!) didn’t emit much light. Each had an outlet in it. They were the only outlets in the bathroom. Googling revealed that the exact lights were still available, and only $32 each.
No, thanks. I needed new, bright lights and GFCI outlets in my bathroom. I added the lighting to the pre-move list and the GFCI spec to the Action Item list.
The bathtub/shower next. The tub was cast iron and in astonishingly good shape although grimy. The shower walls were Formica slabs. The shower head was crusty. The shower curtain rod was rusty (ew).
The shower curtain rod and shower head were easy and inexpensive and could be done pre-move. For the rest, what was the alternative to an expensive and time-consuming bathtub replacement?
Then I remembered that I had reglazed my bathtub in my Pittsburgh home for much less than it would have cost to replace it. I decided to investigate that option and added it to my Action Item list.
Last but not least, the toilet. It was new, but a brand I didn’t recognize and couldn’t find online. Judging from the rest of the house, I reasoned that, like the carpet, the toilet was a quick and easy fix to make the house a tiny bit more salable.
I also figured that it was super-cheap and would fail at the first opportunity.
If you only have one toilet, it has to work all the time.
So I added a Toto toilet to the pre-move list.
Bottom line? The bathroom was a disaster but most of the big ticket items were salvageable. The investment required was much less than I thought it would be. Whew.
Ceiling and Walls
I looked up and saw identical Boob Lights, all new, probably installed to help sell the house. Five of them. In every room but the living room.
Oh, hell, no. Pre-move replacement.
The walls had all been painted a sad off-white. Pre-move I would cover all the walls and the ceiling with the glorious color I saw in my head when I walked through the house the first time.
My Personal Renovation Project Priorities List
After this walk-through, I’d added my personal projects to one of three categories.
Fair warning. This is a long list.
Pre-Move
Replace the front door.
Remove the fugly carpet and replace with hardwood throughout the house.
Retile the fireplace hearth, paint the fireplace, and have the fireplace and chimney inspected.
Install new exterior thresholds for the two back doors.
Gut the kitchen, build a studded wall on one side, rewire, and replace everything from the studs in.
Move the current refrigerator to the garage for beer. Clean it before putting anything in it. Get a tetanus shot prior to cleaning.
For the laundry room, purchase and install a tower washer and dryer; install a sink and cabinet that matches the kitchen cabinetry.
Replace the garage door and install a garage door opener.
Remove the towel bars in the bedrooms and repair the walls if needed.
In the bathroom, replace the bath and sink faucets, the bathroom fan, the showerhead, the medicine cabinet, and the toilet; install new towel bars and toilet paper holder.
Replace the ceiling Boob Lights and the original lights above the bathroom sink.
Action Items
Before removing part of the living room wall I would figure out the kitchen cabinet layout to see if I needed that wall space.
Consult with electrician about adding outlets in office, garage, and bathroom.
Decide what to do about the grimy original bathtub and its Formica walls.
Post-Move
Figure out how to make the front windows more energy-efficient.
Decide the fate of the original telephone niche in the hallway.
Replace the gas furnace with a heat pump and air conditioning.
Replace the fugly interior doors.
Add closet doors since the original ones had disappeared.
Deal with the bathtub and its Formica slab walls.
Once again I was surprised to see that my list focused on fixing fundamental systems rather than aesthetics. Practical before pretty wins the day once again.
And a house that keeps you safe and comfortable is a beautiful thing, even before the finishes and fun stuff.
Now that my personal priority list was done, I could combine it with the home inspection report list, get estimates, run the numbers, and see if the combined list was doable from a time and money perspective.
It was a lot, but it’s better to get as much bad news as possible up-front.
Because, based on past experience, I figured there would be plenty of surprises.
What I Used to Make the House Work Better
Kitchen additions:
Panasonic FlashXpress (so handy and high-performing that I use it more often than I use my range)
Cabinet hardware upgrade: Franklin Brass cabinet hardware
Fave washer-dryer combo, just stacked:
LG WashTower (created an instant love affair with Laundry Day—and saved a huge amount of space)
Instant bathroom upgrades:
TOTO C5 Washlet (truly one of the best inventions of all time—once you try one, there’s no going back...if you’ve never used one, the heated seat alone will ruin every other toilet seat for you.)
TOTO Toilet (so reliable)
Broan-NuTone Bathroom Fan (light, heat, and exhaust fan in one)
Shoulder-saver:
Chamberlain Garage Door Opener —open your garage door with just a button click (awesome)
You don’t need more ideas—you need a plan you can actually follow.
Download From Inspection to Action to turn your inspection report, priorities, and timeline into a clear, step-by-step renovation roadmap—so you know exactly what to tackle first (and what can wait).
Grab your free copy and start planning.
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