Step 9: Create a Sketch of the Floor Plan

After the house is clean, it's time to create a floor plan: a rough draft map of the house. This step is not absolutely necessary, but I always do it. 

When you're about to dive into a home renovation project, you're going to be well-served to have some sort of drawing of your house. This is a bit of a stretch, but consider a film scene with military leaders overlooking the battlefield map, planning and strategizing how to achieve the next objective. You're not at war, but you're leading the renovation, and occasionally you and your team will need a bird's eye view of the project together, to plan and strategize like the army bosses, getting in sync with the next phase of your plans.

You can scratch out your home's initial layout on a napkin from a fast-food restaurant or pay someone to come in to create a computer-generated drawing for you. However, I'm suggesting you start somewhere in the middle, with a measuring tape and a sheet of paper. It's going to take a good hour to draw out the house, but it'll be time well spent. Ultimately, you may end up hiring an architect or maybe even an engineer. Nonetheless, having your own drawing, no matter how rudimentary, will only be beneficial, even if you do hire pros to be part of your preliminary team.

There are several reasons why you should sketch out the floor plan. First, it's easier to visualize changes, adjustments, and additions when you have this overall view of how the house is laid out. You simply see things differently and better when you have the floor plan before you on paper. Secondly, this drawing step is an opportunity to get more acquainted with your project house, and you might just discover unused square footage. Or this could be when you start to understand previous additions or renovations, knowledge you’ll certainly want and need that may impact your plans

I always do my initial rough drawing at the project house and then a second, cleaner version when I get home.

For the cleaned up, working drawing, I think grid or graph paper is the way to go. The best thing about using graph paper is that it allows you to make a basic drawing of the house near to scale. The ability to see your project closely scaled makes you more productive and effective as a renovator.

There are a variety of types, but I really like the graph paper with sixty-four or one hundred blocks per square inch. And larger sheets work better than most common 8.5" x 11" pages, but standard sizes will surely work if that’s what you have available.

The biggest reason I prefer using the styles with the smaller squares is because each line can scale out to a four-inch/ten-centimeter area of the house. This may seem a bit much or might come off as something that'll take way too long, but it's easy once you get going. I've plowed through this step too many times to count, and I won't renovate a home without having a drawing to work from. 

There are a couple reasons why I prefer and recommend that the drawing of the home is broken down into four-inch increments on the sketch. First: doors, windows, cabinets, counters, closets, appliances, stairs, hallways, rooms, and nearly everything else in the house will be in sizes closely divisible by four. Second: most walls will be accurately represented in a floor plan if they're drawn to be four inches thick. (However, historic homes may have wider walls.)

In lieu of the smaller squared grid, standard graph paper is fine too. A space can scale down to one foot, and when I was drawing up houses as a kid, I had each line on the graph paper represent three feet since most windows and doors were close to this size.

Rather than avoiding this step for lack of graph paper, figure something out and get a close-to-scale drawing you can see and use. 

Finally, remember to include fixtures in the bathroom, cabinets, fireplaces, porches, balconies, and anything else on the inside or outside that may impact your plans. This drawing does not need to be elaborate. It simply needs to be clean, organized, easy to read, and most importantly, as accurate as you can make it.

As a footnote, if walls are moved during the project, it'll be good to have the drawing as a record to show what the home looked like before the work started.

For me, Step 9 is just a routine part of how I renovate, and it’s honestly one of my favorite steps.

The Cottage
Before Demolition and After Step 9 

The Cottage
After Step 11

  

Jump to Step 10: Get Your Official Permission 

Break It Down

If you’re renovating a house for the first time, adding a master suite, planning the redo of your kitchen, or some other endeavor with a seemingly infinite number of things to do, consider the words of M.C. Hammer or D.J. Lance and break it down.  Steven Covey is the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  Habit 2 is: Begin with the End in Mind.  You want to have the finished house in your minds-eye from the start, but I want to encourage you to break things down into smaller pieces so your plans aren't snuffed out before you really get going.

Consider for a minute that you where embarking on a mountain climbing trip.  Would you be fixated on the top of the mountain as you marched forward each minute?  I doubt it.  Each day, you'd probably be mindful of where you wanted to get before nightfall and you'd surely break that down into a smaller objectives of how far you expected to trek before having a rest, stopping for lunch, and so on.  And think of marathoners who break down their training into do-able segments and have their 26.2 mile mission broken into parts that are marked with mile signage as they get closer to the finish line on race day.  In reality, climbing a mountain, running a marathon, or renovating an extremely run-down home are similar in that they're just a whole lot of smaller steps and tasks put together into something that's greater when it's considered in it's entirety at the end.

I love actor Bill Murray's work and have enjoyed the film What About Bob? more than a few times.  Richard Dreyfuss just wanted Bob out of his office and he used the message from his 'groundbreaking new book' to help make that happen.  If you've never renovated a home before, it might seem overwhelming (like everything was for Murray's character Bob).  However, your home renovation goal is like anything else and needs to be reconsidered in smaller parts.  The interior and exterior.  Then, each room on the inside and the landscaping, the homes exterior, and the roof on the outside.  From there things just get broken down further into small parts that you can knock out one by one.

In addition, when you have a big goal out in the distant future, be certain to celebrate the smaller accomplishments along the way and if you're renovating, remember to look back at your pictures frequently to remind yourself of how much progress you've made (see Step 1 - Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!).  You don't have to have a block party after you successfully knock out each task, but enjoy each accomplishment for what it is and take a moment to savor what you've done before moving on to that next item on your list.

So if you're thinking of climbing a big mountain, becoming an Ironman triathlete, or renovating a extremely run down house (aka - Pig's Ear) start by breaking it down again and again and again into achievable pieces and begin taking small steps ahead toward the moment at the summit, the finish line, or the house you imagine.   

Weeping Mortar Joints

Tools needed to remove WMJs.  (Brick Hammer is shown,
but any hammer to pop down on your chisel will do.)

From my end, it's clear that there is a lot of interest in the topic of Weeping Mortar Joints.  There are some that hold WMJs in favorable regard and believe they should be appreciated as an architectural element.  As I've mentioned before (see The Weeping Joints at The Fire House) when complemented effectively, I'm totally sold on how they can contribute to the exterior facade.  However, when they've been painted with the exterior brick, I think the result is less-than-impressive.  When I had weeping joints on the project we call The Fire House (before), most of my visitors believed strongly that I had no choice but to deal with them in some way.  I agreed.  

There is more than one way to skin a cat.  I've found that if you have a unique issue it's possible to get five different suggested solutions from five people.  They all may be right and they may not.  When you're the one making the decision it's up to you to listen, sort through what you've been told, and draw on your own knowledge base to move forward as you choose.  The WMJs at The Fire House (during) was an example of something that inspired a diverse variety of advice. One person strongly recommended that I hire a masonry crew to chisel away the oozing joints, grind out the mortar, and then tuckpoint replacement material back in to create more traditional looking joints.  Another visitor recommended that I find someone with a jackhammer and get out of the way.  A few thought I should simply get used to how the home looked because they knew of no viable options for me.  And another man got more specific and unloaded his seemingly costly and time-consuming advice for me to attach wire fabric to the brick and then apply stucco.  As I mentioned in my February post on this topic, it was pretty simple and I just chipped the WMJs all off myself by hand, a remedy that eluded the curious folks stopping by.

Question:  How do you eat an elephant?

Answer:  One bite at a time.

 

Front Before Removing WMJs.



After

I didn't try to chip all the weeping joints off in one day or even a weekend.  The exterior walls were between nine and ten feet high.  I broke that height in half and started moving my way around the house a day at a time and one 5' x 5' section at a time.  Some evenings I chipped away after work for 20 or 30 minutes and there was a day or two on the weekends when I did twenty-five square feet in the morning and the same sized section before dark.  It was not difficult or strenuous and there was an immediate pay-off because of how the work impacted the exterior look so profoundly.  Once the WMJs were gone, the joints then had a jagged look that differed from typical/traditional ones finished during construction with a jointer, but they looked good.  Better stated, within the painted brick exterior of The Fire House (after), they looked right and if a visitor didn't know any different, they likely assumed that the way it appeared was the way the brick facade had always been.

 

The back of The Fire House just before I removed the WMJs.  You can chip away from a ladder, but I built a box frame to use as a scaffold that I slid along and worked from as I progressed around the perimeter.  I also used this scaffolding to work from as I repaired the fascia and soffit. 

After

Attention First-Timers: Double Your Estimates from the Start

Some folks will be thinking about their next renovation project before they're finished with their first one.  Others understand that one home restoration undertaking is all they'll ever do.  This advice is for first-timers.  If you're an experienced renovator, this may be helpful, but more than likely you'll be reading along while nodding in agreement as you'll know the advice I'm recommending is valid.  I love to renovate and I want to encourage others to experience the process of fixing up a house as I have.  This advice is to serve as an aid, not a bucket of cold water on a prospective home renovator's dreams.  We have a saying in this industry: if you don't get the foundation right, you'll be fighting the building the whole way.  Think about my advice as a cornerstone for your adventure, keep it in mind from the beginning and you'll have a much better ride.  

Your schedule and budget should be at the forefront of your plans to take on a house renovation project and they should stay with you like a pair of guardian angels until the end.  The duo work together and can drive your project efficiently in unison.  However, if you lack in either (time or money) your project will grind along and be harder than necessary.  If you approach the bank for a loan to buy and/or renovate, one of the first things they'll want to know is how much and how long it will take.  That should reinforce the significance of time and money in construction renovating. 

Be realistic and honest with yourself when you determine the cost and time it will take.  You may be able to roll up your sleeves and put your tool-belt on, you might be in a position to hire most of the work out to others, or maybe it's a solid combination of both.  It doesn't matter, when you renovate it will take time and money so give both of these serious enough attention that you can write the specifics down on paper.  This advice applies to redoing the entire house, remodeling the kitchen, or adding a master suite.  If you're a first-time renovator, acting as your own general contractor, take your time and money estimates and double them before you start.  It's that simple.  If you honestly and sincerely think it will take 5 months and $20,000 then make sure you're ready for a ten month project and have $40K ready for action.  No matter how thoroughly you may prepare beforehand, there will be things that you'll unknowingly leave out of your plans. You'll tear into walls and discover challenges you didn't expect.  Also, you'll likely discover certain tasks are easier than you anticipated and find yourself saying, "While I'm at it I might as well..."  As I described previously you're going to make some errors (see Vinny Had the Right Idea), and quite simply, renovating is a marathon and not a drag race and you're a person, not a cyborg.  You're going to get tired.  All these are factors that will impact your pace and your bottom line so double your allotted time and money from the beginning.

The pair at the end of the clip is a Canadian couple that's renovating a triplex together in Montreal (see Just Two Weeks).  You probably understand it's going to take you longer than two weeks and realize it's more complicated than doubling that and planning on a month.  Really make a wholehearted effort to estimate your time and financial commitment.  Furthermore, don't be mislead by the 30 minute or one hour long reality shows you can watch from the comfort of your living room.  A skilled team of experts with a production crew and corporate sponsorship play a big part in making their schedule and budget more palatable than it will be for a first-timer.    

Finally, work hard to stick with your original estimates.  From the start, be diligent about working to get done using your estimated time-line (i.e. 5 months) and be vigilant about completing things with your initial budget numbers (i.e. $20K).  Give it everything you have.  However, keep in mind that things will happen as they always do, your schedule will stretch out, and you'll get further from that original figure you felt so good about.  It's okay.  That's just how it goes.  Be ready for it and understand that in the end you're going to be closer to my numbers than yours.  I may be wrong, but I doubt it. 

Step 8: Clean Out the Interior

Day 1 - There's not much to salvage here.
Yet in Step 8, I'm focused on the pots, 
dishes, and things in the cabinets. Cabinets,
counters, and the old stove will get
removed during the demo phase.

After - Same view.

If something is left behind by the previous owners, you can't use it, and no one you know wants it, then be ready to send it on its way. Step 8 goes hand-in-glove with Step 7: Shifting into Salvage Mode.

I've learned some lessons over the years that will save time, money, and some heavy lifting. You can apply what I wrote in Step 7 to the left behind belongings, but what about a refrigerator or other large appliance ready for retirement? When I first started, online websites to sell or give stuff away was still to come in the future. However, now this is a solid first option. Consider posting an ad, and maybe someone will come take your appliance away... even if it doesn't work. If you aren’t able to make a cyber connection, you might be able to push, pull, and drag your appliance out to the curb, where someone in the salvage business will likely snatch it up. You can always haul it away yourself, or even wrestle it into a dumpster, but those options suck up time and cost you money… and may even lead to an ER visit if you hurt yourself. Make every effort to keep it simple, economical, and safe. And be resourceful.

Apply this type of thinking to the other left-behinds. If you place scrap metal or aluminum out next to the street, it'll walk away on its own. Side hustle salvagers will be glad you didn't put it in the dumpster, and these scavengers will happily haul it away for you. Same with other things that may hold little value but are too good to toss into your rented metal trash box.

Donating stuff is also better than adding it to the dumpster because you need that space for serious rubbish and your heavy, dirty construction debris. In the end, you pay by the ton when the dumpster folks pick up their loaded container. You need to save your cash every place you can, so don't pay anyone to take it away if you can get it off your property easier and for less of your budget money. Step 8 is a great place to begin thinking about the squeeze on your project budget as part of the game of renovating a pig's ear. 

Rules, laws, and town ordinances vary by area. In some places, construction or renovation debris out at the street is fine, but in other places, it can become an issue. Sometimes you’ll be able to ask for permission, while in other circumstances, it might end up being more practical just to beg for forgiveness. Overall, be aware and make the most of the situation you find yourself in, case by case. Ask neighbors, make phone calls, or surf the city web page for answers or clues about what you can and shouldn’t do.

There's a good chance the local sanitation crew will make your streetside deposits disappear if nobody else wants them. Make an effort to place your discards where the trash is picked up, and the odds are in your favor that someone will deal with it when you're not looking. If you're paying for sanitation services as a taxpayer or as part of a utility bill, you might as well get your money's worth and let someone else haul off your unusables when possible. It may only be a few dollars, but that money adds up over the course of a long renovation, and you'll want those dollars at the end of the job for the finishing touches.

Also, keep in mind that neighbors can be finicky about newcomers littering the public-right-of-way with junk. If the real estate market is hot, they lean toward being more contentious and uppity. If the market is cool, they'll be glad you're investing in the neighborhood and helping their property values. In my experience, most will realize it's a win-win scenario and cheer you on rather than gripe over evidence of your progress. But don’t be caught off guard by someone in the neighborhood being a squeaky wheel.

Finally, Step 8 is when I pull out the carpet. Certainly, my favorite part of the clean-up phase. Carpet traps moisture and stank in the house. You'll want both of those gone as soon as possible. In addition, you will also want to know what's under any floor coverings. Redeemable hard wood flooring or tile? Subflooring that's deteriorated? If you know the carpet is going, get it gone sooner rather than later.

          Bottom line, if things in the house are not going to help get you closer to completion, it’ll likely be in your way and slow you down or be a waste of time to move. Get it out of the house ASAP so you can spread your wings and start to fly.

The Fire House Den before I started with
light pouring in the charred hole in the
roof. Comparable to the corner of the
kitchen above, this needed removed ASAP.

After the Clean Up. It looks better.
Plus, coming in the project and seeing
this, felt like major progress.  

After the Renovation. 
This is the same view. It's the same fireplace
and same salvaged wood floor that still has
some char marks that help tell the story of
the catastrophic fire. 

  Jump to Step 9 - Sketch Out the Floor Plan

The Negative Can Be Positive

When I bought my first Pig's Ear to renovate, I was full of hope and optimism.  I was excited because I saw the house's potential.  I imagined how it would look when I was done and accepted how bad it actually was on the day I took ownership.  In addition, I was like Cliff (played by Matt Dillon) in the movie clip from Singles shown below:  I didn't want to hear anything negative.  But people poured it on me.  And the same thing happened with Pig's Ear #2, PE #3, and so on.  As I started each project, I was flooded with comments such as: "You can't save this place.","Are you going to try to do this all by yourself?","You'll never get your money back out of here.","Where's your help?","This house has to be torn down.","You can't have this place done in a year.","Do you really know what you're doing?", and on and on.  This wasn't all coming from one or two people, the sources of the comments were numerous and diverse.     

On the outside I was trying to display a friendly smile and act as if these things were rolling off me like water from a duck, but I was like Cliff and I really didn't appreciate the discouraging words.  I sure didn't feel unstoppable.  I felt vulnerable because I was heading into unfamiliar territory.  I had plenty of construction experience, but I'd never worked on anything that had been condemned.  What I needed was some encouragement and as much as I wanted the pessimists to be wrong, they had to be, because I had no options short of bringing those places back to life. 

I listened like a gentleman, but like Dillon's character described above, that negativity did make me stronger.  That stuff echoed in my head and kept me working even later into the night and got me out of bed early when I was tired and sore.  It drove me and filled me with inspiration.  It motivated and molded me into something more capable.  I'm still polite when someone comes onto my site with words of gloom and doom, but now I'm ready for the barrage of pessimism.  Now, when someone says, "You can't save this house.  Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into here?", the visceral response that usually comes to mind is:  Whatever.  Get out of my way.  Go over to the other side of the street, take a seat, and watch me.   However, what I actually say next is something like, "I've saved houses a lot worse than this one."  I couldn't say that back in the 90's, but I can now.  It delivers the message I need it to so the naysayers get out of my way and watch.

If you're buying an old house to renovate, restoring a classic car, or doing something else people have a tough time wrapping their minds around, be ready for less-than-supportive comments, remember the scene above from Singles, and let the negative energy just make you stronger.

Subdividing the Bungalow and the Duplex

The Bungalow was a Pig's Ear.  It was the worst house on the street.  In as much as I believed the home and the detached garage (see The Detached Garage at the Bungalow) could be reconstructed dramatically, I also felt certain that the overall property had potential to be more as well.  With the Bungalow I acquired a rental house with two apartments (the Duplex) and from the moment I agreed to the deal I had intentions of legally subdividing the land and creating two separate properties.

The Bungalow and the Duplex were in Charleston, SC.  Charleston is one of the country's oldest cities and it has wholeheartedly embraced it's rich history and distinct architecture.  There is nothing historical or architecturally significant about the Bungalow (and it's detached garage) or the Duplex, but since they're located within the city's jurisdiction, I had to follow the same procedures (through the city's Dept. of Planning, Preservation, and Sustainability,  the Subdivision Review Committee, and the Board of Architectural Review) as the classic antebellum homes on the city's peninsula that were built centuries ago when Charleston was one of the wealthiest cities in the nation. 

The city's process was methodical, systematic, and routine and even though I was not resurrecting historic buildings in the carriage tour districts, the folks at the City of Charleston could not have been more supportive of my plans.  They helped me very thoughtfully with all the photo and drawing submissions (and revisions) that were required and patiently answered my steady stream of questions while they walked me through the reviews, appeals, and meetings that are part of a property subdivision in our historic city.  

In the end, the people working on behalf of the city were instrumental in helping me transform one of the worst properties in the neighborhood into two that we were very proud of. 

View from the back of the property before.  The Bungalow (left) and the Duplex (right).

After - The fence that denotes the new property line will one day be covered with ivy.

See related post The Picture Window at the Bungalow

Step 7: Shift Into Salvage Mode

          After you get the keys and make the home secure, you need to get busy emptying it out so it’s wide open, ready for you to spread your rehab wings and fly.

Circumstances may allow others to skip this step, but my pig’s ears have all come with more than their share of left behind stuff. It’s been the rule rather than the exception to find clothes in the closets, dishes in the cabinets, and helpful things in the junk drawer. 

This is when you should call for a dumpster delivery or come up with some other way of hauling trash away. You don't need to spend time on unusable things more than just once. As a rule, I always find out what I have in the house before I let any contractors inside, because I don't want everything to be thrown out. The things I usually save from the dumpster fall into one of two categories: sellables and useables. 

Sellables are anything valuable that folks would like to buy if they know you have it and are willing to sell it. Sometimes I turn these treasures into cash, selling them online or to people who will resell them in a shop or store. But I’ve also saved some interesting finds like special books, sports collectibles, fun chotchkes. And I always pocket any marbles I find—on last count, my cache came to over five hundred. 

One of my favorite salvaged items is a vintage milk bottle. I was a toddler in the Midwest when the milkman was becoming a thing of the past. Yet I still remember Mom going to the metal box outside our front door and pulling out the cow juice. Not only can I tell the kids about this pre-school memory; I can show them an example of how the milk used to be delivered to our porch. What makes my quart container even more special is that it still bares the label of the dairy farm once located in the town where my wife was born.

Next are the usables; things you suspect will be able to help you in the renovation. These are left-behinds like tools, pieces of hardware, miscellaneous materials, and anything else that might serve some purpose during the project. Think along the lines of Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Remember how his character kept those ice skates? He didn’t save them for figure skating, but just in case… which ended up having important uses; a tool to open coconuts and also pop out his abscessed tooth. It's simply practical to hold on to your usables.

Moving something throughout the rehab may still be better for the budget and schedule than driving to the store to replace a usable that you casually threw away. Gas is expensive, and you can take this from me; your time and money will be better spent if you make the most of anything valuable that’s been left behind. However, if you find yourself moving something a lot, something you’re not using, take that as a sign that you probably aren’t going to need it, and get it out of there.

Jump to Step 8: Clean the House Out