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tanama_gw

Survey: How long would it take you to...

18 years ago

I know that the rule of thumb is to esimate how much time something's going to take and then double it, but I thought that it could be helpful to me and many others to do a survey of some common old-house renovation tasks that many people could use as guidelines.

So, how long does it take you to do each of these interior renovation tasks, on average, when there are no dramatic surprises (which we all know to expect on a regular basis)? Feel free to qualify your answers or explain things further. If there are other tasks that you consider fairly common interior renovation tasks, or things you'd like to find out about, add those to the list!

1. Remove the loose paint from an old double-hung window (everything from the frame in) and prepare it for painting (presume no repair needed)?

2. Paint an old double-hung window, including frame, inside the frame, etc.?

3. Strip old wallpaper off a 12' section of wall?

4. Tape and shim-coat a crack in a plaster wall, and prepare to be painted?

5. Repair a small area of broken plaster (under 10 sq inches)?

6. Repair a medium area of broken plaster (10-100 sq inches)?

7. Repair a large area of broken plaster (100+ sq inches)

8. Tear out a section of plaster and replace with (whatever you replace it with)?

9. Refinish a fireplace mantle?

10. Paint the trim in a standard sized room, with simple woodwork, not including windows?

11. Paint the walls in a standard sized room, not including woodwork?

12. Paint the ceiling in a standard sized room, not including woodwork?

13. Lay down a new plywood subfloor in a standard-sized room?

14. Remove a damaged window and replace it with a new window (not including time to find the right window!)?

15. Repair a window that won't open and close easily?

Add your own!!

Comments (3)

  • 18 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    A lot of this depends on if you have the right materials and skills involved prior to starting. Personally I can paint a room with one wall color, trim (baseboards, picture rail, and windows and door frame, not doors), and ceiling in different color in a weekend easily including taping, assuming the room has already been patched and sanded. It might take someone else longer. Also depends on the paint color, wall texture, and how many coats you will need.

    Oh, and many times you can't estimate a job's ease or complexity until you get started. Stripping wallpaper took us weeks since there were at least 7 layers with paint in between. Many had told me it was a one day project. Yeah, if you have one layer applied properly to drywall maybe.

    Good luck with your projects.

  • 18 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I agree with the previous poster: you really can't estimate these things very accurately because your skill level increases with the more you do, plus with old houses you never know what you'll find ..... (OHJ's famous "Mushroom Factor"!)

    But I'll take a crack at it.

    1. Window scrape and prep: Well, I wouldn't do the inside w/o having done the outside before or doing it at the same time, since if the outside needed repair, most likely new putty and re-glazing (which can be a bear) it would be necessary to take the glass out and necessitate re-painting the interior, again.... So, remove sash 10 min to 40 min depending on how lucky I am and whether it's painted in.

    If it was necessary to replace the new putty then one could spend anywhere from 1 hr to 3 hours per sash getting the remaining putty safely out.

    Cleaning the lights (glass) 15 min to 1 hour per sash. This might not be necessary, depending on the age of the glass and how much haziness there is.

    Scraping the sash including muntins: 15 min to 30 per sash. That assumes it's scrapable and I'm in the mood to deal with the lead paint chips and dust. If not, then twice as long to get it off with heat or chemicals.

    Prime sash. (20-25 min per sash) (This assumes nothing needs tidying up or retruing, repegging etc. first) Let it dry.

    Reglaze sash: 20 min (2 lights) to 90 min (8 lights) per sash. Let it skim over.

    First top coat (Here's where it would get sticky because I would want to start two different paint paths, one with exterior paint and one with interior paint. I'd put inerior on the inside and on the sides of the rails, and tops and bottoms but on the exterior, I'd be using exterior first coat. Each would have to dry or at least mostly so before I could do the other surface. Figure 15 -30 min for the outside, and 25 to 40 for the inside, depending, again on the number of lights. Let it dry.

    Lightly sand it (10 min per sash).

    Now, to the frame, again assuming no major structural repairs are necessary and that I didn't break the parting bead when I got the upper sash out. Scraping inner trim and jamb. probably using a heat plate and gun, 30 min to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the complexity of the molding and how intact the under paint was, and whether I was in a particularly determined de-leading mood.

    Prime the frame (if necessary) 25-40 min. Let it dry.

    Sand the prime coat on frame lightly. 15 min tops.

    Paint first coat on frame 25-40 min.

    Reinstall both the sashes and install parting bead and reattach trim: 10 min to as much as 25 min -if I broke the parting bead and have to trim up a new one (which would have to be primed ....)
    Lightly sand the the first coat on the interior of the frame and molding (15 min).

    Do top coat on sashes and frame, indoors and out: 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on how many lights. If you had as many as 16 lights, I'd expect to add another half hour.

    Now, of course many of these jobs would be happening almost simultaneously and you would probably be doing cerveral of the same things to multiple windows, so your time would be less as you would carry on without having to start and stop so much, but, then again, on the first one it might take you as much as twice as long.

    And no allowance was made for filling any little dings with wood putty, or for installing bronze spring weatherstripping, both of which I'd expect to do with any windows I worked on. Also no allowance dealing with the exterior trim, either, which also need some caulking. Depending on the state of the interior trim, I might do a bit of caulking there, too.

    3. Wallpaper could take you anywhere from an hour to a truly miserable couple of days depending on the number of layers.

    4. I wouldn't tape a crack in plaster but a small repair might take only 5 -10 min, a couple of times with a light sanding in between. Larger cracks require cleaning out, so it's harder to say. Mixing the various plasters takes me an enormous amount of time. Larger holes require several special (and different coats) plus time to tie in some mesh lath.

    8. Tearing out a 12 foot section of a plaster wall, I think would take me (including the clean-up) the better part of a day. Plus you have to figure out how to keep the ceiling plaster up - assuming you weren't tearing it out too. Re-plastering would be my only choice and that takes only a phone call to a plasterer. I have never attempted three-coat plaster of a whole wall.

    9. Refinishing a mantle would depend on what you were going to wind up with, and what you started with. If it was simply stripping a natural finish and putting a clear one back on, it might only take 2 or 3 hours on each of a couple of days. But if you were dealing with layers of paint and you wanted to do a faux-painted marbelized finish, it could take 20-40 hours.

    10. I can paint a 12 X 12 room, including skirting board, and window and door casing in a hard-pushed nine-ish hour day. Trim, including a couple of door surfaces 3-3 1/2 hours; ceiling 1- 1 1/2 hours; the walls take the rest. But this assumes that the room is ready to be painted. I generally figure that it takes at least twice as long to get the room prepped for painting, even if there are no major dings to deal with, simply washing, minor patching, sanding, tacking, etc. And that's when you have all the paint ready, stirred, equipment, drop cloths on hand etc.

    13. Laying subfloor, would take a variable amount of time depending on how much shimmin' and trimmim' was necessary. But I would allow the better part of day, at least. It would go faster with additonal laborers to cut and carry.

    14. Installing a replacement window is not something I would ever do. (Though I have watched crews at other people's houses do one in only a couple of hours, with an experienced team of three.) Rebuilding a window is something I would expect a finish carpenter that I hired a day to install. To make the components, including building the sash etc. I would expect take him another day, or two, in his shop.

    15. Repairing a window could take 15 mintues or a day or more depending on why it didn't work, and then you'd need to repaint, probably!

    HTH
    Molly~

  • 18 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    A plaster repair, say an eliptical area 10 inches by 20 inches, might require two hours to repair, not counting the time required to secure the materials needed. It takes about 20 minutes to remove the old plaster and sweep up the residuals. It takes 10 minutes to mix up basecoat plaster, and another 10 minutes to apply same. I would allow another 20 minutes for clean-up. Finish coat plaster takes a bit more time, because you have to hydrate the lime in advance. That takes 20 minutes. Mixing the finish coat plaster takes about 20 minutes, including the time to lay down a drop-cloth and mixing board. Actual application and clean-up of finish coat plaster might take 20 minutes on a repair this size. If you have multiple plaster repair projects at the same job site, less time is spent on set-up and mixing, per individual repair.