Unfortunately, HGTV has manipulated people into thinking building and remodels can happen in a weekend. I once had a client that was shocked that an entire first floor remodel would be months, not just a few days.

Ain't it the truth, Sina Sadeddin!

And when you're DIYing most of your own remodel, it takes even longer. My first big project I completed, I thought I was being generous with my 2 month start-to-finish timeline. Because of life getting in the way, the reality was it took almost a year to complete. With each new project, I'm getting better at figuring out how long it will really take.

Well, Im about to embark on my first remodel/redecorating project on my own in many years without a general C to manage and Im sure hoping my old experience will come back in terms of managing trades etc..I don't expect perfection, and its not huge, but the coordination is important, and that in itself will dictate either two months or a lot longer..floor refinishing, cabinet painting, new counters and new fireplace, all in new paint..hoping for six weeks max, if I can get everyone lined up and no surprises..haha

Good luck with your remodel, sw8689! Hope your start-to-finish is nothing but smooth sailing.

Great question, Larri!

I have remodeled more than I can remember and am getting ready for yet another (different house - this one will probably be the last). For starters, we have to paint outside trim, replace doors and re-landscape. That will be the "easy" part because it will not necessarily disrupt our inside living. We will also be adding a sliding door and steps to a patio in the back. We are taking out a window and making it into a slider. The biggie will be removing carpet and installing hardwood in the master bed, closet and bath, and a full gut and remodel of said master closet and bath. All while we are living there.

From past experience: dust, more dust, and even more dust. For months! Also, be prepared for the unexpected because when remodeling there are always surprises. Oh, and my biggest frustration? When the crew leaves for a week and nothing happens! But that's reality, because no contractor works on just one job at a time. They are juggling different jobs, all with clients who are every bit as impatient as we.

The finished product, if you have planned well and used the expertise of architects and engineers (if needed), and especially designers, is so worth all the dust and frustration.

When we bought our current home, it was a repossession. It needed new flooring, painting, new exit doors, and bath/kitchen fixtures and some plumbing before even moving in. I gave myself and my crew(sons/grandkids/friends) 30 days.

It was basically a full remodel---all trim came off and was cleaned/refinished, all walls were primed/painted, new solid wood flooring installed/sanded/finished, new front/rear entry doors replaced, several plumbing leaks/alterations made and new faucets in kitchen/both bathrooms, and more insulation blown into the attic.

I had all the flooring, underlayment, and tools. It took five days to install wood flooring(stapled T&G) in three bedrooms, one hall, and the living room. Due to the absolute squareness of the house(and proper location of install lines), all that flooring was installed with out transitions at doorways---all five areas are one monolithic floor. Another two days to sand and should have taken two days to finish. The finish I bought for the second coat was past the shelf life, would not cure, and had to be removed---lost two days.

We did not have to live in the house until all that was finished.We did not make that deadline, kitchen/back hall way floors were not done.

However, we did want to move in before everything was done. What remained was replacing all electrical fixtures, new wall receptacles, crown molding installed, kitchen island removed and repositioned, kitchen cabinets primed/painted/new hardware, new water heater, plus some small items.

The above was done after we moved in and took another 30 or so days. Total time was about 75 days---and we worked almost every day.

Much later, I remodeled the hall bath(10' by 6')removing old tile/sheetrock and replacing sheetrock, installed a 3 piece tub surround, new vanity/faucet, removed an original to the house medicine chest, finished the sheet rock to a #5 finish, painted with gloss acrylic enamel, built and installed wainscoting, new backsplash, and new mirror. Took ten days.

HandyMac, I'm impressed! Were you already retired when you took on this project? And as a Pro, you clearly have a number of advantages over those of us who are mostly DIY!

What a fantastic view! Your home sounds like a labor of love and looks fabulous with all those huge windows across the back overlooking the lake.

i am cursed/blessed with sawdust being an aphrodisiac for me. bring it on.....

We have not tackled a remodel, but we have always had "projects". We added a 20X20 concrete patio on the back of our first house. Do you know how heavy concrete is when you have to wheel barrow back each load? Who knew??!!! We decided that from then on, any project we tackled, we would double the cost and double the time. So far, we've been right!

We hired a GC and his cabinet maker for our kitchen redo. We had all of the decisions made and products bought before we started. My husband did all of the demolition, electrical (signed off by the GC's electrician), and plumbing. It was one of the best "projects" we have ever undertaken. BUT, our sump pump died and our basement flooded during the redo. So all of the stuff in the basement ended up in the garage because the dining room and living room were filled with cabinets and kitchen things! And we had to suck out 4" of water and replace the sump and dry the basement. Our cabinet makers father suddenly became seriously ill and died so we were on hold, rightfully so, for 4 weeks. Our redo from the time the GC started until we signed off, took ~16 weeks. But the project was longer because my husband started the demo 4 weeks before that!!! But, it was the least stressful "project" we have ever undertaken.

A common thread...plans go awry, and be ready to adapt.

Yesterday's plan: Ready the room next to new addition for sanding/staining this weekend. Reality: Floor guys finished earlier than expected & needed room ready today b/c their other (priority) job was pushed backed. Flexed muscles I didn't know I had, coaxed my teenagers into helping late last night. We're ready when they arrive b/c we didn't want to put it off when they had another available slot in 2 weeks. #GoWithTheFlow right? :)

I was semi-retired when we did this home.

One of the serious situations I found happened when replacing the entry doors. A previous owner had new siding on the house added(over the original Batten board). That siding was a combination of a plastic insulated siding that looks like cedar shingles on the upper section of the front and north sides(garage is on south side). The lower areas of the front and north sides and all of the south and back of the house is steel(not aluminum) insulated lap siding. The trim for that siding was installed over and attached to the brickmold for the original siding/entry doors.

That meant to remove the exterior brickmold, I had to remove a lot of the siding to be able to remove the trim. That was way too much work and actually unnecessary because I simply pulled the old door/frames from the inside and then removed the new brickmold from the new door frames and glued the new doors to the old(original) brick molds still in place when the new doors were installed from the inside.

Not the way I usually replaced entry prehung doors, but there is no way to tell now it was done any other way.

When I was un my late my early years and living in a smaller city I flipped a house and general contracted three to flip. funny what courage and connections youth can do..Now in my fifties and in a large port city we purchased our house 14 year ago that someone had fixed up to sell and we have been redoing it bit by bit ever since. the back yard was an absolute jungle on a mountain, the front yard, covered in cigarette butts and moss. the front yard was easy to relandscape. the backyard, took 10 years to be able to spend the money to do it right. I designed it, and had an architect draw it up, hired a general contractor, and away we went..the issues were old nurse stumps and crazy excavation that ended up costing over 20,000! because of the large rocks and rock and stump grinding. luckily, those boulders were used for a gorgeous retaining wall. Ill try to post a few pictures. There is a Large cedar swim spa to the far right and the Rock retaining wall is at the bottom of the hill where the dirt is in the picture. And we even managed wheel chair access for my brother..we were over budget and over time by about six months! haha..but love it!

Mary E. your home and view are stunning!

We are avid DIY'ers, but we hire out for some projects... like when the 6' high retaining wall right next to our basement door started failing, we felt it was imperative to get people with more experience and tools they didn't need a learning curve to operate, as it was important that the problem was fixed asap because looming weather made it a potentially massive problem. LOL! I have always found that the daily clean-up for a remodel or repair job to be extremely important, and the easiest thing to overlook when you're tired and/or irritated.

My reality is it takes longer and costs more than you thought... I bought a move in ready home 8 months ago and started the demo for a remodel immediately... anything green is a before pic... My other reality is I am too old for this lol

I always suggested to my clients to assume 30% overage/budget and 30% over schedule. Some say that's a bit too much, but in my neck of the woods, trades are few and far between and VERY expensive ($180/hr for Red Seal Plumber or Electrician). The wait time is as much as 8 months to line up a remodel. A single tradesman can take 2 months to fit you into his/her schedule.

Anytime a homeowner took my advice and planned for those two "30%" eventualities, they have been more than ready for all the hurdles they had to face.

The one's who didn't have the extra budget but started anyway, found out they were in over their head from the get-go. It is a sad thing to see. The stress and emotional damage an event like a "renovation from hell" can create is extremely high.

As with the Boy Scouts - Be Prepared.

Paul M, I'm with you - too old for this (now). I started many years ago (40! ack!) by being the general contractor (with my then husband) to build our first house. It was an eye-opener and an experience that has guided me ever since. In my next life, I totally gutted (a little at a time) a 1980 ranch on the side of a mountain. I loved that house and did most of the demo myself, including using an iron to get up old vinyl flooring - after working a 10 hour day. I learned to set tile, grout, repair drywall. hang cabinets, and always did all the painting myself. When I wanted to remove something big (like a bearing wall), I called in the experts and paid for their services. It was stressful, always took longer than I thought, but oh so rewarding.

Now, as I said above, I am about to start on a bunch of projects in my aging-in-place home. At the age of 64, with arthritis and other ailments poking their nasty heads into my life, I am resigned to letting the experts do most of the work. Still, there is something so therapeutic in swinging a sledge hammer and the smell of sawdust...

Love all the good advice, and you're totally wowing me with these photos! Definitely makes remodeling well worth it!

I think it's important to note, too, that you have to factor in the starts and stops. Sometimes, life events get in the way during a remodel. Most times, it's okay to step back, take a breath, and walk away for a bit, especially if you're DIYing most of it. You can plan, plan, plan all you want; however, a remodel rarely goes without some sort of surprise in the middle of it.

Today's reality: The last load of laundry I can clean is drying right now. Can't do any more until the hardwood floors are cured. Why? Because I own a gas dryer. The fumes from the finishes are somehow attracted to that little blue flame, and our clothes will end up smelling like they've been soaked in diesel fuel. Learned that the hard way quite a few remodeling projects back. My poor teenagers will suffer this week, or learn all about using a public laundromat. ;)

Denita & sw8689, thank you both. All four seasons, and it never gets old - we are blessed!

Larri, yes life happens! Since we started this project, we have had three of our six children move in with us (and back out again!) Two more got married, and we have gone from 3 to 11 grandchildren!

Paul M, totally agree with the "takes longer and costs more"! Also, the old part, but then we think, we have to be busy, and this is what we do!

We just finished a master bathroom remodel. We started with a 30 year old room which had only had piecemeal updates: a new vanity top many years ago,, a new shower door eons ago , etc.cEverything was worn and beyond repair.

Our bathroom desperately needed a major overhaul, top to bottom.

The first surprise was pulling up the old tile and discovering the floor wasn't level...which explained why the tile was cracked and loosening.

So we had to deal with that issue, setting our schedule back by more than a week. The plumbing couldn't be moved and even though one vanity drawer already had a cut- out to accommodate plumbing, we had to cut out another in the next drawer down.

Our contractor used an excellent tile guy but when he installed he shower system he had an " oops" moment and the floor from the shower to our main bathroom floor was 1/4" too high, which meant water at the threshold could flow out of the shower instead of remaining in it ( although the majority of the shower floor channeled water to the drain, as it should)

Luckily, the tile guy caught the floor issue ( not sure we would have) and of course repaired it and that meant removing tile, cutting some new pieces ( because much of the old tile broke) , etc

We'd designed a basket weave feature wall in the shower and had to make some tough decisions about how to cut our large main shower tiles to accommodate the pattern, our shower size ( shower wall dimensions, etc) .

The result was that we couldn't have the top of the basketweave line up perfectly with the grout lines on the main tile ( see photo ) .

It's hard to explain why... but the cut lines in the main tile would have been weird and we'd have to change the size of the main ( large) tile so that it wouldn't blend seamlessly with the rest of the full-sized tiles .

.We can live just fine with the basketweave as it is. It would drive some people crazy.

But we love our bathroom. It's sparkling fresh, clean, new, and functional. A world of difference from before.

And oh yes... there were the challenges of selecting a grout color for the shower tile and the right shade of white for the bathroom walls...

but worth it. Totally. Here's the before photo, as seen from bathroom doorway :

. Same view , after, general idea of difference ( picture not hung yet:, no window treatment yet, walls are whiter, not yellow, vanity top actually coordinates with floor and wall color)

Shower, waiting for floor tile and grouting of back wall:

Beautiful remodel, J Corn! I love that basketweave tile. Setbacks in the timeline are common, yes? I've yet to encounter a remodeling project where the plan goes according to the original plan.

Our GC was great, but our cabinet team has been absolutely terrible. My wife "liked" the cabinet people so we went with them instead of the GC's cabinet team.

Our original plan was to tear out a wall and put another wall in. It made sense to completely tear out the very good cabinets. The cost was too high so we decided to leave the walls intact which meant we could have left the original cabinet boxes. However we had established a relationship with the cabinet people and my wife still wanted all new cabinets instead of just leaving the original boxes. When we pulled the old cabinets I realized they were extremely high quality fully custom cabinets.

Originally the cabinets were supposed to take 5 weeks. They took 9 weeks, they claimed when I switched the garbage drawer from the island to next to the sink, it pulled us out of the queue. No one told us this until the delay happened.

Then the cabinets came, but about 1/4 were missing. It took another 4 weeks to get those in. Luckily the base cabinets with counters were in so we were able to measure countertops.

then when the missing ones came in, one set was not plywood, but mdf.

Some of the cabinet doors are not soft close.

some of the drawers we specced are not there, we never got drawings for those portions so it is he said/she said.

Missing tilt out at sink.

I also realized too late that not all plywood cabinets are the same, instead of 3/4 all the way around, the cabinets are 3/4" in the back but only 1/2" on the sides. For 3K more we could have had 3/4" all the way around, but the cabinet designer couldnt explain the difference at the time we were making the selection. On a 200K remodel, 3K was a drop in the bucket.

the install is not very good at all with large fill spaces between the wall and the cabinets and obvious seams between the two sets of uppers. We arent quite done yet so we will see what the final product looks like. We never got full drawings showing every space so now I realize I could have gotten a broom "closet" in one of the gaps. I might have one custom made.

For 25K for cabinets im somewhat disappointed.

I prefer a very light maple, my wife wanted white. I dont see how the paint finish will last even a year in our house with 3 kids.

We decided to move in this week because it has been dragging on for too long (we started at the end of nov). Of course it looks like thunderstorms on our move in date.

Maybe Ill be posting a "DO NOT MOVE IN IF IT IS RAINING" post.

On the plus side

I do love the bluestar range :)

Love the floors

No major structural or mechanical issues encountered

Oh, dear, Anthony C! Sorry your kitchen remodel hasn't gone as you planned. It's difficult to know which questions to ask, yes? We often don't know what we should have asked in the beginning until we've reached the finish.

Hoping your move in takes place between the raindrops! Keep us posted.

TV Remodel: Floors would be finished and room decorated by now.

Our Floor Finishing Reality: Second coat of poly is being applied. It's cold and humid / rainy all weekend. Probably won't be able to apply a third coat until Monday. The odor is strong, but bearable at the moment with a couple of windows cracked to draw in fresh air. Thank goodness the pollen isn't too thick yet. Now that would be a mess!

Good luck with the floors, Larri! I'll keep my fingers crossed that the pollen waits a while before you have that lovely yellow sheen all over everything!

Thank you, Jane Gray! It's still a bit too cold for the pine trees to let loose, so we're hopefully in the clear. :)