Back in February, I spoke at the Downtown Raleigh Home Show about our massive historic restoration. It was a great experience for me to get better at public speaking, and share some of what I had learned. Plus, it fell right in line with my word of the year: fearless!

I’ve been meaning to share about that experience, but it just kept getting pushed to the back burner. So when Personal Capital contacted me about sharing more about how we prioritized our to do list and our budget, I figured it was the perfect time to share more.

Here’s some of the slides from my presentation at the home show, and long with a little more commentary…

We had a lot of structural issues. We had a cracking foundation, completely rotten eaves, gutters, and overhangs, holes in the roof, a falling-down porch, etc. I could go on for a while here. So the biggest chunk of our budget and time went to stabilizing the structural integrity of the house. You can have a gorgeous magazine-worthy kitchen, but if your roof is caving in, does it really matter? The answer is no, no it doesn’t.

Pretty scary, right?!

In any renovation, the homeowners’ priorities will be different. For us, getting the outside looking decent was pretty high on our list. Ours is a family home, and many of our neighbors remember Charles’ grandmother living there. When we bought the house, we already had relationships with most of the neighbors, so it was important to us to get the block looking a little nicer. A couple of our neighbors even mentioned to us that they had planned to move because the house was such an eyesore, but decided to stay when they heard we had bought it.

We decided early on that we didn’t want to make a lot of “band aid” decisions. Band aid decisions are when you spend money to make a quick and/or temporary fix that will have to be undone or redone later. We try to avoid this as much as possible. But after getting the house structurally sound, we went ahead and got a layer of paint on the house which made a huge difference.

Remember that list of things that needed to happen on the exterior? Well the list was even longer inside! We had terrible mold issues due to so much of the interior being exposed to the elements; we had asbestos under vinyl floors, electrical wiring all over the place, and graffiti on many of the surfaces. Oh and those plaster walls and ceilings? Those were crumbling. And don’t even get me started on the plumbing issues.

We basically went room by room and made a master list of all that needed to be done. Structural issues took first priority and then we moved to the inside after cleaning up the exterior a bit. Things like landscaping, fences, replacing the shutters, and adding insulation were all pretty low on the list. In fact, it’s been three and a half years and we still haven’t hit everything on our big renovation list. I always laugh when someone asks if we’re finished with our house. It will never be finished! But that’s home ownership right?

And here are a few other tips that I shared at the Home Show…

We save a lot of money by reusing old wood that was still in good shape. We only knocked out and/or rebuilt a few walls in our master bathroom and closet, but we saved the doors, door frames, and moldings to use in other places. Finding moldings as large as our 1902 moldings is both difficult and expensive, so we were happy to cut that corner. We also saved a lot of bricks and used them to line our driveway and garden beds.

When working with an older home, you have to have vision. Think outside the box…not everything has to be exactly as it was in the beginning. Our second floor used to be a separate apartment, so we decided to turn the old kitchen into our master bathroom. We basically had a blank slate that we could do anything with, so we decided to create a luxurious spa-like bathroom. But because of that, we skipped the big kitchen renovation. Priorities, right?

Suffice it to say that we absolutely could not have gotten through our restoration without the help of family and friends. We had our parents, brother, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends on the team, which made all the difference. They helped clean, paint, refinish bathtubs, and just about anything else you can think of. Not to mention the emotional support they provided when we were ready to pull our hair out and call it quits.

I say this all the time, but it’s true. With any home, but especially an historic home, it’s important to realize that you are just a small part of it’s history and not the other way around. Charles’ grandmother lived in this house for over 60 years. This house was built in 1902, and will (hopefully) be here long after we’re gone. So in everything we do for our home, we try to adhere to two rules: 1) Maintain the historical integrity (which doesn’t have to mean giving up any modern conveniences or luxuries), and 2) make it a better place for the next family, whether that’s in 5 years or 50 years.

Have you done a big or small renovation? How do you prioritize and budget? If you could renovate just one room of your house, what room would it be?

Thanks to Personal Capital for partnering with me on this post! Personal Capital is the modern way to manage your money. With free financial tools and a conflict-free advisory service, Personal Capital leads people on the path to their financial goals.