How long did you go between buying your house and doing major work on it? And what did the work cost vs initial costs and how long did it take?

We’re closing this week on our first house and it’s generally move-in ready, although there are lots of things we’d like to do (short medium and long term). But feeling very daunted by the extremely high costs of doing what seems to be just about any work on a house these days.

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Live in a house before you do renovations

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We did all the work at once before we moved in - found it was better due to finding a contractor to take the job as well as getting more of a package deal on the cost. Plus we didn’t live through the construction which is brutal. Took about 3 months. I would 💯 recommend this unless you don’t have the money to do this before and need to move in asap.

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Been living in our house for 11 years. Spreading out the projects. I suggest just live in it for a while and slowly make plans. It took us 3 years to figure out the kitchen. So glad we waited and thought it through. And, we bought a fixer and everywhere we looked needed work. Focus on systems. If the house is done and works, don’t feel pressure to do anything in your first year. Good luck!

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It totally depends on your financial situation. For my first house, we just didn’t have money to do much after we bought it. Our plan was to do one major renovation a year, which we did for about the first 6 yrs. For our current house, we had more savings by then, bought a fixer-upper and did the entire gut renovation at once, including an extension. It took about 9 months, and around $300k. I much prefer doing everything at once, but that’s not an option a lot of times.

We're on house #7. We always do flooring before we move in (assuming it needs it) because it saves a lot of furniture hassle. But we apply the same logic to all projects, which is a combination of time proximity (how soon would we do it after moving in) and livability during project (e.g. finishing out a bonus room is easier to live thru than a kitchen remodel).

In the flooring example, we usually do full carpet replacement upstairs and full hardwood replacement downstairs. Makes it feel new and is not livable at scale.

Affordability trumps all though because I hate non mortgage debt.

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