Most renovation regret is decided before any work begins.
Homeowners tend to arrive at a full home renovation with a Pinterest board and a number in their head, and those two things are usually unrelated. The number came from a friend’s project in a different house, and the board contains finishes whose cost varies by a factor of ten. Neither is a plan, and the gap between them is where projects stall.
The part that actually determines cost is rarely visible in photographs: how much of the house has to move. A kitchen renovation that keeps the sink and the stove where they are, and one that relocates both, can look identical when finished and differ enormously on the invoice. Same for walls — an opening is cheap, a structural opening is not.
The rest is what the house is hiding. Around here a large share of the housing stock predates the 1980s, so behind the drywall you find out-of-square framing, original wiring, and services that were sized for a different era. A renovation contractor who has worked on those houses prices that risk openly and puts an allowance against it. One who ignores it produces a lower quote and a difficult conversation later.
