Rose Cottage Ltd

I’ll start off first with what my best online friend, Wikipedia, has to say:

(To) Renovate: Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving a structure. Two prominent types of renovations are commercial and residential.

(To) Remodel: To make over in structure or style; reconstruct.

Not much clarity there!

I’m nearing the end of (in my mind) “renovations” at my house and getting close to the “remodeling” stage. You can read more about that here.

In practice, renovating and remodeling are much the same but in my frame of reference the process and work is entirely different. Before you either purchase an older property or contemplate upgrades to your current home – getting yourself in the right frame of mind may prove helpful.

To me, “renovate” usually means something has to come down before new can go up. This can still relate to “upgrades,” but is more often referring to necessary improvements to a home’s main structures such as the roof, foundation, walls, floor, electrical systems, HVAC, wells and their (expensive) pumps, etc., etc. These are things I see as “required.”

On the other hand, “remodeling” implies upgrades. You have a functioning kitchen but want to change the footprint or want new cabinets or new counter tops, etc. Remodeling can be as simple as changing the kitchen sink faucet hardware. These construction tasks I see as “nice-to-do” or optional.

With older properties, the tricky part is where your remodeling process exposes renovation necessities. That old Tom Hanks movie called, “The Money Pit” provides a prime example. In the movie, the couple got an unbelievable deal on a real estate property that appeared to need some mainly cosmetic improvements. In reality, every “cosmetic” change exposed a massive problem just below the surface, and a “money pit” the house became!

None of this really makes any difference unless you buy a home for what appears to be a great price and figure you’ll have to spend say $10,000 on improvements. Unless you have a lot of construction experience, have a very thorough home inspector, or are yourself a General Contractor, you might find that before you can spend that optional $10,000 for “remodeling” you may have to spend $20,000 on “renovation.” This is what gets a lot of people with great intentions into serious financial (and emotional) difficulty.

If you think of renovations as “substance” and remodeling as “style,” it might make it a lot easier to plan the estimates of time, cost, and resources required to tackle your next home project.