Yes, Single Women can Renovate Homes
After my husband and I split up I stayed in the marriage house when he moved out. During the time that we had been in the house together, we had done some renovating, painting, bathroom renovation, gardening, retiling the kitchen. So I was left with the question, can single women renovate homes.
Nothing major but enough to improve the house, I put it on the market to sell as I couldn’t pay the mortgage on this house on my own.
It took just over a year to sell, I then rented for about 4 months and in this time I decided to buy a house that I could renovate, I mean how hard could it be. I knew another single female who was renovating her home, it didn’t look that hard.
Yes Single women can renovate homes
I found a small 70-year-old 3 bedroom house that was up for sale by siblings who had inherited it by the transition of death. It had had no maintenance done on it in the last few 40years. I knew this because I have become friendly with the neighbors and they had been there for just over 40 years.
After I took possession of the property I enlisted the help of my parents to help me:
- Strip out the old bright red carpet from the rooms
- Wash down the public toilet block green paint on the walls
- Scrub, the kitchen, bathroom & toilet just to make it liveable.
Then my furniture was moved in. I soon discovered that coming from a large home to a small home my furniture was too big and I had too much for this house. So I sold some and stored some pieces. I had no cupboards or shelves a lot of stuff had to stay in inboxes.
The big decision, big mistake
In a moment of not realizing what a big task I had taken on. I decided that the kitchen had to be stripped out, it was filthy old and falling apart. So a week after moving in I got rid of the kitchen cupboards and benches. All I was left with was a meter-long bit of bench and a sink.
Painting and fixing rooms
I decided to fix up my son’s room first so at least he had a nice area to be in, it went well, painting and some curtains. I decided to leave the floor till last because the floor in his bedroom was bare floorboards close together and would look great polished.
So I moved on to painting the lounge room area.
Fixing the flooring
The floorboards were not good enough to polish. so I spoke to a person at Bunning’s about flooring and he advised me about nails and masonite I decided to lay masonite and then I was either going to put lino or stick on lino tiles.
So I nailed the masonite down in the lounge room and the guy at bunnings had advised me wrongly and I ended up with nails too long and masonite too thin and it wouldn’t sit flat no matter what I did, so I pulled it all up and decided to put down a floating floor after which I did an extensive investigation into I put into the lounge room and it looked great.
After finishing the lounge room I moved on to my bedroom and once again painted and then put down a floating floor because it was like the lounge room was not good enough to polish. So within less than six months.
Single Women can renovate as a marathon, not a sprint
I had nearly completed 3 rooms. Then I had 4 to go, the kitchen and bathroom, and the third bedroom and entry area.
I decided to do the bathroom next because the toilet had to be shifted off the back wall. All so that the kitchen sink would be on the back wall overlooking the garden. Because to be honest, the toilet had the best view in the house.
Picking up the phone, I called builders and plumbers and discovered that a single woman renovating attracted all the tradies to rip you off.
I am lucky in the fact that my dad is a retired builder and my ex-husband was a builder and his brother was a plumber. While I didn’t want to admit that I needed advice from my ex-husband but I did. I spoke to him about what I wanted to do. He was most helpful with information and his brother offered to do the plumbing at a reasonable price.
Putting things off renovating
I decided to put the bathroom off for a little while and concentrate on the things that I could do myself. Honestly, I discovered was not much. So I planted trees and did some gardening and started to fix up the front entry room.
Then due to an illness, I had to stop work and nothing has been done to my house since I have lived in it for over a year now and I regret the decision to pull the kitchen out.
I miss having a normal functioning kitchen. I’m just relieved that I didn’t rip out the bathroom in preparation for a new one because I wouldn’t have a bathroom either.
Even with my illness I still try to do one little thing every day and work towards the goal of completely renovating my home.
My best advice for women renovating
- Always do your research, and ask advice from people that you know that either has a trade or have renovated.
- Don’t be afraid to get on the power tools yourself. I’ve bought some good quality power tools and have learned how to use them efficiently.
- Shop around for your renovating needs. Try second-hand stores, and garage sales, the dump shops are great. The things that people throw out can amaze you.
- At the tile, shops ask to see what they have out the back as seconds and tiles leftover from jobs or over-ordering. Sometimes these you can normally get at half price.
- Do not rip out anything that you use before you are ready to replace it.
- Always let an electrician do the electricity stuff.
- Don’t be afraid to have a go and if you make mistakes learn from them.
Yes, single women can renovate. Being a single woman renovating can build confidence and skills. As well a lot of men find it sexy and attractive…. well so I was told by a single man.
