Bootcamp for Do It Yourself Renovators

by Al Heavens
What people new to homeownership don't know tends to be a lot. Boot camps offered to first-time buyers in the form of classes are already seen in many cities. But what about first-time renovators? Or how about those interested in restoring an older home? Perhaps there should be a boot camp for them as well.

I'm a big believer in trying to find out as much as you can about a project before you jump in feet first, and that's why a recent e-mail from the Allen Mortgage and Real Estate Group in St. Paul, Minn., caught my eye. Recognizing how overwhelming the home-buying process can be for first-timers, Allen is sponsoring a series of "first-time home buyers boot camps" around Minnesota between the end of April and mid-December of 2005.

The process can seem simple, but "it's what first time home buyers don't know that can really hurt them," said Cindy Allen, who is a principal in the company. "There are many expensive pitfalls that may not become evident until a new homebuyer is in the middle of an unforeseen problem. Then they must learn the hard way. We don't want buying your first home to become a nightmare."

This is not a real boot camp, where prospective buyers live in tents and ford swollen streams wearing 50-pound backpacks. These "camps," held in classroom settings, present the home-buying process from start to finish, from understanding credit scores to figuring out what is the "right" mortgage.

It is a concept I think I could take to the renovation world -- a boot camp for people planning to buy older homes and fixer-uppers.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, ever since I spent an evening at a Home Depot project night designed for women. A number of participants who recognized me from my newspaper column photo asked me if I would ever teach a nuts-and-bolts home renovation course.

I considered it for a while, and then decided that it would be better if I found some way of presenting the good, the bad and the ugly of renovation, emphasizing the cost-effective ways of doing it.

Although I've told a lot of people lately that if I had the chance to renovate two houses again, I might have stayed in bed, that isn't completely true. I would have done things differently, for sure. For example, I would have developed a way of measuring the effectiveness of doing a project myself versus hiring someone to do
it, based on an algebraic formula along the lines of what the math genius on CBS-TV's Numbers uses to solve crimes for his brother in the FBI.

In the vast majority of cases, the numbers for most major renovation projects that homeowners take on themselves don't add up. Even some regular maintenance projects that a homeowner typically tackles might be more cost-effective if it were done by a paid professional instead.

Let's look at the annual swabbing of the deck -- a task I took on myself for the 13 years I owned a house that had one. The bi-level deck, with stairs, measured 300 square feet. Because the deck was on the north side of the house, the absence of direct sunlight for a good part of the year meant that it was very green and dirty.

A deck maintenance job typically requires washing the deck and then applying two coats of water-repellent sealer, usually in mid-spring when the temperatures are still cool and there is more cloud cover. What this means, of course, is that you have to wait for the ideal time for the job, hoping that your available time and the ideal time mesh.

Just think about actual working time. It typically took me 16 hours to maintain the deck from start to finish. Now say my regular job paid me $40 an hour, or $640 for 16 hours. Would it be more cost-effective to hire a professional, who usually takes less time than even the most-experienced do-it-yourselfer to do this job, than to do it yourself, especially if the guy or woman charges $400 from start to finish?

I'm not knocking do-it-yourself. For the last 15 years, I've been one of the chief advocates of it. What I am saying, however, is pick your battles. Cleaning a deck is a messy job, usually done after a hard week of your doing the one that brings in the bacon. It would have been smarter for me to cut off a couple of slices for the professional deck cleaner, and be able to do something else, something fun.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's what homeowner's boot camp should offer: A chance to clean an outdoor deck. Too bad I didn't think about when I owned such a deck. I could have had people paying me for the privilege.