What I WISH knew before I started renovating 

(My word....how does this video not have hundreds of comments already😯? Regardless, here we go....) I owned my first storey and a half 'wartime' house here in Canada for 17 years. Good bones (room layout; window sizes and locations; bath on each floor; cute loft and second bedroom upstairs...etcetera) but in need of both updating and, paradoxically for a ~50 year old house, 'character-i-fying'. The adding character was because I both like old fashioned design and because the age of the house could support that kind of design direction. What transpired were 17 years of almost continuous, on and off redecorating and renovation, both minor and major. This was accomplished by 'professional' tradespeople, by myself and my father, and by an incredibly talented friend. What I learned skills-wise and what I learned about *the real stresses* of the process were eye-opening. One would think the stresses would have come from what Fifi mentioned in this video. But *99% of the stress came* not from the length of time it took, nor from budget constraints (which were severe in my case), but rather *from the few times I had 'professional' tradespeople and contractors on the jobs.* *These 'professionals' drove me mad,* as I think the British say. -- *Not sticking to **_very specific_** design specifications of a job,* thereby necessitating apprehensive phone calls and /or personal meetings with the person to ask, for example, why the new concrete sidewalk framing was a completely different shape than what had been marked out with paint and approved by me the night before; -- *Not showing up when they promised they would,* necessitating all kinds of bother and inconvenience; -- *Completely mucking up the job* ---using the wrong paint colour; installing carpet that was damaged at the warehouse; damaging new, existing redecoration; leaving rooms a mess or damaged that were not even a part of the project; incompetent drywall mudding and taping (I could have done better, and I'm quite bad at it); a brand new roof that leaked like a sieve....etcetera....etcetera; -- *Having a bad, unnecessarily confrontational attitude* from the get go (they seemed fine during pre-hiring interviews); --Essentially displaying *an attitude of reluctance even to do the job* for which they were hired, etcetera....etcetera.... I recall many times as the years went on, and I went on to two other houses which needed their own redecoration / renovations, that despite my father's and my non-professional qualifications, and our sometimes excellent and sometimes not quite perfect results, that *_at least we only had ourselves to blame_* for any imperfections, and had at least had a peaceful, good attitude progression and hadn't had to deal with any nasty, dishonest, incompetent contractors and tradespeople. My current living space is an apartment condominium (a flat) that has 28 year old, faded, scuffed pink(!) paint and similar colour wall to wall carpet and counters in the kitchen. I had actually already had several flooring firms in and had picked out new lovely, light engineered wood and a cool new vinyl for the various rooms, and had the perfect, neutral (not boring! lol) paint colour selected. Five years later, and I still live with the old, faded materials that seem to suck the life out of my really nice furniture. (Who knew certain background colours could make a $6000. chair look like a thrift store castoff? And yes, with a limited budget that had been a _huge_ splurge back in the day.) *Contractors and tradespeople are randomly nasty.* I hate dealing with those types, and the 50/50 possibility of being stuck with that type throughout even a flooring install makes me run from taking action on my home. And it's a problem echoed by thousands of others who've had bad experiences in the past. Thanks for the helpful, well presented video, by the way🙂.