Renovation of a two-family house from 1936 experiences?

Here comes another update.

First, the drywall installer was here as agreed and built our new bathrooms, or rather their walls.



The wall between the children's rooms now exists as well:



And the basement is mostly insulated - sorry, poor image quality. There remains a cozy 183-185cm room height. But it is only intended as storage. In one room we still have 2m.



Then the heating engineer was here and installed almost all the pipes (and only placed one pipe incorrectly. The architect had him remove the wastewater pipe through my study again, I don’t know if we would have requested that) as well as the connections for the radiators.

The latter are now about 50% more expensive than in the first offer due to larger dimensions and additional radiators - good thing we estimated the subsidies higher than the offer.

The electrician has reached the ground floor and is waiting for our decision regarding the kitchen. We have two options for that:

One is a U-shape:


This allows for pretty optimal workflows but feels less like our style (we can still change the door swing, but the door opens 180°) and it has two dead corners.

Alternatively, this variant here with longer walking distances (which we still have longer in the rented apartment - the distance between the cooktop <-> sink is even greater - and it doesn’t bother us much, rather it provides more space when the kids are in the kitchen). We would shift the property line to the sink side here; it is currently only on the left side of the tall cabinet because we once considered setting it a bit higher and then having the oven above. The passage at the bottom is 75cm.



What do you think? The kitchen comes from the carpenter who builds everything himself.

And: The window installer has installed the terrace door. But I’m actually missing a photo of that right now... will follow up. Looks great though!

Even though the response is rather sparse, it’s once again time for an update :)

Since May, quite a bit has happened.
- We have a nice new roof with photovoltaics. It was originally supposed to happen in July, then it happened in October.
- The heat pump is here – the outdoor unit is still in the neighbor’s garage because the scaffolding is still up. That should go away next week, because
- The painter has been active for quite some time. He’s basically doing everything: completely new interior plaster, painting, patching the new windows, painting the facade outside, and the floor including skirting boards.

Overall, it already looks really good now, but progress is simply slow… there are many little things missing that you underestimate as a layperson. Moving in is planned for January…

Unfortunately, we are now about 30% over budget… but largely responsible for that ourselves. The budget originally did not include photovoltaics (12 kWp, about 20k before subsidies), not a completely new roof (additional costs about 25k), a smaller terrace (additional cost 5k). Then there was a surprise with the statics (15k additional costs in the shell construction), which no one can be blamed for, as the floor plans regarding the exterior walls were simply wrong and only when opening the walls was the double-shell masonry discovered.

Many trades were well estimated by the architect, but the painter’s estimate was completely off… we are simply over 200% above that (or 30k), and that is something I blame her for. With her experience, she should have known that the estimated budget was not enough to fix the mess left by the electrician and plumber. Only 2000€ were set aside for interior plaster repair and 12000€ for painting. The same goes for the drywall for cladding of new pipes, steel beams, etc., where we are at four times the estimated 3000€.

She had clearly said that one should plan for 15% additional costs, but we had assumed that was for surprises like the situation with the statics. Luckily, we had no others…

Overall, this doesn’t put us in trouble now, as luckily we have enough reserves, but it does dampen the mood.

Apart from that, the woman continues to do a good job, is on the construction site multiple times a week at times, does a good job managing the construction, and is reachable and active at impossible times. Compared to what we hear from friends or acquaintances about their architects, we made a good choice.

Photos will come once the scaffolding is gone next week :)

Hello Leschaf, Thank you for your updates. I always enjoy reading them and find your progress interesting.

There was then a surprise with the (15K€ additional costs in the shell construction), which no one can be blamed for, since the floor plans regarding the exterior walls were simply wrong and the double-shell masonry was only discovered when the walls were opened.

This is a bit elaborate but definitely clarifiable in advance.

The architect estimated many trades well, but missed completely with the painter…we are simply over 200% above the budget there (or also 30K€) and that is a point I criticize her for. With her experience, she should actually have known that the budget estimated was not enough to fix the mess from the electrician and plumber. Only 2000€ were budgeted for plaster repair inside and 12000€ for painting. The same goes for drywall for cladding new pipes, steel beams etc., here we are at four times the estimated 3000€.

This smells like the typical misestimation by architects who are not specialized in old building stock. What does "mess from the electrician and plumber" actually mean: were they piecework barbarians and/or was the planning detail insufficient here? - I would have deducted remediation costs from their invoices. It is called supervision work.

This is a bit elaborate, but definitely clarifiable in advance. This smells like the typical misjudgment of architects who are not specialized in old buildings. What does "mess from electrician and sanitary" actually mean: were these piecework barbarians and/or was the detailing poorly planned here? - I would have deducted the mess correction costs from their invoices. That's called overhead work.

You are probably right about the first point. Regarding the mess: we are so far very satisfied with the electrician. The heating engineer is so-so; he already did some thoughtless things in 1-2 places. But I was more concerned that due to the vibrations when chipping out the walls, a lot of clay undercoat simply fell off or was loose afterwards and had to be removed. We have paid over 100 hours on an hourly basis for repairs and preparation of the top coat. The architect is actually very experienced in old buildings; that's why we hired her. We were also able to visit several of her renovations beforehand; both she and the respective builders were very open there. But I just don't understand how the painting work can be underestimated like that. To meet the price, we basically would have only been allowed to fill the chases and then paint :D

But it was more about the fact that a lot of clay base plaster simply fell off or was loose and had to be removed due to the vibrations when chiseling the walls. We paid over 100 hours at an hourly rate for repair and preparation of the top plaster. The architect is actually very experienced in old buildings, which is why we hired her. We were also able to visit several of her renovations beforehand, and both she and the respective clients were very open about them. But I just don’t understand how the painting work could be so underestimated.

Unfortunately, I understand it as a result of doubts about her experience with old buildings. That’s what I meant when I said I don’t recommend using new-build architects for renovations: they tend to fall into the misconception that no further work phase 1 is needed for existing buildings – no!, it just looks different there. And work phases 5 to 7 are also extremely budget-relevant here.