There are few undertakings as daunting as making major changes to your home! It’s a complex task to tackle, particularly when dealing with an older house. It may hold sentimental value or retro charm. We become quite attached to the places we live, so it’s easy to get nit-picky when you’re crafting the structure that you call home. Houses come with both histories and futures, it’s up to you to decide which you pursue as you make changes to your home.
People use different words almost interchangeably when talking about work being done on homes. Remodeling, restoring, renovating, you name it. When approaching large projects like this, it’s necessary to know what words you’re throwing around when talking with friends, family, and contractors. In this article we’ll go over the definitions of each, and why you might pick one over the other. Let’s get started!
Home Restoration – Pros
Restoring a house to its previous splendor is exactly that- restoring! You focus on what made the house unique, bringing back the features that gave it character in the past. Many houses stay standing for decades, so it’s common for people to live in a home that has undergone plenty of changes, purposeful or otherwise.
Reviving the history of a home is a great feeling, and it’s an incredible sight to get a blast from the past when you put the finishing touches on your restored building. This can have lots of sentimental value for families that handed down a home through generations. Owners with a passion for historical significance get a lot of fulfillment from completing such a worthwhile project.
Home Restoration – Cons
It’s not a dreamy process all the time, though. While it’s certainly an attractive idea to restore a home to its former glory, the process might not look quite as good. This is a lengthy project that can turn out to be more expensive than just renovating the whole house. Dealing with original blueprints and old photographs of the home to finalize your plans is difficult and time-consuming. The blueprints aren’t always available, and old photos are often lost or discarded by the original owners.
Also, if you’re a true purist when it comes to restoring a house, prepare to lose some freedom in design and ergonomics. Often, older homes were not built with quite as much practicality in mind, so you may follow in some footsteps that you don’t completely agree with. Many house-restorers even pursue the original materials used to create the house, such as wood floors, siding, doors, and more. Luckily, it’s now your home and your project, so if you feel the need to stray from the authenticity a little bit, nobody’s going to stop you!
Restoration – Disaster
Sometimes, a restoration is needed, but not planned for. When natural disasters or other calamities hit our communities and neighborhoods, we have to begin the process of steadily rebuilding and restoring our properties.
The restoration takes many forms. It could be recovering from smoke damage and burn damage from a fire. We specialize in black soot removal and bringing your home or business back to its natural glory.
Many people don’t know what to do following a disaster like a flood or a hurricane. Their homes are waterlogged and even after the water is mold and mildew takes over. We have the capability to restore homes following water damage and provide mold remediation services.
When disasters impact our lives, rebuilding your home can be a burden. Hiring a disaster restoration team takes the weight off your back. Compleat Restorations are trusted by families to protect and secure homes, give detailed repair estimates, hire general contractors, and utilize specialized equipment to rescue your life’s belongings.
Check out the Residential Repair & Restoration page for more info.
Home Renovation – Pros
If restoring a house seems like a little much for you, or if you just have a brand new vision in your head that you’re dying to bring to life, this might be just the approach you’re looking for.
Renovating a house means making substantial alterations to the rooms and structure of a house, refreshing and reinvigorating new features into a building. This gives you more freedom and a variety of new options! This is more of a makeover than a return to form. Taking your own approach to the process speeds it up significantly. You aren’t chasing down old blueprints, or scouring marketplaces for antique materials. This makes the whole experience quicker and cheaper.
Renovations allow you to think outside of the box, both literally and figuratively! You aren’t constrained to the structure that has always stood. You can even build additions from the side and add floors to houses. This flexibility is one of the biggest pros to house renovation.
Home Renovation – Cons
A Home renovation generally includes a more involved approach to design and making significant changes to the layout of the house. This often goes as far as requiring changes to plumbing, HVAC, and electrical systems. If this is the case, it might be more cost-efficient and worthwhile to hire more experienced hands to help. Larger home renovations include a variety of contractors that you might deal with. When you restore a house, you fix up the current state of the house to its original quality. Home renovations are more extensive and likely include removals of sections of rooms and installations like cabinets.
This is an arduous process as well, but the room for exceptions (no pun intended) is a lot bigger when your house is your canvas. This open-endedness can be paralyzing given the amount of decision-making one has to do throughout renovations, but in the end, it is worth the opportunity.
Choices, Choices…
In the end, the choice is whatever feels best for you. Are you looking to revive the history and experience of an old home, or aiming to create a new story? Is your house damaged by the disaster and in danger of losing precious memories? The situation is different for everyone, and there’s no one right answer. Despite your feelings, it’s worth examining your options for what you can afford the time and money to complete. Putting work into your home can be some of the most fulfilling projects you undertake in your life! The goals are personal and meaningful, so take the time to make sure whether home renovation or home restoration is right for you.
If your home is impacted by disasters such as floods and fires, then contact Compleat Restorations today.