So much went wrong on my second renovation – here's what I learned the hard way so you don't have to

Strategist and content creator Francesca Swan is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on the concept of 'Everything' and what makes a home special to you. See the rest of her articles here.

I love and hate our apartment in equal measure. For every beautiful feature to delight the eye, there exists an evil equivalent that makes me want to hide behind the sofa. Or I would if there weren’t even more disasters lurking there too.

Mismatched, patch-worked joinery, shoddy MDF shelves, unfinished, stained flooring, I could go on…

It’s annoying. I’ve worked hard to seek out and nurture the connection and creativity of Everything in my home. And these monstrous mistakes work equally hard to cancel it out.

How to sidestep horror stories in your own home? Focus on the bones; flooring, joinery, kitchens, bathrooms. Get these right to find your Everything and build up from there.

If your bones are broken, you can patch them up, but ultimately, it’s easier not to break them in the first place. To do that, you need to intentionally consider what is most important to you and get that right from the get-go.

Things not to do in a renovation

You may not know this, but I’m currently drowning in the middle of my second renovation - it’s been a nightmare, to put it mildly.

Very Important Context: my first renovation went remarkably smoothly.

It was early COVID, but the project wasn’t really affected. It was the full works - rewire, plumbing, flooring, structural work, plastering, kitchen, bathroom, decorating. The team was amazing, and it was done and dusted in three months.

It was a beautiful period apartment with a lot of space but not cut in quite the right way.

The open plan layout allowed light to flow beautifully and worked for us as a couple. However, it wasn’t great for privacy when we had guests. It was also on the first floor, so no direct access to our garden.

We viewed the new apartment by chance, fell in love instantly and decided to move on a whim. It was the same architectural period with similar beautiful original features, proportions and huge windows, but - winner- ground floor with direct access to a huge garden.

It was perfect to create the dream layout for our Forever Home; a primary bedroom suite (including walk-in wardrobes, a vanity area, en-suite bathroom), and a separate living room.

The garden also had potential for an extension with kitchen/diner/pantry and a library, plus a summer house with guest suite, gym an office.

We approached the renovation in two phases: first to make the main apartment habitable, whilst we waited for planning permission, with the extension and summerhouse to follow in phase two.

Coming from the smooth, simple sailing of the first project, I had ridiculously unrealistic expectations and naively anticipated this would be the same. WRONG!

Phase one was again essentially the full works; rewire and plumbing, structural work, plastering, new bathroom, joinery, soundproofing, new flooring and central heating. We foolishly believed the contractor when he told us six weeks. It was six months. Don’t ask.

We initially planned for phase two to begin straight after phase one, however due to various inevitable and unavoidable delays, it started June this year.

All these issues - planning, delays, suppliers, budgets, contractor challenges, blah, blah - are par for the course on any project, especially the more complex ones.

There were also many complicated new elements to get to grips with. They tied me into very tight, interconnected knots. Although I do now have the dubious honour of being a bona fide drainage expert.

This was all a very rude awakening. I wasn't prepared when relatively standard events started unfolding; I simply couldn’t accept the lack of control and reality of ever-increasing lead times and costs. You’d better believe it, you really can’t fight City Hall.

Instead of stepping back and taking a breath, I pushed harder to create a liveable home by cobbling together things I could control, whilst we waited for phase two.

I also had undiagnosed ADHD and hideous anxiety. Not a great combination at the best of times. I made VERY bad decisions.

This is clearly an extreme example. However, if you plan from a place of chaos, stress and unrealistic expectations, you won’t find your Everything. You'll make desperate and hasty choices, which is exactly what I did.

We had a break after phase one, along with my ADHD diagnosis and a hospital stay for anxiety. This gave me essential support and time to step back.

I learnt a lot about how I think and operate. Slowly, things became much easier.

Bringing Everything back into play was my game-changer. It’s my decision-making anchor and helped to guide me out of the self-inflicted mess I’d made.

Firstly, I refocused on the bones that hold our home together and recognised the rather unfortunate errors I’d made in my desperation to get ANYTHING done!

So, here’s my lessons learnt about the importance of the bones in our homes and investing the time and money into doing them properly.

The Bones, When They Break And How To Fix Them: Flooring

Flooring is always one of the first things I think about. Get that right and design flows more easily and effectively.

Of course, flooring can also be expensive, not to mention a logistical nightmare to change, so you want to get it right first time.

I’m not a fan of carpet. Maybe because I grew up in a period property with original wood flooring? It has always intuitively felt like my only Everything flooring option.

Both renovations have been similar period properties with original floorboards in good condition. People often ask: “Why didn't you just keep the original open floorboards?”.

Because they are both in converted mansion buildings. No matter how beautiful the original flooring may be, open floorboards are hideously noisy for the unlucky person living beneath you.

We have experienced it, as I’m sure have many of you. I would never wish it upon anyone.

To my mind, if you live in a shared building, you simply cannot have open floorboards without effective sound insulation underneath it.

To do this, you inevitably have to lift the floorboards, so they are likely get wrecked, defeating the purpose.

We removed the original floors in both apartments, installed underfloor soundproofing, then underlay, engineered hardwood flooring above, along with large area rugs and acoustic underlays.

Finding your flooring can be a Herculean task. There are so many suppliers, and the choice is seemingly endless. I didn't have a lot of time to research on this one, so I zoomed in on the big retailers with choice, competitive pricing and showrooms near us.

In the end, we used Flooring Superstore for both of our apartment floors; they have a wide range of colour, size and finish across every room, the quality is brilliant and their expertise and customer service, both in store and online, is always brilliant. For me, if you're in the market for flooring, they should be top of your hit list.

We ran the same flooring throughout every room (apart from the bathroom). This built strong, long-lasting bones that cohesively tied all the rooms together. It also respected the original flooring aesthetic of the period property; however, the Herringbone Georgian Oak and Chevron Bavarian Oak flooring allowed me to nod to my ultimate dream inspiration; Parisian Haussmannian apartments. More on flooring to follow another time… I’m obsessed!

So, that one was good bones done well in both. But one skeleton.

When the experts tell you to install flooring AFTER you’ve done everything else, listen to them.

The beautiful flooring around our temporary kitchen is now a stained mess that will need replacing. When it became clear the living room was phase two, we simply should not have put the flooring down. Live it. Learn it.

Joinery Jokers

Ah joinery. This one really has been Frankenstein's monster, plus Jekyll and Hyde for extra horror points.

It was mid-phase one, deadlines were shifting, we had gaps in skirting boards, missing architrave and no bookcases.

The lack of bookcases was important, because I badly wanted my books back, so allowed that Everything instinct to overpower all sense and reason.

A fantastic joiner had already done our walk-in wardrobes and vanity area. But he wasn’t available for living room shelves until November. This was August.

In my blind determination to get any form of bookcases in, along with sorting missing bits of skirting and such, I grabbed the first available contractor and set them to it.

I know better than this. I know how to establish a scope, get comparable estimates, check references, all the due diligence we undertake to avoid precisely these issues.

But common sense deserted me, and I wasted several thousand pounds on substandard work that all needs redoing.

One side of the living room is amazing; high quality, perfectly finished joinery and a beautifully restored Grade 1 Carrara Marble Fireplace and wood burner. Good bones, see?

The other side is a half-arsed, patched together, mis-matched mess; the MDF bookcases, not fit for purpose, need redoing to match back with the beautiful joinery opposite.

The only silver lining to this ruinously expensive black cloud? The shelves worked well with the temporary kitchen units to create a surprisingly effective space.

Which is just as well, given we have lived with it for a year longer than expected. We’re living proof you can cook a very good three course Christmas Dinner with just an air-fryer and camping stove.

Unfortunately, it’s not just the living room that suffered. There are little holes of horror hiding everywhere.

On one memorable occasion, I questioned an obviously mismatched skirting board patch up, despite the original matching board having been clearly laid out for use.

The response? “Oh, just put a plant pot in front of it”.

I kid you not. It’s smack bang in the middle of the wall and you most definitely cannot just put a plant pot in front of it.

I was so knackered and not thinking straight, I just nodded blankly, walked away and cried into a glass of wine.

Kitchens for Keeps

Kitchens. Thankfully no monsters or horror stories here.

I learnt the first-time round, do not mess with what you do not know. For me, that is most definitely kitchens. These bones need to be solid and last.

For our first kitchen, I had zero design knowledge or time, so knew I needed experts to guide me to an easy and simple solution. We used Howdens and never looked back; brilliant service and expertise, brilliant options and brilliant quality.

I've now evolved my design literacy and wanted something more original and unique for the new project.

That said, this is the original money-pit, so budgets are tight. Enter the lifesaving hack that is the High/Low mix!

Top tip: the wonderful Naked Kitchens also does a door only option! By pairing their beautifully crafted doors with a quality Howdens carcass, I’ve found my Holy Grail of a designer finish on an affordable budget.

Again, kitchens can be a minefield, so I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to find your experts; companies who not only bring design and quality, but whose values also align with yours.

Naked Kitchens are a family-led company, bringing progressive and elevated design, UK produced with craft and quality at their core, plus strong sustainability and ethical creds - all of which are crucial to me.

I’ve got to know them over the project and they are now an essential part of my team for advice, good humour and reassurance.

Choose businesses and people who you trust to deliver the goods and enjoy working with; an Everything essential.

Everything not Evil

Chaos and stress are kryptonite for Everything. They make it impossible for you to ground yourself and find that deep connection.

I do appreciate the contradiction and conflict here. If you're mid renovation, the reality is you will probably be very chaotic and stressed. How do you step out of that?

Another reason Everything is useful; it encourages mindfulness, clarity and calm.

Try to keep your cool, manage your expectations and don't make hasty decisions, especially with the bones. You will likely pay cheap but pay twice and regret it.

Focus on the bones to invest wisely and create a quality home that you love and feels like Everything.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it; it’s not easy. I’ve made some big errors on this one. But live it. Learn it. And Just Keep Going™.