Older houses are worth renovating, and they are honest about what they have been hiding, but only once the walls are open. Wasatch Front neighborhoods hold plenty of homes built when wiring practices, panel sizes, plumbing materials, and framing conventions were all different from today. None of that is a reason to avoid renovating one. It is a reason to plan the project so discoveries get absorbed rather than treated as emergencies.
The other thing an older home carries is the record of everyone who worked on it before you. An addition done in some previous decade, a wall someone took out without much thought, a bathroom that moved while the old plumbing stayed in place. Those junctions are where a renovation slows down. A contractor who works on houses of this age expects them and builds a plan with room for them.
On an older home the cost drivers are less about finishes and more about what the house needs before finishes can go back on. How much of the electrical has to be replaced rather than extended. Whether the panel has capacity or has to be upgraded. Whether supply piping is at the end of its life. What the framing looks like once it is exposed, particularly anywhere somebody modified it. Whether an earlier addition has to be corrected where it meets the original house. Design and engineering sit in front of all of it, and a realistic contingency belongs in the number from the beginning.
It depends on what the existing wiring is and how much of the house is coming apart. Replacing wiring in walls that are already open is far cheaper than coming back for it later, so the answer often follows the demolition plan. If the original system is old enough to be a safety question, a whole-house approach usually makes more sense than doing it in pieces.
Often, in rooms you are not opening. Where mechanical or electrical work has to run, plaster generally comes off, and patching plaster to match is skilled work. Many renovations keep plaster in untouched rooms and use drywall in the rebuilt ones, which is fine as long as someone plans the transitions so the difference does not announce itself at the joints.
That is a conversation to have with your contractor, based on the age of the house, what you already know about it, and how much investigation happened during design. What matters more than the exact figure is that a contingency exists, that both sides agree on how it gets spent, and that nobody is quietly relying on it to cover things that belonged in the scope.
That is a personal calculation about the house, the lot, and the neighborhood. What we can say is that renovation costs are less predictable, because part of the scope is invisible until work starts. Homeowners who end up happy with the outcome generally went in expecting that and built both the budget and the schedule with room for it.
A whole-home renovation is a sequencing problem before it is a design problem. Systems, structure, and finishes all move at once, and the order they move in decides whether you can stay in the house while it happens.
Learn more →New square footage means foundation, framing, and a roof tie-in, plus an exterior that has to read as one house when it is done. The tie-in and the match are where additions get difficult, not the new room itself.
Learn more →Taking out a wall is the easy part. Knowing what that wall carries, where the load goes instead, and what beam, post, and footing the new path requires is engineering work that happens before anyone swings a hammer.
Learn more →You already own the square footage. Turning a garage, attic, or unfinished bonus space into living area still means insulation, heating and cooling, code review, and structure and systems that were never sized for a room people live in.
Learn more →Describe the house and what you are planning, or call 801-644-9000.
