'As long as you're up there …' — home remodel don'ts

Plan on making a few updates to spiff up the house? Keep the "few" in mind.

By By Richard Taylor, Zillow

Two demons wait for unsuspecting homeowners, hoping for their chance to gobble up time and money on new home and remodeling projects. The are called The Ripple Effect and Project Creep.

The Ripple Effect is the remodeling budget's worst enemy and can wreak havoc on small and large projects alike.

A window replacement is a simple, isolated project, right? But the interior and exterior trim must be replaced and painted, and the exterior siding may have to be reworked, especially if the new window isn't the same size as the old one.

And that's just the beginning. Once that window is replaced and the new window trim painted, the rest of the trim in the room looks bad by comparison, and so you decide to paint that, too. A pebble has been dropped in the pond, and the ripples have begun to spread.

What started out as a simple window replacement ends up as the refinishing of an entire room.

In new home projects, The Ripple Effect is more pronounced in open plan designs. With fewer walls to separate spaces, it's difficult to make flooring transitions from one room to another so more expensive flooring materials often cover more of the house. The lack of interior walls also requires a more expensive structural system and makes the placement of duct work and plumbing more difficult.

But The Ripple Effect can be controlled if you take a moment to consider the impact one project can have on other parts of the house. The root of the problem in the window replacement example is that a new standard-sized window won't exactly fit the existing opening, necessitating the replacement of the trim.

But a custom-sized window, carefully installed, might allow you to reinstall the existing trim inside and outside, and avoid The Ripple Effect entirely. Sure, you'll spend more on the window, but you'll save everywhere else and avoid The Ripple Effect.

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'As long as you're up there ...' -- home remodel don'ts