To passersby, Lisa and Jerry Silva’s antique Colonial home in Sherborn, Mass., looks like a cozy retreat. The freshly painted yellow exterior and warmly glowing lanterns on either side of the carved-wood door bring visions of a designer showcase to mind.
A quick look inside the home, however, conjures up images of “This Old House.”
For nearly two years, the Silvas have been living in what some would consider unlivable conditions.
The walls are stripped and bare. Where there is paint, it is peeling. Beams and wallboard are exposed in every room. Wide pine floors are scraped and dirty. Some windows are broken, all are covered with plastic. Tools, wooden planks, a worktable and debris now clutter what will someday be a master bedroom. And a fine layer of plaster dust covers just about everything.
The couple are ensconced in two rooms on the first floor–a semifinished kitchen/family room and a leaky, unfinished front room where they sleep and where their clothes are stuffed into plastic portable closets .
“It’s a lot like camping, but without the tent,” said Lisa Silva, 33, a physical therapist. “We’re roughing it. But, when this house is done, it should be a real showplace. We just have to keep reminding ourselves of that. In the meanwhile, we have to keep a sense of humor, and we have to keep telling each other that someday this shell will actually be a home.”
The Silvas are two of those legions of people who live with ongoing construction in their homes–sometimes for long periods, sometimes without all the necessities, often with much conflict–for the sake of saving money and to be able to say “I did it myself.”
According to Judy Riggs, executive director of the Home Improvement Research Institute in Lincolnshire, 61 percent of 3,000 homeowners surveyed in 1993 completed one or more home projects on their own, ranging from roof replacement to carpet installation to exterior painting.
That number is up from 58 percent in 1987, she said, and continues to rise, as do the numbers of home-improvement products purchased by consumers. Riggs said that in 1994, do-it-yourselfers spent $87.7 billion on materials to rehab their homes, and the institute expects that figure to grow by 5.1 percent annually, bringing the product sales figure to $112.5 billion by 1999.
“Consumers are learning to do it themselves from television shows, videos, books and workshops, and they’re doing it more and more,” she said. “It will definitely take them longer to complete a job–especially a major overhaul–than it would for a professional, but the cost savings and the tremendous amount of pride they get from it makes it all worthwhile.
“But,” she added, almost as a warning, “they should know up front it could be a horrendous experience to live in the house while the project is being done. They have got to be prepared for almost anything, and they have to be willing to live with a big mess.”
Initial enthusiasm
Homeowners often overestimate their ability to live in day-to-day disarray and underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete the job.
Some start off like gangbusters: tearing down walls, annihilating bathrooms, ripping out kitchen cabinets and resigning themselves to living in one or two cramped rooms, eating lots of takeout food, using their neighbors’ bathroom and tackling the repair project every spare moment.
But life has its way of ruining, or at least limiting, even the best-laid plans. Work and social commitments will slow or halt progress. Running out of materials and/or the skills to complete a job are certain to delay the finished product. And then there’s the biggest roadblock: running out of funds.
“To undertake a major project, you have to be willing to make a lot of sacrifices in terms of your quality of life,” said John Hughes, 48, a highway construction superintendent whose Campton, N.H., home has been in some major state of renovation since he and wife, Donni, built it 12 years ago.
“You’re going to be cold, you’re going to be walking on subflooring, you’re going to be using a bathroom with no sink or door,” he said, “and you’re going to have disagreements.”
Hughes said he and his wife still have standoffs about how construction should proceed and about finishing touches, and in more than one instance, did not speak to each other for several days.
“Somebody once made the comment that if a marriage can survive building or reconstructing a house, it can survive anything,” said Donni Hughes, 45, a teacher.
After 12 years, though, the Hughes house still isn’t completed. The couple are now in the process of cleaning and remodeling their basement and working out designs for a new porch.
As much as he claims he wants to call it quits someday, John Hughes readily admits he’s become a project junkie.
“The joke with me is, when they bury me, they’ll be slamming the lid of the casket on my arm and I’ll be saying, `Wait! I’ve got another board to put up,’ ” he joked. “I really do want it all to be finished, I just don’t know when that will be.”
Susan Ferro spent three months “almost in hell” while her husband and her father-in-law gutted and rebuilt the inside of their Revere, Mass., home.
Ferro said that although she is happy with the results–a customized home she and husband, Steven, are proud of–she would never attempt it again. Ferro said her husband would work full time, then come home and work sometimes until 2 a.m. to finish a portion of the project.
He would have to board up windows every night, disassemble and reassemble the bathroom daily, and one night, their living room ceiling collapsed. No one was hurt, but Ferro recalls that her nerves were shattered.
She said the disruption to their lives and stress on their marriage caused by the construction, mess and the long hours the couple were keeping, sometimes led to bickering, but mostly, Ferro took her emotions elsewhere.
“I would be shaking and crying at work,” recalled Ferro. “Everyone would say, `Susan, it’ll be all right,’ and I’d say, `You don’t understand, I can’t live like this.’ . . . I can look around now and say I love my house, but I’d never, ever do it myself again.”
The Silvas are grinning and bearing their way through the construction of their home. They have completely finished the master bathroom–a contemporary design in white tile and chrome–not only as a means of comfort, but also one of encouragement.
“We knew we had to finish some projects so we could envision the rest of the house completed,” said Jerry Silva, 34, a bank manager. “We like to come up here and look at the bathroom and say, `Someday the whole house will look this good.’ It helps us to stay motivated.”
Calling in the pros
Steve Chamberlain, a construction supervisor at Cousins Construction Co. Inc., in Charlestown, Mass., said his office often is called as a last resort by those do-it-yourselfers whose frayed nerves and decaying relationships demand that the construction project be brought to a quick end by professionals.
Chamberlain said he has taken over jobs for people who, for years, were living in the unfinished basement of a three-story townhouse, for example, and just never got around to refurbishing the main living quarters.
He said he has seen hot plates stand in for kitchens, bathtubs used as sinks and plastic substituting for windows. He said he has known couples who have separated because of the conflicts that arise from living in discomfort, and he cited one couple that divorced because they couldn’t agree on the design and decor of the unfinished home they were living in.
“There is a lot to be said for sweat equity,” said Chamberlain. “But there is also a lot to be said for sanity and peace of mind. If you start it, finish it; that’s the bottom line. Otherwise, the house is going to become a burden long before it’s your pride and joy.”
