Especially as I have been reading different houseblogs, it has occurred to me that there are types of people who are interested in remodeling. They can kind of be divided up according to magazine titles. That is magazines that are aimed towards certain types of interest. Think of the ‘Fine Gardening’ or ‘Colonial Home’ type. Many of these are artistic, detail oriented, and sticklers for accurate historical style and materials. Money doesn’t seem to be an object for them.
There are the Arts and Crafts type who navigate with “Old House Journal” in hand. They like to do fine quality work, are more likely to do tough jobs themselves and have an interest in, but not a devotion to, historical purity.
Lately I have come upon the “Cottage Living” types, which I am not among and don’t know too many of …. these morph out of the crafty ladies interests and interior decorating of the Cottage type. The difference is that they become real D-I-Yourself enthusiasts with charming results. Most of them have newer homes, but sometimes cottage or Victorian types. These are dedicated to refinishing their woodwork, but also painting murals and creating homey and sweet vignettes.
Then there is the “Family Handyman” type. Guess which one we qualify for here at our house? This one ranges from the bungler to whom you would to say:”I wish you wouldn’t” to the truly accomplished Craftsman. What ties all together is the practical motivation of wanting to update an affordable “fixer-upper” and quite possibly a love and talent found in the area of home renovations. You know we do it cause we either love it- or we can’t afford to pay for help or both! But let me tell you… having seen what pro labor does… some of the Handymen around are should I say it? better. I shouldn’t say that…because some pros are friends and they really do a stand up job, but we have all seen and heard the horror stories.
So there are my types as I thought of them… Have any profiles you would like to add to the list? I’m sure this isn’t definitive by any means. And…. did you see yourself?
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What you wrote was interesting. I was just writing in my private journal the other day that we seem to not quite fit in with a lot of the old-house fixup crowd, in that we enjoy doing our own work but there are just certain things that we just plain don’t WANT to do even if technically we “could” (last weekend’s sump pump installation was a classic example); there are lots of things that we want to get done but we aren’t willing to sacrifice our every free moment to do them, so what might be on some people’s 6 month plan go on our five year plan – or more; and we have lots of opportunities to be more historically pure but we’re just not willing to consider, for example, tearing through layers of vinyl siding then asbestos siding to get to the original clapboard (in unknown condition), or ripping out the vinyl energy-efficient windows that the previous owners put in in order to install salvaged original windows.
But I don’t think this would qualify as a different category, perhaps just an extension of the handyman (though in our case, handywomen) category.
Interesting observations!! Thanks for sharing them.
Leslie
http://georgetownhouse.livejournal.com
All I can say is that you have acted with the wisdom that I wish I had when starting.
There are some things just not worth it, as you say… if I come across the magazine that fits you. wait! What about Martha Stewart Living? Beauty and functionality along with lots of hands-on work, but calling in the pros for first quality work on certain jobs. Next down on the “money is no object, but time and lifestyle is” scale.