---
title: '10 HOME RENOVATION TIPS for DIYers & Beginners *What I Wish I Knew Before* | XO, MaCenna'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=taO2_XYX4M4'
video_id: 'taO2_XYX4M4'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1302
---

# 10 HOME RENOVATION TIPS for DIYers & Beginners *What I Wish I Knew Before* | XO, MaCenna

> Source: [10 HOME RENOVATION TIPS for DIYers & Beginners *What I Wish I Knew Before* | XO, MaCenna](https://youtube.com/watch?v=taO2_XYX4M4)

## Summary

The video shares 10 home renovation tips learned from restoring a 110-year-old cottage in Texas. The creator emphasizes planning, assessing the house, drawing floor plans, finding inspiration, and deciding what to DIY versus hire out. They also cover permits, tools, budgeting, salvaging materials, and managing stress.

### Key Points

- **Make a Plan** [1:40] — Start by inspecting the roof, foundation, plumbing, and electrical. Then dream up your desired outcome and create a plan to get there.
- **Draw Floor Plans on Graph Paper** [3:17] — Measure every wall, window, and door, then draw the floor plan on graph paper where each box equals one square foot.
- **Find Inspiration and Define Your Style** [5:01] — Save images that capture the vibe or specific details you love. Define your style by finding one picture that embodies your dream and dissecting it.
- **Permits and Utilities** [7:24] — Call the county development department to learn about permits. Also set up utilities: electric, water, gas, internet, and trash pickup.
- **DIY vs. Hire Out** [9:52] — The creator DIYs most tasks but hires out electrical, plumbing, foundation, and fireplace construction for safety and quality.
- **Communicate with Contractors** [10:36] — Use photos and detailed documents to communicate exactly what you want. Over-communicate and monitor the process closely.
- **Tools and Safety Gear** [11:42] — Essential tools: safety gear (mask, goggles, gloves, thick-soled shoes, earplugs), crowbars (36", 17", 10"), hammer, tape measure, ladder, and later a circular saw, miter saw, nail gun, and level.
- **Budgeting Tips** [13:37] — No hard budget; rough timeline by Christmas. Aim for $100 per square foot. Save money by DIY, keeping plumbing centralized, salvaging materials, and shopping secondhand.
- **What to Save vs. Trash** [15:58] — Save wood, doors, windows, siding, brick, and even the toilet. Donate or trash carpet, curtains, old appliances, and bathtubs that can't be reused.
- **What I Wish I Knew** [18:04] — Renovation is overwhelming; take it day by day, rest when needed, and remember it's a creative process. Also, be aware of market conditions like material price increases.

## Transcript

earlier this year we toured and fell in
love with this 110 year old cottage in
texas
and ever since we have poured all of our
energy
into renovating and restoring it into a
place to call home
so i've put together 10 home renovation
tips from our experience
so far and what i wish i knew before
i hope you guys are enjoying this
renovation series so far as much as we
have enjoyed
working on the house renovating it
restoring it
figuring out what the heck we're doing
so if you've missed any of the
renovation videos i have a whole
playlist
i'll link it down below you can catch up
you can binge watch
if you guys have been following along
you know that i have taken on the
majority of the renovation work
myself with of course the help from my
amazing mom and dad
and romeo we have kind of all been in
this together
by doing it ourselves we have saved a
ton of money
and learned a lot about the renovation
process based on what we have done
so far so today i'm going to be sharing
with you guys 10 home renovation tips
that i have learned so far and
things that i wish i knew before all of
this that would have greatly helped my
stress level
stay low so you bought a house or you're
about to buy a house
where do you even start which was a
question i asked myself i was like
now what make a plan
any plan a random plan any plan at all
having a direction and just a few steps
that can get you in the right direction
is the key to this whole process so to
get you started here's how
we started in our first plan of attack
so we started by inspecting what we had
how's the roof how's the foundation
how's the plumbing
how's the electrical and then once we
assessed that
we knew where we were at we had to dream
up or i had to dream up what i wanted
this whole project
and this house to become so things like
thinking about the floor plan
and the new layout and gathering
inspiration and just kind of
exploring what's your dream outcome for
your home and then you just gotta make
it happen so
everything to get you from where you're
at to where you want your dream outcome
with your house to be
so when it comes to creating a new floor
plan
for your house for your innovation for
our house and our renovation
i designed the entire new floor plan it
took me
weeks to really wrap my head around what
i really wanted the space to be
what i wanted it to look like how it was
going to function for our family
and then over time just little tweaks
here and there or how to make something
better so it is a process
there are also a lot of things to
consider when doing a renovation project
versus a new build
new build could pretty much be whatever
you want it to be
you have to pay attention to certain
things that are just going to save you a
lot of money on budget
and if you want to keep the integrity of
the house keep the character of the
house
like we did there are some things that
you just want to pay attention to
so the first step that we did i went
down to the house i got a scrap piece of
paper of my notebook
and i drew each room like a box and i
measured out every wall every window
and every door opening this way you'll
know what you're starting with so you
know how to transform it
once i had that i went and picked up a
gridded
graph paper like this one they even come
bigger than this
if you want um this is a four by four
graph paper
each box is equal to one square foot so
after i had the measurements for
each room i came back and i drew the
whole floor plan
on graph paper this was the original
house this was all the walls all the
rooms as they were all of the add-ons
and additions
all the windows everything so that i
could really see what the space was
on paper in a floor plan what i did
exclude when i was
in this stage of designing the floor
plan was wall
depth one line separated each room
and then we developed that later on then
once you have
the house as it is you can start to
reimagine it
where you're gonna walk in how rooms are
gonna be laid out where your back door
is going to be
do you want your bedrooms together do
you want them separate do you want a big
primary bedroom sweet and all of that
type of stuff
and not be so clouded by what the room
used to be when someone else owned the
house
but what you want it to be and how it's
going to function for you so i would
suggest writing a must-have list
for the house like for us it would be
open concept
two beds two baths a separate laundry
room
a primary suite that's all connected
back porch
kind of thing and then if you want to
take it even further and do a
cad drawing digital drawing of the house
and your new floor plan with wall
dimensions and stuff
i'll leave some resources for you guys
to check that out and
learn how to use autocad i have
experimented with other free
programs or cheaper programs they just
don't compare if you want to learn that
i'll leave some links for you guys too
so when it comes to finding inspiration
and really details about
other spaces that you can incorporate
into your own home to make it your dream
home renovation when i'm looking for
inspiration i'm looking for two things
i'm looking for vibe or a feeling that i
get from a space
and also details so when i'm scrolling
through pinterest
and i'm just looking or i'm scrolling on
instagram and i see something that
catches my eye whether it's the entire
feeling that i get from a space
it's the way that it looks it's the way
that the sun is cascading in it's the
way the textures are all compared
together i save it
or i may see a picture of a space or a
living room or a bedroom
and it's not totally what i like but
there's one small detail in there that i
absolutely love
like a cabinet or a drawer or a piece of
furniture or
a color palette that i really like but
it's not the overall
look i save it and you guys ask me all
the time how can you
discover or figure out what your style
is what's your interior design
style and this is really hard because
it's not necessarily one style
i don't have one style i like a lot of
different styles so
if you're here you might have the same
style as me so
my style i would define as a mix
of nordic vintage contemporary
with a lived-in feeling you guys are
probably like what are you talking about
but it's true
i love scandinavian but more of a warm
nordic feel
i love thrift shopping and finding
vintage and finding second
hand i love to incorporate that into
stuff i love contemporary what's
happening
now with the organic shapes but overall
i want my home to feel
warm cozy and lived in and when it comes
to renovating a house you're also having
to deal with what style the house
is or the area that it's in so for us
our house was built in 1910
the style is folk victorian
and it this is a style that was heavy on
woodworking
it has a victorian influence but added
much more affordable price point
for that time so it was these houses
were built between like 1870
and 1910 to 1930s that's when they were
really common
so we're taking that style and the heavy
woodworking details
and we're kind of merging it with my
nordic contemporary vintage
lived and feel look so stay tuned for
how all of that turns out
find one picture that absolutely
embodies what you want to do what you
want to
capture just love your house to be that
way
save it dissect it figure out what you
love about it what you don't love about
it
and then find other images that are like
that start exploring what style that
picture is
and you never know what you're gonna
come across okay so let's talk about
permit and who to call did you guys know
that there are so many when you buy a
house there are so many
people that you have to call and things
that you need to do to get
it all set up and running so the people
to call are the electrical company
the water gas if you have natural gas
you need to get home insurance
telephone and internet and also you
gotta call
the trash pickup people so this is where
i was the biggest dummy because i
had they had a trash can here it was
full when we bought the house and i
moved it out to the street
and they weren't picking up my trash and
i was like what the heck i thought in la
they're kind of grouped together it was
like a
department of water and power and trash
was all kind of rolled into one
so i just assumed it was all kind of
bundled together with one of the
companies i called but i just kept
moving the trash i'm like why didn't
they pick up my trash to try i don't
know what day it comes what how do you
my dad was like you gotta call them and
set it up and i was like fine
okay so call the trash pickup people
and as far as permits before you start
doing any work on the house whether it's
demo
or building something you just want to
make sure that you have everything that
you need in order to do that
so this is going to be different for
every county in the united states
and even more so internationally so you
just want to
get a hold of the right number for us we
called the developmental department in
the county
and just chatted with them through what
we were planning on doing with the
property
and they pointed us in the right
direction with what we were going to
need in order to get the right permits
and so on and so forth
okay so what should you diy versus what
you should hire out
now you guys know i am the truest form
of a diyer
i love to try new things the sense of
accomplishment that i get when i
actually do something well
and i do it myself is just like unlike
any other feeling so
i'm an arrow on the side of diying more
than the average person
but i more so like to do things
right so this is pretty much on you
what do you feel like you can diy in
your own house
but that you could also do right so some
things that
i know i'm not even going to touch with
this whole renovation
process is electrical plumbing and
building the addition doing the
foundation
framing that up making sure that it's
just just
so so good is really important to me and
it's i know that it's something that i
don't trust myself to do
right now in life i won't admit forever
but right right now in life
oh and one other thing that i am gonna
hire out is building the fireplace in
the main cottage
again i just wanna make sure that it's
right and i'm not gonna burn
my house just assess what of the project
you can really take on like
i never knew i could frame either but i
did that and it's level and it's
perfect how to tell your contractor what
you
want now if you're going to be hiring a
contractor to help you with
any part of your renovation process and
you are as
a stickler about design as i am and very
particular
this is really where a picture can tell
a thousand
words i put together a document of
photos
and details of exactly what i wanted
the finished product to look like i
would find inspiration pictures of maybe
the smallest of details of what i wanted
to incorporate
and i would call it out i'd be like i
want this stone
i want it overgrouded i want this
fireplace it's this size over specify
what you want in details so that they
know what they're trying to do for you
always better to over communicate
monitor the process
see be there be present see how the
process is going
and don't be afraid to say hey that'll
that's not right
that we need to change this this isn't
right this is what i wanted because at
the end of the day this is your house
you want what you want you're not trying
to be difficult but you do want what you
want
and so that's why it's better to over
communicate from the beginning so that
there's no confusion my
go-to tools and safety gear welcome to
my little
corner of the house that i just keep all
of that type of stuff in
my tools have gone to work since we have
bought this house
i mean things aren't even the same color
that they once were things that you're
absolutely going to need
are masks goggles gloves
be a hard hat if you need i don't have a
hard hat but it's maybe a hard hat if
you need it
shoes thick sold shoes like these are
romeo's i don't have my boots on today
but
thick sold shoes because you're gonna
step
on nails i have stepped on mini but i've
been wearing the right shoes so i have
not gotten hurt
so those are all the things to protect
your body while you're doing demo
also i would suggest earplugs because
when you're demoing and you're hammering
the crowbar and hammers and stuff it's
really loud and very piercing so i ended
up buying some earplugs and then
obviously to demo
meet micro family the crow f you can't
go wrong with the crow family there are
three members of the crow family
here is big crow to get yourself a 36
inch crowbar
because i thought i couldn't handle this
crowbar but i got stronger and now i can
and he can do a lot baby crow will save
your life
this is like if you're my size and my
strength
you will use this baby crow for
everything this is a 17 inch crowbar
tiny crow tiny crow is equally as
important to do
trim to get trim work off without
breaking or damaging it in any way
we've used this to death to get this
vinyl flooring or this laminate flooring
off of the floor
almost 10 inches obviously you're gonna
need a hammer a tape measure
a ladder depending on how high your
ceilings are we needed a 12 foot ladder
here
and then as you get into like the
building stages you're gonna kind of
expand
what you need a circular saw or a miter
saw like i have
and a nail gun and a leveler so you'll
get into more tools as you progress
but if you have a crowbar and your
safety gear you are golden
so let's talk about budgets so
home renovation budgets can be tricky
and really what it comes down to is
what you feel comfortable with what you
want to spend
on your home renovation based on all of
the factors
of your life to be completely honest we
don't have a set in stone
overall hard budget for this renovation
project because honestly i didn't care
how long it took i was gonna
do it until i got what i wanted and i
developed the project into something
that i was just like incredibly in love
with and proud of
if that took me ten years i was okay
with that so the timeline and the budget
are very very loose
but our rough timeline is around
christmas time to have the majority of
the work finished
and i have a ballpark per square foot
renovation cost that i would like to
stick to
and even come under that and that's a
hundred
dollars a square foot now that could be
for a new build
as well i don't expect to spend 100 a
square foot
on the part of the house that's existing
we might spend it on the additional 900
square feet that we're kind of building
on
if you're tackling the project like we
are and you're doing a lot of the work
yourselves and you're doing a lot of the
labor intensive work
you're gonna save a lot of money like we
are so when you're saving money in those
places
you have the opportunity to splurge a
little bit or spend a little more in
other areas
in addition to doing some of the heavy
lifting yourself here are some other
tips to keep
costs down you can identify which walls
in the house that are existing
and load bearings so that you can save
on costs of
structural changes like structural
investments
when you're designing your new floor
plan you can keep bathrooms and the
laundry room kind of
close in proximity so that you don't
have the extra cost of running plumbing
all over the house it can kind of run to
one central area
which is something i did in this house
renovation as well you can salvage
as much of the original house as humanly
possible like we have you can save
everything so that it can be reimagined
back into the house
and you can also shop secondhand
you can restore things you can build
things on your own so there are so
many ways and so many things that you
can do to actually keep
the budget down so then you can splurge
on other things like i am like
appliances
i want good appliances what to save
versus what you should donate or what's
just simply trash
now this is gonna vary from house to
house and maybe even with your style we
aired on the side of saving everything
everything that we possibly possibly
could so that it could be reimagined
back into the house
for loads of reason budget
saving the character reusing what we can
so we just don't create more waste
lots and lots of reasons so we're
actually back here in my workshop where
i have stored
and organized everything that we've
removed from the house
and one of the major things that we were
actually going to save was all the wood
so think bead board wood floors studs
trim all the wanescotting and the
baseboards
we saved all the doors all the windows
all the siding
all of the brick from the chimneys that
we took down
all of the brick that was still solid in
one piece and we're even reusing all of
the scrap
at fox run and even the toilet the
toilet that was in the main house is
going to be in one of the guest cottages
in the back and
even the refrigerator and the washer and
dryer that were in the house
my parents took we used them out in my
dad's workshop
safe safe safe was our motto what was
trash or what we donated
free of charge to anyone that wanted it
was
all of the carpet rugs that were in the
house were totally trashed they were
so gross and not even real rugs all the
curtains that were in the house were
a no-go we got rid of those appliances
like the stove
and the microwave was a no-go for me
also the bathtub was like this built-in
bathtub a no-go the sink
in the bathroom was not going to be
repurposed donated that
and of course we donated the hot tub to
the street and someone did come get it
for free
but i was not a hot tub girl so you
really just need to go through your
house figure out
what you can imagine back into the house
what you absolutely want to keep
and just know that saving things
organizing all of this
taking all of this down took time as you
guys seen through the series but it's so
so worth it in reusing and saving on
budget what i wish i knew before buying
this house
or what you know you don't really
realize or you don't
truly understand until you're in this
process is
one how much work it truly
is when i talked about planning in the
beginning and how a plan
is the number one thing even me being a
planner
i have had moments of complete overwhelm
[Music]
crying i don't know what i'm doing
moments of self doubt the kind of weight
of it all and the
overwhelmingness that is this type of
project
and what i realized what i realized and
what you should know what you should
realize is this
is fun this is a amazing process
this is a incredibly creative process
and you just have to take it day by day
so i'm reminding myself
take it day by day this is fun take a
deep breath
it's okay it's all gonna be okay it's
all gonna work out
and just kind of relieve some of the
pressure off of yourself
taking days to rest is so so important
my hands get swollen sometimes for just
being overworked i'm sore
some days and just taking those days to
really recuperate
another thing that i just wish i would
have known is actually what it was like
to build a house or to renovate a house
in 2020
2021 because it's different i think than
it has been in the past it's such a
crazy market
people are buying houses left and right
you're
on a wait list for almost a year for
different things like building and
materials the price of wood
has gone up so drastically over the last
year so
all of that i kind of had an idea about
but i didn't truly know until i kind of
in the thick of it
and boards you know 2x4 by 12 boards are
15 16 apiece would i have changed and
not bought this house
and not have had this project and not be
sharing this renovation with you guys
no just budget out properly save in
different ways where we can because of
the influx and prices on wood
and waiting on contractors and stuff so
we're
we're making do we're doing a good job
and i hope sharing this whole kind of
journey with you guys it has
helped you have a little bit of insight
into what it's like to renovate a house
maybe you're looking too soon um that
would be so much fun
please let me know what kind of projects
you guys are working on if you were in
the thick of a renovation please
share your wisdom with us if you have
any tips or
pointers or constructive types of things
all positivity all constructive
all good things comment down below we
would love to know and please share your
wisdom with us
and of course you can catch up on all of
the renovation videos
on the playlist you can binge watch them
this sunday afternoon if you would like
to
um and get all caught up because we have
a lot of fun things coming up
i mean we're building now it's major
we're in a whole nother world we're not
demoing anymore we're building which is
so so exciting but i will be back in la
for a little bit
giving you guys some room makeover
content some more thrift flips
with a lot of fun things coming up on
the channel so if you are not already
subscribed
subscribe hit the bell notification
join our family join the fun i hope you
guys have a
wonderful rest of your weekend and i'll
see you guys next sunday
bye guys
[Music]
you