copyright © 2002 by Scott Greaves

It's cold outside. The snow lays in my yard in windblown heaps, and a thick layer of frost sticks to everything not covered by the snow. Winter in Idaho is not a time to do much of anything outside, unless you're a snow bunny. But it is a great time to plan.

Like many owners of an old home, planning is a luxury not often allowed in our rush to react to the ever-changing needs of our homes. Often we are just able to stay ahead of habitability issues. Plumbing and electrical are almost assured to need work, if not replacement. Bathrooms scream for attention. Heating systems are sometimes on their last legs, and kitchens are a constant reminder of their inadequacies.

While "planning" is almost the opposite of "doing," it is also essential to the process of working on our home. We all know people whose only attempt at planning is to tape a phone list of repairmen to the wall next to the phone. Real planning is much more involved than this, but if you approach it in a structured manner it can be relatively easy. I like to break down the planning process into three parts: Vision planning, Strategic planning, and Project planning.

Establishing a vision for your home is nothing more than making the big decisions ahead of time. Most old home owners have a "Vision" for their home. This is the picture in your mind of what your home will be like when it's "perfect." Some people may know exactly what they want ahead of time, but for most the vision is more a basic set of principles they use in approaching any change to their home.

This is the step where you decide if everything in your house will remain original, or if you will allow certain modern techniques and materials. Since there are building codes, we are forced to accept some modernization, but I believe having a house that modern people will live in is more of a determiner. Who would argue that smoke detectors are a sacrilege to an old home?

Vision is not just deciding what it will look like, but what it will be. Is it to be a museum, or a place for living, breathing people to call home? What this choice comes down to, for me, is respecting what I love best about my old home, while balancing that with respect for the needs of the people who live in the home.

Once you have your vision, you will know whether to allow plastic plumbing, laminate flooring, and high speed Internet wiring because they will either fit your vision, or they won't. Establishing your vision will also help you keep your commitment to your old house. It is easy to be pushed in other directions, but if you know what you want, your vision will help you stay true to the goals you have chosen for your home.

Strategic planning comes into play when you have that rare luxury of planning some change to your home in between responding to disasters. When my wife and I bought our home, we knew that some major projects were going to be needed. Before we were forced into making these changes as a response to a failure of some sort, we chose to plan our projects based on what was needed, and how the various projects were related.

Our first undertaking was to replace the heating system in our house. We had an old central forced-air gas furnace that was grossly inefficient, and the ducting did not extend into newer sections of the house. The main ducting run went down the middle of our basement, and the furnace sat out in the middle of the floor. I had envisioned a "utility room" in one corner of our basement. A place that would be easily accessible, contain the furnace, water heater, and would be a central location for the plumbing and wiring. We located the new furnace in a corner of what would become our utility room, and ran the new smaller ducting along the least-used wall. We also expanded this heating system to include the newer portions of the house, and added central air.

In terms of strategic planning, we chose the heating system for a number of reasons. First was that we reviewed the current status of the systems that would need work, and in our opinion the heating would likely need work first. We also considered the expense of continuing to run an old inefficient furnace that only heated a little more than half of the house, with the rest heated by baseboard electric. Knowing that the electrical wiring and plumbing were also on our list, we tried to look for common aspects of each of those projects. One thing we identified was that all the projects would be much easier if we would just strip out the wall and ceiling coverings throughout the basement.

Strategic planning is like this. You identify projects that need to be done, and prioritize them, trying to consider urgency of need, money available and common aspects of each of the projects. Your need to use a certain part of the house may take priority, such as with a kitchen or a bathroom, or trying to make things easier in the future, as in replacing the carpets before moving any furniture in. The whole purpose is to develop a strategy for working on your house so that everything fits together into a smooth process.

How many times have you started a project with a perfect plan, then nothing turns out the way you thought? If you're like me, the exception to the plan ends up being the plan. As difficult as it is to plan even the simplest project for your home, lack of planning soon becomes a disaster in its own right. A good plan should keep you focused on what you are trying to accomplish.

Planning for most projects is as simple as setting goals, determining the process, and estimating materials. Setting a goal is an often-overlooked aspect of doing a project, but it is essential to completing your project. Your goal may be to fix the leak in the bathroom sink, or to rehab the entire kitchen. Goals not only define what needs to be done, but accomplishing them tells you when you're done.

If your project to renew your kitchen includes replacing all the cabinets and changing the workflow, your planning should begin with how to accomplish these goals. Based on what you want your kitchen to be, do you tear out everything down to the bare studs, or can you reach your goal by refacing the old cabinets? Do you have to tear down the walls, or is there a way to save the plaster and still get the new wiring where it needs to go? This is the "process" part of the planning, and deals with how you go about obtaining the goals for the project.

Planning your materials accomplishes a number of positive things. One basic realization is that some materials depend on the use of other specific materials. Some items have limited availability, and must be ordered - quite common in work on old houses. Some material requires special training or certification to use. But the best reason to plan your materials for a project is the ability to shop for them ahead of time and get them on sale!

I recommend that people start building a "book" about their house. As you read magazines and newspapers, clip out pictures and articles about things you would like for your house. Don't limit yourself to things you're sure you want in your house, but just collect what looks interesting to you. Save these clippings in a binder, and separate them based on topic --kitchens, bathrooms, plumbing, etc. When you are thinking about working on your kitchen, go to your book and lay out all of the pages in the kitchen section. There will be a few oddballs there, but you will probably find that what interests you in a kitchen starts to follow a pretty consistent theme. This should help you decide what your vision for that part of the house should be.

Don't be afraid to draw pictures and build models. It's a sad fact that things look different in real life than they do in our minds, and we need something to help convert these ideas to reality. You may find a blank piece of paper to be your best friend in this part of the planning process. It allows you to represent ideas so you can see how they fit together. Models are even better because they give you a 3-D feel for how objects and
shapes relate to each other. This can be as simple as using an old cardboard box for the walls, and canned goods to represent furniture, appliances and such. If you have a tricky situation, there is nothing better that a life-size mock-up of the room. These really help in planning traffic flow and efficient work areas, and are often as easy as moving around large cardboard boxes.

Keep track of your planning. If I don't write down what we've decided to do, or don't save the crude pictures I draw, I won't remember by the time we get to working on the project. Keep a book of the planning you have done, or even incorporate this information into the idea book mentioned above. Once you have made some plans and have saved them in your book, don't be afraid to change them! Planning is an ongoing process, and sometimes your plans have to change with the flow of the project.

One last tip is to buy things ahead of time for use in your project. Buying standard construction materials and stockpiling them before the project makes a lot of sense, and may result in bargains. But working on an old house is an often-perverse activity. Sometimes the best ideas for working on your old house will flow from some minor item picked up at a yard sale or a flea market. Allow yourself the freedom of thought and creativity to experiment with different ideas. One of the best places to stock up on items for your old house is at an architectural recycler, a place that sells parts of old houses.

Old houses are like a big puzzle, and there is a certain amount of "figuring out" required before you reach the end. The flexibility to change and adapt your work as it progresses is essential to any project, but establishing a vision for you home will keep you true to the "old house" nature of your home. Choosing your projects strategically ties the different aspects of your home together into one "whole", and keeps the process from becoming overwhelming. The careful planning of each project keeps everything
manageable and on track.

Plan to honor your old home. Plan to help it achieve its best purpose, providing shelter and comfort to a family. Plan, because not to plan means losing your way in the process, and losing that essential charm that drew us to an old home in the first place.