Renovations? Anyone not?

amother

Hunter

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 4:01 pm

amother Glitter wrote:

I noticed this also. Even those who "don't renovate" will have the floors scraped, house painted. Even for a rental. Oh, and put in another bathroom or sink.

I think we're the only ones who just moved in.

Nope, we did the same. Smile

amother

Natural

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 4:06 pm

amother Glitter wrote:

For a rental? Certainly not.

For a purchase? I don't believe everyone considers it basic.

In my world, painting and carpet cleaning is required for thd CofO. Meaning the landlord is responsible for a paint job and carpet cleaning before the new tenants move in.

amother

Amber

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 4:49 pm

Jews move to neighborhoods that are affordable - usually existing neighborhoods where the population is older & homes not touched in 30-40 years. Then can renovate house to make suitable for a Jewish family. My neighborhood for example, (in past 10 years) many Jews moving in & people are either doing gut renovations or knocking houses down & rebuilding from scratch. We just did "minimum" renovations to move into 3 bedroom home - new counters in kitchen, new appliances, new main bathroom (2nd was kept as is), refinish all floors, repaint house (one or 2 other minor adjustments) and contractor was astounded that we considered this minimum to move in! We planed to live here for a bit before doing major construction.

Even though we Jews have a specific high lifestyle that we uphold, home renovations are commonplace in non-Jewish world too. We had non-Jewish neighbor who would adhere to & repeat saying that you need to do basic house maintenance every year, but bigger house project (eg replace kitchen, roof etc) every 2-5 years. (Although I feel that most Jews will generally do complete gut reno before / shortly after they move in, instead of slowly over 30 years living in same house.)

amother

Gray

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 4:55 pm

amother Glitter wrote:

We also moved in as is. We did later renovate our kitchen as it was in worse condition than we initially realized. We also moved into the house and it was extremely dark. Almost all the rooms didn’t have overhead lighting . I think that’s something a lot of frum people change. We had that changed very quickly because it felt very depressing to come home to a dark house and not be able to turn on the lights. Plug in lamps don’t compare to overhead lighting.
But otherwise , any work we’ve ever had done was done on our own.
I believe because we don’t have Shabbos to do DIY work , we have less time to focus on doing work ourselves . Many of my non Jewish neighbors have done complete renovations that they did on their own, week after week for many years.
My non frum relatives who live on higher standard than I do , did renovate after their kids went to college.

amother

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 5:39 pm

Remodeling bathrooms is a good example of something that has nothing to do with frum living, large families, it's about esthetics. Everyone I know has remodeled their bathrooms at least once, and these are not wealthy people.
I also noticed that not frum people do a lot more of their own work. House projects and small reno projects done by the couple themselves. Frum people tend to renovate and to hire out much more.
Either way I don't know of anyone in my area that has bought a house and didn't do major renovations. It's literally a given.

amother

Jetblack

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 6:34 pm

amother Burgundy wrote:

We bought our house 4 years ago. A major requirement for us was no big renovations necessary.
Layout is decent although I'm sure with renovations I can make it more jewish family friendly.
I'm not doing it though. We can't afford it easily and I rather save the money for future simchas.
I recently had someone comment to me "you don't have any plans to renovate? Like not at all?". And I said no we do not. She was shocked. Tells me "all my neighbors renovated".
I guess that's a running mentality here. But I don't care. I will do what's best for my family financially.
We have a huge house b"h. But no pesach kitchen, no convenient coat closet, no laundry room, non Jewish layout kitchen (we added a sink), etc... typical non Jewish house. I'm happy enough b"h.

Funny I had the same exchange with an acquaintance we just bought a house it needed a lot of tlc I told her we gutted some of the house but not the kitchen and bathrooms ( they are totally fine just dated and to redo all of it is astronomically expensive right now) she was like what do you mean aren’t doing them everyone does the kitchen and bathrooms before they move in…….I’m like you live in a totally different world than me.

amother

Feverfew

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 7:27 pm

amother Firebrick wrote:

Painting and floors are basics non Jews do it too.

Again this points out the lack of knowledge of some people outside their small bubble of perception.

As you point out almost everyone paints their place and does something with the flooring before they move in.

They do this because it is so difficult to do after you move in and so even people with relatively limited budgets will do this.

Many people choose to paint themselves rather than hire someone if funds are limited because painting is a DIY which is relatively easy for even a non DIY to do if they follow simple basic process.

What many non-frum people don't do is to build additions to their homes UNLESS their home happens to be in some very extraordinary neighborhood where they want to live. The reason is that additions per square foot cost more than building new and non frum people who want a larger home can buy in 100% of the locations in the USA versus frum people who are limited to probably 1% of locations.

Of course non frum people are limited by budget but in general if they want larger or a home that is significantly different than their current home, it is easier and cheaper for them to move than to remodel.

Frum people are trapped to a great extent.

amother

Cappuccino

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 7:35 pm

Haven’t read the whole thread but a lot of times people renovate if they bought their house a long time ago and with real estate prices being what they are it’s cheaper to add on. Where I am the houses are more than $750k and lots people bought them for half as much or less. House prices are still going up and the neighborhood is very desirable. (Not in NY or NJ.)

BaltoMom65

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 7:36 pm

amother OP wrote:

I was speaking to a non jewish coworker of mine and she was surprised that we do renovations to our home. She said it's very uncommon in middle to low class. If something breaks or some kind of major life change they would but it's not done often. Fixer uppers are bought by people who fix it mostly themselves.
It was an interesting take. Everyone in my area either fully renovated their home before moving in and or do renovations projects every 2 years or so.
Why is this? It feels like a need to me but maybe I'm just influenced by what's normal here and really should just live with the house as is.

Your coworker is correct. This website shows me how out of touch and very shallow so many frum people are regarding money. My town was once like how yout coworker described. Now, since everyone is leaving NY and NJ it's completely different. Sorry that my post is so brash and honest but it's true

amother

Cerise

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:46 pm

BaltoMom65 wrote:

I completely agree. What’s become the “norm” is, if you really take a step back, insane.
Does everybody really have this kind for money?
And if so pls share the secret😊

BaltoMom65

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:55 pm

amother Cerise wrote:

I completely agree. What’s become the “norm” is, if you really take a step back, insane.
Does everybody really have this kind for money?
And if so pls share the secret😊

Right??!! Everyone I know is trying to figure out where all this money is coming from?!

amother

IndianRed

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:26 pm

amother Slateblue wrote:

I belong to some interior design groups on Facebook. Granted I don’t know how much money they have, but they put a lot of work into their homes, and they don’t all seem like they’re rich. They try to find dups, or get bargains on marketplace or outlets. They do some work on their own, but they outsource too.
Frum people also tend to renovate because they need 2 sinks, a pesach kitchen, more room in general for larger families or hosting for Shabbos/Yom Tov.

None of those things are NEEDS. They are things frum people WANT that non frum or non Jewish may not want. But plenty of people do totally fine without a Pesach kitchen. Or even 2 sinks. They use buckets or other 100% halachically ok ideas.

amother

Wheat

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:42 pm

In my neighborhood lots of non-jews renovate. I kind of noticed it is more commonly done by my imigrant neighbors (middle eastern, Russian, Asian).

Plenty of jewish families move in as is.

It's really gross to call jews shallow because they want to renovate an old house to better suit their needs. Oftentimes these renovations are done to make room for hosting shabbos guests, not have 4 kids in 1 bedroom, generally menuchas hanefesh.

amother

Wheat

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:49 pm

amother Gray wrote:

Very very true. I watch my neighbors every shabbos do yard work, car work, cleaning, painting random things ( chairs, doors etc)
I love to DIY but it's not possible as a mother of Littles, I can barely keep up with basic housekeeping. The same reason I hire cleaning help while I'm capable of cleaning myself. Diy takes lots of time.

Ema of 5

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 10:18 pm

We bought our house 9 years ago. We are now painting our first floor. We haven’t done anything since moving in. We bought the house from someone who bought it as a foreclosure and was fixing it up. The kitchen was pit in 9 years ago. The bathrooms and bedrooms were fixed up but not renovated. I don’t know anyone who does major work every couple of years.

amother

Brass

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 10:45 pm

We bought our house about 8 years ago- a non renovated house, but it was in our budget, and the layout worked for our lifestyle. It’s a smaller place. We didn’t do anything but paint and rip up the dirty carpets when we moved in. Since then, all our ‘home renovations’ have been DIY aesthetic.

I like nice-looking things and spaces, but our budget doesn’t allow for anything major bathroom or kitchen re-dos…

seeker

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:49 pm

Only read op, not replies, but where I used to live there were MAJOR renovations every time anyone moved. Not a Jewish or frum community but home prices were high there so I guess if you have that kind of money then you're going to spend some more making the place perfect. People also did renovations when they didn't just move, I actually got a great fridge secondhand that a (nonjewish) neighbor was unloading really cheap because they were redoing their kitchen, the one they were getting rid of couldn't have been more than a few years old.

Our big renovation was finishing the basement which had been completely bare and we needed bedrooms there as the family grew. Other than that we've only done maintenance repairs. I'd love to fix up the floors one of these days but I know that financially it will never be the priority...

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, Jan 27 2023, 12:42 am

amother Glitter wrote:

Nope, you're not!