The experts' guide to home renovation (unofficial)
Feeling stuck with our own renovation, I asked some of my fave accounts on Instagram for advice. Susan Brinson, Annie Meyers-Shyer, Greg Penn, and Dean Poulton weigh in.
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Back in October 2020, my partner John and I purchased a 200-year-old, part Federal, part Greek revival rowhouse in the Finger Lakes. It couldn’t have been more different from the secluded Hudson Valley farmhouses that fed our Zillow fantasies, but it felt right. The house was in good condition and close to family, although it undeniably needed work: Exterior brick walls were crying out to be repointed, the kitchen cabinets were from the 1950s, and there was still active knob and tube wiring in the dining room.
In those first few (overwhelming) months of homeownership, we stuck to relatively surface-level “renovations” that consisted mostly of stripping wallpaper, repairing cracked plaster walls, and giving every room a fresh coat of paint. I think we set a record in Ontario County for most Benjamin Moore Capitol White (our favorite shade of white, which should be yours, too) used. We had intended the house to be a seasonal rental, and we were anxious to list it. None of the other problems seemed dire enough to be a priority.
We will take care of the masonry work and get started on other projects in the off season, this fall and winter, we naively told ourselves.
Fast forward four-and-a-half years, and not much is different. It’s very easy to look at the house, see everything that needs to be done, and be paralyzed by the enormity of it all.
Things are about to change, though. I’ve decided that this year we actually will tackle the projects we’ve been talking about for years. The first step is to get organized.
Curious about the best way to approach a home renovation, I asked the people behind some of my favorite Instagram accounts who have renovated beautiful old houses, either by themselves or with a small team of professionals, to chat. Where better to start than with the experts, right?
Break out the binder
“A good template is a project plan — it urges you to take certain steps,” Susan Brinson (@HouseOfBrinson), said to me. She has been renovating Stony Ford, a beautiful Greek revival home in the Hudson Valley with her husband Will for about a decade, and every project is centralized in a physical binder.
“Having a physical binder triggers discussion,” said Susan. “A binder is hard to ignore when it’s on the dining table. It helps to sort the bigger picture timeline, and it holds everyone accountable to crossing tasks off the list.”
The organizational system, which you can purchase and download, breaks every project down into the following areas: Personnel, phases, task list, timeline, shopping list, budget, and references.
The first section, personnel, defines who is involved in the project, and which parts (if any) will be DIY, and which will be contracted out. “For instance, Will handles a lot of the technical parts of work, and I handle the decor.”
Every project is then broken down into a maximum of 10 phases—anything more than that and you’re almost at a task list: “What are your big-picture chunks? Talk through the project far ahead of time to understand the scope and resolve any differences in workflow or work philosophy.”
For a recent bathroom renovation, phase 1 was “remove wallpaper, fix walls, fix ceiling, and electrical.” The final stage consisted of finishing work like hanging curtains, art, and styling the room.
Susan says that phases help to segment the project if you need to pause. “You can always put the binder on your shelf and then pick it back up later!” For that same bathroom renovation, Susan shared that the final phase had to be put on hold for the holidays.
Susan then recommends creating a task list and timeline estimate for each phase to plan the length of the project and understand how the phases work together—and, more importantly, how things can shift if there’s a delay.
“Be disciplined and work hard—but also be realistic!” said Susan, who talked about how their bathroom deadlines got derailed when Will hurt himself and couldn’t get on a ladder for a few weeks. “Give yourself grace if something comes up and you don’t meet a deadline—that’s what the timeline is for.”
The final sections are shopping lists, budget estimates, and references, where you can note things like room measurements, wallpaper types, and paint names. Susan actually was the first person who told us about our favorite shade of white when she and Will painted Stony Ford Capitol White several years ago! Susan also recommends getting inserts to store receipts and supplies like post-it notes and highlighters so the binder is a real one-stop shop. “You’re going to be carrying this around in a construction zone. You don’t want to be looking around for that stuff.”
Have a written and visual plan
When Annie Meyers-Shyer (@ThisOakHouse) bought a Gerard Colcord-designed home in Los Angeles, she wasted no time planning a top-to-bottom renovation.
“My system was twofold,” Annie told me. “First, I had a Google doc where we went room by room with what we wanted to achieve in each space. It was a way of keeping ideas concise, highlighting priorities, and keeping track of must haves. Then, I had a complementary visual in the form of a Pinterest mood board. I used that combination of written and visual in every early architectural planning meeting.”
The doc, which grew to be 25 pages in length, started with a picture of the house and a David Hicks quote. “It was both broad strokes and micro,” said Annie. “Something as general as needing more light in the kitchen to something as specific as wanting a drawer with a knife block.”
The best kind of rooms are those which contain a cosmopolitan collection of different pieces of furniture, books, drawings and objects somehow sympathetic to each other,
in a space with a decorative theme however simple, all of which goes to make up a cozy, interesting and individual atmosphere.”
-David Hicks
The doc acted not only as a room-by-room wish and task list, but it also centralized any notes, resources, and inspiration. “I love information. I love documentaries and hearing people speak. It was nice to have somewhere to put all of that information instead of looking for scrap paper. I watched the Create Academy Rita Konig renovation series, and she had a great tip about the height of millwork in a bathroom, and I put that under my bathroom category. I would read that Gil Schafer likes a certain kind of monopoint light fixture, and I would hyperlink to it.”
The complementary Pinterest board, which Annie said she started first out of excitement for the project, was very specific to each room that would be worked on. And she said that Pinterest can be especially helpful if you’re not sure exactly what you’re style is. “You may not think you know what your style is, but then you pin a lot of living rooms and then you realize they all have yellow sofas.”
Annie said that while she hadn’t used this system before, it was very successful in helping her realize all of her goals for the house, and she would definitely do something similar in the future.
Annie added that she grounded the renovation’s focus by coming back to two main questions: Does the choice feel right for the house, and would she like it in 10 years. After all, considering how expensive and lengthy renovations are, you want to do it once and right.
“I was inspired by my mom’s house, which she built 25 years ago,” Annie said of her mother, noted kitchen influencer Nancy Meyers. “It’s totally classic, and you would make those same choices today. If you want to be trendy, buy a fun pillow! Don’t get a marble backsplash that will be an expensive pain to rip out.”
Don’t be afraid to just focus on the vibes
Meanwhile, across the pond, Greg Penn (@ManWithAHammer), who is renovating the 30-room Admirals House in Devon largely by himself, takes things slowly and considers each room without a rigid plan: “The rooms are big, they’re old, and I spend vast amounts of time in them as I renovate them. I allow for the themes of the rooms to come to me slowly and organically.”
The house, which was originally constructed as a single residence by the Royal Navy before being split into two houses later in the 19th century, was structurally sound enough for Greg to feel comfortable taking on the renovation, which he taught himself how to do on YouTube and Google.
“Each individual job is possible to do if you set your mind to it and you’re dedicated to learning what’s needed, but it is time consuming.” Greg had only done one other renovation before, a smaller Victorian terraced house. “For this project, I was looking for something very DIY-able.”
Greg adheres to a simple philosophy: “Allow the time to see the space develop and come together—I tell that to anyone renovating their homes, especially if, like me, you don’t have the skills that an interior designer or architect might have to envision how a space will turn out. And if you get bored with one part of the renovation—move onto something else!”
“Well, we’re not that organized,” said Dean Poulton (@MyTinyEstate) who is renovating a beautiful Georgian house in Birmingham with his husband Borja De Maqua. “When we buy a property, we naturally subdivide it in our heads. Otherwise it’s impossible to process all the details and comprehend the little bits in one go.” They take a room-by-room approach, first addressing any infrastructure like electric, plumbing, and heating, on a section of rooms before moving onto more decorative elements.
“A room has a multitude of layers, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re working layer by layer so methodically,” said Dean. “I’m sourcing furniture for rooms that we’re not planning to start in a years’ time. You have to be open to acting when it feels right, even if it’s not the most linear.”
Like Annie, Dean also plans his projects with the future in mind: “You want to consider in 20 years, how are you going to use that space? Where will the plugs need to be? You can’t plan for everything, but you also don’t want to have to renovate so soon—I would hate to do that!”
He says that the key to not getting overwhelmed, especially with an old house, is to remember: “At least for us, this house has been around for 300 years, and it’s been lived in for that time—and they’ve all survived! We just focus on putting timeless details in.”
For Dean, that means architectural elements like cornices, high-quality doors, trim, and period-appropriate hardware. “The inspiration comes from the house itself. The last space we did was the servants’ kitchen, and we worked around the antique range and the terracotta tiles.”
I don’t know exactly what form it will take—and, of course, I need to talk it over with John (lol, hi John)—but hearing how these renovations were organized and structured, despite their differences, has inspired me to devise my own system that incorporates aspects of all four philosophies. Of course, I’m tempted by the most aesthetically fun project—the kitchen—first. Perhaps that’s why the masonry work is still crying out to be done. But for now, I’m going to start thinking about phases, Pinterest boards, and tempering my type-A tendencies with letting the room speak to me and not being in such a rush.
this is so helpful, thank you for compiling!
Thank you for this! Loved the insights and adding Capitol White to my own binder!