That Jasmine Roth Show help! I Wrecked My House is back for Season 3, rescuing homeowners from home improvements gone haywire.
In the premiere episode “Midcentury Mishap” Steve Pittman from Fullerton, CA, shares how he hired a home builder to help him renovate the home he inherited from his grandparents. Instead, the workers raided the liquor cabinet, leaving behind little more than empty bottles and a big mess.
“I renovated this house on my own for almost a year. I’ve taken on too much,” he says. “Then the work started to mount, and I figured hiring a contractor would just make it easier, but it ended up backfiring.”
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Pittman has already spent $85,000 on the project, and it’s not even halfway done.
“Sometimes I thought it would be easier to unload it,” he admits. “I had to move back in with my parents because this house is uninhabitable. I just didn’t want to let go. It’s taken quite a bit of my life and I need a lot of help.”
Here comes Roth, swinging her mighty sledgehammer.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” she says. “He’s overwhelmed, the project has stalled, and he’s spent a lot more money than he anticipated.”
Pittman has a $160,000 budget to complete the project, and Roth believes she can do it in seven weeks. As she struggles to right all the wrongs that have been done to the home, she shares many useful tips on how to renovate without ruining your home or budget. Just look!
Be sure to check your contractors
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Pittman says he sometimes stopped by the house unannounced and found the workers sitting around playing with their phones and even having a barbecue and drinking beer in the backyard!
“I couldn’t trust my contractor,” he says.
“If she don’t trust your contractor, I don’t trust your contractor,” Roth says as she plans to bring in her own general contractor, the trusted and talented Scott Cross.
Pittman now knows he made what might be the worst mistake a homeowner can make: he didn’t check his contractor’s license, endorsements, and reviews. If so, maybe he wouldn’t have been so hasty in hiring the guy. But you can’t help but loosen it up a bit; he was exhausted and frustrated.
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Watch: ‘Renovation Impossible’ star reveals how to get out of a renovation rut
Always pull permits
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The previous contractor did a lot of plumbing, electrical work and sealed it behind drywall before permits were issued or inspections were done. He didn’t pull any permits – not one!
“The challenge will be to determine whether everything has been done correctly,” says Roth. “He let someone come in; He has no idea if it was done right. I still have a lot of work to do on this place to make it safe before the inspector comes out.”
Upon her own inspection, Roth notes that they “did a really good job on the drywall, which is almost unfortunate.”
“Yes, because we have to rip out a lot of it,” adds Cross.
After cutting through the drywall, they find that electrical wiring, plumbing, and the gas lines all need repairs. They have it done by professionals at considerable expense, and then sit on pins and needles while awaiting the inspector’s report.
They let out a huge sigh of relief when the inspector explained that they did everything right. Permissions granted!
“Now that the inspection is behind us, we can move forward with this project,” says Roth.
Don’t get rid of everything
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Pittman planned to throw out everything in the house that had been there since 1961, when his grandparents moved in. But Roth searches through a pile of furniture and finds an antique folding screen that she plans to use as an integral part of her design for the house.
“It’s a treasure and it’s part of your family history and I know you want to continue that,” she says, holding up the trellis. She reworks it and uses it on the pony wall between the kitchen and entryway to create some separation between the spaces while preserving some of the history of this home.
Work with what you have
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There is a large chunky double sided brick fireplace between the dining and living room.
“Don’t rip it off,” she says to Cross, who is a little surprised. “This fireplace is what I look forward to the most. The original look is this raw block and I feel like it’s so mid-century that I think that’s going to be the look.”
She has the ugly yellow-green brick sandblasted and renewed the chimney on both sides to “bring it back to its former glory”.
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Every entrance needs a table
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There is no official entrance hall in the house – the front door opens directly into the room, which is common with mid-century designs. However, there is a pony wall nearby by the stairs leading down to the basement, and Roth decides to make it more functional with some custom cabinetry.
“I’m going to put a shelf and a bench on that wall so that when people come in, they can lean on it and hang around it,” she says. It will also be a great place to stash mail and keys.
She has her favorite carpenter build her a bench with attached shelves and drawers. It even has a charging station.
“You have a proper entry now,” she tells Pittman as he admires him.
The final result
Roth uses every penny of the allotted $160,000 to make up for the bad contractor and bring the home into the 21st century without destroying its 20th-century charm. The kitchen, dining room and living room are far beyond anything Pittman could have ever imagined.
He’s not the over-enthusiastic type, but his emotions are unmistakable as he looks around and sees what Roth has done.
“I love it,” he says. “It’s a lot to process. I told myself I could do it on my own, but obviously I couldn’t. Jasmine delivered for me. The house looks amazing… and it’s a lot less stressful in my life right now.”