Russell Nohelty's $50,000 home renovation
A Substack author shares his remodel experiences and insights.
I recently spoke with Russell Nohelty of
about his LA house makeover. I’d like to thank Russell for being generous with his time and sharing his story and photos. Russell’s viewpoint on finding contractors, the remodel process, and making wise judgments is fantastic. The link to his Substack is also at the end of the post, along with his bio.If you have a renovation experience you’d like to share, please reach out.
Tell me a little bit about yourself and your Substack which has been very successful.
I have been curating a newsletter for about eight years, and I have written multiple books as well. My Substack overlapped with my interests and there turned out to be a gap in the market where very few people were writing about creative business building. One of the hardest things about it is talking about the topic in a way that doesn’t turn creative people away. I am shocked because I have been talking about the same topic since 2011, but it’s amazing how much more open people are to it now. And it seems to have hit a nerve in a good way.
In your writing, you break things down for people in a way that is practical and actionable. Can you elaborate on this?
One of the things I often hear from people trying to build a business is, “No one wants to hear from me.” My response is, “If you believe that no one wants to hear from you, then why do it at all?” Of course, not everyone is interested in hearing from you. The truth is that a small number of people want to hear from you, a small number of people never want to hear from you, and 99.9% of the world is unaware that you exist. Any company will want to reach out to people who have never heard of them and help them make a decision.
You’re originally from the East Coast; what made you move west?
I have always wanted to work in movies since I was a kid. My wife and I had been trying to move here since 2004, but it was never the right time. Then I got into a car accident and lost my job. In 2008, four years after we met, I came to LA to make a film and failed miserably. But after that, I got involved in comics, publishing, and nonfiction and fell in love with LA. Everyone who says it has no culture is wrong. Unlike NYC, DC, London, or Paris, in LA you have to go searching for it. Sometimes you don’t find it, but it is rewarding when you do. I recently saw Into the Woods, as well as Taylor Swift. There is a lot of weird and awesome stuff in LA, and of course the weather is great.
When did you buy your house and what motivated you?
We moved into our house in January 2013, just over ten years ago. We had been living in an apartment, and the rent had been increasing by about $100 or $200 a year. Our rental place said that if we used their agent, we could cancel the lease without a penalty. Another reason we bought the house was because of its backyard. In LA, you often don’t find houses with a decent backyard, and this house had a sizable yard. The housing market was also heating up, so it was either this house or not getting a house at all.
How did you find your house?
We wanted to stay on the westside of LA, and all we could find were crappy condos with fees starting at $750. I’ve never heard of fees like this except in a few other big cities. We initially put in an offer on a condo, but that fell through. We couldn’t afford anything else, so we decided to expand our search.
We were finally able to find a house in Long Beach for $300,000, which has probably doubled in value since then. The house was one of five we could afford. Out of the five, one was condemned—our real estate agent wouldn’t even go in. The others were not in great neighborhoods, didn’t have good schools, or were in areas that we didn’t want to live in.
Our bid was probably accepted because it was a bad market with no competing offers. Back then, Redfin wasn’t trying to buy up all the surrounding houses, and it wasn’t like the pandemic when there were cash offers on random houses. We ended up with the right house at the right time in an up-and-coming neighborhood with crime adjacent but not in our vicinity. People here take care of their houses because they’ve lived here for a long time, which isn’t true of the surrounding neighborhoods.
When you bought it, did you know you had to make any upgrades?
Like many new people who buy a house for the first time, we were way overleveraged. First, we replaced our garage door with a clicker door, which required installing a header beam.
“Do you know how much it costs to put a garage door in an opening with no header beam? My God, I thought it was going to be $400. It was not 400 dollars; it was thousands of dollars!”
Right after that, our main sewer line exploded, costing us $5,000. We knew that we had to replace all the plumbing, as the pipes were old. Aside from that, we didn’t anticipate doing any renovations since we didn’t plan to stay here for ten years.
The larger renovations happened around 2021 because of a crack in the base of our bathroom shower. The shower was one of those plastic units, and the crack went from the drain to one end. I had tried repairing the crack with putty, but it kept reopening. Water had also been seeping in through the crack for about six months, though I wasn’t aware that it had destroyed the flooring underneath. Another year, and we would have been sitting on the toilet and collapsing to the bottom of our house.
As a homeowner, you learn the value of catching things early. However, I have never learned this. I’m always like, I can fix that for ten dollars, and those things always end up being huge.
We also had bunnies at the time. You might think bunnies are cute, but they are terror magnets. I don’t know why apartments are okay with bunnies but not dogs. A dog is chill, but a bunny will destroy everything. They destroyed all the carpet in our previous apartment.
For instance, when we moved in, we placed them in the tub for two days until we set up their cage. What we didn’t know was that the previous owners had only repainted the tub. So, by the end of the second day, the bunnies had destroyed the tub, and we couldn’t use it. From 2013 until 2021, we effectively had only one shower, which now had a crack.
When did you realize you needed to call a professional, and what kind of person did you look for?
We decided to fix the crack because someone was coming to visit and we were embarrassed. Also, I was worried that the water had been seeping in for so long. Someone said that it was not expensive to fix, and so I started calling places.
When I look for contractors, I always look for well-reviewed people who have done similar jobs before. I also don’t want a handyman touching plumbing, so I looked for a licensed contractor. I found a place who said they could replace the unit for $800. For most people, the job was too small, so the fact that they were willing to do it stood out to me. But clearly, some contractors know that small jobs often become bigger once you look into the issue.
Did you know that the job was going to be more than just replacing the shower unit?
Because shower units lack structural support underneath, the plastic base will eventually fracture from the weight of people. The initial plan was to fill the crack and add material below to make the base sturdy.
The contractor said it was very likely that there were larger issues beneath the crack. So we paid him a small amount to open up the floor. From there, it was clear that all the wood underneath the shower had rotted. He explained, “Do you see all of this? If I only replace the shower, you’ll still have this problem. You don’t have to hire me, but no contractor will undertake the job once they know what happened.” He offered to either replace the bathroom with the same fixtures or gut it and rebuild from scratch with nice tile for $8,000. With a tiled floor, the shower would last a lot longer, and it was just slightly more expensive than the first option.
At the time, 8K was a crazy good deal. Other people said they paid 11–13K or up to 15K. Our bathroom was 80 square feet, so that worked out to roughly $100 per square foot.
It sounds like you had a pretty honest contractor.
Our contractor had been doing the work for thirty years and was not interested in things such as marking up fixtures. His price included certain fixtures, and he said, “You can go higher, but you will have to pay the difference.” During the entire process, I never felt ripped off. I was just annoyed that every problem we discovered was way worse because the previous owner was a flipper who made the house look nice, but underneath everything was garbage.
What did you learn going through this process?
It is very stressful, even when things are going perfectly. You need to give everyone as much space as possible. Also, don’t hire someone if you don’t think they are upfront and honest, because you don’t want someone overcharging when they discover more problems. And in most instances, there will be more problems, and it will cost more. Both people that we got quotes from said, “This is the quote, assuming nothing goes wrong.”
Our bathroom contractor didn’t have anything on his schedule until April, and he said, “If you start tomorrow or next week, I will fit this in and give you an excellent price. But if you wait, I won’t be available for another eight months.” I think we hired him immediately, as we went to Home Depot and I was texting the fixture options to my wife. He began either on a Monday or Tuesday and was finished in about a week.
If you’re ready when the contractor is available, you will likely get a good deal. Once they become busy, it becomes more difficult. Later on, I tried calling them back for something small and ended up having to fix it myself.
What are some things homeowners need to be aware of?
I believe that if homeowners are respectful, most contractors won’t equivocate.
Many people go into a remodel expecting to be screwed because they have heard horror stories about renovations. There are contractors who will take advantage of you, and there are also people who are honest. You have to be good at finding the right people, and if you don’t think they are good, you have to be ready to walk away. You should not hire someone who is going to be in your house for an extended period if you don’t think they have your best interests in mind.
People are surprised when you agree to pay them what they asked for.
I’ve always gotten good pricing in life because when someone tells me an acceptable price and I like them as a person and I think they can do the work, I just say, “Ok. When can you start?”
Make the process a good experience for everyone.
There is nothing that will make renovation a good experience until it’s over and people are no longer in your house. While it’s ongoing, you are going to have many conversations that start with “I can do it this way or this way” or “I found this thing; do you want it fixed or not?” If every discussion becomes a battle, it’s going to wear everyone out. You can make it a good experience by not questioning every word out of the contractor’s mouth, which will make them feel valued and motivated to work harder.
You met with several contractors, and what were the reasons for not hiring some of them?
I thought the other contractors were trying to scam me, and I didn’t have a good feeling about them. One wouldn’t give me a list of scope items because it wasn’t their policy. Another couldn’t tell me why his quote was more expensive. He said, “That’s our price,” which wasn’t an answer. I don’t mind paying a premium, but I do expect there to be a rationale for it. We had already committed to remodeling the bathroom with another contractor, so I also needed a general contractor who would accept that they could do everything except the bathroom. Some of them said, “If we can’t have the whole job, we don’t want it,” and that made me not want to work with them.
The people that we hired were not only transparent and had validation for things, but they also seemed to enjoy the work. The bathroom contractor, for instance, said, “I have time now to do the bathroom. From soup to nuts, these are the costs.” He showed me other bathrooms he had remodeled and provided suggestions, but he said, “I am not telling you to do anything. I actually want you to talk to your wife about it and then tell me what you want to do.” When I heard that, I felt like that’s how someone should treat another human.
They were also happy to explain things when I didn’t understand them. Sometimes they were a little exasperated and said, “We need to move on from this thing.” And I would say, “I get it, but I need to know.” In the end, they always took the time to explain, and it always felt like a good conversation.
You had a good feeling about the people you hired, and how did it work out?
You can get a good sense of a contractor from how they handle a small job. The contractor for the garage work never acted like the small project wasn’t worth his while. He came twice before the job, once during it, and then a fourth time several months later to check in. For the larger $60,000 renovation, I obtained multiple quotes to be diligent, but given my earlier experience with this contractor, I was already inclined to choose him.
During the larger renovation, we painted our porch gray. Sometimes paint colors don’t look like the swatch due to many reasons that I still haven’t figured out. Anyway, I didn’t think it looked good, so I asked my contractor what he thought. He said, “It looks terrible,” and then asked me if I would like to change it. I explained what I wanted. He said, “Oh, you want a base gray, not gray with green.” He never said, “You’re crazy or high maintenance,” or “I’ll do whatever you want as long as you pay me.” It always felt like a two-way dialogue.
I spend an enormous amount of time thinking about who I hire. I am very, very, very conscious of my comfort level and whether I can have a meaningful conversation with them. The best advice I can give to anyone for anything is to never go in desperate, as you will make a mistake. Many people come to my house, but they don’t end up getting the job.
Is there anything you would have done differently?
Not really; perhaps securing a larger refinance, considering that the renovations ended up costing twice our initial estimate.
Once our house was done, it felt like our house. Before that, there were all these little issues, like our dog peeing on the only carpet in the house. Removing it and converting it to hardwood cost $3,000, but we will never have to deal with pee again. The bathroom was an extra $6,000 but now we have two nicely remodeled bathrooms.
We also added a wall between a cabinet and the shower. The contractor said, “If you make us come back, the wall is going to be a lot more expensive. But if we do it now, it will cost an extra $1,000 since everything is already ripped out and the crew is already here.” Lastly, repairing a small section of our roof would cost five grand, while redoing both roofs would cost twelve grand. We decided to do both, and we’re much happier that it’s all completed in conjunction with the rest of the work.
Once you’re already paying for the base model of a car, getting the better version doesn’t cost that much more. An upgrade might cost an additional $300, and perhaps you don’t have that money, but in every instance, it is going to be money well spent.
Sometimes small repairs can also have a big impact. We have a soffit for air flow, but it didn’t work well. My office would be a billion degrees in the summer and 43 degrees in the winter, which meant I was either dripping in sweat or wrapped in a blanket. Spending just $2,000 on this made a night and day difference in our comfort. If we had done it later, it would have cost more and involved repainting the entire house.
Were you living in your house during the renovation?
Yes, it was terrible. It’s simply not going to be a good experience when random people are going through your house. Our contractors had to work on every room, and we both work from home, so we had to constantly move to different rooms. It’s short-term pain for long-term gain.
I highly recommend you go to Barbados for a month during your renovation. But you can’t do that, as contractors need to get your opinion. But set aside $500 to treat yourself. During the renovation, I would go out for ice cream or treat myself four or five times a week because it was grinding otherwise. The renovation took about six weeks, but it felt like a very long time.
The contractor Russell used is Action Services Remodeling. All photographs are courtesy of Russell Nohelty unless otherwise mentioned.
Russell Nohelty’s creates a sustainable path forward for authors to build businesses.
Russell Nohelty is also a bestselling fantasy author who has written dozens of novels and graphic novels that you can find on Amazon He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and dogs.
Did you experience a lot of decision fatigue? I can’t imagine how exhausting it must’ve been to discover always more and have to coordinate all of that!
Similar to you, I believe it’s important to be respectful and kind to everyone from the get-go, but if someone is shady or difficult, cutting it short is the best choice. Those projects are already hard to go through, we don’t want to add more to them.
Thanks for this story. I always enjoy collaborating with craftspeople to make a project better. Truth about project budgets - they always seem to creep up, never down. Having a contingency is a good idea, especially with renovation because you can't always predict what's behind those walls or under the floors.