In this snack-sized episode of Home: The Second Story, we dive into what it really means to “spend wisely” when renovating or building a home. As always, the three of us—Sheri Scott, Marilyn Moedinger, and Taylor Davis—bring our own experiences as architects into the conversation. While “wise” spending is inherently subjective, we agree that aligning financial decisions with individual priorities and long-term goals is key.
We begin by discussing the concept of a master plan. Sheri shares a real-life client example where the dream design exceeded the budget. Instead of scaling back arbitrarily, we advised investing in infrastructure now—framing, structural systems, and utilities—so future phases could happen with less disruption and cost. Taylor echoes this with a personal anecdote about living with an empty room for years, now affectionately dubbed the "pinata room," showing that delay doesn’t mean failure—it’s part of the plan.
Marilyn emphasizes that anything hidden inside walls—like plumbing, electrical, and insulation—should be done right the first time. She recalls regretting a $1,700 savings on a hand shower she ended up not installing, a mistake she wouldn’t allow a client to make today. We also talk about not skimping on features like proper windows, cast iron waste pipes, solid core doors, and HVAC systems, because these impact long-term comfort and resale.
Accessibility is another area we explore. Taylor urges including wide doorways, grab bar backing, and thoughtful bathroom layouts during initial construction. These aren’t just for older homeowners—they’re useful for carrying groceries, recovering from surgery, or accommodating guests. And they can also help with resale value. Sheri adds a personal story about having to renovate her mother’s home under duress after a sudden disability, highlighting why proactive planning matters.
We circle back to the importance of hiring architects and planning thoroughly from the start. Design fees can seem intangible at first, but we show how early investment pays off in avoiding costly errors, enabling better decisions, and reducing frustration. Planning with professionals ensures functionality and beauty are balanced, so you're not left wondering, “Why did we do it this way?”
Finally, we acknowledge that spending wisely doesn’t mean spending endlessly. We aim to help clients make decisions that serve both their lifestyles and budgets, regionally and personally. Whether it's the feel of a kitchen faucet, the quiet of a cast iron pipe, or the satisfaction of a living room that fits your family traditions, smart spending is about prioritizing what matters to you.
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (00:03):
Everyone says how horrible it'll be to renovate or build your house. We're here to say, it doesn't have to be that way.
Join three seasoned architects as they interview homeowners who recently completed a large project and ask them one simple question: what do you know now that you wish you knew before you started?
Welcome to Home: The Second Story Podcast.
Sheri Scott (00:27):
Hi, and welcome to a snack sized episode of Home: The Second Story. I'm Sheri Scott from Springhouse Architects in Cincinnati, along with …
Marilyn Moedinger (00:38):
I'm Marilyn Moedinger from Runcible Studios, located in Boston, Massachusetts and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Taylor Davis (00:44):
And I am Taylor Davis from TPD Architect in Birmingham, Alabama.
Sheri Scott (00:50):
So, today, we're going to talk about spending money wisely (chuckles). It's a huge, broad topic but I think we can each just kind of take an example of what we have run into recently or advise people on, and maybe help somebody out there.
Taylor Davis (01:09):
I will also say, “wise” is a subjective term.
Sheri Scott (01:12):
That's a good point.
Taylor Davis (01:13):
There are going to be people who see wisdom in some things that we don't, and so ultimately there's some ground rules that we like to lay, but I would also say that wise can be a subjective term.
Sheri Scott (01:26):
I like that, Taylor.
Taylor Davis (01:27):
I take with that giant grain of Taylor salt.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:29):
Well, and maybe that is an important sort of baseline to our conversation, is that part of what makes you able to make good decisions about how you spend your money is to understand what you care about, and understand your own priorities.
So, if you know that certain things are really, really important to you because of your lifestyle or family or hobbies or priorities, then yeah, it is wise for you to spend money on that, and part of what we do as custom architects is we help people discern that.
And of course, if someone says, “I love to sew, but I'm okay with this little sewing table that I get out once in a while, but I really don't like that I have to put everything away all the time.” I'm like, “Wait, what? Why aren't we making you a room or putting this somewhere where you can use it?” Whereas for someone who doesn't sew, who cares.
Sheri Scott (02:19):
And it is a case-by-case basis, that's a very good point. My example that happened this week was we have a client that wants to totally renovate their home that they just bought and put an addition on it. What they were asking for did not match their budget and we had that conversation before they even hired us.
But what I offered was we will design a master plan of everything that you're asking for, and then we can talk to a builder, get some pricing, make some decisions from there. And we designed it, they’re in love with it (so am I), and it's way too much money.
So, we just had the conversation that Marilyn has taught me through our conversations, of this is an investment. They're a young family, they've shared with me that they intend to stay in this home for the rest of their lives. We're designing it for grandchildren to come back even though their youngest is like eight-years-old.
Marilyn Moedinger (03:26):
Amazing.
Sheri Scott (03:27):
Long-term. Long, long-term. And so, we did, we had the conversation about what is wise to do right now? Where could we save a little bit of money? But what we landed on was you do all of the structure and the infrastructure right now. Even if that's a little bit more than we wanted, you get it all ready.
You can have empty rooms down to the studs, it does not matter, but get it. If anything's going to disrupt your entire family down the line, maybe we pay for now, and that would be wise.
Taylor Davis (04:03):
So, I'll tell you about empty rooms. We had a room in our house that we didn't put any furniture in for like six years.
Sheri Scott (04:09):
Your own home?
Taylor Davis (04:10):
My own house. Because I was kind of particular about what I wanted to put in it. And we called it the pinata room because it was the place where everybody during a family birthday party, we would put a pinata in that room (laughs), and the kids would run around with a bat and hit the pinata. And so, to this day, they still call that living (which now has furniture in it), the pinata room. So, if you need to build a pinata room, build a pinata room, it's fine (chuckles).
Sheri Scott (04:36):
Good story too.
Marilyn Moedinger (04:38):
I want to add to that and say that so anything that is inside the walls, do now, and do it the best you can afford, that is my usual advice. And I would say that to anyone because that is stuff … like you can replace tile later, you can do different trim, you can do different whatever, but windows, don't.
And it doesn't mean you have to buy the most expensive, but buy the best that you can afford within the sort of the mix of the project. Because replacing that stuff, not fun, but putting an asphalt shingle roof on, which is the cheapest option, fine. You can rip that sucker off in 10 years and put slate or standing seam or something else that you want, but that shingle roof will be just fine (laughs).
Sheri Scott (05:26):
Yep. Keeps the water out.
Marilyn Moedinger (05:29):
Exactly. And I think where I learned this lesson in some good ways and some bad ways, in the most intense way was when I renovated my own house, and all the advice that I'd given to clients for years and years came home to roost, and I had the choice of finishing the attic, which was part of the project, or not.
And when I figured out, okay, well, I need a bigger loan to do that, it came out to be 75 extra dollars a month of loan payment for the mortgage. And I was like, “Yes, we're doing that.” So, for me that was a really good lesson of, now, I don't have to have someone come in and do a bathroom because it had a bathroom and there's a guest room and whatever and all the installation and the lighting, and the dollar number was big.
And I was like, “I can't afford that.” But then when I looked at it in relation to my loan, it was like 75 extra dollars, why would I not do that? So, that was smart.
So, let me tell you something I messed up (laughs). I was still trying to get my dollars lower and do what everybody does, which is try to get as much as I can into the project while also not spending tons and tons of money, like trying to keep my budget in check.
My bathroom, I had two; I had the hand shower, I had the overhead shower, and I had some stuff like that. Nothing super fancy but just the hand shower. And I was really struggling and dollars were getting tight and I said, “Fine, eliminate it.” It was like $1,700 that I would save. I said, “Fine, eliminate it.”
So stupid because that's $1,700 now, I'm not saying it's not a lot of money – that's real money. But now, if I want to put it in, I have to take out the tile-
Sheri Scott (07:08):
It's so much more expensive.
Marilyn Moedinger (07:10):
So much more expensive, I'm not going to do it because I can't get the same tile that's the same color from the same dye lot. And I'm like, that was so stupid. There were other things. And for the most part, I'd just like to say for the record, I did pretty well on making those kinds of decisions in the house because I have a lot of practice with it. But that is one thing I would never advise a client to do what I did, and I didn't listen to myself, and it's stupid.
Sheri Scott (07:35):
(Laughs) Yeah, yeah, it was stupid.
Taylor Davis (07:38):
Well, I'm just thinking of myself. I just made the same hand shower error just in my own bathroom, which is currently under construction.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (07:45):
No, don't make penny-wise pound-foolish decisions like that. If I wanted to find $1,700, I could have done it another way.
Taylor Davis (07:53):
So, I'm going to pull out my soapbox on aging in place for a minute because I think there's a lot of stuff that goes along with that. Not just for your project, but if you're thinking about future generations or people that might buy your house for resale value, if you can do things – and we've already talked about windows, exterior, invest in good electrical service, plumbing, all that sort of stuff.
But I would add to that; if you can do things that help make your house easier for somebody else to live there, you or somebody else depending on what stage of life you're in, do it. So, the difference in cost between a — if you can fit 36-inch doors in a pathway from the front door all the way to the bathroom, go for it. If you can do things … like go ahead, if you're redoing a bathroom, add blocking where they would put a grab bar so that way if there is an emergency … I have lots of stories.
So, when my dad had both of his knees replaced at the same time (which was mistake number one), he did not have any place to put a grab bar in any of the showers in our house that was built in the 50s and tried to put one in that had suction cups to it. Well, that's like disaster waiting to happen after you're trying to rehab two replaced knees.
So, not having the opportunity to do that caused all sorts of trauma, it was a temporary condition. But nonetheless, all I'm saying is if a 36-inch-wide door is great for a wheelchair, that's code for a wheelchair, but it's also really great if you're carrying groceries.
Marilyn Moedinger (09:34):
Yeah, groceries, laundry basket.
Taylor Davis (09:36):
The laundry basket, any of those things. So, anything you can do to sort of think future-wise, not only will it make it easier for you to live there, it will also be great for resale value. And you're expanding the stock of homes that people who are older or who have special needs or who have some mobility issues can live in. And that's part of clearly my soapbox and I'll stick it back under the table now, but that’s my thing.
Marilyn Moedinger (10:02):
Well, no, I think it's great. And also, in keeping with a theme of what we're talking about today, putting in a 36-inch door easy during construction, during a project, pain in the butt later (laughs). Like you're moving switches, you're moving structure, you're ripping out trim, it's a pain.
Sheri Scott (10:21):
And a lot of times, it's under duress. In my example, my mom lived in a one-story home that we thought was good for her to age in place, but she lost a leg, literally. And one day she was fine, the next day she had lost a leg.
So, then, before she came home from rehab, we had to renovate her house just to get her to her bedroom and her bathroom. It's even worse when it's under duress and it costs more because you have to do it fast.
Taylor Davis (10:52):
You have to do it fast, it's in a hurry, you never can do it right. So, if you're investing … we do this with young families, we do it with people in their 50s, we do it with people that are older. We make sure that wherever we can, we're providing for those kinds of things. So, that is my advice to everyone, think about making some accessibility changes while you're at it because it will benefit in spades.
Sheri Scott (11:16):
That's spending wisely for sure.
Marilyn Moedinger (11:18):
That leads into one of my other spending wisely topics, which I am pretty sure you guys are going to agree with, which is spending money on design and planning (laughs). So, a lot of times, it can be hard to spend the money.
Sheri Scott (11:34):
How did we miss that, Marilyn?
Taylor Davis (11:36):
That’s sort of like the giant elephant in the room.
Marilyn Moedinger (11:37):
It can be hard to spend the money on an architect or planning things out or taking the time to do it because you're like, “Well, I don't have anything to show for it, and I'm going to have to make my construction budget smaller and I can't believe they're charging all this.” Well, the project is going to cost more, generally, if we're not involved. Hot take (chuckles).
And also, just as we were just talking about with accessibility, we're able to point those things out to you before things get going. And the contractor, if he or she is involved early, can point those things out to you before they become very expensive or difficult to do, and can also bring to you all their years of experience.
Whether it's me being a dummy about my shower or a contractor being like, “Look, I've installed this particular door a million times, we need to do it like this.” I've learned my lesson, we need to buy the fancier pocket door hardware for $500 instead of the cheap stuff for 150, that's money well spent. That insight is cheap compared to the cost of trying to get it right later, or living in a house that you spend a bunch of money on that isn't quite right.
Taylor Davis (12:49):
The cost of it being annoying forever, holy crap.
Marilyn Moedinger (12:53):
You might as well spend nothing rather than spend a bunch of money on something that's half-assed. Can I say that on here?
Sheri Scott (12:59):
I think so.
Taylor Davis (13:00):
Yeah, I think so. That’s alright.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (13:02):
It's our air.
Marilyn Moedinger (13:04):
That's right. Jon, our producer says, “Go ahead,” so we're allowed to say that.
Taylor Davis (13:09):
We're good with that.
Marilyn Moedinger (13:11):
We only want whole-ass around here, no half-ass (laughs). So yeah, that's smart money. But also, let's talk about the flip side. You don't need to spend gajillions and gajillions and gajillions of dollars too.
Find an architect who's cost-effective (like the three of us on this call) because there is a such thing as like you can spend too much time in design like dithering and not being able to make decisions or analysis paralysis or whatever. So, you want to make sure you're working with someone who's keeping an eye on working through that process efficiently for you.
Taylor Davis (13:44):
My sister is a realtor and sometimes, she can go into houses and because I'm an architect and my dad's an architect, you can go into a house and she'll be like, “What, why the heck did somebody do this? They had all the money in the world, this is ridiculous, and this doesn't make any sense.”
So, from my perspective, I want to provide the kind of service that when somebody's trying to sell a house, the realtor doesn't walk in and is like, “Why the heck did they do that?” That doesn't make any sense.
I feel like we have an inclination to guide our clients into those kinds of smart decisions that preclude that kind of questioning either from yourself like why didn't you get the good hinges to when the realtors are all walking through being like, “This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.” So, that's our goal, is to keep that from happening.
Sheri Scott (14:40):
Unless it's like your own weird thing that you love.
Taylor Davis (14:43):
Yeah. Yeah.
Sheri Scott (14:45):
(Laughs) I was just telling somebody the other day, I haven't done a formal living room in 10, 12 years. But in my own home, I have a formal living room, it's my favorite room. If I get the opportunity to do my own house, it will have a formal living room. And a realtor will say, “Why didn't they do a formal living room, that's not modern?” But it's how I live and it's what I love, so.
Marilyn Moedinger (15:10):
It’s how I live too, Sheri, imagine that. I have a living room.
Taylor Davis (15:14):
We now have a living room. It used to be a pinata room, and now it's a living room.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (15:19):
So, we all have living rooms, that’s interesting.
Marilyn Moedinger (15:21):
Well, we're so far behind, we're ahead of the trends.
Sheri Scott (15:24):
That's right.
Marilyn Moedinger (15:25):
That's what it is.
Taylor Davis (15:26):
And I have a formal dining room because we have dining rooms and not an open plan kitchen-
Marilyn Moedinger (15:32):
I have a dining room.
Taylor Davis (15:34):
I have dinner for like 20 people when we have people over. So, we have a good-sized dining room, and a lot of that is like you want to spend money too, not just for how you live, but there's traditions and things that happen regionally.
And I've told this story here before about the big Italian family I was designing for in New Jersey, and they wanted to be cramped around that tiny table. They didn't want a huge dining room. They wanted to all be jam packed in there like an episode of The Bear. That was their goal.
Like I said, it's subjective. What’s wise for you may not be wise for somebody who's in California, it's sort of what makes sense for you. And a lot of times that there's some regional things that I think play into that too.
Marilyn Moedinger (16:24):
I think for me (and this plays into a little bit of the regional stuff), the things that are worth spending money on that are sort of smaller scale are anything that you touch. So, like your door handles, your faucets, your kitchen faucet, if you do not want to cheap kitchen faucet that every time you touch it, it feels flimsy.
I mean, you're using it time and time and time again. Your kitchen hinges on your cabinets, the door slides, get the soft close. It isn't that much more money, and boy, does it change your interaction with the house.
Taylor Davis (17:02):
If you cook, I don't care whether you use electric induction or gas: make sure you can get the smell of bacon out of your house.
Marilyn Moedinger (17:10):
Ventilation out of the house. Not a thing over the stove that shoots it back in your face.
Taylor Davis (17:15):
Out, and that may require some acrobatics.
Sheri Scott (17:19):
Insulation and interior walls, we have found makes a huge difference in new homes just to deaden the sound, it feels richer.
Marilyn Moedinger (17:29):
You know what else we've been doing too, is cast iron waste pipes instead of PVC, because they're quieter, and then we insulate around them, and it's quieter. And let me tell you, you are in a nice house, you just did a gut renovation, and someone flushes the toilet upstairs and you're in the living room or the whatever room since nobody has living rooms except us, and you're there and you hear that coming down (laughs).
Sheri Scott (17:57):
You can't help but think what it is (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (18:00):
Right, exactly. And so, is it more expensive to get cast iron? It is, and it's definitely not cheap but boy oh boy, does that make a difference. Things that make your house feel solid.
Sheri Scott (18:11):
Yes. Right, right.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:14):
From an engineering standpoint, but also the installation's a big one, like I mentioned, the door handles, hinges-
Taylor Davis (18:21):
And solid corridors, not hollow corridors. Solid corridors, invest in those.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:27):
These are not crazy expenditures, they're just not. The other one I wanted to just bring up quickly is HVAC systems. So, I'm an HVAC nerd, we all know that. I’ve said this on here before, but I'm astonished at how much people will spend on a high-end renovation or a new build or whatever, and then the HVAC is afterthought.
Where the house isn't comfortable or they're feeling air blowing on them in comfortable ways or it's really loud or noisy, and they're just like, “Wow, that's just the way it is.” Or the whole thing is covered in mini splits, that's my little rant. It’s like these HVAC guys want to put mini splits everywhere because it's so easy for them.
Sheri Scott (19:10):
It’s easy.
Taylor Davis (19:11):
Yeah, it's easy.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:12):
And they're like just do mini splits, and then everyone's house is completely covered in these mini splits.
Sheri Scott (19:17):
And they're loud.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:19):
They're so loud and they're ugly, and I love them for what they're made for.
Taylor Davis (19:26):
And there are some things that they're really good for you, yeah.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:29):
Absolutely. A hundred percent love them.
Sheri Scott (19:30):
But not a whole conditioned house.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:33):
Yeah, not for your whole house. And so the HVAC system, and we go as far as to often involve a mechanical engineer who specializes in homes, and down including like we spec out the grates and the grill covers because if you don't have the right size with the right amount of free area, the air will whistle (laughs) or not enough air comes out, or condensation issues or all these kinds of things.
And that's something you want to spend money on because you want to be comfortable in your own house and fixing that, it's like one of the hardest things to figure out what's wrong with it, just design the system the right way from the get go.
And I'm not trying to be tough on our HVAC sub-contractor friends out there in the industry, but there are a lot of them that aren't as strong as others (laughs) at designing really high-quality systems.
And you need a high-quality subcontractor who you can work with, a contractor they need to understand physics, like thermodynamics, and that kind of stuff. But it's huge and I'm amazed how many people are just like, “Oh, whatever, just let the sub figure it out.” I'm like, “What?!” (Laughs)
Sheri Scott (20:45):
We always ask for three options that our clients can choose from, and almost every time we recommend the higher option. It has the dehumidifier and the humidifier and the clean … I don't know what all the words are.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:02):
The big filters probably.
Sheri Scott (21:05):
Yes. And the BTUs, the energy that it takes, that it uses, how it moves air, and it's a design problem where all the ducts run, how low they come down from the ceiling where your registers come out, and that's all on us to coordinate, not the subcontractor. So, we got off topic with money.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:28):
No, I think that's spot on. I think it's right in line because it's the idea that you're spending all this money on your project, and then at the last second you're not willing to go that extra 5 to 10% to make it worthy of the investment you're making.
Like what are you going to save by going with a cheaper sub who is going to put those registers all over the place and they're going to look terrible, maybe 5 or 10%? It's not worth it, and I think that's good money to spend. I think that's right in line with our topic today.
Sheri Scott (22:00):
We brought it right back around. That was good.
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (22:02):
Well done.
Marilyn Moedinger (22:06):
Well, I feel like this is definitely something we'll have to continue to touch on.
Sheri Scott (22:09):
Yeah, we can talk about money on every single thing that goes into a home because it all costs money.
Marilyn Moedinger (22:13):
It’s true, and it's important. It's important to people and to us. That's like basically what all of our conversations are (laughs). It's helping people with that.
Sheri Scott (22:22):
Guiding them through that.
Well, thanks for joining us today on Home: The Second Story for a quick snack. Questions for us, topics you'd like us to cover or interested in being a guest (we would really like guests), reach out at admin@htsspodcast.com. See you next time.
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (22:43):
Thanks for listening to Home: The Second Story Podcast. Feel free to share this episode with a friend. Contact information for all three of our architects are in our show notes, and don't miss future episodes.
Follow or subscribe to our show for free in Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you're listening right now.