My Renovation Regrets

Learn from my costly, annoying, silly mistakes.

I am the sort of person who tells/kids myself that every mistake is a learning experience, so for me to truly regret something means I’ve really fucked it.

Despite my mental gymnastics, there are definitely things I admit to regretting over the course of four years on-and-off renovating our London townhouse. And I’m not talking about things beyond my control, such as the actions of the terrible glass roof company we used, or things that have more to do with taste than anything else. I’m talking about choices I made that turned out to be, in hindsight, not so good.

Especially if you’ve never done it before, but even if you’re a seasoned pro, renovations can be hectic. There are so many decisions to be made (sometimes with way too much time to mull and sometimes with mere minutes) and so much to consider. So even if you’re delulu like me, you’re bound to have made a few dumb decisions after a long renovation. I’m sharing mine so they won’t be yours!

Vintage Lighting

There are a few places in our house, such as in our bathroom, where we used gorgeous vintage lighting. Absolutely no regrets there, but I do regret that we didn’t rewire the fixtures. Whenever the dimmer module they’re on is ever-so-slightly dimmed, some of the lights flicker like crazy. (Though, to be honest, writing this out reminds me that many of our brand new “dimmable” wall lights don’t dim properly either!) Rewiring would have been a relatively easy job for the electrician to do at the time, and would mean 1. we could have even more moody mood lighting in the bathroom and 2. we wouldn’t have to adjust the dimmer knob constantly to make sure it’s not ever-so-slightly turned down (causing a disco in the bathroom).