Removing wood veneer paneling and acoustic tiles

[chocolatepot]

(I can't believe it took me so long to realize I should ask this here!)

I'm still looking for a house to buy in my town, and it seems like nearly every option in my price range has some pretty big aesthetic issues - which is understandable, as my range is pretty low. The most common issues are midcentury wood veneer paneling on the walls and acoustic tiles on the ceilings, and my remarks about removing them cause some Conflict in my family group. My various parents and step-parents seem to think it's foolhardy for me to get a house with these features if I can't just live with them because they were probably put on to cover up problems rather than for aesthetic reasons/are too much trouble to deal with.

Ultimately, it's my decision whether or not to buy a house with these issues, but I don't know if this is a case of them underestimating me or me being wildly optimistic and naive. Both have happened before!

So I'm asking you all - if you've removed these elements from your historic homes, how much damage did you find underneath? How difficult was it?

(Actually, same question goes for aluminum siding.)

[Kashka-Kat]

That depends, do you love old houses and are you wanting to put in some sweat equity? Cosmetic fixes (which this is) are generally doable by the average homeowner with some skill & interest. You may find that there are only a few minor holes to patch when you remove the panelling and tiles. If the house is otherwise well cared for, Id tend to assume that the original plaster is OK and the panelling/tileswas put on in the 60s just to be in fashion.

Are these dropped ceilings- if so you can push up the panel and look in with aflashlight to see the condition of the ceiling. Ceilings are generally in worse shape because of gravity pulling plaster down. If you dont want to do it, get some ball park quotes to repair plaster (from a handyman or plasterer, not a drywaller) and figure that into what you would want to offer for purchase price.

Look for a house which has been well maintained - ie leaks fixed, woodwork not all banged up etc. - but just needs some cosmetic fixes. These are prob most in demand, vs. the ones that have been trashed or neglected, or the ones that have been flipped(ie youre supposed to pay top dollar for their questionable taste).

Of course make sale contingent on inspection, so if theres anything that you really dont want to deal with you can get out of it. Make sure the inspector you choose is old-house savvy, knows their quirks and loves them.

Then its a matter of tuning out the noise you may get from other people.... I learned the hard way not to show certain people my work in progress and be selective about who I allow in. It can be emotionally (and financially) draining dealing with an old house. The last thing you need is someone freaking out on you, and you have to comfort them and reassure them that it will be alright in the end. It always will look worse before it looks better, and some people just cant visualize the outcome and you dont need to hear them insisting that youre in over your head or some such nonsense.

Good luck! Keep us posted - post the houses youre looking at/considering ok? We all love pictures around here.

[Kashka-Kat]

Oh in answer to your question, I just love demo. I wish I could just do demo all day and not have to put anyting back together LOL. It was very satisfying to remove the old gack and get the first glimpses of my old house as it used to be. I even found original paint colors under the multiple layers of wallpaper. Removing dropped ceilings was a mess (50 yrs of mouse poop - get yer respirator) But.... very easy. I learned to repair plaster (fixing cracks + using drywall patches on larger areas). Removed nasty old rock wool from attic (precursor to fiberglass insulation). It was a nasty job in the heat of summer but so exciting to find things left up there from 100 yrs ago.

You can do it! The question is - do you want to.

[chocolatepot]

Oh, yes, I'm very willing to put in the elbow grease myself. I have very little experience, but I tend to be good with my hands and suspect that I'd do well with aspects of renovation that are just tedious and require care (rather than height or upper-body strength).

I believe all of the acoustic tile ceilings I've been seeing have just involved adhered tiles rather than panels dropping the ceiling. So I know that part of the process of removal involves taking precautions against stirring up asbestos, but I can't seem to find much online about what you usually find under/above and what's required to clean up the residue.

I don't have any photos of the most recent houses I've looked at - there are some serious drawbacks that are making me unsure if I want to bother with them - but one is still sitting in my brain, so I may go back very soon for another visit. (It's the one that's just infested with paneling.) Will take pictures if I do so!

[1918ColonialRevival]

A lot of acoustic tiles were put up with staples, particularly those put up in the '80s and earlier. There are usually furring strips underneath that are attached to the ceiling itself. Removal is usually straightforward. Just pick an area to start in and work your way across the ceiling. Make sure to have several heavy duty contractor trash bags on hand before you get started. You'll need them.

The same with wood paneling. Most of it, particularly the faux-finished stuff that was big in the '70s and '80s, is simply nailed to the wall with wire finish nails. Removing these is usually simply finding the nails and pulling them out with a pair of vise grips.

You never know what you are going to find underneath. Assume there will be some damage. Plaster work isn't too hard to learn, though you'll have some trial and error. Some people patch with drywall, but I always do a traditional three-coat plaster. Either way works.

[phil]

mine had acoustic tiles about 1' square in the living room. thye had a metal track they were attached to. I tore both the tiles and the track out and put 1/2" drywall over it. the original plaster could have been"saved" I dont think it was put there because of plaster issues but perhaps it was fashionable.

I had paneling in the attic. It had beaver board on the ceilings up there, the beaverboard is basically like thin particleboard, but it was fairly old. 1930]s maybe?

on the walls it had 70's particleboard in the attic. First thing I did was rip all that out and drywalled. the original house , main floor used plaster, but the attic and basement were not living spaces. My basement had cardboard boxes stapled to the studs and it was like that many years prior to someone caring enough to remove it all, insulate and drywall.

I wouldn't let the presence of paneling distract you too much. Old drywall from about the 50's to 70's can contain asbestos in the filler and here it is a dollar a pound to rid yourself of that stuff. paneling is never hard to dump. I had no issues dumping acoustic tiles.

focus on the "bones" the foundation, are the walls rotting at the bottom, is the roof all weird and wavy? does it have a wet basement or good drainage? recent sewer? old plumbing? electrical need replacement? roof? chimney? are all the pipes black and from an early era? do the shut off valves for toilets and things work or are they all seized, are the windows painted shut? is all the woodwork painted over? condition of original floors?

old houses can be fixed, it is a lot of labor and cost so I'd look and pick the best you can afford. make judgements about weather it has been maintained or if you will rebuild it all around you.
Try not to underestimate what you can accomplish in a given time. It is easy to buy a house and find it's way more work or more cost than you imagined. ( or more mess and trouble than your spouse imagined) You can't change the area so try to make a good judgement with reasonable expectations.

I wouldn't let the paneling or acoustic tile change my opinion much on a purchase. even if the walls are bashed up, you can put drywall over it , even just 1/4" drywall , Or you can restore the plaster using traditional materials if it seems practical to do so. if you put your doorknob or kick a hole in a wall that's an easy repair. If it's all finished and crooked and you jack it up and make it straight then crack up all the drywall doing so you haven't gained a lot by it being cosmetically nice. if the floors are sanded to the shiny nails they might look pleasing on initial inspection but really, you aren't saving the floor so easily. If they were never sanded then you might be able to make them look beautiful through sanding and refinishing.

non original siding might be something to look deeper into , to find out whats behind you might need to owners permission to open spots to have the inspector check.

old houses, like from the 20's dont really have much asbestos usually but it might be a concern if it has had a lot of modifications during the time of asbestos being in frequent use. most old houses had no insulation.
I'd be perceptive about the repairs that were done. If it has a lot of cheap repairs that were done for the purpose of flipping then that could reflect the attitude of the previous owner. If it is just old and was held in the family for many years then they may not have done as much damage through renovations.

you'll learn to fix the walls and stuff like that. its time consuming, maybe dusty and messy but not overly costly. mine was really not modified that much , what was done wasn't so bad. the cosmetics were bad. I'd rather fix "old" than to be removing a bunch of crazy recent reno work. I'd be wary if it was built on wood blocks but even those ones dont fall down easily, they just go all crooked. If you have bug concerns in your area I'd pay attention to that, some can have structural issues from termites etc.
I'd spring for an inspection by a qualified house inspector,, but take whoever you can that knows how to fix houses on your initial journeys. If you pay a little for an inspection then you will likely also profit from the knowledge if he's good. If that's too expensive then at least try to find an inspection report from some other house to use as a checklist.
I'd avoid ones with sloping floors and a lot of changes. Rather have a straight but old house with poor cosmetics than a crooked pig with a lot of fancy makeup. If a previous owner did some of the work but at least did what he did "well", then that might be a head start.
try to add up all the time it will take , then realize your time estimate is way too low because of all the things you will learn, the things you dont know about now that it needed, you will overlook stuff, but you have the ambition, you can do it. you dont need to be big or strong, you dont need to know it all, you just need to be motivated toward your goal, and be realistic to avoid disappointment, realize it is years not months, like on TV drama shows.

to put it into context, took me three years of summer holidays to do my own roof. Its still not quite finished. In the meantime the house two over was demolished and they already have the roof on. one month from wrecking ball to a new house with a new roof ! i could almost put my whole house in the hole they dug for the foundation!

Those are commercial contractors, they go like a well oiled machine with contractors of every sort doing their bit. I'm just one guy. I restored all the floors, most of the walls some of the trim , its been quite a few years with no end in sight. restoration is extremely time consuming as opposed to new construction so buy one you really love.
I feel like going over and telling them to slow down because they are making me look bad they did their roof in a day or two, for me it takes eons ! a new roof is 10 to 20 K so I saved a little, at least I avoided more dreaded debt.

My girlfriend dumped my thermos of fresh coffee down the drain this morning before I left for work, because she is mad at me, probably a vacation would help? who knows. I probably shouldn't have asked that she make me a sandwich but I figured since she wasn't working and I shopped and paid for the food, she'd perhaps help a little. I think my vision was that we work together, pull in the same direction. I couln't care much that she isnt' working but I do expect her to try , to look for work , I know its not her fault she's laid off, but just try your best ? I guess I have the expectation that she should to help do the things she can to support me and I do likewise.
Im not mean or difficult to get on with. a lot of the stress is about her job loss and corona virus and frustration but it's not always easy to have to invest all your time into fixing stuff. In my experience there are very few ladies that are really into doing stuff like this , at least I never meet them personally, but that's just my experience. My wife left after the first 2 years, couldn't stand the renos and to be fair it was hard then, kitchen torn up. we were making do but it was awkward. now it's livable even kinda nice, but the roof pounding might not be so great for my girlfriend's disposition. I made the mistake a week ago of saying we are "living the dream" I felt good as I had just come down from 2 hours of roofing and was happy to be making progress, she saw it differently. I can joke about it, but what I'm saying is this stuff matters. Everyone is different but if you dont have buy in you are either doomed or on your own.
don't assume you are going to talk your way around it.

while you fix it that initial investment will become smaller because of inflation. you cant' predict inflation or economics but things like the outskirts of a city might be predictable if the city is growing. consider the view, consider the noise, consider the drainage. how much fall do you have for your sewer? how about storm drains? can it flood? was the sewer ever replaced? try to avoid a house with a wet basement if you can. mine was on a hill , it really cant' flood. some are in a swamp and you cant' fix that. If in time the house is demolished the distance ( drop) to the sewer might affect how deep the foundation can be. here that equates to usable square footage because a 30 x 100 foot lot is about a million dollars, the land is the investment , not the structure. that's different in a small town where land prices are much lower and always will be. here in BC the land prices arent' high but in Vancouver they are nuts because of land availability. people drive further than I do , sometimes 2 hours further to get into the city. when fuel prices rise, I smile because my land goes up because all those commuters need to buy gas every day. To have that I sacrifice tranquility. I'm on a noisy street. think of what you need and what's available and put thought into predictions of what will happen in 20 years in various areas near you.
I paid 370K now the land is a million, It wasn't the house that went up. it could go down too but since they are building giant skyscrapers and many condos, I know the land isn't' going to become worthless. In some cities economics of job loss caused severe changes to values. It sounds like I made a lot of money but not really because if I sell I must also pay a lot more so it is all relative. If I had bought smaller or further or an even crappier house I could perhaps have less financial stress, and it has been stressful keeping up to the rising costs too.
If you wait for the money to buy a perfect dream home the prices can also go up over that time and if you pay rent instead of mortgage you are starting out later in life. If you picture it being all perfect that might equate to many years of weekend labor. you may love it or you may find it took a big chunk of your life that you could have invested in your career. Try not to bite off more than you can chew. If you can have a rental and profit from that might help feed the many trips to the big box store. you might consider the first house to be the "be all and end all" but it might just be a stepping stone to bigger and better or a future rental so you can mass enough property to become a rich slumlord

i wouldn't go tearing everything apart at once when you make a decision , think in steps and do it in phases unless you can afford to live somewhere else. for some, they hire teams of contractors. I wouldn't assume that. don't assume friends and family will help. Great if they do but its your investment. If you have a significant other , get their buy in, really and truly, because a bad decision here can make or break your relationship.

[chocolatepot]

Then its a matter of tuning out the noise you may get from other people.... I learned the hard way not to show certain people my work in progress and be selective about who I allow in. It can be emotionally (and financially) draining dealing with an old house. The last thing you need is someone freaking out on you, and you have to comfort them and reassure them that it will be alright in the end. It always will look worse before it looks better, and some people just cant visualize the outcome and you dont need to hear them insisting that youre in over your head or some such nonsense.

Yes, I think at base I just need to trust myself and tune out. (The trouble comes in if I require a little extra help with the downpayment from the person I'm tuning out ...)

Good luck! Keep us posted - post the houses youre looking at/considering ok? We all love pictures around here.

So, I think this one isn't going to happen - the landlord wants $10k-$20k too much (he's making an unreasonable comparison with a recent sale a house that's considerably nicer inside and out) and a group of students have a lease until next summer - but I took a couple of pictures and I thought you'd like to see them! Great bones under the paneling and tiles.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Sorry this one didn't work out, but keep looking.

For future reference, on a room like the one pictured, if you start early in the morning, you could have the paneling and tiles down by lunchtime. What lies underneath may take a little longer to fix, though! Start with one room, get it "liveable", then move onto the next. Don't try to tear it all out at once.

[phil]

I think if you take your time and see a few more , the experience will pay off and you can easily justify that a little more time spent looking may equate to a lot of saved time fixing stuff or perhaps something that is a real gem to you.
although the pricing there is incredibly different, I was basically scraping the bottom of the barrel when I bought too. a crappy house is a safe investment as long as you dont pay over-market because you dont have far to fall, the land is obviously worth something and the experience you will gain has value. In times where employment is interrupted It can be really nice to have a project to work away at. any profit is out of arms reach, You'll need materials but I find a lot of used stuff and leftovers from jobs where they just ordered too much. often I just get the materials and then find use as I go, sometimes I change my schedule to suit the materials. It's surprising how much I don't need to buy to carry on and keep busy. I'm not living on the ragged edge so much but I am very conscious of costs, and try to be resourceful. for example if it needs a fence you might find one that is falling down that you can remove and rebuild and reuse the wood. re-use of materials is also environmentally responsible.

here because of high real estate I seldom hear about people pooling in on houses. at the same time many younger people are just locked out of the market and instead buy apartments which I look upon as higher risk. they dont offer a lot of opportunity to apply sweat equity. the maintenence fees can easily outweigh the expected increase through value over time. One can easily wait through a lot of their career to get enough cash for that initial down payment. when you are younger you can afford to make some mistakes and take some risk. I've met lots of younger people here who just dont see buying a house , ever, as a reasonable expectation because of the high costs.

I think if you have a friend that is of the same mind and fair you might consider pooling your effort and your cash, perhaps with a ( written and legal ) 5 year plan to fix and flip and move on to your own investments. I wouldn't involve more than two people to avoid triangular arguments but partnerships can work and then you'd be able to work together and that could be rewarding and fun IF your friendship and relationship to the other investor is solid. sometimes people can act as silent partners too. perhaps even if the investor is a parent they would have concerns and its possible to write up legal agreements that are binding to protect their share in the investment. Perhaps such conditions could limit expenditures or give both the option to opt out but with a reasonable period of time to finish up anything taken apart and make it ready for market.
maybe you could make things feel safer if you both brainstorm. write down every possible good and bad scenario you can think of, and discuss how you would deal with each issue and do some preliminary work to see if things can be put into legal writing , maybe that would offer you both some needed assurance to make sure that things dont go sideways and if they do , what will happen is already agreed upon.
If you can arrive at a good general agreement that you both like , then you could see a lawyer or maybe even just a notary to put something legally binding in place. I'm no legal expert but I think it's possible but you do need to be in agreement and really listen to each other's concerns. you definitely need trust and a good relationship to do these things but they are possible. Ive also heard said that you should never hire someone you cant' fire. there is some truth in that, Things work differently when its family, relatives etc.

[chocolatepot]

I think if you take your time and see a few more , the experience will pay off and you can easily justify that a little more time spent looking may equate to a lot of saved time fixing stuff or perhaps something that is a real gem to you.

Oh, believe me, the few properties that I've written about here are the tip of the iceberg! I've been looking at listings since April and I started visiting houses as soon as it was allowed (I think at the beginning of May). I've probably averaged two per weekend since then. The issue in the title of the thread has come up pretty regularly, thusly:

Parent: This house has many veneered walls and several acoustic tile ceilings.

Me: Yes, I don't like that. I would take them all off.

Parent: No! This stuff is always covering up something worse. You have to be able to live with it. You can just paint the paneling.

Me: Well, I don't know anything about houses, so I'll just accept that statement ...

So I'm hoping to hear some anecdotal evidence from people here about what they've found when they've done this, so that I can feel more confident saying, "No, I'll be able to fix a couple of cracks in the plaster, this isn't an issue." (Or "I took off the vinyl/aluminum siding and stuff was pretty solid underneath," because I'm running into the same discussion there.)