Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You might see your cozy, Craftsman-period bungalow with its honey-colored, shellacked woodwork and hexagonal bathroom floor tile as a precious relic of another era. Your designer cousin might see a house just waiting to be torn apart and brought into the 21st century. You see antique brass lights; she sees antique wiring. What do you do?    

Historically, we've never had safer, more comfortable, or better-constructed houses than the ones we're building now, but that shouldn't stop us from casting a critical eye on our surroundings. Older homes often need updates to bring them into line with the java-fueled, Internet-crazy lifestyles of the '90s. We expect more bathrooms, larger kitchens, and family rooms that our parents and grandparents didn't have in their houses. We want cable access, second phone lines for fax machines, and a dozen shower heads in the bathroom. New houses don't have complete bragging rights over old ones: They're often a little short in the storage department and lack finishing touches, such as wide baseboards and tile fireplaces.    

Walk around your home. Do you need a new kitchen, or would opening up a wall and adding a few cabinets to your existing one do the trick? Would a new addition off the back give you the office space you need, or would you be better off finishing your existing basement, the one you're currently using as a big storage bin? The chapters in Part 1 will help you grapple with these questions as you get to know your home from top to bottom. You'll start looking at your remodeling ideas with a more critical eye. You'll learn just how your home is put together, how to identify essential repairs, and how to establish a remodeling budget. You'll also get closer to turning your remodeling dreams into reality.