On a Remodeling Role

Richard Karn is not a home improvement kind of guy, he just plays one on TV. No, wait a minute, Karn really is a home improvement kind of guy.

What he learned about remodeling and fixing up a home, however, had little to do with his portrayal of Al Borland, the building contractor sidekick to Tim Allen, on ABC’s “Home Improvement.” Instead, it had to do with a $450,000 remodeling project of his family’s Spanish Mediterranean home in the San Fernando Valley.

Karn decided to chronicle his remodeling misadventures in a new book, called “House Broken: How I Remodeled My Home for Just Under Three Times the Original Bid” (HarperCollins Publishers,1999, 191 pages). In it, Karn--whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather were building contractors--humorously offers tips, hints and rules for keeping your sanity and as much of your own money as possible.

For anyone who has undertaken the pain and heartache of a remodel, the litany of blunders is all too familiar. Of most comfort is Karn’s detailed list of “change orders” to his original plans. It lists 89 alterations.