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Congratulations on the two-year anniversary! You should post side-by-side before and after pictures for us.
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Apr 24, 2014 07:36
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fork bomb posted:Congratulations on the two-year anniversary! You should post side-by-side before and after pictures for us. That'd be great, this is one of my bookmarked threads that I'm always happy to see pop up to the top.
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Apr 24, 2014 07:50
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Aah, the familiar smell of joint compound is in the air... We have started work on the studio. I will post pictures when we have made more progress, but so far we have chipped off all the paint, filled all the holes and big cracks with joint compound, removed the moulding (which we will sand down and paint since it already has a thick coat of paint) and tonight or tomorrow we are going to wash down the walls and start with plastering. Once the plaster is dry, we will coat with some Kilz and paint! We bought all our paint at the same time last year since we were pretty ambitious but it's going to be a more neutral gray/blue. The room has a door that walks through to our master bedroom, which is very blue, so we decided to stick with something that was similar (and not say, yellow). Anyway, in the meanwhile, here's a side-by-side of the progress we have made thus far since we started working on the house nearly two years ago: We first started with a major tear-down of everything ugly in the house. This included taking down all the paneling, drop ceilings, popcorn ceilings, fake brick, etc, and giving every square inch a thorough wash-down to remove years worth of nicotine.  Deliciously sweet nicotine.  More nicotine nightmares.  All the paneling and drop ceiling waste.  Goodbye popcorn ceilings.  Master bedroom before.  Master bedroom during.  Again, master during.  Master after - the flash makes it look BLUE.  Current studio, before.  Current studio still in the same shape. Will expand the bathroom into this room.  Living room before with our Realtor in the background.  Another living room before.  Living room during. Since there were many textures on the different walls we did fresh plastering everywhere.  Living room after.  Living Room After (but before dealing with the woodwork)  We have since hung pictures on the walls.  The Purple Room which became our guest bedroom.  Purple Room before - we lived in this room while we deconstructed the rest of the house. It was cozy.  Purple Room after.  Front entryway before - Tom didn't survive the buy/sell process.  Front entryway after plastering and painting, we have yet to hang the crown moulding. And some miscelaneous things...  My tiny garden that I planted just a few days before the mass flooding, pictured several days post-flood.  Changed an ugly light...  To a less ugly one.  Aaand we got rid of our fuel oil heat and switched to a natural gas boiler! We also insulated our attic, found a good new owner for the Scout, and have been slowly removing paint from the quarter sawn oak woodwork in the dining room. Finally, a preview of our current project, the room that will become the studio and house some dressers.  Before.  Also before.  This is before we started work. Progress pictures to come...
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Jun 14, 2014 23:09
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Small update. My dad graciously offered to do our electrical work for us while we were on vacation. It's a good thing that we ran extension cords all around the house from the grounded outlets in the kitchen because he discovered a portion of the house where the outlets were hooked up with lamp wire. He said he was surprised the house didn't burn down a long time ago. He also put some new fixtures in the dining room and entry way. Our entry way had a big original light fixture that was attached to the ceiling with a large metal screw. When my dad was hooking up the fixture apparently there is a stray current coming from somewhere because he got a bit of a shock when he touched the screw. I know absolutely nothing about electrical stuff, is this a big deal?
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Aug 15, 2014 00:28
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Koivunen posted:He also put some new fixtures in the dining room and entry way. Our entry way had a big original light fixture that was attached to the ceiling with a large metal screw. When my dad was hooking up the fixture apparently there is a stray current coming from somewhere because he got a bit of a shock when he touched the screw. I know absolutely nothing about electrical stuff, is this a big deal? In short, yes. Current anywhere it's not supposed to be is a very bad thing. Edit: "In short" 
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Aug 15, 2014 01:32
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You should probably replace all of the wiring in your house, unless you want to replace all of your house because of the wiring.
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Aug 16, 2014 10:13
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Eek! Old wiring can be scary. I hope the house does not burn down. If you don't have homeowners insurance that covers fire, you may want to look into that... 
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Aug 17, 2014 04:17
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There's nothing quite like the feeling of a opening up a wall only to find that a large section of your home's electrical wiring is made up of bare wires and rusty nails used as junction points.
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Aug 17, 2014 04:40
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I opened mine up and found out it was made out of paper plates, duct tape, unrated speaker wire, bare wires (the squirrels decided a nest was more important than insulation), and horror.
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Aug 17, 2014 15:30
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kastein posted:I opened mine up and found out it was made out of paper plates, duct tape, unrated speaker wire, bare wires (the squirrels decided a nest was more important than insulation), and horror. Pal your entire house is made of horror.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:15
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Jeherrin posted:Pal your entire This is slightly more accurate...
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Oct 14, 2014 23:26
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Slung Blade posted:This is slightly more accurate... What about Big Truck?
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Oct 16, 2014 01:38
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It's been a while since we updated last. We definitely have homeowners insurance. We are basically in the same spot we were the last time we posted, but Rodnik has done more plastering in the studio room. Just need to finish the ceiling and do a skim coat and then we can paint. I didn't really think things through with moving my studio stuff in there. There is a three prong outlet in the upstairs bathroom and on the opposite wall in the room where my studio stuff currently is. However, in the room we are working on now, there is only one outlet and it's two prong, plus it's in a really weird spot. So, until we get the electric stuff taken care of upstairs we are going to have to go back to extension cords. We were able to pay off the furnace in January before the credit line started to accumulate interest, so that's a huge relief. However, our dryer has completely broken down. Last summer it started to shake and rumble like a rocket engine taking off. It was so loud you could hear it in the back yard. My dad tried fixing it when he was helping with the electrical but couldn't solve the issue. We used it for a few more weeks before the heating element broke. So, we put up a clothes line in the basement and have been using that as well as putting our clothes on the radiators. The dryer came with the house and was probably 30 years old anyway, but it just sucks that as soon as we finish paying off one thing, another thing breaks. But I guess that's how it goes when you own a house. I just had hip surgery so my dad is coming up again next week for a few days and wants to help out with some more stuff. Probably going to try to hang the rest of the crown molding in the entry way if it's not below zero and we could cut the wood outside. Maybe we will even start work on the hallway?
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Feb 7, 2015 17:46
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You're alive! Yay! I hope you are recovering well from the surgery! Edit: Yeah, when we bought our house we spent the first winter fighting with our old furnace... it died in March, right after we paid the taxes on the house. I think home ownership requires a good sense of humor. Faerunner fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Feb 15, 2015 |
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Feb 15, 2015 17:41
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This thread has put me in a strange place where I feel kind of bad to be busting out the original cabinets, and also kind of bad for slacking on busting out those cabinets...
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Feb 20, 2015 07:54
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I read that as busting out the cabernet..
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Feb 20, 2015 15:26
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sneakyfrog posted:I read that as busting out the cabernet.. I suggest holding off on the cabernet until the busting is done (at least for the day)...
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Feb 20, 2015 15:56
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daggerdragon posted:I suggest holding off on the cabernet until the busting is done (at least for the day)... nah drunken demolition, what could possibly go wrong? 
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Feb 20, 2015 16:16
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sneakyfrog posted:nah drunken demolition, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing, per my experience. Wear steeltoes and make sure to hit things with the right end of the wrecking bar, not the end you are holding.
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Feb 24, 2015 02:29
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kastein posted:Nothing, per my experience. Wear steeltoes and make sure to hit things with the right end of the wrecking bar, not the end you are holding. Not everyone is as awesome as you kastein..
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Feb 24, 2015 17:53
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How do you think I learned to wear steeltoes and hit things with the far end of the wrecking bar? 
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Feb 28, 2015 01:45
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kastein posted:How do you think I learned to wear steeltoes and hit things with the far end of the wrecking bar? By wearing those goofy toe-shoes and punching through walls while holding the bar?
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Feb 28, 2015 02:14
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Rodnik has been working on stripping paint in the dining room and it's looking awesome. Probably 3/4 of the wood is stripped, and then we will need to chemically treat it. Haven't decided if we will strip the entire downstairs and do the chemical stuff all at once, or just focus on the dining room for now. I'm looking for some fence advice. We live in a city so our front and back yards are very small and there's maybe six feet between our house and the neighbors' houses on either side. A few months ago we got some new neighbors, and unfortunately their kid is a hooligan. Within the first month he egged a car and a couple garages, he busted the biggest branch off our crab apple sapling in the front yard, and whenever he sees our dog outside he yells and/or charges at him. This kid is apparently like 14 years old, and now all the kids that live a few houses away in the other direction are commuting across our front and back yards. So, we want to fence in our yards, or at least put up some kind of barrier to keep these kids out. We definitely want to do a 6' privacy fence in the back yard, preferably a pre-made one that we can install ourselves. We're having trouble deciding what to do in the front yard - fence, shrubs, or both? There are some nice looking metal fences that are about 4' tall and decorative, but it would cost like $700 just for our tiny front yard. We could also do shrubs that line the front and sides of the yard. I'd like a fence to keep the front yard more open-looking, but the smaller decorative ones aren't super sturdy. Shrubs might be nice but they could make the yard look smaller, we could put a small fence on the outside of the shrubs too. I'm also concerned about putting up the big fence in the back yard in case the kid somehow vandalizes it or breaks it or something, because fencing in one side only will be at least $500. However we need a fence so our dog can pee in peace. Rodnik thinks I'm being way too paranoid about kids messing with our fence, but we put up the tree with the intent of keeping kids from running across our front yard and that ended up broken. These kids drive me nuts and make me not want to go outside, I feel like such a grouchy old person. Here's a little not-to-scale diagram, the brown will be the privacy fence and the orange is the area in question. If anyone has any suggestions or advice about fencing it would be very helpful.  All this neighbor stuff is making me rather antsy to finish the house, sell it, and move out to someplace without neighbors. Rodnik, however, does not share this sentiment and is perfectly happy here. Some days I feel like I would rather live in a cold, dank yurt in the middle of the woods. I love the actual house we live in, we could have it a lot worse, I just wish we could pick the house off its foundation and move it far away. Looking at resale, it's going to be tough to sell in this neighborhood, so we are trying to make it as nice as possible. Our bathroom is super small, just enough room for a tub, sink, and toilet. I've talked in this thread about expanding the bathroom into the small room next to it to make a small bathroom into a huge one, but how necessary is this when it comes to resale? Would updating the tiny bathroom be good enough? Expanding the bathroom would be a HUGE project and this is definitely not our forever home. Sorry, this post has been more of a catharsis than a DIY update.
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May 15, 2015 23:06
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When I was in high school the neighbors would park his truck on the lawn, at the extreme edge of his property, right against our property. My parents called the city and they said that if it was on his property there was nothing that could be done. It just so happened that because of the side of the yard he was on,t he drivers side of his truck was against our property line. So my mom found some prickly bushes and planted them along the property line. So you could do that in your yard, presumably at some point the kids would be wearing shirts and try and run through the bushes and maybe get a nasty surprise.
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May 16, 2015 07:06
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Barberry bushes are fantastic if you want to go for a prickly bush. The leaves have nice colors all summer long, too. Have fun pruning them, though.
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May 16, 2015 13:50
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Agree on barberry or other prickly bush for the front yard. I think some varieties of Euonymous (spindle tree) have prickles, but mostly they're just stiff-branched, pretty shrubs. Hawthorns would keep them out for sure... I am assuming you've spoken to the neighbor about their kid? If not, that's the first step. Best-case, they didn't know their little poo poo was terrorizing your dog and will reprimand him appropriately. Worst-case, you then find out that the parents are also shits and know exactly how far you'll have to go to protect your space. Kids traversing yards is a pain in the rear end but your dog is a bigger concern. I hope you can figure this out! D: Also, re: the bathroom. Is there any other space you could put in another half-bath? You only have the one bathroom, right? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that adding a second toilet would be slightly less work and add more to the value of the house than enlarging the existing room. Maybe ask a local realtor, they'll know the market and whether you'll get a good ROI on a bath remodel vs gutting it and enlarging the space. Personally I don't mind tiny bathrooms as long as they are pretty and functional.
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May 17, 2015 06:09
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Koivunen posted:So, we want to fence in our yards, or at least put up some kind of barrier to keep these kids out. We definitely want to do a 6' privacy fence in the back yard, preferably a pre-made one that we can install ourselves. Trust me, as someone who has 11 years home improvement retail experience, and as someone who has both taken them down and put them up, do not buy the lovely prefabricated fence panels you find at Menard's, Home Depot, etc. They are absolute garbage. lovely wood, made with nails so repairing anything is a lot harder than it should be, and some styles aren't even treated! Buy quickcrete, some 4x4s and 2x4s, and some fence pickets, and do it yourself. It will be sturdier, better looking, longer lasting, and it will be much easier to make any adjustments to the size of it.
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Jul 30, 2015 00:49
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10 Beers posted:Trust me, as someone who has 11 years home improvement retail experience, and as someone who has both taken them down and put them up, do not buy the lovely prefabricated fence panels you find at Menard's, Home Depot, etc. They are absolute garbage. lovely wood, made with nails so repairing anything is a lot harder than it should be, and some styles aren't even treated! He's right... as another home-improvement-store worker I can NOT vouch for the lifetime of our premade panels unless you're special ordering something from preformed fiberglass or heavy aluminium, in which case you'll be paying out the rear end. On the other hand, cedar dog-ear fence pickets go on sale pretty routinely and 4x4s aren't that expensive. Faerunner fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Aug 1, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 07:30
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As a renter, don't go for the cheap privacy fences. The ones out here are all vinyl or aluminum or something. They're convenient and simple, and do the job, but they are flimsy as all get out. If you can guarantee no person, wind, or insect will ever touch the fence, do it. Otherwise, you'll be better off with a longer-lasting wooden fence.
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Aug 1, 2015 23:31
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A friend of mine lives in an over leveraged gated community for the faux-rich aspirational. The HOA there only allows two kinds of fences: chain link, and wrought iron.
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Aug 2, 2015 02:48
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Thanks for the tips about fences, perhaps we will make our own if we decide to go that route. We definitely would get a wooden fence, anything else affordable looks cheap. I'm still on the fence (har har) about what we should do. There were a couple months where nothing happened and the the fence idea kind of disappeared, the kids actually started saying "hi" to us so I thought things might be turning around. The neighborhood kids are outside all the time, they walk through our front and back yards but they weren't doing anything wrong. It's annoying but that's all, and they walk through everyone's yards, not just ours. We just got home from a week out of town. My parents had been staying at our house to watch the cats, and my dad was raking our yard. He left to do something, and when he came back, the kids had taken the rake and played "kung fu" with our clothes pins on the line. They broke half the clothes pins, stomped on the metal part of the rake, and broke the wooden handle. My dad talked to their parents and the kids and told them to stay away, but we're still out a rake and a bunch of clothes pins. These kids are like 14-16 years old, they should know better. Then, there was a halogen light that was broken right where we pull in to our parking space, and I'm not sure if that was an accident or not. Now I'm thinking about the fence again... But if they don't understand that going into someone else's yard and wrecking their stuff is wrong, why would they respect a fence? Our city rules allow anything as long as it's not more than six feet tall. Technically there is a rule that will not allow chain link fences, but most of the houses around here have chain link so I'm not sure how that works out. I've looked into electric fences but they're not allowed either (I'm 95% joking). Only a few more months before it gets too cold for anyone to be outside. We've made it a goal to work really hard this fall when the weather is cooler and try to hurry up and finish the house. I'm hoping we can actually stick to it. It would be really nice to live in a finished house for a while before we sell it.
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Aug 8, 2015 21:31
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She's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive! Sorry about your rake.  What did the parents say when your dad talked to them?Also can't wait to see more progress pictures of the house! 
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Aug 9, 2015 16:40
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Koivunen posted:I've looked into electric fences but they're not allowed either (I'm 95% joking). Only a few more months before it gets too cold for anyone to be outside. But the hot wire across the top and middle of the 6 ft wooden fence is a deterrent to keep your dog inside and to discourage jumping Not the keep the children out. 8k Volts hurts. Ask me or the dog.
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Oct 12, 2015 04:18
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We have been the worst at getting things done around here. THE WORST. Over the fall and winter my job kept me extremely busy and manual labor was the last thing I wanted to do when both physically and mentally exhausted. It's not a great feeling when you're so antsy to finish these enormous projects but just can't. I think the only thing we've done in the past few months is hung new curtains so we don't have to look directly into the neighbor's house. Things have settled down at work and spring fever is coming, so we sat down and made a list of the things we want to accomplish in the next few months. Tomorrow we are going to finish plastering the walls and ceiling in the stairwell and upstairs hallway, and later this week we will paint. I will post pictures. Then the hallway will be DONE and we can move on to the next task. Faerunner posted:Also, re: the bathroom. Is there any other space you could put in another half-bath? You only have the one bathroom, right? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that adding a second toilet would be slightly less work and add more to the value of the house than enlarging the existing room. Maybe ask a local realtor, they'll know the market and whether you'll get a good ROI on a bath remodel vs gutting it and enlarging the space. Personally I don't mind tiny bathrooms as long as they are pretty and functional. The previous owner put a toilet in the basement. It's just a toilet in a little room, I'm not sure if that counts as a half-bath or quarter-bath or just a toilet. It's definitely a man cave down there, there's a giant tool bench too. The main level does not have space for a spare bath, the layout goes in a circle and surrounds the fireplace/chimney. There aren't even closets. We will have to get in touch with a Realtor before we do anything major. There's nothing wrong with our bathroom other than being tiny, and I'd rather not start busting down walls and redoing plumbing if we don't have to. Faerunner posted:She's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive! The kids' dad said he would lend his rake for the evening, didn't have much to say about the kids. He's a strange character, sometimes he will sweep the sidewalk obsessively even though it's perfectly clean. Edit: We are actually accomplishing things! Spent six hours yesterday chipping paint and squaring off holes in the old plaster, and six hours today repairing said holes and laying down the first coat of plaster. We also almost set the house on fire when our grill went up in a giant flame ball. We discovered our fire extinguisher doesn't work, so we will have to be replacing that. The house survived, my home made pizzas did not. Koivunen fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Mar 9, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 06:58
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Keep up the good work, OPs.
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Mar 10, 2016 08:59
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Read through your thread. Did you ever get that old stove installed? My wife and I are considering buying an antique, gas stove to match the decor of our kitchen. Our house is a similar vintage as your, but the kitchen was redone in the 50s. They put in powder blue steel cabinets, stainless and red counters, and an unfortunate electric stove. We want to keep all of it except the stove, but it's a 40" wide double oven model and that's not a popular size anymore unless you're buying professional grade. I love the look of old stoves, but I'm worried about the lack of modern safety features.
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Mar 13, 2016 16:57
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FingersMaloy posted:Read through your thread. Did you ever get that old stove installed? My wife and I are considering buying an antique, gas stove to match the decor of our kitchen. Our house is a similar vintage as your, but the kitchen was redone in the 50s. They put in powder blue steel cabinets, stainless and red counters, and an unfortunate electric stove. We want to keep all of it except the stove, but it's a 40" wide double oven model and that's not a popular size anymore unless you're buying professional grade. A while back my wife and I were looking at appliances and I found this company that makes stoves that look antique but have modern workings: http://www.elmirastoveworks.com
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Mar 13, 2016 20:19
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crosshatch posted:A while back my wife and I were looking at appliances and I found this company that makes stoves that look antique but have modern workings: http://www.elmirastoveworks.com Yeah I've seen their stuff. Big Chill makes the style we like too. But those stoves are like $5k. Stoves in the streamline 50s style are going for like $500 on my local CL and GE artisan series is like $600 new. I don't see us paying more that a grand for a stove.
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Mar 13, 2016 22:43
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The last time I posted was March. Yikes. Only a few things have changed since then, unfortunately. A few months ago we got a nasty letter from the city saying we were in violation of some code because they knew we didn't have a sump pump, and if we didn't get one installed right away we would be fined $400/mo until we got one. So we were forced to drop almost $2,000. The city covered some of the cost, but it was still an unexpected expense. Now we've got this lame pump that makes noise and shoots water out the side of our house, instead of just quietly traveling under the house through the original system. A few problem neighbors moved out several months ago, and the summer has been remarkably quiet. We were worried when our new neighbors nailed giant metal letters to the side of their house that says INKAHOLICS, but they've been keeping up the place better than the previous renters. The kids next door have toned it down a lot compared to last year, the cops have only been there a few times. The most exciting event was when one kid got drunk and belligerent and attacked the responding police officer, so there were four squad cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance, and the kid was breathalyzed in the front yard. Since the summer has been so calm around here, I'm not feeling as desperate to move as I was previously. When we move next, it's going to be our forever home, and there's no way we will find another house for a similar price. We got engaged in June, so when thinking about things like paying for a wedding and eventually popping out a kid, I'm much more inclined to save money for as long as possible, even if it means living in a not-perfect neighborhood. It's very easy to save when our total cost of living is only about $1,000/mo.
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Sep 13, 2016 08:40
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