DIY Home Renovations Support Group

[Jennasis]

Who else is tackling a big home improvement/renovation project? Come on in and commiserate with the rest of us LOL! We've been in our house for 15 years and just now have gotten around to actually DOING SOMETHING with our old, dated (dilapidated?) farm house.

First, let's all hold hands and pray that when we demo the existing problem room we don't find any horrendous disaster lurking underneath. Mold? Water damage? Asbestos? Dead animals? Termites??Crumbling foundation ??? I swear, demo of the old room is the most terrifying.

Hey...you guys think this wall is load bearing?

Then we have to pray that the new flooring/paint/appliances etc we ordered are the correct style and color when they come in and install without any issue. (is that a dent in the new fridge?!?!)

And let's not forget how we have to stifle the urge to throttle our loved ones as we are covered in sweat, dust, paint, and your significant other tells you "you missed a spot".

We painted our living room, demo'd the kitchen island and rebuilt it (kitchen is open to the living room), DH is going to make new kitchen door/drawer fronts and then we'll buy a granite counter top. We just had new windows installed in the front of the house. We repainted the home office and just finished tearing up the decrepit 40 year old nasty carpet (seriously it was so gross)...this weekend Dh will attempt to lay down laminate floor in the office, and the new IKEA furniture for it comes in 2 weeks. We are waiting for a quote from a home improvement company our friends own to see about tearing out the fiberglass tub/shower insert in our main bathroom and turning it into a lovely glass door tiled shower wonderland.

There are so many other projects that need to be done but we are finally updating this old house. I hope we both live through this minor reno! So what are you working on?

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Where were you when I was remodeling our 100 year old kitchen that had only had cosmetic upgrades prior?

We found a basketball sized beehive in our wall... With a sludge hammer. Good thing it was dormant since DH is allergic!

 

[Floridaman999]

I started a DIY remodel in my kitchen last year and quickly realized my plans were way above my pay grade. Ended up hiring a contractor to fix what I messed up and complete the job. I'm apparently not much of a DIY'er.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

M

I started a DIY remodel in my kitchen last year and quickly realized my plans were way above my pay grade. Ended up hiring a contractor to fix what I messed up and complete the job. I'm apparently not much of a DIY'er.

My husband still ended up doing all of the work himself (well with a friend). It just took an extra month... Yay for microwave meals made in the dining room!

 

[Jennasis]

My back is very VERY sore right now from pulling up the old carpet. Digging out those staples holding down the underpadding killed me. DH is now watching youtube videos on installing laminate.

 

[tvguy]

Paint, paneling, wall paper are about as far as I would go.
We redid our kitchen, 2 bathrooms, all doors, all flooring 4 years ago. Even the pros had a few boo boos. Wrong closet doors ordered, damage to a counter top during installation. None of that cost me any money, the contractor didn't even blink an eye at picking up the tab of his people's or subcontractor's mistakes. His bid included a reserve to cover those kind of things that happen with every project.

THAT was stressful enough, I can't imagine what mistakes I would have made that cost money to fix.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Yup, we've had our share...and are still at it! It never ends!

M

My husband still ended up doing all of the work himself (well with a friend). It just took an extra month... Yay for microwave meals made in the dining room!

And Thanksgiving dinners on sawhorse and plywood tables!

 

[focusondisney]

Well you’re braver than me. We’re redoing our family room & half bath, including changing the wood burning fireplace to a gas insert. The closest I’m getting to DIY is picking everything out. We’re planning quite a bit of updating as we get ready for retirement in a few years. New furnace & install central air conditioning will be next then the main bath & carpeting the whole upstairs. New patio with awning & a new driveway after all that. Hope we can get it all done in about 2 years.

Sometimes I think it have been easier & cheaper to just move.

 

[Jennasis]

My younger sister is having a house built...the contractor just did the roof. My sister stopped by to look at it and was dismayed to see it was the wrong color! They alerted the builder who was aware. Apparently the manufacturer had mislabeled the box of shingles. The manufacturer will be eating the cost of fixing the roof.

 

[firefly_ris]

We slacked off a lot and avoided house things this summer. We are putting in a new retaining wall block raised front porch, plus a new back deck. We had to bust out two 12x12 concrete pads plus the entire front sidewalk by hand before starting. But we sort of avoided home responsibility this summer by escaping to my BIL's lake house a lot, or being busy with kid soccer -- the front porch is almost done but I think we are holding off on the deck until next spring, unless we get extra motivated when the kids go back to school. We'll probably stockpile supplies for that and then start fresh. Once the porches are done I'd like to return to the idea of finally finishing the kitchen -- base trim, new countertop, and a new sink would be nice, but all in due time.

Overall we've done a lot.... 4 houses and 11 years later, stiiiiill going. Studs, drywall, wood work, wood floor, tile, plumbing, electrical, full demos -- bathrooms, kitchens, insulation, paint, minor HVAC (just duct work), porches, fences.... every house we have bought has been in need of, um, "assistance" -- either really old (first one, 1870), disgusting (2nd one, nasty, gross foreclosure... think... "am I going to catch a flesh eating disease if I touch these kitchen cabinets? Why is there so much blood on the wall? Why am I spending time scraping the gunk off these bathroom tiles instead of grabbing a sledgehammer?"), to just dated and bad layout but great lot and then a surprise 3rd kid to motivate a very large renovation (4th/current... started with a really dated 1960's ranch, now it's a 2 story).

My dad can build and do pretty much anything, expertly, but my dumb self moved 350 miles away so we can only get his help occasionally. My DH has just been self taught/learning from my dad's and friends advice over the years (he has a lot of friends in various trades which helps). I'm really proud of all my husband has been able to do and continues to learn. Some things we haven't tried yet are roofing (well -- DH did shingle the duck coop when he built that, but haven't been brave enough to do it on an actual house), new gutter installation, or pouring concrete pads/sidewalks, or other skilled rock/brick work. Maybe eventually, but I think I'll be OK if we don't, lol.

 

[firefly_ris]

My younger sister is having a house built...the contractor just did the roof. My sister stopped by to look at it and was dismayed to see it was the wrong color! They alerted the builder who was aware. Apparently the manufacturer had mislabeled the box of shingles. The manufacturer will be eating the cost of fixing the roof.

Holy crow.

 

[mrsv98]

All I can say is bless you my child ...

 

[BethID]

Not a DYI, but we are "refreshing" our 16 year old home. We are adding all new granite countertops, all new flooring, and having the entire inside painted. We are also replacing all the sinks, replacing door hardware, adding cabinet pulls, customizing the master bath and adding a mudroom. Luckily, I have been off the past couple of weeks, so we ran around picking out everything and getting our schedule set up with the contractor. My DH is a teacher, so he still has 2 weeks before he goes back to work and he spent all day removing furniture. I am not sure why we waited until most of the summer was gone before doing all this. But I am getting really excited to have everything done and have the house look updated. Just not looking forward to try and run a household with 2 working parents and 2 high schoolers with everything all torn up.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I bow to you all. We really need to do some stuff, but I'm scared to start.

 

[RangerPooh]

Our house is 40 years old and is a fixer upper, but we knew that going in and got it at a good price. Ideally we'd be working on one room at a time, but DH has ADHD and therefore we have unfinished projects scattered around the house. He'll get a wild hare to start on a project and then stop and start on the next. Frustrates me, but I'm not capable of doing some of the work, nor have the time.

When we have a little time and extra money I'd really like to start on the kitchen. Remove all the (real) wooden doors and sand/strip off the 40 years of paint. Then add a thin trim to update them and repaint a grey color. The counter top can be replaced later. The floor needs to be replaced too.

I think the next project will actually be the dining room and living room flooring. To go wood laminate or carpeting is what we need to decide. Currently there's pergo and it's in bad shape. Leaning towards carpeting.

I will gladly pay someone to retile the master bathroom! Honestly I can probably do it myself (done a smaller shower years ago), but I don't have the time.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

I'll play (or pray as the case may be, crying works well too in some cases). We live in a BIG fixer upper. We knew when we bought it that it needed a lot of work - the previous owner was very upfront about this and we had it inspected. If it had been in good shape we'd have never even looked at it because it would have been double our price limit.

We are pretty good at diy, the only things we don't do are load bearing walls, electrical wiring inside walls, roofs (hired someone to replace this one a few weeks ago), and plumbing that involves metal pipes.

I'm finishing up a minor kitchen re-do. Since we plan to eventually gut and reconfigure the entire inside of the house we didn't want to put a lot of $$ into it but what was there was completely disgusting. I don't think the previous owners ever cleaned anything. New counters, sink, faucet, removed 3 layers of wallpaper that was stuck onto unprimed drywall, repaired the damaged drywall, and painted everything from the ceiling down. Still need to put up a backsplash, replace a ceiling fan with an LED kitchen light, and move the ceiling fixture in the dining area to where it is centered over the table.

We have also replaced all exterior doors, painted all the bedrooms including ceilings, de-jungled the yard (3 acres that hadn't been mowed in 2 years), and cleaned a ton of the previous owners junk out of the attic.

Our next planned project is to take the tiny laundry room and the equally tiny bathroom next to it and knock down the wall between them to make one big combined laundry/mud room area. There is a shower in there that I'd like to convert to a utility sink/dog wash station.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

My back is very VERY sore right now from pulling up the old carpet. Digging out those staples holding down the underpadding killed me. DH is now watching youtube videos on installing laminate.

carpet staples are the devil.

Laminate is relatively easy. Get an oscillating saw with a flat blade for cutting door frames if necessary, it was a life saver. They are pretty cheap at Harbor Freight.

 

[Dancind]

We are currently working on TWO houses. By we, I mean DH and sometimes DD helps him. I shop, fetch, cook, hold things, and sometimes paint. Just finished a 10 week remodel of the basement in our future house, and both roofs have been replaced in the last year. I have to say, replacing the windows is HUGE. For energy efficiency and noise, mostly. It's almost the best thing we've done to both houses. A new kitchen is number one! We are so house poor now it's sad.

I'm very lucky though, DH is a remodeling contractor. Slower version of his younger self, but gets it done. And at least 50% of the jobs he gets called for are fixing DIY and other contractor's work. So there's that. But I catch even him watching YouTube videos for new ideas and techniques, so it's not a bad plan. Was chagrined to learn that there is no such thing as a "contractor discount" anymore, we shop HD and Lowe's like everyone else, but got a smoking deal on some cabinets for basement kitchenette. That was because we knew someone.

 

[wgeo]

We got a bid to gut and redo both bathrooms in our house. First we cried, then we laughed, then we cried. Then we decided we were gonna have to do massive amounts of work ourselves if we wanted new bathrooms. Soo, we scaled back the plans and have just started. I am not looking forward to this at all. We started by removing the old gross shower doors and scouring the tub, that only took 5 hours sigh. Next we have to demo the tile walls and floor and remove the toilet. Gonna be fun. or not.

 

[Curtis Foley]

Not me but a close friend of mine has completed his home renovation project last week. The efforts made by him showed a much satisfactory result as his home interiors now look really amazing, One thing I liked the most was the combination of his new set of furniture which he has purchased from office furniture solutions and the color of the wall. Their contrasts is making the room look much elegant than before. I am really very much impressed by the work done by him.