Home remodeling projects
 

So my fiance and I are finishing our basement ourselves (with some help from my cousin that has done his before). We have the drywall hung, the tape on the seams, the first coat of mud and man are we tired... but in all honesty it is so much fun.

We have to do about three more coats, then prime and paint before we lay the ceramic tile down...

I wonder how much value it adds to our house? We only paid around $1,000 for the materials and I am sure it adds that much- not too mention our house is a walkout so it makes it that much nicer!

Anyone else done home remodeling projects? What are the toughest ones? Ever get in over your head?

Finishing off a basement will add @ 10 % to the total value of the house if it really looks nice. I hope you are putting carpet down. Can you put in a wet bar? If not, even a dry bar adds a bit to the look!

Make sure you have wall plug ins. What about the ceilling? Can lights will do nicely. Add them if you can with the ones that can angle! Wiring needed, get an electrician.

Do not let the Tax appraiser know you did though! LOL!

My ex and I had the builders put in a fire place, do the ceillings, ruff in plumbing for the half bath. We did the rest with her fathers help. Did a wet bar, 1/2 bath, did not use hardly any space on the walls to give a bigger area. Had them do a cut out under the stairs for my recliner! Man, did we have the nicest family room in the hood neighbor!:cool:

I think Bars make finished basements look tacky. It makes a family home look rather, ummm, "Fraternity". I do agree that finishing the basement can provide additional living space but don't overdo it.

And no, Earpus, it will not add 10% to the value of the home. I look at appraisals daily, and the line-item adjustment is not 10%. An appraiser would lose his license if he tried to pull this one off.

If you are only investing $1000 in materials and can do the work, it's a great investment.

I have only done minor remodels so far. Ripped up the carpet in the house and redid the original hardwood. Took out the shower door, carpet, fixtures, and wallpaper from the bathroom and painted and tiled. Am in the process of repainting the exterior (steel siding). Also am slowly working through the kitchen - I've ripped up the capet, linoleum, and vinyl and working on resurfacing the hardwood, repainted and will eventually replace the cupboards. We also reinsulated the attic last year - which has made a MAJOR improvement on not only the heating bill but also made the upstairs usable during the summer and winter (Cape Cod story and a half).

Oh, the dreams of remodels is SO much larger than the checkbook! LOL Someday I would like to put up a fence, finish the basement (with a nice laundry room), landscaping, etc.

Does getting someone else to do the work count? My house was so 1950's looking, and there were some things done that I just wouldn't have been able to do on my own: gables, a deck, and a new garage treatment done to the front - my neighbors still comment on it. My daddy & I redid the kitchen and the bathroom (I have my own set of power tools and I'm not afraid to use them!).

My basement is 3/4 finished. I haven't decided which way I want to go with it yet. The male half of the original owners was a carpenter, so you can tell exactly where he was when he got ill. He put all sorts of storage shelves & closets in there (I think to make up for the lack of good closet space upstairs!), so it's pretty interesting. I think some hardwood floors would do wonders, though!

"Curb Appeal" always helps, but as I said before, don't overdo it for the neighborhood. Since you don't get dollar for dollar on any improvement (unless you can do the work yourself), never go overboard unless you plan to "live it out"

Here is an example. When I bought my third house, there was no entryway. You walked in from the porch directly onto Living Room carpet. Bad news in Ohio winters. So, I put a small marble floor (maybe 4'x4') in to make a faux foyer. It was maybe a $300 investment in order to save my carpet and add something to the room.

The man laying the marble was talking about all of these elaborate entryways that he had put in McMansions. I stopped him dead on and said, "If you had all of the money in the world, would you do that in the house that you are currently living in?". He told me it wouldn't make sense and went back to laying the marble.

I did that in my family room! I had sliding glass doors that were installed wrong by the previous owner so there was a leak which rotted out part of the floor and subfloor. I had to hire a carpenter to fix the floor and had him put in french doors. I built a ceramic tile foyer area there so that 1) the dog coming in and out wouldn't ruin the carpet there and 2) if there was another leak, it wouldn't rot out the floor right away. I also replaced all the foamy type fake wood moldings in that room with real wood. The carpenter even said I did a good job with the moldings and my mitred corners :) Plus, that way, I could stain the moldings and baseboards the same color as the French doors, because I really hate when woods don't match.

I love French Doors!

They added a ton to the room, in my opinion, and weren't much more expensive, especially since the door frame and everything had to be re-constructed anyway. I liked these in particular because they are vinyl on the outside but were unfinished wood on the inside so I could finish them the way I wanted to.

My house was the second to the last house on a deadend street until about 15 years ago, when the deadend was opened up and about 40-50 McMansions were built. People who don't know see the street name & think, "WOW!" I've always heard that the best thing is to buy the least expensive house in the neighborhood, then flip it. It's not ready to flip yet!

I love French Doors, too! They can make the dullest room look so much more classic. Who makes the vinyl on the outside, wood on the inside ones? Do they have any sort of "safety bar" that sliding doors have? Or do you have them alarmed in a different way? My mother was looking at ones that have pegs (for the lack of a better word) that go into the floor & ceiling, but she can't remember which brand they were.

And don't get me started on mismatched woods. I've been known to wander around hardware stores with swatches!

They were ReliaBilt and I got them from Lowe's. The door without the handle has sliding bolts on the inside that keeps it shut unless you undo them. I have a regular locking door handle and dead bolt on it. You bring up a good safety point and that was part of the reason I preferred the French doors. The biggest problem with French doors is privacy.. window coverings aren't easily found. While I'm not finding the wood inside/vinyl outside ones on the Lowe's website now, I am seeing that they have some now with blinds built in between the glass. I ended up with short curtain rods above and below the windows of each door and made window coverings (with matching valances for the other windows in the room) that are long.. two panels each, basically, that I can slide open or closed by hand. The dog scratching on the door to go out is tearing them up on one side though :( The other issue is that it's harder to do screens with the French doors although they do make them. My dog tears up screens in no time so I didn't bother.

I have a lot of projects on my plate.. probably the living room next. I desperately need new carpet and new front entry door. I want one of those fiberglass looks like wood doors. Of course I'll paint in there and probably add some wood trim here and there, especially around the coat closet. I also want to replace the fireplace mantel because it's a super dark walnut and I prefer more of a light oak or maple. It's also got an oddly shaped edge that the Christmas stockings fall off of because the holders can't sit straight.

Then there's the bathroom. A very ugly vanity, awful countertop and white with gold splothes ceramic tile. And, the tub was reglazed at some point by one of the previous owners but it was done poorly and is chipping... ick. Unfortunately, while I think I have the skills to do the bathroom myself, I don't think I have the time or energy to deal with a project that big so I have to figure out what to do myself and what to hire out.

I would so love a screened porch. I wonder what kind of effort and money it'd involve for us to try it or whether we'd be better off calling our local Guatemalans to put one in.

You are so lucky to be in this situation. When I first began to purchase houses, I was always told to buy the least expensive house on the street if your goal was to turn a profit. I have known several people like this...modest neighborhood becomes expanded with Exec homes. And, if the school district is good, families would kill to have your house.

I have only known this to backfire once. Where I have lived over the past 6 years is west of a major city, boarding Lake Erie. 100 years ago, this area were the "cottages" of the cityfolk.

My friend had one of these cottages, a modest Dutch Colonial, which they fixed up. It was in one of the best school systems in Ohio, so they figured some family would buy it for the schools. When they put it up For Sale, someone purchased it sight unseen. They were thrilled. That is until they learned the new owner was planning to tear it down and build one of those McMansions. All they could do was cry.

After the holidays we will be workign room to room to put in hard wood floor with a special coating on it so that drinks and dog pee will not ruin the wood.

Husband and I are doing it ourselves(should be interesting since i can barely get a room painted decently). The hardest part he said will be moving the furniture around.

Before you install your new hardwood flooring be sure to allow the materials to sit in the room for at least 24 hrs in order to acclimate to the temperature of your room before installing. This helps to prevent any sort fo warping issues you might otherwise encounter.

My mom and step dad transformed our condo a lot a few years ago. The biggest change was pergo instead of crappy brown carpet. I think the whole "remodel" started when my step dad painted the kitchen cabinets all white (they were brown before). He then painted the walls below them dark green. We started getting other randomly colored walls (just one in each room!) and then it was pergo and tile floors for bathrooms/kitchen. We have dark green, dark red, dark blue, and mustard colored walls now. Some of that may sound atrocious, but I swear it totally works.

We live in a 90-year-old house and have done quite a few projects. Many have been minor cosmetic things (new paint throughout, new carpet, new fireplace mantel) but some have been major (new back sidewalk and retaining wall, new back door). Currently, the husband is working on finishing our sunroom. He stripped out all the old lathe and plaster, insulated the walls, put in new windows, raised the ceiling to follow the roof line, drywalled and painted. He's finishing up staining the trim and then it will pretty much be done, thank goodness. This project has been ongoing for more than a year and I'm ready to have that living space back.

Our next project will be updating our tiny full bathroom. We'll also have the house painted this summer, but that's not something we want to attempt ourselves. We'd also like to fix our upstairs screened-in porch, but that will all depend on time and money.

The husband and I moved into our 2 bedroom co-op after we got married in 2006. It was a lot of work! Luckily, my Dad is retired and is very handy! We pulled up all of the carpet, painted every room (over orange, turquoise and peach I may add), tiled the bathroom, installed a new sink and vanity, put up new kitchen cabinets, kitchen sink and countertop, bought a new microwave and stove, hung all new doors and light fixtures and sheetrocked the living room ceiling. We spent many an afternoon at the Home Depot.

I didn't mind, though. I enjoy manual labor. It's such a nice feeling to know that you did the work yourself. It's a bit more satisfying. Now we'll know how to do everything when we move to a "real" house!

We are actually putting ceramic tile in the basement, that is the next portion of our remodeling... before we purchased the home the people before us had the hot water heater burst while they were out of town. The carpet that had been in there had to be taken up and they had put crappy cheap paneling dwn there that warped and had to be removed. We got a new hot water heater out of it, and they had a mold remediation company come in to be safe (so we have a fifteen year mold warranty)... but after speaking with the guy at lowes, the price difference was 2500 for them to come install the carpet with pad, versus around 500 for the ceramic (and it is the nice stuff, but 16x16 so less expensive). This also helps if there is ever a leak or something, the tile will create a barrier between any water above and the actual floor below.
Above the floor we are putting a dry bar under the stairs. We figure it can be removed if someone wants to, but will be perfect for what we are intending the basement to be for- a sports/rece room with the other big screen, surround sound, etc.

My 2 cents
 

Just make sure you're doing a remodel because you WANT it, not because you think it might (keyword here: might) add value.

Case in point - Brother-in-law/sister-in-law added an addition to their house - $80K or so (and they did a majority of the finish work) - added 30K to the value, but, they plan on being there long term, so it was a nice "investment" (they will eventually get the 80k back, but it takes time)...

Appraisers always told me the biggest "bang for the buck" in remodels adding "value" were kitchens and bathrooms....

With foreclosure rates going up, values are dropping....