Home Improvement

@joeboo I grew up in Columbia. Good to see another Mizzou fan!

I'm in the option period on this house and I've a very rough drawing of the floorplan. I was hoping someone might provide some very generic insight on time/money required for going through some different phases of renovation. I'm a complete scrub when it comes to this.

The front of the house is where the green bushes are. I've left out plenty of details and it's not particularly to scale... so please be gentle with it.



Phase 1: Replace 9 windows and all of the switches/outlets/light fixtures
Phase 2: We'd want to remove the wall between the living room and formal dining room (the area next to the garage, likely a support wall)
Phase 3: We'd want to remodel the kitchen and take some space away from the Garage for that (Move the wall back about 3 feet and new counter tops and new doors for the cabinets and a new sink)
Phase 4: We'd want to take the house from 4 rooms with 1 VERY small inadequate master bath, to 3 rooms with a really nice master on suite. We'd take guest room 1 and 2 and knock down the separating wall and close off the bathroom from the current master turning it into a guest room.
Phase 5: We'd want to replace the flooring from carpet to hardwood
Phase 6: We'd want to remodel the guest bath (This needs new sink/vanity/floors/shower)

Any general thoughts on what each phase could cost if done well, would be great. I'm not rich, but willing to put in a lot of sweat into making the house nice.

Man, that's one of those "not fucking around" renovations.

You'd be looking at a home equity line I have to think. Which, if you're putting it back into the house, can sometimes be a good use of a loan. 1 and 5 look like the least expensive, and those are expensive enough to qualify as an investment. I've been thinking about tearing a lot of carpet up myself and replacing it, but i've kinda been chickenshit about actually trying to find a quote. I know it's gonna hurt.

Valor_sl said:

Any general thoughts on what each phase could cost if done well, would be great. I'm not rich, but willing to put in a lot of sweat into making the house nice.

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All of this pricing is dependent on who you get to do it, how much you do yourself and what type of things you buy.
Like Phase 1 you could spend as little as $120 material per window or as much as $500. Light fixtures as little as $10 per as much as $400 per. Even switches and outlets. They have smart outlets now and built in led night lights but normal run of the mill plugs and switches are ~1 buck each.
Phase 2 support wall is the difference between $500 and $5000, and what about the flooring between them, trim, paint?
Phase 3. 10k basic kitchen reno, 30k well done, moving a wall in garage, again is that support too? Usually is...
Phase 4 fuck it, tear it down/sell it and build what you want.

So finally finished going through retarded negotiations on my new home. Redoing the pool, I want to add a waterfall grotto feature to the pool but I've seen some astronomical costs for what amounts to a bunch of concrete fake rocks stacked on top of each other or carting in expensive real rocks. Anyone have any stories/costs/ideas/etc.?

Deathwing_sl said:

Since joeboo brought up a jackhammer, tell me if I'm crazy to undertake this by myself in a week's worth of time. I've got concrete front porch that's likely over 40 years old, it's got a major crack running through. I patch up the crack every spring and I've coated the whole thing in a water sealant. It's not really a problem, just annoying. I've posted about it before in this thread

Anyway, I want to:

Bust up the current porch with a jackhammer.
Remove the unused oil tank.
Remove/reuse the cinder blocks to form new "wall". Maybe coat outsides with xypex.
Fill oil tank area in with dirt.
Build new porch, preferably wooden and sealed.

I'm more than fine with taking a week off from work to get this done. I'm actually a bit bothered that I'm not bothered taking vacation time to a home project. But my wife thinks I'll screw something up or miss something. I'm not saying she's wrong, neither of us are really "handy" people. But given that this might be an expensive job for a contractor(had one guy out for a quote last summer, he never called me back), the prospect at saving a lot of money is appealing.

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It's expensive because it is shit work, heavy debris and nothing to do with it.
If you know a farmer with a sinkhole or can fill in with the concrete debris half the issue is solved.
You can rent those puppies for about $100 a week and smash it out yourself. Plus it'll be fun.

Oblio_sl said:

Go Big Sir!

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Yea I have to find out the best way to do that sub 1M as in not carrying in real rocks. I would like to do it myself if possible but while I could do shotcrete that equipment seems industrial crew sized only. Hmmm.

With wood you are looking at a few years of awesomeness. If you keep it sealed/stained and so forth every few years and clean it'll last you 20 years easy.
If you don't things start warping,cracking,rotting and appearance and functionality drop over time.
Concrete isn't without issues and maintenance as well however. Anything you do aside from composite is going to require cleaning and some work each year but we are talking a day tops.
Hell even composite needs some over time.
Build what you want and take care of it, it'll take care of you.

Olebass_sl said:

With wood you are looking at a few years of awesomeness. If you keep it sealed/stained and so forth every few years and clean it'll last you 20 years easy.

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I think this depends on where you live, and especially how accessible the support structure is. If it is a low patio, how are you going to seal/stain the joists? We had a huuuuge deck on my parents house. My mom stained or sealed that bitch every single year (after cleaning it of course). We live in the pacific northwest, and after 12 years, the joists and a couple of the beams (dont think beams is the right word... runners? the things that the joists attach to) which were painted had rotted from the decking down. Fuck decks man. Concrete slab all the way.

State Farm is apparently going to try to deny coverage on the sink repair. Assholes.

So you can get to the space under it? Stuff it full of gravel, put a top coat on it, and drill out a drain in the middle.