here we go...
UncleMac
Posts: 13,860 Member
Back in 2014, I divorced and moved as we sold the matrimonial home. I bought a house in an established neighbourhood from the original owner who had it built in 1962. It wasn't quite a handyman special but it was fairly close... It needed a new furnace, a new roof, you name it... I took care of the urgent needs (ie: furnace & roof) and now I'm dealing with the less urgent items.
The house is called a "backsplit" so the main body of the house is at the front (kitchen & great room), three bedrooms & bathroom on the upper floor (6 steps up), rec room & second bath on the lower level (6 steps down).
The front has a crawl space, just over 4 ft but it's usable for storage. The rec room and laundry room hadn't been update maybe ever... Here's a floorplan with my intended renovations penciled in.
At the base of the stairs, there was a small hallway between the second bathroom, the laundry and the rec room. To my consideration, that was a huge waste of space... and the laundry room was overly large... The load bearing wall is between the crawl space and the living space so the hallway was removable.
There are two large windows. The one in the rec room is 8 ft long; the laundry is 6 ft so plenty of natural light. I considered digging an open well, installing a set of stairs and changing the 8 ft window into a patio door but I've discarded the idea for now.
The house is called a "backsplit" so the main body of the house is at the front (kitchen & great room), three bedrooms & bathroom on the upper floor (6 steps up), rec room & second bath on the lower level (6 steps down).
The front has a crawl space, just over 4 ft but it's usable for storage. The rec room and laundry room hadn't been update maybe ever... Here's a floorplan with my intended renovations penciled in.
At the base of the stairs, there was a small hallway between the second bathroom, the laundry and the rec room. To my consideration, that was a huge waste of space... and the laundry room was overly large... The load bearing wall is between the crawl space and the living space so the hallway was removable.
There are two large windows. The one in the rec room is 8 ft long; the laundry is 6 ft so plenty of natural light. I considered digging an open well, installing a set of stairs and changing the 8 ft window into a patio door but I've discarded the idea for now.
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Here's an exterior picture of how my house looked when I took possession...
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My front doorstep was rotting and the lawn was sloping toward the house instead of away from it... so I hired a company to remove the hedge, scrape the lawn, install a walkway & step.
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When it makes sense, I do work myself. When it doesn't, I hire contractors. For example, I removed the old front step and posts myself... let the company do the landscaping and sod... then I did the posts etc.
The eaves troughs, fascia and soffits were mismatched... three different kinds and colours... so I hired a contractor to replace them... and I went for a different colour...
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I remember the pics from last year of you doing the front porch. It's a great improvement!0
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Thank you! The neighbours all like the steps & posts but one neighbour said she prefers white soffits & fascia so she doesn't care for that change. Honestly, I thought about it long & hard before I decided to go dark brown... and I'm happy with the results. Since it's my name on the deed, I guess that's what counts!fitlulu4150 wrote: »I remember the pics from last year of you doing the front porch. It's a great improvement!0 -
It looks so good. That poor roof, you can tell it needed to be redone. We did ours last summer. This is the year of the bathroom renos.0
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Original_Sinner wrote: »It looks so good. That poor roof, you can tell it needed to be redone. We did ours last summer. This is the year of the bathroom renos.
I wasn't able to get the roof done the year I moved in. None of the roofers had openings. Fall-time is their busiest season... mainly closing up new construction who want to be dry before the snow flies. Most of them didn't even return calls or emails. Those who did said they'd patch if I needed it but otherwise, call in the spring.
The next summer, I got it done and did the garage at the same time. As bad as the house roof looked, the garage was worse... and the structure underneath it wasn't great... so I did some reinforcing work before the roofer arrived.0 -
Wow. End result looks great. I like seeing details of what you did. 👍1
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DogloverTerri wrote: »Wow. End result looks great. I like seeing details of what you did. 👍
Thank you. Since that picture, my wife & I added a flower bed behind where the love seat adirondack chair... roses and hostas. The grass there wasn't doing very well and was kinda annoying to mow so flowers & mulch are value added.0 -
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My wife wanted to update the look of the kitchen. Oddly, the pink flowered bathroom tiles as a backsplash wasn't to her taste. I was thinking I was going to be in for an awful adventure of removing tiles, fixing the drywall and then tiling again... but she said the current "trend" is wallpaper in kitchens.
So we searched through and found adhesive wallpaper... and went right over the tiles... as well as creating an accent wall. It looks great and it wasn't that hard to do...
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Love it.0
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In the past three weeks, two houses on my street have been listed and sold... each within a few days of being on the market. I mentioned this to a friend who is a realtor... and she pulled up the listings for me. Both of them sold above their listed price; one of them was significantly above such...
When I told my wife about this, she said "Let's get busy!!"1 -
I’m thinking about doing that with our rental house. What’s holding me back is the tenant is having a baby in Sept and I don’t want to cause them any problems right now. Hopefully when it’s a better time for them, the market will still be a sellers market.1
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You're good people to show the tenant such consideration.DogloverTerri wrote: »I’m thinking about doing that with our rental house. What’s holding me back is the tenant is having a baby in Sept and I don’t want to cause them any problems right now. Hopefully when it’s a better time for them, the market will still be a sellers market.
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I bought a bathroom fan for the lower level bathroom. Once I put in a shower, it'll be needed.
In the meantime, I figure I can put the fan in before I start removing the mastic adhesive from the concrete. Although the chemical I have is supposed to be low VOC and not smelly... why take a chance?
The 60 year old drywall is completely different from modern stuff. If I cut aggressively, it kind of shatters so I have to cut slowly... with a metal cutting blade... Still, mucho dust generated. Next steps involve more electric fun and vent pipes to the outside world...
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After a good bit of fussing, cussing and sweating, the bathroom fan is installed & working. It's not yet plumbed to the outside world but I've got a plan for that...
Doing renovations is a good way to teach oneself patience. The bathroom has a dropped ceiling. I can't see why they did it that way but whatever... it means plenty of space to install the fan... Once I got the fan's enclosure to fit, I recognized the next stud in the ceiling would interfere with the fan's outlet. I happen to have a 4 inch hole saw so I carefully measured where I needed to cut... twice... then I drilled thru... Once done, I set the enclosure in place to test-fit and discovered (uh!) the spot I measured didn't line up... So I needed to trim 1/2 inch from one side.
Got everything lined up (hurray!) and then wired it with a timer-switch so the fan would automatically shut off after 5, 10 or 20 mins (user select-able). I put the fan in place to test before I buttoned everything up and... the fan didn't move. Hmmmm.... I found my circuit tester and checked... yep, I had power... everything was wired right... at both ends...
So I pulled out the timer-switch, dug up a standard switch and wired it up... and the fan fired up right away! Imagine that... a brand new timer-switch dead on arrival... Once I knew everything was working, I went through, installed & secured the vent hose, buttoned up the fan and set everything ready to go.
Next step is running a pipe to the outside wall. I'm not sure why the original owner vented the dryer where he did but I'm going to take advantage of the situation. The location for the current dryer vent lines up for the bathroom vent.... and I will cut a new hole for the dryer in a more logical location...
Cutting the hole will be a wonderful adventure (not). The hole saw I have is good for wood but it won't cut through stucco... especially not this old-style stucco which appears to be more like concrete than mortar... and absolutely full of tiny rocks. I made a smaller hole when I drilled through to rewire the garage. It ruined the bimetal bit I used. So my plan is to rent a proper concrete hole saw from Home Depot.
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I love reading about this. 👏👏👏👏1
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I started my day by removing the old dryer vent. Then I carefully measured & leveled off the old hole to do appropriate placement of the hole I was going to make. The old vent was on the right.
The old style stucco is an inch & a half of mostly concrete (unlike new stucco which is more like mortar) and has pebbles mainly on the skin. The hole saw cut through it faster and better than I expected. Once I had that done, I fit rigid insulation on the inside & marked the holes so the vents pass through it as well. Insulating was a big part of why I undertook this renovation project; the lower level of the house was not insulated. This will make heating & cooling easier and less expensive.
Here is the opposite view with the pvc pipes installed onto the vents. As you can see, it's a busy spot above the electrical box... and I've actually sorted out that area already as they were to be more wires in there... stuff which had been cut off from the box during previous renovation back in 1996 but left hanging.
Backing down the ladder, I took another picture so you can see where the dryer vent turns down toward the floor... and then I turned the other way so you can see where the bathroom fan flexpipe attached to the pvc pipe.
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As mentioned in my news feed, I've been working on the lower bathroom again. I brought a plumber in to move the shower drain because I was daunted by the notion of breaking up concrete around the pipe...
He looked over my other work and asked if I wanted a part-time job. I thanked him and asked if there was anything he'd do differently. He pointed out a couple of quick things (good learning curve) but said what I've done will work well.
As I removed the toilet, I noticed a small amount of seepage under the linoleum. I sent the plumber a note and he asked for a picture of the flange... So you can see the old fashion flange and the black mastic on the concrete.
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I did a bit more research and came up with a different product for removing the black mastic. It's a Rustoleum product called "Krud Kutter - Sticky Krud Remover" and only available in small spray bottles... 355ml or 12.5oz...
I bought two bottles because of the small size. Anyway, it works really well. For comparison, here's the same toilet flange area after I cleaned up with the new stuff...
And here's the bathroom floor... As you can see, I've still got a bit of work to do. The shower area is at the back.
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The plumber moved the drain. It was a relatively big job but made much easier by having the right tools and knowledge/skills...
The drain is set at the right height for me to be able to drop the shower pan in place after I've replaced the concrete. Test-fit complete...
The little wooden box is to keep the concrete clear from the drain. Once the new concrete is set, I will knock the little box out. Part of the installation for the shower pan is using a kind of mortar to fill the space until the pan. Have you ever stepped into a shower and noticed the floor didn't feel solid? That means whoever did the install skipped mortaring the base in place. It's not a huge amount of mortar... less than half an inch in most places... but it makes a big difference.
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You're really putting in a lot of work Wayne. Looking forward to seeing the after pics!0
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Pam is saying I'm putting in too much work for a house we're going to be selling. I like to do things "right" and any renovations I've done over the years have stood the test of time. At one point, I had a house inspector say my renovations were better than the quality of the original building.You're really putting in a lot of work Wayne. Looking forward to seeing the after pics!2 -
Pam and I made a trip to IKEA today, shopping for mirrors for the lower level bathroom. It was Pam's first time in an IKEA so a bit of an adventure for her. Such a massive store... and deliberately confusingly laid out...
Yet that works out to their advantage because we ended up finding not only mirrors but also a sink & cabinet... lol
The sink is porcelain and quite nice. The cabinet isn't great but it is new & clean... The IKEA door pulls were cheapo plastic knobs. Luckily when I replaced the pulls in the kitchen, it was cheaper to buy in bulk (packs of 10) so I have leftovers... It meant carefully drilling a lower hole but I think the results speak for themselves...
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I couldn't find a floormap of IKEA Ottawa but it is similar to this one... They're still restricting access due to covid because our provincial government (similar to state level) are still imposing partial lockdowns. They're only allowing 650 customers at a time. I think that's 10% capacity...
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Today's project was removing old plumbing... As I've mentioned before, the lower bathroom was roughed in for a shower. They installed two "stubs" (hot and cold) projecting out of the wall at the height presumably where two valves would be installed for the shower.
Here's a pic of where one of the stubs used to be... behind the hot water tank... ie: not easily accessible... So I had to shut off the water to the house, then cut the pipes and pull them out.
I chose an accessible point to remove the pipes in the wall above to hot water tank. The lower bathroom's toilet and sink were on the same line. Given the sink didn't have shut off valves, it was a prudent decision to replace the old lines.
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Here are the new lines in the wall going to the toilet and the sink...
And now where's the new valves projecting through the wall...
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My plan is to fix some of the holes from the old sink and then paint the wall... What do you think of the blue?0
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Looks like everything is moving right along. I like the blue if you do navy accents with white tiles. That would look really sharp I think.1
