Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house? | Page 172 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?

Ugh...I've got the same issue @Hardwrkr13 in our upstairs main stairway. You can see the gaps opening up with time. I think the drywall needs to be re-secured to the frame, and then re-painted.

On another note...wife just said 'if we're doing the upstairs, why don't we just do the downstairs at the same time?

If we remove the fire place and open up the middle of the living room...it means a full on kitchen remodel. Doesn't sound cheap.

We want this out with time.

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mimico_polak said:
Ugh...I've got the same issue @Hardwrkr13 in our upstairs main stairway. You can see the gaps opening up with time. I think the drywall needs to be re-secured to the frame, and then re-painted.

On another note...wife just said 'if we're doing the upstairs, why don't we just do the downstairs at the same time?

If we remove the fire place and open up the middle of the living room...it means a full on kitchen remodel. Doesn't sound cheap.
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But you have free money from the bank! Lots of it. Removing most of that fireplace block (or converting it to an island) would make a huge difference in your house.
 
GreyGhost said:
But you have free money from the bank! Lots of it. Removing most of that fireplace block (or converting it to an island) would make a huge difference in your house.
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Well it's not 'free' as we do have to pay for it...but you are correct. Removing that fireplace would drastically change our main floor for the better.

1. Replace aging hot water tank (easy)
2. Remove fireplace (fairly easy manual labour or $800 as per quote to the main floor ceiling)
3. Remove all the kitchen cabinets and brand new granite (this one would suck)
4. Remove the ceiling as kitchen is flat, and living room is patterned (it's already been painted at least 1x)
5. Move fridge / dishwasher / sink
6. Buy new oven / cooktop as the ones we have are all old and the oven / cooktop are separate (oven is built into the cabinets)
7. Build island
8. Re-build kitchen
9. Go broke

I'd assume 40-50k in work alone on the kitchen.

Does it make sense to do one, then the other...or just do it all in one fell swoop?

It's cheaper to just buy bunk beds for the kids and let them live in the same room for 5 more years.
 
mimico_polak said:
Well it's not 'free' as we do have to pay for it...but you are correct. Removing that fireplace would drastically change our main floor for the better.

1. Replace aging hot water tank (easy)
2. Remove fireplace (fairly easy manual labour or $800 as per quote to the main floor ceiling)
3. Remove all the kitchen cabinets and brand new granite (this one would suck)
4. Remove the ceiling as kitchen is flat, and living room is patterned (it's already been painted at least 1x)
5. Move fridge / dishwasher / sink
6. Buy new oven / cooktop as the ones we have are all old and the oven / cooktop are separate (oven is built into the cabinets)
7. Build island
8. Re-build kitchen
9. Go broke

I'd assume 40-50k in work alone on the kitchen.

Does it make sense to do one, then the other...or just do it all in one fell swoop?

It's cheaper to just buy bunk beds for the kids and let them live in the same room for 5 more years.
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Given that your renovated house will likely break the 2M mark, dont forget 10k+ for a fridge >4' wide. That seems to be the difference between houses selling for 1.8 and 2.3 which makes it a good return on investment.
 
crankcall said:
40-50, I think your light on the estimate

after the bulk of this thread, I'm going with you bought the wrong house
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40-50k in material. I can do most of the labour. Actually this type of work I think I can do 90% of it.

But yes….May have been cheaper at the time to buy a diff house. Not now.

Should’ve done the work when I was making FIFO bank lol.
 
Yes if 80% is sweat equity your good , 20k buys a very nice ikea kitchen , I’m pretty impressed with the ikea program. And MP has a friend in granite, that could help . Appliances are such a wild card right now . Supply and price .


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GreyGhost said:
My secured debt now exceeds when I bought the house but all money pulled out is invested. Weeee. Up so far but the real test will be whether the dividends have paid off the LOC inside of a decade.
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Similar. I took out a mortgage at 1.6% early 2021 and spilt the cash into TD and RBC bank stock -- at the time dividends were about 3.3% so it's covered the mortgage payment and spit off some additional cash. The dividend is now closer to 5% based on my book price.

A nice kicker is both stocks have jumped by 40% since then.

At my age all I need to do is beat inflation and protect capital. Age of staying conservative.
 
crankcall said:
Yes if 80% is sweat equity your good , 20k buys a very nice ikea kitchen , I’m pretty impressed with the ikea program. And MP has a friend in granite, that could help . Appliances are such a wild card right now . Supply and price .


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Yup. Friends in granite, plumbing, cabinetry and good ol fashion muscle when something needs to be moved.

I’m very fortunate for sure. Unfortunately those walls in the pics are most likely load bearing…so it’s not a dad and I job.
 
crankcall said:
Yes if 80% is sweat equity your good , 20k buys a very nice ikea kitchen , I’m pretty impressed with the ikea program. And MP has a friend in granite, that could help . Appliances are such a wild card right now . Supply and price .


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com
Click to expand...
If you're doing it for yourself you don't have to impress anyone but yourself. No need to go designer to impress a potential buyer who might rip it out a week after closing. Right now the supply chain and associated prices are problems. Spend some time on design details and wait until the smoke clears.
 
GreyGhost said:
That's a bad situation with light on a glancing incidence. If you want it perfect, you need an old guy to skim the whole thing and give you a level five finish. It wont be cheap. Likely mid four figures. Theres a reason most houses have popcorn ceilings.
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I think you’re right. Weirdly the front foyer ceiling and ensuite which are the only other areas sharing similar height/lighting doesn’t show through like this.
IKEA cabinets that I want for built-ins and pantry are out of stock. I’ll look into it later to see how long that’ll be. $1500 through ikea vs $4000 custom in a house we may not still be at by year end is an easy decision.
 
Hardwrkr13 said:
I think you’re right. Weirdly the front foyer ceiling and ensuite which are the only other areas sharing similar height/lighting doesn’t show through like this.
IKEA cabinets that I want for built-ins and pantry are out of stock. I’ll look into it later to see how long that’ll be. $1500 through ikea vs $4000 custom in a house we may not still be at by year end is an easy decision.
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May not be at? Jumping again already? Damn. I hate moving.
 
GreyGhost said:
May not be at? Jumping again already? Damn. I hate moving.
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Quickest way to get a bigger house. Live, capital free gains, rinse and repeat.

Our broker told me we’re stuck at the 1.6M range so can’t make jumps too quickly.
 
Hardwrkr13 said:
I think you’re right. Weirdly the front foyer ceiling and ensuite which are the only other areas sharing similar height/lighting doesn’t show through like this.
IKEA cabinets that I want for built-ins and pantry are out of stock. I’ll look into it later to see how long that’ll be. $1500 through ikea vs $4000 custom in a house we may not still be at by year end is an easy decision.
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Ikea cabinets are pretty good. I converted a pantry across from our kitchen into a small bar using Ikea stuff. Used their 30" uppers and glass doors & shelves, and a 15" lower + bevie fridge. The cabinets cost about $350.

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matthew said:
Solid wood cabinets can be found at Habitat for Humanity, It will take a bit of work to sand, paint and give them new pulls but it's an option.
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That may work for something like mm's project but for a whole kitchen it's a rough go imo. Layout really matters. Trying to make a collection of cabinets work in your space is often more trouble than it's worth and even if you could get most of the kitchen laid out that way there are often a few cabinets that you want that you dont have and getting those custom made to match could exceed the cost of the ikea kitchen.
 
I ripped out over 400 kitchens (yes over 400) when I worked for Habitat. When we got a very large kitchen it had great potential for making up a slightly smaller kitchen. Counter tops would usually not match the new layout so there's that, but we had high end kitchens that you could buy for pennies on the dollar. Many people would come back with pics showing how they worked them into their layout.
I would not totally disregard the possibility of used cabinets.
 
According to my neighbour, one of the previous owners of my house installed all the kitchen cabinets from Habitat BUT I think that's when some major renovations were happening at the same time (ie walls being removed) so for that situation it worked out well but I do see how it would create some difficulty shoehorning it in.
 
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