Wife and I are gearing up for some major renovations to the house and I thought it'd be fun to document it all here. Some deets on the casa -
We bought it in the spring of 2010 just two years out of college. We really had no business buying a house at that time and we wouldn't even be married until 3 months after closing, but it's been just an awesome place for the past 7+ years.
We are only the 4th owners since it was built in 1927. It's just under 1,800 square feet, 3 beds, 1.5 baths, with that half bath being the old coat closet. We've done a ton of little stuff and a couple major projects along the way. The driveway used to run all the way from the street to the alley and so the garage faced sideways on the lot so you could enter from either direction. Problem is, it's 17x18 and so not long after it was built in 1927, cars got huge and couldn't fit, and the driveway probably decades ago was covered over with grass and the garage became a really big shed. We decided to have a hole cut in the rear of the garage on the alley side to give us a usable garage, small as it is. The STi and RDX to both fit, albeit with a rather tight squeeze. Kids will destroy the cars with door dings once they're old enough, I'm sure.
Four years ago we took on a huge kitchen renovation. We gutted the whole space, opened up two walls, and turned just about the ugliest kitchen I'd ever seen into a pretty damn nice place to cook and entertain. Just paid off the second mortgage back in February, so of course now it's time to start thinking about how we can spend more money on the place.
Before -
During -
After -
Dat bathrooom renovation thread, doe
- ChrisoftheNorth
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I'm excited to follow this along. I love new shit done in old houses.
Desertbreh wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm My guess would be that Chris took some time off because he has read the dialogue on this page 1,345 times and decided to spend some of his free time doing something besides beating a horse to death.
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Wow, that kitchen reno was 5/7!
Desertbreh wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm My guess would be that Chris took some time off because he has read the dialogue on this page 1,345 times and decided to spend some of his free time doing something besides beating a horse to death.
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The main thing we're trying to accomplish with the whole renovation is to add a master bathroom. Having only one shower kind of sucks whenever we have guests and it'll suck consistently once we have kids who need to get ready in the morning too. I grew up in a house with only bathroom, and even as an only child it was a battle with my parents in the morning to get everyone showered and out the door. Adding a master will hopefully allow us to stay here a lot longer with a family.
I plan on doing some sketches & layout ideas, but the gist of it is, our master bedroom is huge, 23' x 13'. The plan is to chop off 7 or 8 feet from the end of the bedroom to make a nice 3/4 bath and a closet. The master will still be 15' x 13', which is plenty big especially considering the age of the home. Right now it's just a massive open space with nothing but two chairs and a little table we never, ever use.
We'll also be renovating the main bath at the same time to do the plumbing, electrical, HVAC etc. all at once. We'll go from a single sink to a double, move the linen closet into the hallway with more of a built-in cabinet look like this -
- and just freshen up the space while staying true to the time period.
I plan on doing some sketches & layout ideas, but the gist of it is, our master bedroom is huge, 23' x 13'. The plan is to chop off 7 or 8 feet from the end of the bedroom to make a nice 3/4 bath and a closet. The master will still be 15' x 13', which is plenty big especially considering the age of the home. Right now it's just a massive open space with nothing but two chairs and a little table we never, ever use.
We'll also be renovating the main bath at the same time to do the plumbing, electrical, HVAC etc. all at once. We'll go from a single sink to a double, move the linen closet into the hallway with more of a built-in cabinet look like this -
- and just freshen up the space while staying true to the time period.
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I don't have too many other pictures, but here's one from this spring I took while out grilling. The lot is only 40 feet wide, but it's 160' deep. Makes for a decent back yard considering we're in the city.
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Must be a 1920's house thing. Our house was built in 1926 and has a MASSIVE master bedroom. We've thought about doing something similar with adding a bathroom (we also only have 1.5 baths, 1 shower), but we setup half the master as a sitting area with a TV that we end up using a lot.coogles wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:03 pm The main thing we're trying to accomplish with the whole renovation is to add a master bathroom. Having only one shower kind of sucks whenever we have guests and it'll suck consistently once we have kids who need to get ready in the morning too. I grew up in a house with only bathroom, and even as an only child it was a battle with my parents in the morning to get everyone showered and out the door. Adding a master will hopefully allow us to stay here a lot longer with a family.
I plan on doing some sketches & layout ideas, but the gist of it is, our master bedroom is huge, 23' x 13'. The plan is to chop off 7 or 8 feet from the end of the bedroom to make a nice 3/4 bath and a closet. The master will still be 15' x 13', which is plenty big especially considering the age of the home. Right now it's just a massive open space with nothing but two chairs and a little table we never, ever use.
We'll also be renovating the main bath at the same time to do the plumbing, electrical, HVAC etc. all at once. We'll go from a single sink to a double, move the linen closet into the hallway with more of a built-in cabinet look like this -
- and just freshen up the space while staying true to the time period.
Desertbreh wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm My guess would be that Chris took some time off because he has read the dialogue on this page 1,345 times and decided to spend some of his free time doing something besides beating a horse to death.
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[user not found] wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:22 pm
Guess I'll have to start my own Haus of Haurrors thread soon.
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Yeah, it's weird. Kind of cool, but really totally useless, for us, as-is. There were a couple other houses we looked at that had huge masters, but this one was the biggest. The other homes we looked at were mostly little 2 bedroom bungalows with bedrooms no bigger than 12x12 and kitchens half the size of ours. Most of them were already partially or completed renovated, but add a kid or two and those houses get really small, really fast. In the end we thought it'd be better to buy something a little bigger that needed work and make it our own.Detroit wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:22 pm Must be a 1920's house thing. Our house was built in 1926 and has a MASSIVE master bedroom. We've thought about doing something similar with adding a bathroom (we also only have 1.5 baths, 1 shower), but we setup half the master as a sitting area with a TV that we end up using a lot.
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[user not found] wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:22 pm
Guess I'll have to start my own Haus of Haurrors thread soon.
Desertbreh wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm My guess would be that Chris took some time off because he has read the dialogue on this page 1,345 times and decided to spend some of his free time doing something besides beating a horse to death.
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Thanks!
Indianapolis is fairly cheap, though that's starting to change. We bought our place for $190k, but probably got it $10-15k under market value at the time. We think with all of the renovations and how the market's been in our neighborhood since then, it's probably worth $275k-ish now.
We're in the less expensive part of the 'hood - homes on the other side of the old streetcar line usually fetch higher prices per square foot. They usually have more detail and maybe more solid construction, but the cost makes moving over there pretty difficult to justify. There was a nice 3 bed, 2.5 bath house that popped up over there a week ago. 100 sq ft more, but needs a kitchen renovation and the master bath is an abomination of a 90s renovation. Still $390k. So we get our master bath, but then still need to renovate two spaces and it's $115k more than our house is worth? Makes the $40-45k I think this all will take much easier to stomach.
We've talked to two contractors so far. The first was a smaller outfit and the guy who came out was the guy who started the company. He still does all of their tile work and is deeply involved in all of the planning. One of the houses his company renovated was on our neighborhood home tour and was absolutely gorgeous. He actually checked out the directions of the joists to make sure we wouldn't run into plumbing issues, went down to the basement to check out how the plumbing would run - dude was straight forward and knew his shit. At the end of it he said - "I've done too many of these kinds of renovations to count. It'll be about $40k, give or take depending on the materials you choose." Sounds good to me considering I think the place would be worth $315-$325k once all the work is done.
The second was a bigger company located in one of the fancy high-brow suburbs. I got a bad vibe from the project planner right off the bat, but it's dumb to just talk to one company and these people have a good reputation, so fuck it. She comes out to take measurements and sort of explains how they do things, then we set up an office visit so they could go over samples of their work and a couple rough ideas for the spaces. She babbles for an hour before finally getting to the estimates. Range, $38k - $48k. Cool, mostly in line with the other guy.
Wait, no, that's just the master bath and closet. Another $25k - $30k for the hall bath. Then another $3k - $4k for the closet work. Holy shit! Close to double the price all in using middle of the road estimates from those ranges.
Sort of hard to believe two estimates could be that far off. We spent $30k to do our kitchen, which included all new plumbing, a new electrical panel, and everything except the painting, which we did ourselves. $10k+ more than that for a bathroom half the size and with far less materials needed?
Last edited by coogles on Wed Aug 16, 2017 1:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Yea, we made ours work for us, and since it's just the 2 of us forever, the only time the one bathroom is annoying is the few times we have guests.coogles wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:34 pmYeah, it's weird. Kind of cool, but really totally useless, for us, as-is. There were a couple other houses we looked at that had huge masters, but this one was the biggest. The other homes we looked at were mostly little 2 bedroom bungalows with bedrooms no bigger than 12x12 and kitchens half the size of ours. Most of them were already partially or completed renovated, but add a kid or two and those houses get really small, really fast. In the end we thought it'd be better to buy something a little bigger that needed work and make it our own.Detroit wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:22 pm Must be a 1920's house thing. Our house was built in 1926 and has a MASSIVE master bedroom. We've thought about doing something similar with adding a bathroom (we also only have 1.5 baths, 1 shower), but we setup half the master as a sitting area with a TV that we end up using a lot.
The hardest part about old houses is finding one with a large kitchen. Most houses we looked at had TINY kitchens. That was one of the biggest selling points of our house because we use the kitchen a lot.
Desertbreh wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm My guess would be that Chris took some time off because he has read the dialogue on this page 1,345 times and decided to spend some of his free time doing something besides beating a horse to death.
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Same. Even though it was disgusting, it was a big enough space that I knew we could eventually turn it into something really cool. Even some of the bigger 2,000+ sq. ft. homes in the neighborhood don't have kitchens as big or as open as ours.Detroit wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:56 pm Yea, we made ours work for us, and since it's just the 2 of us forever, the only time the one bathroom is annoying is the few times we have guests.
The hardest part about old houses is finding one with a large kitchen. Most houses we looked at had TINY kitchens. That was one of the biggest selling points of our house because we use the kitchen a lot.
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House is 5/7. Kitchen reno looks awesome. I'm planning on redoing my bath next year but I think it'll be a small one with just paint new floors and replacing the current vanity with a double.
I gotta get a house thread going for all the stuff I've done. Coming up on a year in my current house
I gotta get a house thread going for all the stuff I've done. Coming up on a year in my current house
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[user not found] wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:22 pm
Guess I'll have to start my own Haus of Haurrors thread soon.
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Thanks!
We've picked our contractor and they're about 4 weeks out. Same dudes who did our kitchen, actually. Should be about a 5-6 week project. Living through a renovation sucks, but it'll be worth it. Pumped!