Favorite Home Improvement Project

[NoWiser]

So I started thinking. Everyone has those projects that were nightmares and everyone has those that they enjoyed. I bought a foreclosed home a couple years ago and attached a garage and put about a 700 S.F addition on the back. So far the only thing I've hired out was laying the block (I did excavation and footings myself) and run ducting for the HVAC system. Everything else I've done on my own. I work in construction so have an advantage, but 90% of my time is at a computer, drawing plans. My least favorite parts was doing the dirtwork and drywall. By far my favorite was putting the stone on the front of the house. If I had to pick any project to do on the weekend, I wouldn't mind doing this again. I'm just starting to lay tile and got done finishing all of the millwork so will be trimming soon, so this is a pretty enjoyable stage too. Here is a before picture of the house, and a picture when we were in the middle of doing the stonework.

What has been everyone elses most enjoyable, and most miserable project that they have tackled??

[amateurfishing]

THAT is the same home...WOW....WELL DONE!!

I'm finishing basement, only hired out plumbing to date and will more than likely have flooring hired out as well. Not really enjoying much of it at all (rather b fishing) but having the kids down there at times with me (3 under 8)watching me & helping me, plus me learning a lot, getting to buy a few tools along the way, & satisfaction of me personally knowing what is done and where does give us some personal satisfaction but have not really enjoyed all the headaches it comes with along the way. best part is being able to spread out material purchases over a very long time instead of writing a big fat painful check all at once.

[LightningBG]

NoWiser, you have done a fine job.

I'm in the middle if fixing up a house. The floors were sagging after 100+ years. I jacked up the sag as far as it would go and put in some columns and load bearing walls. But they still weren't flat, so I custom cut shims (furring strips) to go over every joist, following the contour of the sagging floor, and put a new subfloor on top of that. Horrible horrible task.

Best part is having a perfect excuse to go buy new tools.

And when things get done and you sit there for an hour with a few beers just staring at it, admiring your own work.

[NoWiser]

I'm finishing basement, only hired out plumbing to date and will more than likely have flooring hired out as well. Not really enjoying much of it at all (rather b fishing) but having the kids down there at times with me (3 under 8)watching me & helping me, plus me learning a lot, getting to buy a few tools along the way, & satisfaction of me personally knowing what is done and where does give us some personal satisfaction but have not really enjoyed all the headaches it comes with along the way. best part is being able to spread out material purchases over a very long time instead of writing a big fat painful check all at once.

My feelings are pretty similar to yours. Looking back, I bit off way more than I could chew and it has really been cutting into my hunting/fishing time and budget. While the project as a whole has been pretty miserable, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy certain parts of it, such as the stonework. Plenty of work to be done on the inside yet, but the end is in sight!

[Pinusbanksiana]

Top to bottom remodel of a home built in 1970 when there must have been a shortage of lumber as well as smarts. Did I mention we are living in the home as I do this? Did I also mention that we are running out of cash?

Yea, we bit off too much as well but in order to keep my wife happy I was willing to try. I just kept finding things screwed up, and to do one thing, I would need to do something else related and things steam rolled.

I have been pinching pennies, finding some good purchases on a Craig List. You can find deals if you look and know what you need. I bought some new "cedar" siding for 500 dollars off a guy in the cites. Got it home and it turned out to be redwood, nearly enough for the entire house.

Here is a photo last summer of some of the siding. The deck will be re-done eventually. All new windows and doors too.

[BoxMN]

I built a 28x36 garage. Cousin did the digging and concrete and block, and a buddy and his bro-in-law helped me build it - - errr, I should say I helped them I could not have done it without them, but now I think I could tackle it after doing it. Learned a lot, and it went up great and they credited the perfectly square slab for that.

Most fun thing is putting up tongue and groove pine on ceilings or walls. I love that stuff, just watching it "grow up" as you add it. Did this to small cabin. Next big project for me will be finishing walkout basement, when I can save enough cash. Staining, and "cutting/grouting", concrete floor will be new thing to learn. Concrete cousin will help me with that

[delcecchi]

Ah, those were the days my friends.....

My favorite and least favorite projects are pretty much the same. We have a rambler built in 59. The previous owner finished the basement with whatever was cheap at Menards. In addition, some water came in a few times a year, like when the snow melted or it rained a lot. It ran out the floor drain but the floor got wet.

One day I got really irritated at the water and took a sledge to the floor in the corner. Kept going for the next way too long and broke out about a foot of floor all around the basement (total about 200 feet). Dug a trench with a shovel. (Soil was all clay). Handed it out the basement window in buckets. Tore all the paneling and crud out and piled it up. Put it in the Trash on a space available basis.

Carried down buckets of pea gravel and bags of sakcrete. Laid plastic up the wall, and over the pea gravel and slotted pipe. Mixed the sakcrete up and re-did the floor.

After that the finishing seemed easy, although carrying those sheets of rock down the stairs wasn't fun either.

But it is really nice down there now and no more water. Took a long time.

[CAMAN]

I did a complete gut and remodel of an early 1900's home last summer. Down to the studs, new everything; plumbing, electrical, insulation, HVAC, etc.

Some of the more dramatic before and after shots...

Kitchen - BEFORE

Kitchen - AFTER

Powder Room - BEFORE

Powder Room - AFTER

Stairway - BEFORE

Stairway - AFTER

[cavalierowner]

VERY nice remodel CAMAN!!

[paceman]

VERY nice remodel CAMAN!!

+10

[NoWiser]

Looks great Caman!

[K_Josh87]

Here are some shots of one we did a couple years ago... I do not have many good shots of the interior finsiheds though, however it all ended up brand new as well.

[nofishfisherman]

Powder Room - BEFORE

What was wrong with the bathroom? You had a toilet and a plunger, what more could you ask for? From what I see all you had to do was add a roll of TP and a magazine rack and you were set.

[hawgchaser]

I undertook a remodeling project a dozen or so years ago on a 20X30, story and a half lake cabin with a 10ft. wrap-around sun porch on two sides. The cabin/porch had been in the owner's family for over a century and was in original condition except for the paint...stud walls with car siding; hinged window on the sun porch that swung up and hooked to the open ceiling joists. Perimeter foundation was rock/mortar, but interior support of floors and walls was century old tamarack logs placed on end in the crawl space. I spent a month crawling/rolling in the dirt crawl space on dirt that had not seen daylight/rain in over a century (it was like working in black talcum powder)...cutting/chipping out the support stumps & replacing with concrete piers/post, and leveling the floor & walls (up to 4" sag in some areas). When floor was leveled the task went to jacking up 15 to 30 ft. sections of the roof, removing the existing perimeter wall portions & replacing with new sections, removing the roof support and moving around the perimeter walls repeating the process. The upstairs half walls had been pushed out of level by a century of snow load & sagging bearing walls, so cables were run/secured inside the walls & trusses on both sides and attached to (new) stringers under the first floor. 2X4s were ripped diagonally and screwed to the existing half-walls to make them "cosmetically" appear straight/level. When the framing/leveling was done, attention went to the roof. There was 11 layers of asphalt shingles on top of 2 layers of cedar shingles. I removed the shingles by cutting out (with a circular saw) 2ft.X3ft. sections of 2' thick shingle-layers. Each section weighed about 50lb. and was nearly 2' thick. I worked alone and spent the better part of a year from start to finish, but the finished product actually looked like a new home. Funniest part was when the owner's 40+ daughter went to her upstairs bedroom and saw the "cosmetically" straight walls. She gave me a hug, thanked me profusely, and told how she'd been afraid (since she was a child) that the walls /roof were going to collapse on her. I smiled at the owner & later told him I didn't have the heart to tell her she was still sleeping inside the same walls/roof. Sorry I don't have pictures, but I never got my copies from the owner's wife.

[CAMAN]

What was wrong with the bathroom? You had a toilet and a plunger, what more could you ask for? From what I see all you had to do was add a roll of TP and a magazine rack and you were set.

LOL!

Sad thing is all the plumbing in the house was a mixture of black pipe, galvanized, and copper, and the reaction caused between all of them completely clogged all the pipes so there was absolutely no running water in the house, I have no idea how long it had been since that toilet got flushed.

Funny story with that bathroom. While I was outside working on the house one day I had a cop roll up. Thinking I may have been working too early and being too loud I stopped what I was doing and walked over to her. Instead she starts saying how great of a job we were doing, and she thought the house would need to be torn down. Also she had been called to the house numerous times. One story she told me was she and her partner were called because the old lady that lived there was on a suicide watch. The front door never locked so they were able to walk right in and look for her. They cleared the house and couldn't find her until they look over and spot her dog being real weird in the corner, at that time they notice the door to the bathroom. So while her partner watched the door, she snuck around the house to peek in the window. As she peers in the window the entire window frame and everything tips into the bathroom and breaks, then is when she sees the woman go flying out the bathroom door...completely naked! She runs into the house just as the lady gets loose from her partner and starts running up the stairs. She takes after her and catches up on the stairs where she has to wrestle a 60+ year old completely naked woman to the ground, and let me tell you, I met the lady a couple times as she would walk by almost daily to see what was going on to her house, she is the last person I would want to see naked! She also said that was by far the worst day she has ever had while being a cop.

BTW - Thanks for the compliments, I had a great time on the project and wouldn't mind at all doing it again. It took a couple months longer than I had hoped, but with any large project like that there is always unexpected things that pop up and slow you down.

I also love seeing other people projects they all look great so far. Josh- wish I could see your pictures, but they aren't showing up.

[BoxMN]

Hey hawgchaser, just curious, but with that much work, and time and new material, would it have cost less to demo the cabin and build new? I know there is sentimental, etc. but sometimes on something that small, might it not be best to start from scratch? Just wondering thnx

[hawgchaser]

Quote:

would it have cost less to demo the cabin and build new?

Without question, it would have been cheaper/easier to demo/rebuild. The cabin was situated on a lake "bluff". With lake shore set back ordinances now, had we demolished/rebuilt, the replacement dwelling would have to have been moved far back on the lot from the original site. Instead of a panoramic view of the entire lake, they would probably have had a glimpse of the opposite shoreline IFFF they were in the second floor bedrooms. It would have been cheaper & easier to demolish the wraparound sun porch, too but the interpretation in our area is that one existing wall must remain in place during renovation to exempt the structure from "new construction" site rules.

The owner was a retired bank manager from Chicago as well as an international banking consultant, so money was not an issue. He was living in the cabin during the Summer portion of the remodeling. I'd be under the floor working and would mutter an expletive. He'd sometimes say, "What's wrong?" Several times I'd respond with, "Don't worry, it's just costing you money. A dam costs a little; a sheet costs considerably more."

[PurpleFloyd]

Nice work guys.

Personally I hate working on my house so I guess my favorite projects are the ones someone hires me to do in their house.

[delcecchi]

Great job. nice beadboard.

[CurtisJakes]

I am totally impressed by the way you had renovated the whole house. I like the interior and exterior design of your place. Even I had thought about the renovation of my place I am think to appoint long island driveways pavers as I had heard a lot about them should I go for the same need suggestions.

 

[tlnz]

I am still a beginner in DIY. I enjoy taking up woodworking projects. I tried making some stools for the garden, though they are not perfect I think I did a fairly good job for a beginner. The Diy job that I hate the most is electrical repairs and installation. I recently bought an intrusion alarm monitoring system ( http://www.fire-monitoring.com/intrusion-alarm-monitoring/ ). I called some professionals to have it installed.