Look what we Got done!

So here are some more photos of the week/weekend.  Parents came down and gave us gracious help with the kitchen. Huge progress was done on the kitchen as well as the wall that "was" in between now it is just a gaping hole that needs to be filled. However, in that process we found out how much wiring work was needed in the house... the current system does not make very good sense. I guess that's the winter project.

Notice the cabinets/ drawers moved?

Yeah tons of Sheet-rocking there

Oh and the cabinets; Oh we got things to say about the cabinets  Thank the Lord for a patient father to help us save our old cabinets and build up some new ones. This is something each homeowner/ re modeler will discover, you can save things if you have a tight budget, but they will take time and skill. I know if it were just my opinion, the cabinets probably would have come out, but to get the stoutness of these. it may have been close to a 3000-4000 dollar cabinets, not to mention the work/time for re-sheet-rocking. Though the plumbing had to be updated and I am going to re-route wires this week. We think the decision to keep and restore the cabinets will be a good one. Once again...a big THANK YOU goes out to patient help.

Space for Oven(L) Dishwasher(C)& Sink (R)

Our small Peninsula (yay no-more wall)

Basement Laundry room cabinets were painted up really well.  Look!!!  A toilet!!!

We got a splash of color on the once dull and boring stairwell. Then there is the outside of the bathroom window, as you can see we have to do some residing, but we really don't have alternate ideas for the space... suggestions?

Bagster Cloth Dumpster

So obviously, we can go too long with hearing another helpful hint about remodels that we have come across in the process of our project. When we started to do the tear out of the the bathroom walls and beginning to take the wall between our current kitchen/ dining room, we were finding that we had quite a bit of trash. We had a couple of options for getting rid of that trash but needed to decide which fit our needs best. This is what we found.

The Waste Management Bagster: This is something that you may have seen a commercial for or in the home improvement stores. You buy this Cloth (non-recyclable) bag that is a about 10 ft by 5 ft and you are able to place it where ever you want as long as it is 10' away from trees and close to either your driveway or street. You can fill it up with up to 3300 lbs of waste, obviously no chemicals or asbestos or hazardous material; and then once it is full of all of your junk, they come and pick it up with a crane-truck.

 Now above is a picture of our second one not our first one, I wish I would have had a picture of it, it was heaping full, bulging at the sides, but as long as the two side ropes can touch, and it is under 3300 lbs you are good to go. And boy did we use it to the fullest (pun intended)

Link to their site  Bagster.com   Code for 5 bucks off collection 100-WMSAL-192441 Exp 12-31-10
 
I would say they work pretty good, they seem to hold a ton of stuff in it.  The price may be Equal or less than a regular dumpster, but you are paying for the convenience to place it where you want and all you have to do for pick up is call them 1 day in advance and they come and pick it up for you.  The cost is comparable to that of a dumpster depending on the prices in your area. It is 30 dollars for the bag and then 99 to pick up the first and then 70 for each on after that as long as they are all picked up at once.

Pictures mas

Well we went to the house tonight and despite it being cold outside and our heat not to be turned on for another 4 days... we seemed to manage.  Since the last round of photos we have gotten the bathroom ready for tile and mud. However, we had 3 guys help us out and I can't say no to free help, but it is going to be a little work to patch all the extra holes in the walls.... and none of them are in sight to help do the patching.

We also tackled the kitchen floor we took the old 1950's era linoleum  to reveal even cooler 1940's era.... sadly we are tearing it out, there were too many nails in it to justify keeping it. Oh and since I was having so much fun... I put my hand through a nail; and get to go get my booster shots tomorrow!!

This weekend should be another fun one, Just like any other we have help coming in, because we like the company and it is always nice to see family. ( the best part is soaking in the hot tub when we are done for the day at the parents motel)

More Photos...

 

 

Smart Shopping and Smart Spending

Well happy on-lookers, I am sure you came rushing to the site to find some more insight on where we are on our little remodel and some updated pictures.  Well I am sorry that there are none to greet you here; however there will be some probably within 24 hours of when I am making this post.

So, as we have been working on this remodel, we have been coming across some things that surprised us or that we made note of.  We would love to pass them along to help you be better prepared for your own DIY remodels.

1) On sale vs. weekly advertising:
          We have been noticing something in ads and just want to point this out to those of you who are hunting for bargains:  many times a place such as Menards, Lowes, HomeDepot. etc will put out flyers with advertising along with sales. If you actually take note, a large portion of the items in fact are not on sale, have special contingencies to the price, or are really not a bargain.  To really know how worth it your purchase is, you need to be looking for a previous price or a percentage markdown.  We found ourselves going though the isles of these stores looking for something in the flyer just to find it and find out it is not worth the hassle it put us through.

2) Budget Eaters
      Item #2 on our little handy lists of remodel notables is all of those little things that you need to watch out or at lease be aware of when planning a remodel. For our remodel we tried really hard to try to plan for everything that we could possibly need for the house. Really when it comes down to it,  there are many things that you find that you are either missing or have not accounted for as you work on the project. You may know that you need pipe for some plumbing, but may forget that you need to buy 3 new $5 brass fittings for it.  You also may remember that you are going to be using 6 sheets of drywall, but never take into account that you will need a $7 keyhole saw or a $4 dollar box of drywall screws. It is really hard to anticipate these things, so just know when you are planning a project, that another 5-10% could be spent on items that you did not account for in your original plan.

3) Tracking and Budget
      I am glad I am blogging, so I can say what I feel. However, everyone has their own methodology of tracking, planning, and budgeting. For us, we laid out a plan, and we knew that we had a certain amount that we were wanting to spend, and that we had to do everything within those means. First of all, and maybe obviously, do NOT ever plan to spend every dime of your budget. There are always things (like above) that sneak up and break the bank on the budget. it may be harder, but in the end it will be worth it. If you have 6000 to spend and you  only spend 5300 after careful planning and a couple of unexpected expenses but within your plans, is that so bad?  I mean who is against spending less to accomplish a good product?  Lastly, track everything..... and KEEP RECEIPTS in one place (file cabinet). these two things are so helpful down the road.  Not to mention if you buy too much, you can bring some things back for refunds. It allows you to see what you have spent and "how much" you have left to spend.....

Ok, off my soap box, pictures of progress will come soon!!

As Promised Progress..

 Well we made some progress over the weekend, and we hope to be twice as far by next. Gutted the bathroom and also got all of the plaster off of the wall between the dining room and kitchen. (which will be coming out soon..

Also some of the family came into town and helped us to clean up the front of the house as well as
took charge of bedroom #1 and got a great coat of color on the walls

But, remodels are expensive....

We will try to highlight what we do in photos but let you know how we are trying to do  in order to remodel on a budget. There are some things you shouldn't buy used... that is true in many instances, but for remodels....there is hardly anything you can't. Heck if you wanted to you could re-use nails. I wouldn't but you I guess could.

Things for remodels can be expensive; tile, bath and light fixtures, wiring  and small things that eat into the money that you planned for the fun details. We have found a couple of good ways to cut down on that.

Where have we been getting deals?

Habitat ReStores  ReStores accept donated goods which are sold to the general public at a fraction of the retail price. The proceeds help local Habitat affiliates fund the construction of Habitat homes within their communities.  ReStores provide an environmentally and socially responsible way to keep good, reusable materials out of the waste stream while providing funding for Habitat’s community improvement work.

Craigslist.org  Site where you can Barter/swap/or find materials that people are no longer using and selling/ They also have a free section, where there are sometimes really good items for free because people just desire to get rd of good items for no reason. This is the case for a couple of the things that we have for our house.

FreeCycle.org      It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. People are all about reusing items and giving them a second life. and its like pay it forward in usable items!!!

Re-use what you take out   Sometimes a little extra creativity can go a long way. If you are tearing things out, keep them for one of two reasons.  1. You can reuse them somewhere else in the project for accents or decoration, or if you are daring enough, to reuse the item in a second location. 2. Donate them to the local ReStore or put them up on Freecycle or Craigslist; most the time there are plenty of people out there looking for jus the item you no longer have a purpose for

You will probably read of our finds as we go, especially as we put them in.. I will just say, with some flexibility and some patience you can really curb your budget by using these resources

Down to Pictures.. and then we can explain as we go!!!

So here are some of the pictures of the before...None of this will drastically change, but we will post the pictures that change as we go.. We did some remodeling  Demolition over the weekend and will get some pictures up this afternoon!!

FIRST TIME HOME BUYER = US

We are "middle Class" Americans trying to buy a home and make it our own without breaking the bank, but how does a person do it? Well that's the fun part; with time and effort and a hint of patience, me and my wife believed that we could do just that.  The house itself, was a good place for us to start, we did not have much to spend on a house but we didn't want something that we would stick our every last penny in in-order to make it "ours".

Me and my wife had been looking at houses that ranged from 80,000 up to the 105,000 mark (we were told that that was the tipping point of houses in the area from being fall-apart to move-in-livable.) Many of the homes we looked at had some work to be done, whether it was a bathroom that needed to be redone, or the bedrooms had the smell of cat and the carpets would have to be replaced.

We were looking for a house that had "good bones" so to say, structurally clean, good wiring and plumbing, and no signs of walls pushing in or termite damage, but just needed some personal touch and paint. This is a list I think that most people have when looking for a house, but don't always get all the options. What it came down to is we were looking at foreclosures (then the baggage that could come with them). We get to that later.

When looking for a house it was important to us to have a large living room (because we love to host people all the time), and a kitchen that did not cut off us from the world outside the kitchen. And of course a garage for me to tinker in :) . Its good to set some standards, and then keep those but be willing to compromise if the need arises while looking at houses. Odds are there is a house out there for everyone, one may see 5-30 houses before they find one they even like; We were told the average number of houses that first time buyers will look at is 7.... we looked at 11 of them, but only seriously considered two. What happened for us is as we saw houses we complied things about them we liked and didn't like; then took the like list and ordered it into priority. That was what had to be in our house, and what would be nice but not necessary.

Next is the fun part --making it ours--