Renovation Diary

I am finished painting the bedrooms at my dad’s house.  The master bedroom took a total of five coats–  the nicotine stains bled through two coats so I did a coat of Zinsser Killz primer and an additional two coats.  I’m way behind my schedule and I’m way over my paint budget.  I’m beginning to wish I’d hired professional painters.

I spent much of yesterday on my hands and knees yesterday removing the double face tape and adhesive residue from the gleaming hardwood floor in the master bedroom.  For the first time in over 40 years, the floors will be exposed.  My parents had had them refinished just before I came on the scene, and then, like everyone else in the 70’s, covered them with wall to wall carpeting.  I still have to rip up the carpet in the other bedroom, but that will wait until the living room, dining room and hallway are finished.  Painting in the larger area should be easier, without having so many obstacles, and the carpet and pad shouldn’t give me much trouble, although the tack strips might.

During the last week, there has been a lot of activity around the old homestead.  By “old homestead” I am referring to my childhood home which I am preparing for sale following the death of my father last month.   I have spent more than half of my entire refurbishment budget to replace the old driveway and to waterproof a portion of the front of the house.  The waterproofing was necessary as there is evidence of water damage in the basement which may not be so easy to disguise.  Rather than try to mask the problem, I had it fixed and can offer potential buyers assurances that there is no longer an issue.  The downside is that there is now a significant amount of landscaping to be done where the yard was dug up to apply the membrane to the foundation.  Landscaping was not part of my original budget.

The driveway was another problem that could have deterred potential buyers.  The old driveway might have lost me the same amount of money in a sale that it cost me to have a new one put in.  The only return that I expect on the investment is an easier sale closer to my asking price.  Another side benefit was the entertainment value of the interaction between a next door neighbour and the contractors.  From the day that the old driveway was removed to the day the forms were put down, the neighbour was outside with his survey and tape measure.  The day of the pour, he seemed to be constantly harassing the work crew.  I understand his frustration with the mess and the inevitable damage to the edge of his lawn, but I grew up next to this guy.  Surely he realizes that after all is said and done, I will make sure his property is restored even if the cement contractor doesn’t.

With the driveway dug up, I had an opportunity to make an upgrade that I hadn’t been planning on.  The garage was built back in 1973 or 74 and my father did the electrical himself.  A single 15 amp circuit was plenty at that time and more than enough for what my folks used the garage for.  However, being a woodworker (a hobby that has now been on hold for half a decade since we moved into a house with no garage), I know that a single circuit is not enough for the average hobbyist.  So I dug a trench and ran some 8 gauge wire in conduit to the garage.  Whoever buys the house will have the option of keeping the single circuit as is or installing a new 40 amp service in the garage.  I went through the frustration of having to cut a patio in my first house in order to run electrical out the the garage.  The previous owner told me after that he wished he had run the wire before having his patio put in.  So did I.  Being in that position now, I figured that for 200 bucks, I could save the next guy the same sort of frustration.  Plus I removed the potential for losing a sale because of an inadequately wired garage.

It’s been an emotional week.  Over the past five years, my dad had a lot of work done to the house and the property– some good, some not so good.  He spent a LOT of money– some wisely, some not so wisely.  The waterproofing and driveway were significant investments, and I really don’t think he could have afforded them on a fixed income and dwindling savings.  Some of that “not so wise” spending was coming back to haunt him.  Obviously, I  had the work done to sell the property, but I know that he would have been impressed with the improvements I’ve made.  Believe me, I wish he was still around to enjoy them.

This week, I will be getting back to the painting inside.  I want to try to finish the inside of the house in the next couple of weeks  so I can work on the outside during the early part of May and get the house on the market before June.  That’s the plan anyway.

It has now been close to a month since my father passed away.  We have sorted through most of the house, choosing what we want to keep and what we want to sell or donate.  There are also a number of items that we want to keep in the house for staging purposes.  I have made some minor repairs and we should be ready for painting very soon.  Once the main floor is painted, all the carpeting will be taken up to expose the original hardwood floors that have been covered for the last 40 years.  My parents had the floors refinished shortly after they bought the house (they were the second owners) and promptly covered them with wall to wall carpeting, which was the design norm in the 70’s.  The current carpets are about 25 years old and have seen their better days long ago.

The only bathroom in the house is quite small and I have been debated whether or not to renovate it or leave well enough alone.  The floor is comprised of small pink tiles which my mother had covered with more neutral peel and stick tiles.  I have to steam the tiles up using an iron and a wet rag to loosen the adhesive.  The problem is there that there is a lot of adhesive residue left on the floor, which I am trying to remove with Goo Gone (or similar products).  The floor wax will also need to be stripped and a new coat of wax applied.  It’s a lot of elbow grease, but the only cost is pocket change.

The big question is, will potential buyers see the charm in the original bathroom, or will they merely see it as outdated?  How much return will I get on my investment if I do a complete gut and remodel (new walls, floor and fixtures), or a partial remodel (new vanity and toilet), or my simple restoration?

I am also mulling over various options for the recreation room in the basement, which my parents finished with wood paneling and a tile ceiling.  Again, there are several options, from completely gutting the room and installing drywall, or simply painting the paneling, or leaving well enough alone and let the buyer worry about it.  The carpeting definitely needs to be replaced, but I would hate to go to the expense of installing new carpeting if it is only going to be ripped up by the new owner within a couple of months should they decide to completely remodel.  Just how far do I take this “flip?”

We are extremely fortunate that the house is in an excellent location and that there is no mortgage or outstanding debt.  That buys me a fair amount of time to get things done without having to worry about carrying charges.  However, we are now entering the prime real estate season, and I would like to get the house on the market as soon as possible to take advantage of that.

Underlying all of this is the fact that both of my parents are now gone and with them the biggest connection with my past.  Each room of the house holds memories from my childhood to early adulthood.  I am human and it is sometimes hard not to let the emotions get the best of me.  But at the same time, I am doing my best to treat the house as a business deal.  To do that, of course, it is necessary to de-personalize the house in order to appeal to the largest range of buyers.  I have to erase my parents’ stamp from the house where they lived for over 40 years.

My father passed away last week.  His death was sudden and unexpected.  He died at home, in the house that he and my mother bought back in the 60’s– the house he refused to move from following my mother’s death five years ago.  It’s been a helluva week.  I am the only child so I am especially grateful for my wife who has helped hold things together and keep me sane during this very stressful and emotional time.  I could get all philosophical about death and the fragility of life here, but I’ve done enough of that over the past week.

There is an incredible amount of work to be done over the next few months.  Not only do I want to finish the second floor renovations in our own house, so our child can finally move into her room, and so my in-laws have their own space when they come to stay with us this summer, but now there is the matter of preparing my childhood home for market, preferably by late spring so the potential buyer will be able to move in before the start of the school year in September.

I have started sifting through some of the paperwork that had been filed away over the years.  My mother had kept just about every invoice for major purchases and home renovations.  Here are a few interesting tidbits:

House was purchased for just under $14,000 in the mid 1960’s.  Current value is approximately $150,000.

1.5 car garage, built in the early 1970’s, cost about $4,000.

The major appliances, still being used today, were purchased in the early to mid 1970’s.   Judging from all the maintenance agreement renewals and the pile of repair invoices, they were probably paid for many times over, but then, it appears that the washing machine was rebuilt many times over as well.

I figured 6 years ago that my basement renovation cost me around $8000 total.  My mother had jotted down the figures from when they finished their rec room in the basement and it totaled around $750 in the early 70’s.

Fascinating stuff….

Finally! We are no longer bogged down by dial-up.

Even with the hammer drill and brand new bits it took a couple of hours to drill all the necessary holes in the brick to mount the outdoor modem and run the wires into the house. A royal pain in the butt. But it’s done. The real test will be in the summer once leaves are on the trees, which could potentially degrade the signal. Time will tell. But for now, everything is running sweetly. And as an added bonus, we set up our home network so we can share the internet connection (something that wasn’t possible on dial-up). My wife is doing her on-line stuff on our PC at the same time that I am typing this blog entry on the laptop. Such luxury we never knew before! And my kid is thrilled that she no longer has to wait until I finish working online before she can go on Webkinz. And if Her Majesty is happy, we are all happy.

It’s been over a year and a half since we had a site survey to determine if we could receive the signal for fixed point wireless Internet access.  While we were unable to receive a signal we were told that new tower was going to be erected in an area that would be certain to serve us.  A year and a half later, after monthly calls to our local municipal council, the local dealer and the Internet service provider, it appears that construction of the tower is no closer than it was about twelve months ago.  It has been frustrating not having high speed access, and this particular company appeared to be our only available option.  That is, until Friday.

My neighbour stopped me as my daughter and I were getting in our vehicle to run some errands and he asked me if we had high speed yet.  At first, I assumed that he was referring to the company I had been dealing with for the last 18 months.  That was not the case.  Another company has expanded their coverage and we are on the fringe.  Their technology is slightly different but operates on the same principle.  My neighbour installed the equipment the week before the quality of his signal is excellent.  Needless to say, I was on the phone later that day and the equipment will be arriving some time this week.  After almost five years in this house, we may finally have high speed Internet access.  I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high based on my previous experience, but I am looking forward to leaving our dial-up days far behind us. 

I called a company that does foundation work and waterproofing and despite being unimpressed with their professionalism, I was pretty satisfied with what they told me. I was looking for an opinion and price on my options for waterproofing. I also wanted to have an idea how much it would cost to re-build the block foundation where the previous owner had knocked a hole for the stairway from the family room addition, and to install a lintel above the large rec room window, and, since the window has to be replaced anyway, install a row of blocks so it will not be right at ground level. And then there is the matter of re-pointing some of the brick at the front of the house. At the end of the day, I will not have to spend as much as I thought I would..

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Five months ago, virtually all work on the house stopped once I figured out the disparity between managing our debt and eliminating it. I decided at that point. after adding a major plumbing bill for our hot water heating system update that I wanted to focus on debt elimination, meaning that any further work on the house would have to wait until we had the cash to pay for it. Our new-found fiscal responsibility was a convenient excuse for me to get lazy…. well, lazier than I already was. And I am pleased to say that progress has been made on the financial front, though the home renovation front remains unchanged from October. (more…)

Only two and a half weeks left until Christmas and all progress has ground to a halt. Actually, things pretty much ground to a halt back in the summer after the plumbing was done for the hydronic heat. Since then, I think I may have worked a total of about six hours upstairs. I have conveniently used the state of our finances as an excuse for my lack of motivation. We want to be able to pay for the installation of the bamboo flooring in full without adding any more to our debt load. We are only saving maybe thirty bucks per week after throwing most of our available money at our debts, so it will take many months before we have enough saved for this project.

Disciplined spending is hard when the house is a mess

Six months ago, I would have thrown caution to the wind and charged up the additional three thousand bucks I am guessing it will take to completely finish upstairs, and probably set the impossible deadline of Christmas to get the kid moved into her bedroom. Six years ago, the push to finish the basement in our old house resulted in a chaotic December that led to three days with next to no sleep getting things ready for carpet installation. Bottom line is that we were able to use the basement for Christmas.  In theory, I could do the same sort of thing again, but I need more plywood for patching the floors, and with my new policy of not relying on the credit cards, it will take a few weeks to stash enough cash to buy what I need. It is so easy to spend money we don’t have, but not so easy to eliminate the debt.

New goal

If my rough estimates are correct, our tax refund will cover the costs associated with finishing upstairs. That actually buys me three months to finish patching the holes and clean upstairs. No pressure, no rush, no plan to do anything until after Christmas. Floor installation will take place in late March or early April. I’ll install the doors and the trim by early summer. The guest room will be ready by the time the in-laws return in July.

First test of the heating system

It may be a little early yet, but we have been hit with cold weather and the boiler has been firing.  Our investment in the heating system upgrade appears to be paying off.  The boiler is not running around the clock and we actually achieve the temperature that the thermostats are set for.  The only cold spot is the one end of the house where we have no radiators (our master bedroom, the former en suite and the main bathroom).  I may get an electric baseboard rad for temporary heat before the really cold weather hits, but right now the temperature is tolerable (it’s no worse than last year when we DID have a hot water rad in the bedroom).

I don’t think the upstairs rads have been called into action yet as I have those thermostats set very low.  Upstairs is only a couple of degrees cooler than the main floor, which is a testament to how well we insulated.  All in all, the work we have done on the house so far seems to be paying off.  It’s just too bad that much of it is invisible (the heating and air conditioning).  Spending 20,000 on mechanicals is simply not as sexy as spending 20,000 on a kitchen or bathroom.

A long weekend. Monday is a day off for Remembrance Day. I went a step further and took some vacation time on Friday and Tuesday to give me a five day weekend. The plan was simple: finish patching the holes in the floor upstairs. Certainly I could do that in five days. Well, here I am, past the half way point of this time off, and I am yet to so much as set a foot on the stairs, never mind get any work done. Hope isn’t lost yet, but it’s fading fast.
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