One Sixty: Expensive Decisions

Expensive Decisions

Remember those little dormer doors? I got price on them. At my dimensions, with one raised panel, each door will cost $140. $30 shipping. Without the raised panel it would be $120 per door, same shipping. A little freakin' expensive, right? That's more than a full size door. Amazing what they can charge for stuff now a' days. So I guess we'll try to make them ourselves. I'll print out those pics and we'll see what we can do about building them.

Also, we talked to our carpenter about the whole "new bathroom plus upstairs bathroom stacked on top thing." He thinks that while we're tearing off bathrooms and building new ones, we should add rooms on top of our kitchen and mudroom. And while that's an exciting prospect, we'd have to have an architect draw up the plans, pull permits, go through the whole conservation commission BS again, demolish half of our existing upstairs, either move out or live downstairs, and pay a crew of three guys for a month of work - just to frame out the entire thing and get it weatherproof.

Having just come off the stress of the whole basement thing, I don't know if I'm mentally ready to go through it all again, despite my current expertise. Not to mention the cost of all that - I'm definitely not ready to spend another $10,000 or more, which I know it would cost. Three guys working for a month plus materials, plus the architect, plus permits. No way. I just can't do it with the loan for the basement already hanging over my head - and that won't be paid off for a few years.... and by a few years, I mean like 10 years.

But I want the bathroom done - BAD. I looked at a free camper/trailer last night that had a bigger bathroom than mine. That's pathetic. And IT WAS NICER LOOKING!

Blog Story

My now husband Mike and I purchased this quaint home back in spring of 2004 - our first home - and, being the handy folks we are, expected to have the entire thing renovated in about a year or so.

And here we still are... renovating away.

This house needed a complete overhaul. Its plaster walls were uninsulated, its attic floor covered in 2" of bat guano, its basement - dirt and snakes, its exterior - asbestos siding, and lead paint windows in every room. The electric had not been updated and light sockets hung bare from the ceiling. Plumbing featured cast iron radiators - and only one for the entire upstairs.

We began by gutting almost the entire house from top to bottom. (sans bathroom - we needed to pee) We rebuilt the entire upstairs, with a new floor (not new carpet or wood - the once unstable framing underneath) and turned 3 small rooms into two. We reinvented the downstairs by turning a closet into a hallway and eliminating interior exterior windows and doors from old half-assed additions.

New insulation, windows, electrical wiring (including phone and CAT-5 internet), plumbing and baseboards, and drywall were all added.

We purchased kitchen cabinets from a yard sale. (None existed previously.) Our families helped us replace and purchase new appliances including the once also missing washer & dryer.

Then we had the entire house lifted - straight into the air - dug out the dirt, and had a real basement foundation poured. We updated our oil tank and burner and created heating zones.

Outside, we took down trees and planted grass. We dug out an awkward hill to create a 2nd part to the driveway and used the rocks our house once sat on as a retaining wall. We electrified and repainted the garage.

And of course, we spent many an hour on finish work like paint, trim, closet doors, lighting fixtures, hardwood floors, curtain rods, dimmer switches, and many other things everyone else takes for granted. We are still working to complete all this final finishing, but happy to report that we are FINALLY nearing completion of all little things in all rooms!

In 2008 we began overhauling the exterior by creating a new french door entryway and building a farmer's porch and garage addition. We replaced our roof and then stripped off our siding and replaced with new clapboards. We then planted two new flowering trees and a maple in the front yard - our first major landscape purchases. I'm happy to report that here in 2011, the porch is nearing completion and the back yard is on the road to recovery with some new loam and grass. More plantings soon to come!

In 2012 we plan to attack the last MAJOR (emphasis on major) job in the house - the dreaded BATHROOM! We plan to first add a second bathroom in the basement. Then, demolish our current bathroom and rebuild it, adding a second bathroom on top for the upstairs.

And that pretty much brings you up to date. The battle continues day to day as we try and complete everything.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: Maybe cabinet doors work? Maybe even a stock size if you're lucky.; 12:30 PM
kitrainia said...: Not a bad idea. Then we'd just have to build the frame and trim it. Worth looking into for sure.; 12:57 PM
Litcritter said...: Go to your library and check out some back issues of Fine Homebuilding. They did some custom craftsman-style doors that were a sandwich of dimensional lumber and 1/4 inch hardwood plywood that looked pretty simple to make, but could give you the raised-panel look you want.; 3:29 PM
Litcritter said...: I just checked, and it's in the Dec 04/ Jan 05 issue.; 3:31 PM