This Old #%&@*$ House

The pool was filled this week:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/jZOlfcs.jpg)

It took about 30 hours with a garden hose.

Today the pumps were all wired to power and turned on. Some chemicals were added and all the leaves removed.

There's some fine tuning of the valves to even out water flow through the skimmers. The three water features need to be installed. The control panel still needs wiring. The heat pump hasn't been turned on, and we won't be adding salt or turning on the chlorine maker for a few more weeks (the PebbleTec needs to cure).

So still a little more work, but my wife and I took our first swim this evening!!

I really love your pool, Moggy. And congrats on the first swim! What are the three water features?

Your pool is way more complicated than mine.

SillyRabbit wrote:

I really love your pool, Moggy. And congrats on the first swim! What are the three water features?

Thanks!! Only 30 minutes tonight. We've a couple of Garmin Vivoactive HR GPS Smart Watch coming tomorrow[*], which is when the real training starts. Last time I really swam seriously, my wife - who used to swim for her high school - taught me enough to be able to swim a mile in an hour. She, on the other hand, swam 1.5 miles in the same hour. She's promised to teach me kick-turns and I want to get to the point where I can swim freestyle for the whole hour.

We've three water bowls to be installed.

IMAGE(http://www.pebbletec.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/water-round2_2in-NoBackground.png)

They'll sit on the coping to the left, between the four skimmers.

[*] they should have arrived yesterday, but were delivered "to the wrong address". Calling Amazon got me a credit; free one-day delivery; and an extra 1 month of Amazon-prime. Would still have preferred delivery yesterday...

Chaz wrote:

Your pool is way more complicated than mine.

If I'd had known just how complicated it was going to be, I'd have probably bailed on the whole idea. Talk about a frog in boiling water...

Having said that my wife, who's been tolerant but skeptical about the whole thing, loved it. To the point that she's talking about floating chairs. *sigh*

Speaking of frogs, do you see that blue thing bottom left? It's one of these:

IMAGE(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51jJce93n1L.jpg)

We have two more we'll add once the pool is finished.

There was a period of time where we had a bunch of water table water in the pool and a frog decided to spawn. We enacted "Operation Tadpole Rescue" and released hundreds of them into a local lake:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/eET8Abu.jpg)

I wondered what the blue thing was, that's so awesome! I'm glad you're helping out the frogs.

Having an above ground pool, I only had an animal fall into the pool once. Except that once was my big dumb dog, jumping in from the ground. He always wondered what was on the other side of that low wall, so he decided to jump it and find out. He was REALLY unhappy to discover it was full of water. Thankfully, he didn't put a hole in the liner when he jumped back out.

Chaz wrote:

Having an above ground pool, I only had an animal fall into the pool once. Except that once was my big dumb dog, jumping in from the ground. He always wondered what was on the other side of that low wall, so he decided to jump it and find out. He was REALLY unhappy to discover it was full of water. Thankfully, he didn't put a hole in the liner when he jumped back out.

Poor fella, I had to laugh though!

Moggy, I'll be visiting St. Pete next month I should stick my head over your fence to see if my wife likes your design. She wants a pool at our house by next summer for all the grand kids.

SillyRabbit wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Having an above ground pool, I only had an animal fall into the pool once. Except that once was my big dumb dog, jumping in from the ground. He always wondered what was on the other side of that low wall, so he decided to jump it and find out. He was REALLY unhappy to discover it was full of water. Thankfully, he didn't put a hole in the liner when he jumped back out.

Poor fella, I had to laugh though!

Don't feel bad, that idiot could totally swim if he ever bothered to actually try. And he'd seen the pool from the deck, he knew it was water.

karmajay wrote:

Moggy, I'll be visiting St. Pete next month I should stick my head over your fence to see if my wife likes your design. She wants a pool at our house by next summer for all the grand kids.

Our fence is 8 feet high and concrete

Even better - knock on the door! Happy to show you all the features. Let me know what dates.

Ever since moving into our home I have been bothered by a 45 degree drywall panel 1 ft by 4 ft above the stairs to the basement. It seems that some previous resident smacked it with their palm on the way down and just left it dented. It looked horrid and I have hated it for the past 5 years. I tried to fix it when we moved in but it was sub par and I had more important projects going on I needed to work.

This past summer I was doing a bunch of drywall work and when mudding I went over and fixed that and a few other spots in the house. I spent a lot of time making this perfect this time around so I never have to hate this panel again! It is done, fixed, smooth as anything else. I can just sit on the stairs and appreciate it now! This is one of those things that I will probably be the only person appreciating it so I needed to make a big deal about it here

Hobear wrote:

Ever since moving into our home I have been bothered by a 45 degree drywall panel 1 ft by 4 ft above the stairs to the basement. It seems that some previous resident smacked it with their palm on the way down and just left it dented. It looked horrid and I have hated it for the past 5 years. I tried to fix it when we moved in but it was sub par and I had more important projects going on I needed to work.

This past summer I was doing a bunch of drywall work and when mudding I went over and fixed that and a few other spots in the house. I spent a lot of time making this perfect this time around so I never have to hate this panel again! It is done, fixed, smooth as anything else. I can just sit on the stairs and appreciate it now! This is one of those things that I will probably be the only person appreciating it so I needed to make a big deal about it here :-)

Thank you for that

I may or may not be rubbing my hands on it every time I pass in a overly sexual format....

Hi all, this is my first post in this thread since, well, I don't own a house, I live in an apartment. However, my wife and I are currently looking to buy, and we've now seen quite a few houses. We want something older because we like older houses. They just have more character and they're more interesting.

Last night we checked one out that may finally be The One, after many duds and a couple "whoa damn how is someone currently living in this?" situations. It has quite a few things that need to be done though, and I'm hoping this thread is the place to ask about this kind of thing. The house has a few problems but none that are especially bad. First though, it's on a somewhat busy street and almost directly across from a hospital. Not sure if anyone has experience with something like that but it could mean it's a no-go.

Issues include: the siding has paint that is peeling pretty bad (it looks like the current owners painted it themselves years ago) and some of the wood is coming off, though not that badly. The kitchen actually looks great, but it has a terrible electric oven that is built in, so we'd need to cut the counters and put in our own gas oven (the house already has gas coming in, but not to the kitchen). The bathroom needs to be totally redone. It works now and is completely usable, but it's just old and bad. The driveway is skinny and there is no garage, so parking with two cars would be annoying. The hardwood floors need to be polished up. The basement is half finished and half not.

However, the house is beautiful, structurally sound, and a great size, and by fixing those things and a few others, we could easily make this house worth way more than we would pay for it. It's like a dollhouse made huge. We aren't afraid of doing some of the work ourselves either. Do those problems sound like they would be super expensive or terrible to fix up? We're just not sure if it's worth it. The price is actually pretty good, and the realtor said it looked like a really good buy. I know realtors are trying to get you to buy, but she's been pretty good to us so far and been honest about other houses we've seen and the work they'd require.

(My very personal opinion. I am not you )

I feel that buying a house that fronts on a busy street is a recipe for resentment. Maybe if you're far enough back from the road, or there's significant "shielding," I might be swayed.

Location. Location. Location. A building can be fixed... moving it altogether is (often) not an option.

Ymmv

To cherry pick a few of your concerns:

First though, it's on a somewhat busy street and almost directly across from a hospital. Not sure if anyone has experience with something like that but it could mean it's a no-go.

Sirens. Lots and lots of sirens. Not sure what traffic patterns would be like, but expect plenty of traffic between staff, out patients, and visitors.

Issues include: the siding has paint that is peeling pretty bad (it looks like the current owners painted it themselves years ago) and some of the wood is coming off, though not that badly.

Not a deal breaker. Pretty easy to sand back and repaint. Something you can easily do yourself, if you have the time.

The kitchen actually looks great, but it has a terrible electric oven that is built in, so we'd need to cut the counters and put in our own gas oven (the house already has gas coming in, but not to the kitchen).

Or put in an induction hob.

The bathroom needs to be totally redone. It works now and is completely usable, but it's just old and bad.

After kitchens, bathrooms are the hardest rooms to remodel - especially if you go tile.

The driveway is skinny and there is no garage, so parking with two cars would be annoying.

Would be a deal breaker for me. Can you expand a part of the driveway to make a pullout?

The hardwood floors need to be polished up.

Real easy, but you'll have to bring someone in to do it - requires some specialized equipment. It'll take a couple of weeks and, between dust and varnish off-gassing, the house will be close to uninhabitable.

However, the house is beautiful, structurally sound, and a great size, and by fixing those things and a few others, we could easily make this house worth way more than we would pay for it. It's like a dollhouse made huge. We aren't afraid of doing some of the work ourselves either. Do those problems sound like they would be super expensive or terrible to fix up? We're just not sure if it's worth it. The price is actually pretty good, and the realtor said it looked like a really good buy. I know realtors are trying to get you to buy, but she's been pretty good to us so far and been honest about other houses we've seen and the work they'd require.

Find a general contractor you like and have him/her come in and give you non-binding estimates for the things you're talking about. Then add 50% That'll give you a much better idea of just how much time/money/inconvenience will be involved in the various things you're talking about.

I'll second that the hospital thing may be a problem, there's gonna be lots of sirens. The busy street is only a dealbreaker depending on the person. It wouldn't bother me, but it's a hard no for my wife.

The reno stuff you mentioned isn't an immediate red light, but just bear in mind that anything house related is more expensive than you think, and there's ALWAYS going to be stuff you didn't anticipate. After our inspection, we got a clean bill of health, including the HVAC. We wound up replacing all three HVAC elements within the first year, to the tune of $12k. That wasn't anticipated at all.

So, some numbers to keep in mind based on the stuff you know about:

Painting - I honestly don't know. I'd bet it's north of $5k, and once they start pulling off rotted siding, you could easily find more stuff that pushes it even higher.
Bathroom - Figure somewhere between $10-20k no problem, depending on size and finishes
Driveway - We just got ours repaved, and it cost us about $7k. Ours is about 60' from street to garage, goes from single wide at the street to extra-double wide at the garage (we have wide doors). So, anywhere from $5-15k depending on your size and regional pricing
Hardwood floors - no idea, but a few thousand minimum because it's always a few thousand to do anything

So at best case scenario, you're probably talking $20k of improvements right off the bat. Possibly double that or more. That's not necessarily bad, just something to keep in mind. Houses be expensive, yo.

Thanks guys! I've been talking with my wife and these things:

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

I feel that buying a house that fronts on a busy street is a recipe for resentment. Maybe if you're far enough back from the road, or there's significant "shielding," I might be swayed.

Location. Location. Location. A building can be fixed... moving it altogether is (often) not an option.

Moggy wrote:

Sirens. Lots and lots of sirens. Not sure what traffic patterns would be like, but expect plenty of traffic between staff, out patients, and visitors.

d4m0 wrote:

The driveway is skinny and there is no garage, so parking with two cars would be annoying.

Would be a deal breaker for me. Can you expand a part of the driveway to make a pullout?

are basically too much for us. The house is not far back from the road at all, and there is quite a bit of traffic. It's a small hospital, but still, it does have an emergency room and ambulances in and out of it. There's no space to expand the driveway at all to make it wider. It would need to be extended straight back and into the back yard in order to make a place to actually turn around without going into the busy street.

The house is great, but the location isn't. We've basically talked ourselves into not going for it, and your comments have helped a lot. Thank you!

Edit: Chaz posted the same time as me! Thank you - these are exactly the kinds of numbers we were wondering about. It's hard to estimate unless you see the house and get an expert in there, but having some ballparks really helps.

Good luck on the hunt! It is never easy. We bought a house that was excellent location wise, mostly sound but had plenty of work that needed to be done on it. I do most of it my self and over the past 5 years we have basically been doing work over time. It is exhausting and overwhelming at times but we bought a huge steal of the house and if we wanted out tomorrow we would come out ahead even with a list of projects left to do.

That is a key thing if you look at a fixer upper, doing work is fine, just don't pay a premium to do so. Markets have shifted so let that advice be as much as you paid for it, $0. Good luck and keep us updated.

As for numbers I think I did our bathroom remodel for $1k to $1.5k by doing the work myself (the project started when I found a stone counter-top free on the side of the road that fit our counter in our bathroom we were planning on renovating). I spent the whole summer working so that doesn't take in time, frustrations, and cursing at youtube/wall mudding/ water issues (f*ck pipe work). Also when all else fails a sawzall and rebuilding is an option

There is one really nice part (besides the obvious) about being really close to a hospital. We are less than half a mile from a hospital and we are on their electric (sub?) grid. We always get power back on really, really fast, because the Hospital is at the top of the repair priority list.

However I don't know exactly how you would determine if this is the case for any arbitrary property. Depending on the wiring you could be directly across the street and on a different grid, or half a mile away and be on the same grid.

Damn, Hobear. You're my hero. I can paint and do some basic repairs and maintenance but I draw the line at anything that requires serious tools or accurate measurements.

Yeah busy street and skinny driveway sound like a nightmare. Would you have to back out on to the street?

If I'm buying a house no garage or even a car port would be a deal breaker for me.

You're too kind Enix. I guess I can thank my Dad for making me be flashlight Female Doggo all those years and osmosis learning how to do all this stuff. We just never called people to fix anything in the house or on the cars.

Thanks for the suggestions! Hobear, I think I'm similar to you in that I grew up being around my dad and granddad and others who would just fix everything themselves. There's just something that feels great about doing the job yourself and having that sense of accomplishment, even if there's frustration and it takes a long time. Every house we see I'm like, "oh I could do this or I could do that" to whatever portion of the place needs fixing or updating. That said, I've never done anything huge, but I'm excited to get started anyway.

Yonder, now that's a plus I hadn't thought about! PoderOmega, yeah, we would have to back out into the street. Not only that, but it's kind of on the side of a hill, so you can't really see too far in one of the directions. A garage is also something that's somewhere in-between our "must have" and "would really be great to have" lists. If we end up with a house that has no garage, we would definitely have one built within a short period of time.

So we've basically passed on this particular house. It's lucky we're not in a hurry to find a place, because the search so far has been rough.

Yah, I have all the stuff to finally put my bathroom together again, but have to wait till Minnesota Renaissance Festival is over so I have my weekends back(one final weekend) and my younger brother who is a carpenter has time to help me.

My wife and I many years ago bought a house on a short sale. There was quite a list of things to get done. In my mind, they were all going to be done in a year's time (first time homeowner, no idea what I was thinking about how I would afford it and it all would get done!).

Anyways, we had the house for 5 years. Each year was a project to tackle based on my yearly bonus. Replace all the windows in the house with double pane, the chimney lining was deteriorating and we had to get that fixed, the basement floor needed to be completely redone, etc ...

When you find a fixer upper, I think you also have to take into account that while the work will get done, it may take some time. You have to prioritize and figure out what you are willing to live with and what will drive you absolutely crazy. The driveway, I could never do a narrow driveway. Even if it was in the budget to get it done, how long could I live with that before it drive me insane?

Know what's even worse than a narrow driveway? A heavily rutted driveway. Ours was bad enough that whenever we got heavy rain, we had a lake going from the street halfway to the garage. In the winter, if we had a warm day, the snow melt would make that lake, and then it'd freeze and I'd have a skating rink for weeks.

It actually got bad enough that when we got those warm days, I'd use a sump pump to empty the water of fthe driveway. Getting that repaved was one of the best things we've done to the house.

Oh man these are great things to keep in mind. At some of the houses we saw, it was alright, we could live with this for a while, but for some things it's, "that's gotta be changed or fixed before we even move in." It's good to stay grounded in some reality too about how long it takes to get things fixed or updated.

An ice skating rink driveway sounds terrible! As if shoveling wasn't already enough...

We just moved in, and my one big project I wanted to do was get rid of the popcorn ceilings. I didn't plan far enough ahead and just barely got everything lined up to get it done before we moved in. Then it turned out we had asbestos in the popcorn, which would practically double the cost of removal. It ended up being a mixed blessing as the money I set aside for that was eaten up by misc. other stuff in the next couple months.