BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Home Improvement Lots of work to do

I just re-mortgaged my house and will be starting a bunch of jobs to bring this place up to standard. My house was built in 1900 and is really showing its age.

There have been several upgrades over the years and some of the work now is to actually finish what wasn't finished then.

Major job is a complete reno of the bathroom. I've always disliked the bathroom but the other jobs were more important at the time.

Next job is to repair the floor where the sunroom (added 20 years ago) joins the diningroom and to recover the whole floor in both rooms.

Next is painting - inside and out.

I am also having a sidewalk put in. The front of the house just has a gravel sidewalk and that is what was in the back too, but the gravel has long since disappeared and it is now just mud.

I have already pulled the old rotting steps off the front of the house and rebuilt new steps. The back steps also need to be done, but not as badly as the front, so those might wait until next year.

I also started pulling wood panelling from the back porch walls, planning on painting - but found the walls were in horrible shape under the panels. The thought now is to remove the walls completly so they can be insulated properly and have drywall put up then then paint. I have already put a new floor and a new door in that room, so then it will be finished.

Today, I removed everything from the walls in the livingroom and diningroom, washed and patched everywhere and was going to prime and then start painting. But then I started to think that if I'm going to properly insulate the back porch which is exposed on 3 sides, I really should do the same in the livingroom which is also exposed on 3 sides, but is much larger. These walls are lathe & plaster and this could get messy.

I don't know for sure that there is no insulation in these walls though. Does anyone know how to tell - other than ripping them apart to see? My heating bills are high and I'm thinking that I should be able to save some money by getting this done properly. Of course, then I should maybe think about the bedrooms upstairs too.

This was a bit longer than I planned. I'm just not sure what to do next or if there will be enough money available to insulate properly after the other jobs have been done.

Mavis, we are having our walls blown in. The guy that gave us an estimate said they would be able to tell if there was insulation (our house was built in 1907...no insulation at all) in the walls. They are going to make a little hole in the outside walls of the house and fill the walls and then plug the hole.

One way you might be able to get a look at the walls is if you pull out your windows. Ours have the pockets for the weights and I had to take the windows out to repair the sash cords. You can see straight up and straight down and there is nothing. Our bills are bad too...our house will only cool to about 82 in the summer and the bill is horrible.

Tearing out the lathe and plaster is going to be a big job, especially so if the lathe and plaster is in good shape.

Sounds like you are going to be a busy girl!

Thanks Connie.

It took me awhile, but I've decided to forget about the insulation for now and get the rest of the work done first. If there is money left over I will contact an insulation company to get an estimate. I'll probably have it blown in from the inside if I do though because it would be easier (& less expensive) for me to plaster and repaint the inside than to get someone to fix the outside afterwards.

Now I'm back to painting!

Hi Mavis!
Golly, girl � you have a LOT going on there! I absolutely love old houses, but have never owned one, so I�m at a loss to give you reasonable and rational advice about the insulation.

However, I just read a great book about renovating old houses that you might want to check out of your library. It�s called �Renovating Old Houses� by George Nash and if I had an old house, this would be my renovating bible! LOL Here's a short review I did on it if you want to read it -
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Thanks Donna - I may just take a look at that book. I don't have an attic here though. The house is a story & a half, so the 2nd floor has the sloping ceilings. Maybe I should see if I can just have insulation blown into the ceilings from the inside.

I have that book, it is a good one. I think you will enjoy it.

When they blow the attic in they go through the inside. Our previous house we had it done in and all there was was a crawl space. If you do the wall insulation the guy that gave us the estimate said they would patch the plugs.

The bathroom reno started today! They have already gutted the whole room, removed the wall into the next room, removed a sub-floor. They cleaned up before leaving and will be back again tomorrow to start putting things back together. This is supposed to take about 3 weeks.

The sidewalk guy phoned me and he should be showing up to do that soon but he didn't give me any day in particular. Sidewalks are kind on "on the side" jobs so if they are close by with a big job, they will come over to do mine.

I've been working on the livingroom walls in the meantime. I have a lot of furniture in here, so I move everything away from one wall, paint it, move everything back & then move everything away from another wall. I only got a wall & 1/2 painted today, but I have things cleared away from another wall so I can do that tomorrow. I'll have to wait for next weekend to go any further though.

Sounds exciting Mavis! I would love to redo our downstairs bathroom. It has horrible wallpaper that has huge roses on it. So is your bathroom going to be a lot larger?

Its not actually going to be any larger, but a larger area will have a full ceiling. I have a story & a half house so the upstairs has sloping ceilings. The floor area was actually quite large and that will now be smaller because they are going to build storage in the area with the lowest ceiling. The wall is moving out about 3 ft, but I'm losing about 4 ft on the other side.

LOL - I'm not sure if that makes any sense at all.

They have alread done more than I expected because they removed the old, old cast iron stack and replaced it with a new PVC one and they have replaced all the cheap plastic waterpipes with copper.

They have made friends with my dogs (Chester was easy, but Dakota gave them a bit of a hard time), so now they can go down the basement when I'm not home to work on the water pipes. I had to move Jewel's cage (African Grey Parrot) into a room that they don't go though because she was starting to get upset from all the lumber & supplies going past her cage.

Must be exciting to see things happening, Mavis. How long do they think it will take to get the whole bathroom completed?

Donna

They told me 3 weeks - longer than most bathroom renos because of having to move the wall. Its been almost 1 week now, so another 2 & I'll have a bathroom again, but much better than what I had before.

3 weeks...that seems like a long time! But it will all be worth it later.

Hey Mavis - how's it going with the bathroom? What's happening in there? I need details, girl! Only about a week to go, right? Are you getting excited or is it too soon to tell? I hope everything is on track.

Donna

I hope you have another bathroom Mavis and ya'll aren't having to use a portapotty!

The bathroom is coming along nicely.

The wall has been moved and the tub & toilet have now been installed. The tub surround is almost done, so we're just waiting for the sink and a bit of finishing in the room, plus a bit of fixup on the dining room ceiling since it was damaged when they replaced the old cast iron stack. I think it should be finished in a couple of days.

I have a sink & toilet in my basement and since I work at the Y, I can shower at work so I'm doing ok here.

There was a delay of one day because the sidewalk crew poured the concrete and blocked them off from coming on Thursday (even though the guy I talked to assured me that wouldn't happen). But at least I have a wonderful sidewalk now.

Here is the sidewalk progression - 1st my gravel sidewalk.


next my gravel sidewalk with the steps that I just built.


then my new sidewalk with my new steps!

Looks great Mavis! I bet you are so excited about having this stuff done. What style is your house? I remember you said it was about 100 yrs (mine is too).

LOL - I have no idea what you would call this house as far as style. Its a 1 1/2 story little house.

update:

My bathroom is finished!
I now have a full working bathroom - with all new fixtures - new ceiling - new floor - new walls - huge storage space - new light fixture. It is wonderful!

This weekend, I paint my dining room ceiling and walls and hopefully soon there will be more workers in my house fixing the floors and putting down new flooring.

Congratulations Mavis! Sounds like you are having better luck with workers than I am!

I had great luck with this company. They are also doing my floors and the exterior painting, so I hope those jobs go just as smoothly.

That is great Mavis...so you have wood floors they are refinishing for you? I bet it is going to be gorgeous when they are done and way faster than if you did it yourself. You must live in a larger area as we live in a small town and there is no one local that does anything at all. It is so bad that when we needed a plummer we called and 2 different ones asked if they had worked for us before and when I said no then they said they couldn't work for us. I even offered cash money as soon as they were finished. I think there is maybe 3 different plummers and they are all just covered up with work. And handymen, there aren't any around here either.

Yes, I live in a fairly large city, so I do have a good selections of businesses to deal with. When I was getting estimates for all the jobs, I had tons of people wandering around here for a couple of days. I was going to hire different companies for the different jobs, but the one place I picked was the only one that showed up for the bathroom reno, and by combining the jobs, they gave me a good estimate for the whole thing. They have been in business for many years and have a good reputation also.

Actually, my livingroom and diningroom both have hardwood floors, but the ones in the diningroom are in extremely bad shape - warped and very thin, so refinishing wasn't an option. They will be removing the hardwood from there and the carpet from the sunroom and fixing the join between the rooms and levelling it all before installing tiles.

Tiles...we had ceramic tile at our last house and I loved it. We had it in our dining room and kitchen and laundry room and the only thing you had to be careful about was spilling water on the floor because that tile was slick when wet!

Hi Mavis,
Your sidewalk looks great! You must be thrilled to have your bathroom done. Sounds wonderful.

What colors are you painting the other rooms and what kind of flooring is going down?

Remember...I'm a detail girl. I can't handle hearing someone is going to paint without at least giving me a color!

Donna

OK Donna - details, just for you!

The livingroom and diningroom have "oyster" colour ceilings (diningroom ceiling not done yet - this weekend), the livingroom walls have "sea sponge" colour (almost finished) with "puppy paws" trim (again not finished because I have a bunch of other stuff in my livingroom and not enough room to move furniture around). The diningroom walls have a mix of "oyster" and "sea sponge" to give a slightly lighter colour than the livingroom walls (finished) with the same trim as the livingroom (finished). Now if you don't know what these colours are, they are various shades of beige (almost white for the ceilings). I haven't picked out the paint for the back porch - but it will be a light grey once I get all the holes patched. I also haven't decided on the colours for the upstairs rooms.

The flooring for the LR & SR are beige/brown/white tiles.

Mavis...I really needed you to help me pick my beige color lol! I ended up with 5 gallons (because it was way cheaper) of pinkie beige but it has grown on us!

LOL - isn't it amazing how many beiges there are!

Hi Mavis!
Thanks for sharing your paint colors! Now what do you mean by "puppy paws" trim? Did you paint puppy paws on the trim? Or is that a term I just am completely unfamiliar with? Should I google it before I completely embarrass myself?

Our last house we had the builder paint the walls antique white and the trim white. They usually just blast in with all white. But, that slight contrast made the rooms look almost pale yellow. It was pretty.

Donna

Puppy paws is the name of the colour Donna. Its in the same colour strip as the other colours.

But - maybe I should paint puppy paws on the trim - LOL - maybe a combination of puppy paws and bird prints.

LOL, Mavis. I forgot I asked that question! Yes, puppy paws and bird prints would be a cool idea! I'm looking back at your earlier post and now seeing the "sea sponge" and "puppy paws" realizing now that you were talking colors. See...I told ya (in another post) that things have been crazy here! Taking care of everyone I've been running on vapors and I guess my brain got affected.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving, by the way! Do you feast on turkey like we do...what is the traditional fare there?

Donna

Hope things settle down for you soon Donna. If not - please take a break anyway. You've got to stop & smell the roses once in awhile

Yes, our Thanksgiving is much like yours. Turkey & ham with all the trimmings, ending with pumpkin pie & whipped cream. As always I ate way too much - but it was sure good!

Mavis, I just read your post and haven't eaten supper, yet. Yummy. We're probably going to have frozen pizza or soup...just ain't right. LOL

My kids are counting down the days to Halloween here. Then we have 2 birthdays and then Thanksgiving. I am not prepared for any of it. There's so much I want to get done on the house before Christmas.

Donna

Updates anyone???

Donna

The cooler weather has slowed everything down. We have been trying to get the yard ready for winter and still have lots of beds to clean out. Hubby has been toping off his compost bins and tilling and chipping stuff.

I would like to finally finish painting my livingroom this weekend. It was put on hold when I had to move all the furniture from the other rooms into it so the floor could be done. Since I started on other projects when I couldn't do the painting, I now have 3 things happening and end up dividing the time between them instead of concentrating on just one at a time. Then, of course, I have to do shopping and trips to the off-leash dog park on my weekends to, so it seems I do very little around here. I should be cleaning up the back yard too, because the snow isn't far off now. Anyway - I don't think I'll finish painting the livingroom, but hopefully it will be almost done by the time I go back to work on Monday.

How is the yard going, Connie?

Were you able to get to your living room, Mavis? I know what you mean about dividing your time between several different projects. I do that, too.

I'm not getting a whole lot done. Been having stomach pains for several weeks and been in and out of doctors. There is talk of surgery. Oh boy! Then I pulled my knee out and spent all last week limping around. Then just for fun I got stung by a wasp last night. LOL

I think I need to go stick my head in the sand for a while and come out when things calm down.

Instead, my goal right now is to get ready for the holidays. Gotta decorate the house and all that. Trying to get my husband to hang the lights on the roof. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac and our house is seen the whole drive down the street. I hate to not have it lit up. But, we have a steep roof, so it's really hard (and dangerous) to hang lights. He is contemplating building some kind of wooden frame to make it easier to hang the lights on the dormer this year. Not sure exactly what he means, but we'll see what happens. My 3 younger boys are all eager to help build it!

Donna

LOL - I'm beginning to think the livingroom will never be finished. I did get the trim around the windows done and the baseboard on one wall. Another wall was almost painted, except that I can't find the long handle for the roller, so I only got it painted as high as I could reach. Other things got in the way, as usual, so thats as far as I got. Weekends just aren't long enough!

I hope you can get your health problems under control soon, so you can enjoy the holiay season.

Well, you are still making progress, Mavis, so that's good, right!

I decorated the inside of the house yesterday. Put up garlands in all the doorways and windows; removed my pottery and replaced it with my Christmas snowmen collection and the whole family worked together on decorating the tree.

I haven't decorated the dining room, yet, as I have taken over the room with one of my mosaic projects. Hopefully that will be completed this week and I can add some holiday cheer in there.

There was no roof climbing. My husband and teenage son both pulled out their knees, so I'm not sure we will have roof lights this year. However, we have some lighted angels and candy canes lining the path to the front door.

Donna

I guess we finished what we could get done in the yard except for raking leaves. That is a never ending chore. I never thought having trees would be such a pain! My husband uses the leaves in his compost.

We are hosting Christmas dinner this year and so I have a bunch of little tasks to complete. So that should keep me busy for a while!

Donna, how is your stomach doing? I hope you are feeling better, holidays are so busy without adding being sick!

Hi all! I'm doing better, thanks Connie. How is everything on the home improvement front? Anyone doing anything or are the holidays slowing you down? I've been working on my gift shopping and some mosaic projects, so not much going on with the house. I'm thinking about repainting the main level after Christmas, though. Right now my family room/kitchen are yellow and the dining room and foyer are blue. You can stand in one room and see into the others, so the colors have to complement each other. Then I still need to finish painting my stairs! I am holding off on that, bec I have a couple of ideas and can't decide which way to go. I'd like to mosaic some, but...we shall see what we shall see.

Donna

Glad you're feeling better Donna.

My projects have seriously slowed down due to the holidays and the snow shovelling. At least the major work is done with the contractors, although I just called them a couple of days ago about a problem with the tub surround. I don't expect they will have time to make it here to fix it until the new year though because I'm sure they are rushing to finish some jobs before Christmas.
After Christmas I'm going to concentrate on 1 job at a time and will be getting the stairway patched & painted first. Then I'm going to finish patching & painting the back porch, before moving upstairs to painting the bedrooms and get new flooring (either carpet or vinyl - will decide later).

I am glad to hear that you are feeling better Donna.

We have had lots of ice here and some snow. The bad weather has slowed everything down and there have been a lot of accidents. We have snow on the ground now and are expecting lots more. There are more than 200,000 people without electricity in our state and this has been going on for more than a week. We have a generator just in case. So far we have been fortunate to miss out on the really bad weather.