What type of renovations have you done in your home?

[homemaker carol]

We have an old Victorian home and have done some major renovations.

~we stripped all the plaster and lathe, then put made 6 inch walls and insulated.

~we have most of our windows and all of our doors changed to new windows.

~we are now looking at renovating our entire kitchen.

[dolphindream]

Hopefully I can remember everything we've done so far..........

- The utility/laundry room was just a big empty room when we bought the house with one shelf and storage bar on the wall. We drywalled the exterior wall that was just concrete block, textured the walls, and painted. We textured the ceiling, painted it, and installed two new light fixtures. We had an outlet either moved or added (I can't remember at this point) and updated all the outlets. There is a door from the kitchen into this room and to the left of the door is the furnace. We had a half wall built there to sort of hide it and moved the garage door opener to that wall. The room is 200 sq. feet and we wanted to make the most of it. It is longer than it is wide so down at the far end dh built a floor to ceiling shelving unit as wide as the room. It's massive! He also built upper and lower cabinets that go along the left wall (they are over 8 feet long each). We just got the countertop on the lower cabinets and I have been busy filling them up (homeschooling supplies, 2 scrapbooking shelves, a quilting/cross stitch shelf, our encyclopedia set and eduational magazines, hurricane supplies, etc.). Dh is in the process of making 2 more smaller floor to ceiling shelving units - one will go behind the door that comes into the room from the kitchen and the other will go beside the exterior door that leads onto the back porch. We still have more to do such as tile the floor. We also replaced the water heater (freebie through dh's work) and are about to replace it again with a larger one that is more energy efficient. We wanted to go the solar route since that is one of dh's specialties, but the price of the solar heaters went up and so did the panels plus dh has been installing a lot of new panels as a result of the hurricanes damaging ones last year and the insurance companies are paying very little of the cost. :( A panel on our house would have to go on the east which is where the storms initially blow in from and with all the reports that we are going to continue to have bad hurricane seasons, we decided to not do solar (and I am heartbroken about that because I love the thought of solar energy, but we can't afford to replace a panel often and not have insurance pay a fair portion of the cost).


- The hall bath is currently under remodel as well. We gutted it - ripped everything out. We replaced most of the ceiling, moved the location of the toilet, added a soaker tub, made the closet a bit smaller, put up new drywall, textured the walls and ceiling and painted. Dh still has some sort of walling to put up around and behind the tub (I can't think of what it's called - backer board?) and he will be building the vanity. Our tile will be started on Monday (tile from around the tub all the way to the ceiling and tile floors). We also installed a new light fixture. We still have to get a vanity top, new fixtures/faucets (being given to us free through dh's work), have the outlets updated, get a mirror, and finish the closet.


We have also installed new doors on all 3 bedrooms and both baths will get new doors (not installed yet) along with new door knobs. We replaced the front door, the dining room door that goes out onto the back porch, the door from the kitchen to the utility room and the door from the utility room to the back porch and all the door knobs. Oh, and we put in a new door from the utility room to the garage and some new light fixtures in the garage. We also busted out all the old windows (had to literally bust the stucco to get them out), installed new double paned windows and repaired the stucco (it still needs a bit of work though).

I think that's it so far. By the time we're done, basically the whole house will have been remodeled.

[mom2oneboy]

We have remodeled a bathroom, there was a leak and the floor got ruined so dh redid it. It looks really good. It took him serveral months to complete but once it was done it looked great and we saved money.

Here in the next few months we are going to work on a addition that we are going to put in all new windows and replace the wood siding with vinyl. The rest of our house is brick and has new windows.

We also eventually want to work on the two attic rooms we have.

[Sara]

None. How sad is that? :o

[MandiDawn]

Two years ago this week we bought a fixer-upper, and we are seeing the end of the tunnel at this point.

We have:
Gutted the kitchen, put new subfloor, build half wall to make a kitchen/dining room, put new cabinets, applicenes, ect in.
Fixed all holes in the walls (there were so many) and painted.
Put new vinyl fence up (old wood one kept falling down)
Put new roof on.
Planted 2 trees
Built shed in back yard
Put new doors on front and kitchen (need one more yet)
Put 6 new windows in, widening the spaces to make it look better. (have 3 more to go)
Insulate under the house
Took down and replaced 2 ceilings (they were water damaged and had that "popcorn" look we hate)
New carpet in half the house.
New floor by front door (it's tile)
Planted 7 shrubs along property line to block neighbors house (did this yesterday, need to go buy 2 more yet for a total of 9)

Now do you want to know what's left? Of course you do lol

3 more windows
Drywall mud room and put down new floor.
New door in mudroom
New Patio(backyard) and porch (front yard).
New bathroom (gut and replace floor, everything)
Ceiling in bedroom, carpet in bedroom, closet doors in bedroom
Trim thruout the whole house needed.
Landscaping.
Make driveway bigger.

We hope to be done and out next year, but it might take us two more years.

[debbiepittman]

We're only painting mostly and put in some heaters and things. We need to put linoleum in the kitchen and repair the roof. We also need a new floor (wood and everything) in the bathroom.

Debbie

[dolphindream]

We just gutted ds's room over the weekend. So far dh has made a proper place for the cable outlet (when we bought the house it had just been pulled through a hole in the wall way above the electrical outlet - dh lowered it to outlet level and put in a nice box and cable plate on the wall). Dh also has scraped all the popcorn texture off the ceiling (I want him to do the closet ceiling as well) and has repaired most of the drywall (former owners had left some pretty larger holes in the walls from bolts that must have been holding heavy objects).

[seadream]

Nothing really major yet, we have ripped up the ugly orange 70 style carpet in the living & dining room, painted over all the panelling, took down awnings on all the outside windows.

Right now we are having new sidewalks put in but we are not doing that ourselves, hired that job out.

Next is a fence for the yard and completly redo the bathroom

[mom2knk]

We have done some but have a huge list of things still to do!!!

-put in wood flooring in kitchen and dinning room
-ceramic tile in all 3 bathrooms, laundry area and water heater/furnace closet
-oak mantle over fireplace
-new oak banister and thingies on stairway.....oak slats on outer edge of all steps
-converted hall closet into 2nd pantry
-dh is putting window sills on all windows.....they didn't have an actual ledge/sill
-installed new cabinet/sink in dks bathroom
-new fencing in backyard
-replaced patio cover
-poured cement area behind garage in backyard
-dh built window seat/storage area in dd's room
-dh built desk area/storage area in ds's room
-painted both dks rooms
-dh built his own garage organizer thing....cabinets and storage areas
-working on closet organizer for our walk-in closet
-built-in area in xtra closet in our bedroom to put computer

We have tons more to do........dh is doing all the work himself........I help where I can and when he isn't yelling at me!!!!:D

[CANDY]

Renovations we have done so far:
*new doors
*new deck
*new carpet in the living room
*painted bathroom, and living room

On our to do list:
*paint the rest of the interior walls
*replace old bathtub with a new one
*new windows
*add another bedroom
*adding onto the kitchen

[Mamawolf]

We put a tile backsplash up over the kitchen counters
Put an island in the kitchen, 3x3 with outlets
Painted kitchen and put up a chairrail
Painted the hallway
Painted kids rooms
Framed the basement
Installed garbage disposal
Put in new kitchen sink and faucet
Put in a microwave over the stove
Put shower doors in the master bath

[jlxian]

We have tons to do and very little done.

We have done:
New concrete pad at bottom of porch steps (used to be a mud puddle)

New central heat/air --- the old furnace was ancient, and there was no a/c.

We are in the process of removing a false ceiling in the downstairs bedroom and repairing the existing plaster ceiling. This is actually going to entail drywall work too because the drywall only goes up to the false ceiling. (Bad previous remodel!!!)

We added a stove hood/light over kitchen stove

Replaced washer & dryer with stackable unit and installed shelving in the other half of this area -- I have so little storage!

Added dishwasher to kitchen.

I just got a new kitchen stove, but that was out of necessity, not a renovation.

After our garage burned we built a lovely new garage which is a big improvement.

We have added insulation to attic and to basement ceiling.

We NEED to do:
redo bathroom entirely
Replace hot water heater
Replace/repair water softener
Refinish hardwood floors
Resurface living room ceiling --- not sure how to do this --- drywall?
Painting everywhere
Oh, and replace the septic system ---- UGH
Rebuild back porch. Its a pile of rubble from an old porch which previous owners knocked off and replaced with a poorly built deck. Deck is gone, and we have the rubble.
And as much as I hate to do it, we really need to replace our beautiful old fashioned windowed outside doors with something more energy efficient.

[Michelle]

Our home was only 9 mos old when we moved in, so there haven't been any major renovations. We did need to buy all new appliances and things like toilet paper holders, blinds, etc that the former homeowner took with them. We had literally nothing when we moved in.

[Krista]

Any time you drop a bike, you should also get in the habit of cycling the key off and then back on before attempting to start it again. A lot of them now have tipover detection built in and cycling the key resets it.