Rehabilitating Older Houses - Some Idea and Photos (flooring, how much, roof)

[Cosmic]

The purpose of this thread is to go into some of the aspects of what it takes to find, purchase and rehab an older house. Often referred to fixers or handy man specials. This happens over most of the USA, big cities, towns and out in rural areas, the techniques and requirements can vary widely with location.

Lot of TV programs around this general subject, they are popular year in and year. Peeps like to see the action. Pix's is the name of the game in some form.

I am in the finishing phases of completing my latest acquisition to fame. Lots of people do this using various methods. Our friend NAH seems to get orgasms just talking about it. There is a lot of misunderstanding by folks who have never done it but maybe wish to try. There is no right way or wrong way but there are many better ways. There are many pitfalls to avoid.

The reasons for doing can be many. To save money, to get the house exactly the way you desire, to take advantage of your skills to build quick sweat equity and many others.

I have pix's of the before but can't put my hands on them right now, this may be a lil disorganized. I got like 57 pix's to start the show running.

Disclaimer - Your views on this subject are your own.

[Cosmic]

I sort of duplicated some information from another post just to get the background and thought train all in one thread. At present we seem to know of two rehabs underway. One in Ohio, One in WV. Some of this early discussion occurred in the post about the photo trip to Oil City in this General Forum.

The Oil City Photo Trip - You can ride shotgun

Dup is under here
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Ok, got some pix's for my house. But rather than keep mixing up subjects it might be better to move all this over to a new thread. Hopefully Blaine can move her's too. Maybe get a good idea what it is like to actually do one of these projects.

That stuff presented on TV on those home shows is a sort of distortion to what actually happens. They are not realistic in their budgets because a lot of stuff gets donated, some trades will give a knock off the price to be on camera, some see it as a form of advertising.

The size of crews also is not representative of what happens. They get the most expensive guys going to make the schedules come out right. Home Time with that JoAnn showed what went on behind the scenes to put on one of those programs. Gees like a 30 man crew to support the show.

Plus in the real World it is difficult to get competent help that shows up each day. Some are about like out friend NAH, at times it can be like watching a bunch of kids. I have been there.

The paperwork and how the purchasing is done is also distorted. Nothing ever goes completely as planned, no matter how long you have done it. I had a partner for most of those years. We basically worked out of our houses, targeting the smaller jobs, repairs, additions, rehab's, decks, porches and in lean times just about anything available to include roofs. His wife did a lot of the paperwork and manned the phone during the day, washed the bottles and had the beer ready for Miller Time, The roof is tough business, earn every dime of it. Some very good times, some horrible times.

The contract and paperwork can be mind boggling if you let it get out of hand. We figured out how to get just about every job quoted. No general advertising, no expenses, all word of mouth and building up a client base. We never wanted to get in the building of new homes. The biggest job we did was a major rehab of a four story huge house for $324K. Nobody ever got seriously hurt. We never got sued.

Big jobs take a lot out of you. Long hours, the schedule can be brutal. Something always happens to throw a monkey wrench in the works. You actually make more money with a lot of little 1-3 day jobs, lot shorter hours, lot more variety. The trade off is a lot more paperwork and set up time. The fall seasons can be mind boggling trying to get done before winter sets in. The biggest crew I think we ever had was 8 besides ourselves. Real hard hussle you can make 100K+ for about six or seven months work.

It is not an easy business, you must pay your dues, working smarter pays huge dividends, you never know it all. Today I am out of that business and do not hold a license in Ohio. Not about to get one either.

One funny story, one day my partner was putting is some replacement windows late fall and winter is coming, gloomy and was up on a front porch running the caulking on the outside to finish up. This was a good customer and when he got done, the window had streaks on it so he took a spray bottle and newspaper and was cleaning the window, had the tool belt on with hammer, etc.

This guy drives up on the street gets out and yells up.

Guy - Do you do windows

Partner - yes

Guy - How Much

Partner - (Thinking he wants new replacement windows) Yells back the standard average price --- 360

Guy - Is that for all of them

Partner - No that is each

Guy - You are rabbit assed nuts

Gets in the car and drives away. Then it dawned on the partner that dude wanted window washing. We had been missing a hot business all a long. From that point on, if anybody said "Do you do Windows" we could not help laughing ear to ear.

[Cosmic]

Ok, enough start them Pix's

The first three have nothing to do with nothing. Just 3 pix's of one cute dog. She belongs to a friend, 12 years old, will hang around and sleep in a cute lil basket with a blanket while other peeps are working. Goes riding in the car in the lil basket sitting on the front seat. Good idea of how to take the smaller pup. Just pick up the basket handle, she stays in the basket.

Caption text is under the photos.







I can smell pretzel, location 098 degrees true






Daddy I am such a good girl. Big sit...... Steady ....... Steady on





Unnnn Unnnn You Give for Me .......Ummmmmm Ummmmmmmm I am siting!!!!!!

You can't work all the time, got to have some fun. Great pup to play with.

[Cosmic]

Dan Bern on the stereo -- Thunder Road ..... Go for it. Screen door slams, Mary dress waves..... Thats me and I want you only Twang...............

House is a 7 room basic cape style, 3 bed rooms, 1 full bath, large living room, nice dining room, good kitchen. Good layout. Rehab pretty well along, kitchen still to be finished off.

I will try to thread in the details as we go to avoid huge amounts of text.

Captions under the photos it applies too. We should have something like 54 Pix to plow thru.




Inside the bath. This is showing the removal panel on the shower back side that allows getting to the plumbing if necessary. This panel was made from hickory trim I was able to score for free. A major effort was made to do this rehad as cheap as possible. This entire bath make over was done for ~$400, never done one for anything close to that amount of money before. Lots of freebies and surplus materials places for the materials. Yard sales played a bit part in finding it too.




Showing more of that hickory trim, beautiful stuff to work with, used in many places in the bath. Here is the baseboard trimmed out.





A full shot of the bath, the shower / tub is too your left. This was a complete gut with everything new except the toilet. The pedestal sink is a newbie bagged surplus, commercial model big bucks for ~$50, valves are out of my junk box. Back spash is my own design built again with the hickory trim I got free for helping a fellow clean out a barn. I think it adds a beautiful feature behind the towel bars that are recycled for the project. The floor is new vinyl bought surplus. Major effort to rebuild flooring, supporting joists, really badly cut up by a plumber, several days efforts in just the wood work under it.

Old plumbing was a disaster, complete new plumbing. Window is a new replacement, all trim was redone, as was the door. The trim through out the house is finished in natural stained wood with varnish in some spots, my work is done in poly. Heating duct was added to heat the bath, it had no heat prior. I have no before pix's in the bath it was a total disaster, big clunky cast iron tub, nothing worked, facuets dripped, drains were plugged, no shower, had to bail out the tub into the toilet for a bath.

[Cosmic]

Face on view of the sink, This has a heat lamp above, love that on chilly days





Tiled area above the tub / surround area. All that very high grade tile I bagged for $5 in a surplus store. Also got the milk for the thin set for like a $1, normally Lowes wants like $27, it all adds up. It was pinch pennies. I wanted to try to match the woodwork, might be a tad off. I know I am not gay, I got zero designer genes. My sister may have to rescue me once the house gets finished and cleaned up.



Shot showing the door. The tub and surround were bought new at a yard sale for next to nothing. Some rehab's you really have to bear down on the purchasing or it will bury you. Never can get the money back in some markets. My local market is a tad like that with no huge price increases in sight. Many folks attempt rehab's that make no economic sense from day one.

More of that beautiful hickory trim around the surround. My sister liked the bath, always a very good sign I am on the right track. She can do some killer decorating of any house. Wonderful tastes and she gets it for next to nothing.
She had seen the house in its original condition. So far I am getting the big thumbs up.

[rdw]

"What else can we do now? Except roll down the window and let the wind blow thru your hair"
Great music, GREAT job on your house, and great idea for a thread! Thanks!

I'm awfully glad that NAH got here before me and took all the slack I would've gotten. Ha.

[Cosmic]

Paid a lot of attention to lighting in the Bath. That light bar over the sink I bagged for $2 in a yard sale. Lights over the toilet and main area outside the shower.





Another shot showing lighting and heat lamp




Storage area behind the bath. House is laid out fairly well for efficient use of space. I never actually was able to see this house in person before buying it, but I got all the necessary information by having the broker take pix's. I've seen enough houses I didn't miss much, seeing it in person would not have changed the buying decision. The pipes are the main vent line going thru the roof, the sloped area to the left was a lot of hours creating a under roof air flow system and insulating the area. Has worked well, I have needed room A/C's in summer, heating bills are very low. Eventually that area will get covered with something, drywall, panels, etc. Storage is tight in a house like this. But what there is is well organized. Fellow before me left the attic volume open to this area. Froze his backsides off for probably 70 years, duh.... why couldn't you figure it out????? Typical Mickey Mouse stuff you find. Insulation under the tub, it was also probably freezing.

[Cosmic]

Hatchway into the attic. Major amount of work in this area to rebuild framing. Attic volume was open to the storage area. About like having a 3 x 5 door open year round. That storage area was the same as outside temperature. Freezing in winter, hot as blazes in summer. About a couple weeks after we moved in got a warm spell upstairs area was over 100F, dog went crazy, could not sleep at night, fans made little difference. I later found out former owner slept down stair in the dining room in summer.

Hatchway is shown open. A removable plug type door goes in there. A ladder is required to get into the attic. Crawling only. I put a catwalk up there to allow me go access for wiring and insulation work. Major amount of hours burnt in this area but spent lil money. This became super critical to get fixed immediately house was unlivable as was.




Same storage area going behind the back bed room. I will figure out how to use every inch of storage. There is about a four foot wasted space area behind the bedroom, poor initial design feature. Happens a lot in sloped walls.




Front south side bedroom, there are two identical bedrooms in front. Window shows work done that is representative of all windows. All trim pulled, old windows replaced with high energy efficient ones, I paid extra for bone color, low-E. Weight pockets were exposed and fully insulated. About a foot around window plaster was chopped out because it had rotted. This is something typical to look for in old houses. No gutting work in these rooms, plaster is all original with major replaster work over a mesh base to straighten out a super poor initial job. Salvage of plaster saves ~$300 per room, plus much labor. Lots of tricks to getting it to look nice. I can do it without creating much dirt at all by using a vacuum sanding system. About 10 gallons of new plaster was required per room, some long days. Not money spent. Biggest headache was constantly having to shift my junk around. Wiring was a bear, horrible construction techniques with much bracing in the walls, plus use of cripple walls.

Salvaging plaster also helps make the house feel comfortable, plaster has much more mass than drywall. The more mass the better the heat storage and flywheel effect. Especially on warm sunny winter days the sun shines in and heats up the walls.

[Blaine]

Good thinking on the new thread, I know it'll become my new favorite. It'll be great to see what everyone else is working on, too!
Keep those pics coming, Cosmic. That hickory is beautiful!

[Cosmic]

Bedroom door and floor, not bad wood. House is nothing fancy, basic living but very much in demand in the area if in good shape. I will have something like $33K total in the house when done. $9K or so in the rehab costs, a steal for the amount of work done. Probably could not make minimum wage per hour if I sold it.






Front bedroom have nice closets. I installed lights, they run all the way across the room. Tons of junk all over the place, typical rehab.





Tons of plaster work to straighten out walls and ceilings, you always can judge work by a good sharp corner lines.





Upstairs Hallway





Another shot Upstairs Hallway





Shot going down stairs. Major amount of work here. Overhead covered with 3/8" drywall, walls are wood tongue-groove planking, roughed with plaster, covered with fiberglass mesh and a smooth coat of mud. Handrail refinished. Burned a good amount of hours in this area.




Upper section shot. This area was pure crap in as bought condition. And NAH thinks you can find them cheap after somebody puts blood, sweat and tears to rehab one. Yup makes total sense to me.