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Geoff, great job and way to go! What state is this in?
We did the same thing (old house, complete reno, finishing up this year...60 grand put into it, not counting labor). The labor costs for DIY's will never be recouped. Hopefully we will make a profit at the end. But even if not, we took a distressed house and made it shine. That's an accomplishment worth it!
In my home town. Coastal Massachusetts near the Rhode Island border. I ran the numbers at age 50 and concluded I needed a small house with low ownership costs as a retiree. I was living in Portsmouth, NH at the time and worked out that I couldn't retire there with the much higher housing prices and property tax rate. I went about 2x over my anticipated remodeling budget but I now have the low cost of ownership housing problem solved without needing to feel like I settled for something I didn't feel good about living in. It kind of sucked having to watch my bank balance constantly as I was funding remodeling and zeroing out the small mortgage. That's all behind me and I'm now focused on topping up the war chest to live on in 8 years.
In my home town. Coastal Massachusetts near the Rhode Island border. I ran the numbers at age 50 and concluded I needed a small house with low ownership costs as a retiree. I was living in Portsmouth, NH at the time and worked out that I couldn't retire there with the much higher housing prices and property tax rate. I went about 2x over my anticipated remodeling budget but I now have the low cost of ownership housing problem solved without needing to feel like I settled for something I didn't feel good about living in. It kind of sucked having to watch my bank balance constantly as I was funding remodeling and zeroing out the small mortgage. That's all behind me and I'm now focused on topping up the war chest to live on in 8 years.
Congratulations on having the vision to see this possibility and take on such a project. Your home is beautiful! Thanks for sharing your story and posting the photos.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
In my home town. Coastal Massachusetts near the Rhode Island border. ... That's all behind me and I'm now focused on topping up the war chest to live on in 8 years.
Your completed place should serve you well. (and you know how to 'fix-it' if anything comes up) Remember where you stashed those wires!
Good luck and keep diligent, 8 yrs is VERY fast (length of my last retirement / 2 yrs spent in Grad school). poof - GONE. My new plan a the 'reverse sabbatical,,, 7 yrs off, one yr working! seems like a good ratio. I enjoy work and it pays for free international travel and tops up my airline mileage / premier accts. I like the engagement / staying fresh in my high tech skillset. I don't like performance reviews, but I no longer pay any attention to them. I have totally flex hours / schedule, that goes a long way to mitigate 'Work'.
I hope your war chest endures and is adequate to avoid working (if that is what you desire).
A small house should help the recipe.
Some good friends decided they wanted to stay around here in retirement and they found a really nice very small house (950 sf) that has an open concept, quite impressive in its design with no wasted space and everything within easy reach. The bedrooms are away from the kitchen. They have a small cottage type outbuilding and they were arguing over which one of them is going to get it for their own studio. The solution was to take the attached garage, take down the overhead door and replace it with a large glass door and skylights, for the second studio. The house is energy efficient and they'll heat with a pellet stove. It's exactly what I'm looking for.
My new house will be about 770 sq.ft. (for one person). My current house feels too big at about 1250 sq.ft., but will work better for resale. It's very hard in some areas to find small houses.
Our very small house is a 2/1 of 720 sq feet. Taxes are less than $300 a year, and there is not a lot of house to either heat or cool. [ being a stucco house helps with that too] cleaning takes less time, less product.
this is a lower "class' area. and so because of that culture, the neighbors all know and support each other. There is a potluck weekly at someones house on the block and there is much bartering and sharing. After less than 2 months, I already know, respect, and trust my meighbors much more than I ever did in the 12 years I lived in a more upscale area. People have already cried on my shoulder, and me on theirs. So far, when anyone I have seen has good news, it is celebrated rather than envied. We, like the rest of the people on the block, stop by the house of the neighbor who is on hospice about half an hour a day, cleaning, dropping off casseroles, or just visiting. This is the community I have always dreamed of, [ actually I dream of an autistic community, but for now, this is close enough] and I believe that if more communities pulled together there might be less of a need or desire to move to special retirement communities that are run more by rules than by compassion.
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