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This has been a year of house projects. It started January 2020, exactly 1 month after renovating the laundry room because the dryer died and needing to change the layout to stack new ones, that a pipe broke. I fixed the pipe and never repaired the damaged drywall. Then last June, a hose bib busted, spraying water into the electric panel and frying the electric panel, well pump and flooding the basement. We had a team of electricians work for a week to upgrade the electric. I demoed the wet areas of the basement and left it be. We had already scheduled a contractor to replace our leaking roof, remove the asbestos siding and put stone on the front of our house and repair the falling down chimney. I couldn’t swing another project... mentally or financially.
Which brings us to last week, when yet another copper pipe broke, warping the family room floor. Had to rip that up due to mold. So the 1970’s ugly paneling came down with it. This week we are cutting out the remaining areas of drywall and replacing all old copper pipes with new cpvc. A drywall guy we met in Home Depot starts tomorrow.
Hopefully everything gets painted by end of next week and new flooring can be laid that weekend. And i might as well go all out and get the new cabinetry for the laundry room.
After tearing out the basement paneling, we learned the area needs to be studded properly so finishing the basement again will be a slower project.
"replacing all old copper pipes with new cpvc." You didn't ask, but my opinion is use PEX, not CPVC. You've already had broken pipes, CPVC will freeze and crack....PEX can take a freeze and not crack. PEX is easier to run, and fewer joints in PEX leaves fewer places to leak.
Besides that, I too am working on a laundry area, down to painting trim and installing shelving and a 5x5 picture window. But to get to this point, I had to jack up the house (had to find low profile jacks first), replace a rotted sill, level the floor, add insulation, new wiring, moved the plumbing, remove old bead board ceiling, 50's paneling, lay new flooring, new sheetrock, etc.
At the end of last year I put in 4 suntunnels/suntubes and love how much light I've had through the worst of the winter. Also changed out my window shades to something much sheerer so getting even more added light.
At the moment, just some small stuff like replacing a sink and a couple faucets.
But this summer I'd love to get a couple sunsails put up to shade my south-facing deck but can't find anyone around here that installs them. And I want someone who will take the sun-angle into account from spring into fall - not just slap something up that looks okay but ends up not really shading the deck. I've seen a lot of online pics of big overhead sails but only 6 square feet of actual shade, depending on the time of day. So something more colorful and airy than your typical pergola.
We didn't do much in 2020, but in 2021 we are doing several major renovations. We are having flooring done in the kitchen, dining room, laundry room and both bathrooms. We are also having a fireplace installed where we used to have a pellet stove. it's not so much for heating (we have a heat pump), but for ambience. Plus I have several cords of wood that will last for years with a fireplace.
"replacing all old copper pipes with new cpvc." You didn't ask, but my opinion is use PEX, not CPVC. You've already had broken pipes, CPVC will freeze and crack....PEX can take a freeze and not crack. PEX is easier to run, and fewer joints in PEX leaves fewer places to leak.
Besides that, I too am working on a laundry area, down to painting trim and installing shelving and a 5x5 picture window. But to get to this point, I had to jack up the house (had to find low profile jacks first), replace a rotted sill, level the floor, add insulation, new wiring, moved the plumbing, remove old bead board ceiling, 50's paneling, lay new flooring, new sheetrock, etc.
Regards
Gemstone1
We are using cpvc because I have a warehouse full. We are relocating the lines and no pipes will be on exterior walls. Freezing won’t be a huge concern.
We didn't do much in 2020, but in 2021 we are doing several major renovations. We are having flooring done in the kitchen, dining room, laundry room and both bathrooms. We are also having a fireplace installed where we used to have a pellet stove. it's not so much for heating (we have a heat pump), but for ambience. Plus I have several cords of wood that will last for years with a fireplace.
Flooring is easy evening and weekend work! I have replaced some of our floors 2-3 times in the last 5 years.
We have a heat pump that has never worked right. Right now, I am sitting here with a heavy sweater over my clothes and have a few blankets over me. The temp in here is UP to 67 AFTER it was worked on-AGAIN. Much better than it was last week (58). After 7 years of fighting with our heating system, we are basically DONE! We have decided that we are going to replace it (when the weather gets warmer).
We want to keep with a heat pump. We had a guy come this morning, took measurements and looked at all our vents/returns. Told us that he will have recommendations for us probably next week or so. He did say that heat pumps have come a long way since this unit was put in. But, he also said that this unit has a weird configuration. I don't know if it was the installer or the people who sold us the unit. But the choice to go with THIS unit was not ours. It may have been our contractor's when we were restoring the house before moving in.
We are both looking forward to a system that works the way it should.
I am at the back end of painting out 54 stair spindles (from wood stain to white). Likely the most tedious DIY project I have ever done. Only 9 more spindles to go!
After the spindles are done we are adding a fireplace to a weird recessed wall space in our MBR. The old owners had a dresser tucked in there.
I had two gas leaks one serious under the shutoff valve outside the house and another under the shutoff valve by the meter. The cost was $600 to fix both.
I had the front door painted, a two-day job and I like the results. After & Before pictures.
I had two gas leaks one serious under the shutoff valve outside the house and another under the shutoff valve by the meter. The cost was $600 to fix both.
I had the front door painted, a two-day job and I like the results. After & Before pictures.
I love the blue! If I may ask, what color/paint is it?
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