Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Im going to be planning a few of those long day trips. There's not too much that I wont need, and bargains are the name of the game.
We're going to be getting down and dirty with it in May. Right now we're commuting back and forth about once per week just to get in there and clean it all out. Making our lists, and checking them twice.
Do you have any before and after shots of what you've done? I'd love to see, if you do. I love seeing what people have done when they start from the ground up and let loose. Where Im at now that Im moving from was a rehab, and what sold me was seeing what it was before the original seller got their hands on it. He'd done a great job on it, I was amazed at his "before" pictures. You could barely tell it was the same residence!
Im going to be planning a few of those long day trips. There's not too much that I wont need, and bargains are the name of the game.
We're going to be getting down and dirty with it in May. Right now we're commuting back and forth about once per week just to get in there and clean it all out. Making our lists, and checking them twice.
Do you have any before and after shots of what you've done? I'd love to see, if you do. I love seeing what people have done when they start from the ground up and let loose. Where Im at now that Im moving from was a rehab, and what sold me was seeing what it was before the original seller got their hands on it. He'd done a great job on it, I was amazed at his "before" pictures. You could barely tell it was the same residence!
Where are you living now? Why did you decide on Fairmont, price only?
I do have some pix's but not ready to show any yet. Still haven't taken the finished ones. House needs a lot of clean up. The different in this house will be remarkable too, tho the house is nothing special, your basic box 7 rooms. Tho I do have nice natural finished oak trim thru out.
Maybe I can do a set on the shed. Got to find the old one. That was a major effort, took me a tad over 2 months start to finish, but I needed the shed, real good sized one. Not built like a shed.
In the house I did have one interesting experience. The old plaster was miserable job from day one. Either the guy was no pro, didn't get paid, or drunk or all the above. I did not want to do a total gut and wound up redoing the plaster. Maybe 10 gallons or so in each room to straighten out the walls, ceilings. Bath and kitchen were a total gut.
That place in Wheeling was a life saver again. Was able to get fiberglass mesh to embed the new plaster. Also used in the stairwell to cover a crappy painted slat wood walls with a rough plaster coat, mesh and top coat. That mesh was made for roofing but worked well. It is black they may still have some, can get you out of some jams even in new work. Expensive if you can find it, there it was like $10 for a big 8" x foot wide roll.
I developed a way back when to reuse the sanding dust in typical drywall work. I can use it as an addititive to get more working time in plaster work. Lots of tricks you never will find in books. Just about done. I don't work on it in winter because of all the dust and dirt, plus it would foul up my new furnace. In a week or two should be back at the kitchen. Plumbing, wiring is done, drywall in, got to redo floor, paint, redo cabinets, finish work, etc. Then a big clean up.
My present house was just a place to move to get out of MA. Decided to rehab it. At some point may try to sell it. Not a big deal, it is so cheap to live, taxes are nothing. Also got an extra lot, total frontage of like 193 feet which is pure gold in this area. It is a good house to sell to run a business, which I have sort of kept in mind as I redo it.
Be good to see some pix's of your's if you have them and of the general neighborhood.
Right now Im in Baltimore city. We go to closing on Monday, then we move to Fairmont at the end of next month.
Actually, we didnt choose for price. WV was about the LAST place I ever figured Id end up. Originally I was planning on TX. Crime here has gotten SO bad (our inlaws were robbed and had their car stolen 2 months ago, then 2 weeks ago there was another break in attempt, plus we'd had our car stolen last month from our own parking pad out back, finally Id said ENOUGH!!)
My husbands coworker said he had a house in WV, and I actually laughed it off. He kept talking anyway, so we agreed to check it out. (He has a house in Fairmont already, and is moving back. The house he mentioned, that we ended up purchasing, was his father in laws)
I fell in love with the mountains, and the view from the back of the house. It overlooks the river with the bridge thru the trees. It's heavenly.
I loved the fact that I can leave my doors unlocked there (they had a crime spree over new years, 4 cars stolen...and 3 cars were unlocked w/the keys left in the ignition...a pretty trusting town) I grew up in a small trusting town, and Im getting to the point where I want to have kids, and offer them what I had growing up. Safety.
The price was just a major bonus. LOL!
I know I have some shots of the house, I'll dig them up for you tonight, if I can. We're really excited. Its not much right now, but it will be when we're done!!
The kitchen is stripped, it's just an empty room...the bath is atrocious, that'll be a full gut. The bedrooms and living room upstairs are surprisingly decent. Carpet needed, and redoing of the horrid paneled walls....
Downstairs, oh my. Everything needed from ceiling to carpet. Top to bottom, and all in between. The electric is up to date, and the structure is all sound, so overall, it's pretty awesome. A ton of cosmetic work, but the biggest headache we'll have is going to be getting heating. We're ripping the old baseboard heat out. I may actually just bring someone in to handle heating and air conditioning, and not deal with the headache.
The back porch has the view of the whole town, and the bridge. That view makes it all worth it. Im itching to get started!!
Wow sounds like a nice house! Can you show pictures? I would rather be there than here im already sweating again while you are enjoying perfect weather!
Right now Im in Baltimore city. We go to closing on Monday, then we move to Fairmont at the end of next month.
Actually, we didnt choose for price. WV was about the LAST place I ever figured Id end up. Originally I was planning on TX. Crime here has gotten SO bad (our inlaws were robbed and had their car stolen 2 months ago, then 2 weeks ago there was another break in attempt, plus we'd had our car stolen last month from our own parking pad out back, finally Id said ENOUGH!!)
My husbands coworker said he had a house in WV, and I actually laughed it off. He kept talking anyway, so we agreed to check it out. (He has a house in Fairmont already, and is moving back. The house he mentioned, that we ended up purchasing, was his father in laws)
I fell in love with the mountains, and the view from the back of the house. It overlooks the river with the bridge thru the trees. It's heavenly.
I loved the fact that I can leave my doors unlocked there (they had a crime spree over new years, 4 cars stolen...and 3 cars were unlocked w/the keys left in the ignition...a pretty trusting town) I grew up in a small trusting town, and Im getting to the point where I want to have kids, and offer them what I had growing up. Safety.
The price was just a major bonus. LOL!
I know I have some shots of the house, I'll dig them up for you tonight, if I can. We're really excited. Its not much right now, but it will be when we're done!!
The kitchen is stripped, it's just an empty room...the bath is atrocious, that'll be a full gut. The bedrooms and living room upstairs are surprisingly decent. Carpet needed, and redoing of the horrid paneled walls....
Downstairs, oh my. Everything needed from ceiling to carpet. Top to bottom, and all in between. The electric is up to date, and the structure is all sound, so overall, it's pretty awesome. A ton of cosmetic work, but the biggest headache we'll have is going to be getting heating. We're ripping the old baseboard heat out. I may actually just bring someone in to handle heating and air conditioning, and not deal with the headache.
The back porch has the view of the whole town, and the bridge. That view makes it all worth it. Im itching to get started!!
Yup, I sort of know what you have been thru in a big city and where you are going and why. Did it all for about the same reasoning.
The sad part if you go read that MA forum, especially anything to do with Boston and how they try to portray what it is really like. Probably about the same with any big city. For me it was not just the drugs and crime / grime but everything, a list super long, traffic, everything; every day some mess. But if you ask them around C-D never get a hint what it is really like, for Boston they sound like the Chamber of Commerce describing something that existed 50 years ago. The chuckle being none of them actually seem to live there or really know much about it.
I find I still haven't fully relaxed, on guard like in a city when in public. Maybe you never are the same again. We even have a lot of Amish. Buggy parking places with hitching posts. They don't even got to pay a parking meter.
Woodsfield may be better than Fairmont in terms of crime. You can read those crime stats and they say zero stolen cars for years and it is for real. Very common to go in the summer to the markets parking lot and see most cars with windows rolled down and many have the keys in them. Some houses have no locks, there is nothing you can call street crime as a big city person would understand it.
So are you going to redo the plumbing total at this stage? I wound up doing that, nothing was worth salvage as I found after a few weeks, the drains can be tricky to judge but mine turned out to be not only improperly installed but plugged with grease they had poured down there in the kitchen. Plus usually the venting was never good in the old days, so I gutted all the plumbing, get it while I can.
The insulation is something to pay major attention to. Easy to over look. Mine turned out to be a pleasant surprise. As built they never closed off the attic volume from the rest of the house. The attic was vented to the outside. About like having a 3 x 5 door open all year round. The last olde boy had insulation blown in all over. I figure at least three time, probably still freezing. It was everywhere, even in the interior room ceilings. You can go to Lowes or HD and get the blower to pump the cellulose into the walls. Easy to do from the inside during a rehab. Used to be a free loaner if you bought enough bales of insulation.
Did turn out super tho once I fixed it all, house is very tight. The first full year total hot water / heating bills were only $360 for the year. That was with a price of gas at $12.84 Mcf. I probably could heat the place with a couple of candles and if I got a second dog for body heat. Actually I want another forced hot water system based around a high tech wood furnace and solar heat. These gas guys bug me with their overbilling and then credits for a zillion months. They think I am like a bank.
Yeah, usually it does not pay to mess with the heating if you can get the right guy. You can't get the materials as cheap as he can. I had a local HVAC guy and I did the total rip out, chopping for the routing of the ducts and all the dog work. Only took him about a day and half to get it all in. Probably paid him $600 over what would have been my best price if I tried it. Plus you need more than one person that knows what they are doing.
Pays to get a good hardwired fire alarm system too. I went the whole nine yards and got the carbon monoxide in the system.
Cosmic--wonderful, wonderful job. this is why I enjoy coming to the forum, learning more about places (and people) that are just dots and names on my faded Rand McNally map.
Don't know what you do for a living, but if you put your mind to it, I think you could make good money as a travelogue author, a la Bill Bryson.
And I split a lung laughing at the florida invasion picture--thanks, mugsy.
When you find a place you like you can hire a private housing inspector. I paid $325 for inspection of a larger $200,000 property and got a fully detailed report of over 30 pages. It told the good, the bad, and the ugly, what needs to or should be done, etc.
Good luck finding your dream home in Oil City. I think it can be done at a pace you can afford.
We're expecting to have to do the plumbing. Its been off for a long while (uninhabited) so Id already expected them to have frozen and busted. Its one of those we wont know 'til we turn the H2O on. At this point, we've pretty much figured on everything needing a replace, and anything we find that's actually Ok is pretty much a bonus. (like the hardwoods in the living room. Bonus. We also found a vent to a 2nd fireplace that we think is drywalled in downstairs. BIG bonus. I happy danced to that finding.)
Im on the fence about the hardwired smoke alarms. We had that here, and (ok, this is embarrasing) on many occasions, my cooking has set off 8 fire alarms in thruout house. All interconnected and simultaneously screeching due to by culinary skills. LOL! We're definately doing the monoxide/smoke systems, but we havent decided if we're going to go the whole hardwired and interconnected route again. I know its smarter, and much safer...maybe Ill just have to give up cooking.
I completely understand about never losing that city mentality. My husband is going to have the same issue, I know it. He has the whole "never sit with your back to the door" mentality. I know the second I move, Ill be fine and dandy. My trouble living here is that Im a country girl. Always will be. i get myself into too much trouble because I trust too much. Moving away just throws me back into my own element. He's going to be the tougher nut to crack.
How long ago did you move out of the city?
For you, NAH...I present photos of Fairmont. I didnt have anything too great on hand, but I did scrounge up a few town shots that I took about a month ago. I made them small incase someone still had dialup...I can go bigger, if needed.
Going over the river http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5624.jpg (broken link) Typical quiet snowy streets http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5629.jpg (broken link)
the bridge into town
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5621.jpg (broken link)
relatively quiet streets http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5620.jpg (broken link) cute historic touches http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5619.jpg (broken link)
the main town http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5618.jpg (broken link)
Very mountainous. (this hill is actually my street.) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/blainers1/DCP_5591.jpg (broken link)
More to follow:
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
im already sweating again while you are enjoying perfect weather!
Pics, as promised.
