Decision Made - We're Staying Put (benefit, older, school, senior)
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What not your shop first? Well we know who wears the pants in your family; hehe. Gotta go wife wants me to load the dishwasher.
Easier, for one. The amount of work (for me) to get new counter tops in will be considerably less than putting the shop in - even just getting the radial arm saw placed, which will be first on the list.
Easier, for one. The amount of work (for me) to get new counter tops in will be considerably less than putting the shop in - even just getting the radial arm saw placed, which will be first on the list.
HD will install for a decent price. They take the liability if anything goes wrong (measurement, etc).
BTW, on my last house HD did the roof - 50-year warranty, architectural shingles. I was skeptical until I met with the Hd rep and got all the guarantees and warranties. They did a great job. Paid for that on time with no interest.
True. But if I pay everyone to do all the installations I'll be left with little to do. And I enjoy that type of work as long as it's not too heavy, as I no longer do well with heavy things. I find as I get older using levers is becoming a familiar occurrence.
I ordered the bathroom cabinet today, and we've received the first quote on some Cambria Torquay counters. We are still mumbling about cultured marble (a lot less expensive) and are going to look into it further. $3k for three counter tops installed seems a bit excessive for us. And the pattern apparently varies quite a bit so you want to buy from someone that has slabs on hand. Easier said than done.
The cabinet is needed because we are changing from one sink to two and what we have now is a 24" cabinet at one end with sink, a 24" drawer over an opening for seating. and a 12" drawer set. We are going to slide the drawer set to the center and add a 24" cabinet for the second sink at the other end. So it will be 24" cabinet, 12" drawer set, 24" cabinet. Mrs Tek never used the opening for sitting and putting on makeup so it won't be missed.
My first job is plumbing for the second sink. Well, actually it's playing demolition man. I need to separate the counter top from the base so I can move things around while I do the plumbing, but put it back when we want to use the counter. There will also be a period when it's partially torn up and we are waiting for counter install. That assumes we buy the Cambria. If we buy cultured marble I'll install it myself.
True. But if I pay everyone to do all the installations I'll be left with little to do. And I enjoy that type of work as long as it's not too heavy, as I no longer do well with heavy things. I find as I get older using levers is becoming a familiar occurrence.
I ordered the bathroom cabinet today, and we've received the first quote on some Cambria Torquay counters. We are still mumbling about cultured marble (a lot less expensive) and are going to look into it further. $3k for three counter tops installed seems a bit excessive for us. And the pattern apparently varies quite a bit so you want to buy from someone that has slabs on hand. Easier said than done.
The cabinet is needed because we are changing from one sink to two and what we have now is a 24" cabinet at one end with sink, a 24" drawer over an opening for seating. and a 12" drawer set. We are going to slide the drawer set to the center and add a 24" cabinet for the second sink at the other end. So it will be 24" cabinet, 12" drawer set, 24" cabinet. Mrs Tek never used the opening for sitting and putting on makeup so it won't be missed.
My first job is plumbing for the second sink. Well, actually it's playing demolition man. I need to separate the counter top from the base so I can move things around while I do the plumbing, but put it back when we want to use the counter. There will also be a period when it's partially torn up and we are waiting for counter install. That assumes we buy the Cambria. If we buy cultured marble I'll install it myself.
So it begins. Where's my Sawzall?
You sound like just the man of the house over here. He has to do EVERYthing, plumbing, electrical, etc. He abhors doing sheetrock. Our builder son did most of the renovations, for which we paid. Thank goodness, otherwise we'd still be living among rubble.
When we bought this old house, we had the downstairs gutted and installed hardwood floor in living room (after some nasty demolition), moved the kitchen to a new location and moved the downstairs bathroom over a few feet to accommodate the new kitchen. We have vintage wood floors in all but the LR and also in the upstairs rooms. To get to these beautiful pumpkin-gold floors on the first level, DP had to rip up layers of old tile glued down with industrial glue. Then all the floors were sanded and coated.
We were not living in the house yet when all this wa\s being done. I was fortunate to be able to carry two homes for a short time. We had a huge dumpster to haul away all the old wood, sheetrock, and insulation upstairs and down. And the old roof shingles and underboards.
Now our builder son has become a new dad and his business has grown well beyond what mom and pop can pay him (at least we gave him his start; he also redid the roof professionally and boy did that ever have to get done). So he cannot help out anymore here. We are working on the upstairs rooms and replacing the old stairway up and adding a bath up there. It's still an old house. I should have thought to get the This Old House crew over here!
I bought this place as an investment but it is growing on us, and it's only 40 min from the grandtwins. It could be that we'll stay here, after all this work and investment, as the location (for living in these parts) is pretty good. We're going to the movie theater up the street this eve, as it's pouring cats and dogs and we don't want to go far.
Now that's a remodel!! Ours will be much easier (I hope).
After the bathrooms I'm guessing her next target will be the kitchen. I want to close off the door to the dining room (There's another one into a short hall that leads directly to it) and add cabinets and counter top space. There's enough room for some of those wide cabinets that have big roll out drawers for pots and pans, etc and I think it would be a wonderful addition for her. We might take some of that space (Depending on the width of the cabinets) and add width to the pantry, which we are going to gut and re-shelve anyway.
We want to get rid of carpeting. It's high maintenance, dirty, and requires replacing too often. I hate them. Give me wood or tile and a throw rug anytime. I also want to look into adding under floor heating as it is very comfortable and less expensive to operate than forced air.
Hey Tek - just an odd tidbit that you might want to consider heating-wise if you go radiant. I too looked at radiant floor heating when we did a major refurb on our place after deciding to stay put at retirement in 2007.
It was a natural consideration for us as we had an existing baseboard hot water & domestic system. We wanted to at least replace the 25+ year old boiler with a much more efficient one anyhow. We were doing some renovations which made the old baseboard perimeter run heaters a nuisance.
I must note that were other factors involved as I also installed a whole house propane backup generator as well. Electrical usage/load was a consideration for generator sizing considerations according to my generator consultant guy. That came into play when looking at electrical load for pumping hot water through the system for perimeter line (old system, w/o or with radiators) or the full in-floor system. We also installed a propane fueled "wood stove" as an auxiliary heating unit since we had the propane available. (DW demanded some source of cold hands warmer )
End result and the odd tidbit I'm babbling about is to consider using modern radiators available in lieu of the full under floor radiant heating route if you go hydronic. They can approach works of art as well as heat your space quite nicely. We ended up replacing some of our radiant baseboard runs with radiators.
The US is way behind the Europeans on this, I got the idea after seeing some really attractive radiators in Europe on our trips. I also found that doing a full under floor radiant system refurb to be rather pricey in our situation and opted to stay with a mix of perimeter runs and radiators.
We ended up with some German radiator units. I don't even know if the US has any mfg.s, but I'd stay with the guys who have much more experience with them (Europeans) if you go that route.
We want to get rid of carpeting. It's high maintenance, dirty, and requires replacing too often. I hate them. Give me wood or tile and a throw rug anytime. I also want to look into adding under floor heating as it is very comfortable and less expensive to operate than forced air.
On the plus side there is no hurry.
I just shampooed my carpeting in the BRs and blech - for carpets that didn't look all that dirty and are not very old the junk I got out was just gross. Granted it is deep pile so there's lots of space for "things" to hide (I get his image of those nasty looking dust mites crawling all over <shiver>).
Tek sounds like me. In 4 years at 60 I plan to detail the house. Add new hardwood floors. New paint and tile grout. Making the house ready for resale. I have a two year plan where I will get to keep the paint brush out of Mrs Golf's hands since she can't seem to stay inside the lines.
Tek sounds like me. In 4 years at 60 I plan to detail the house. Add new hardwood floors. New paint and tile grout. Making the house ready for resale. I have a two year plan where I will get to keep the paint brush out of Mrs Golf's hands since she can't seem to stay inside the lines.
Hah! When it comes to doing the detail work I hand the brush to Mrs. Tek. I'm lousy at it.
Went snooping for someone to do all the outside and found a likely candidate. They do everything outside, even the gutter cleaning, aerating, you name it. Snow clearing on drive and sidewalks - most around here want to clear the drive with a plow and leave.
I got a second estimate on the Cambria Tourcay for the bath counters and it's also about $3k. I'm guessing the third one will come in near that.
I'm leaning towards cultured marble. We have better places to spend a couple of grand.
Hey Tek - just an odd tidbit that you might want to consider heating-wise if you go radiant. I too looked at radiant floor heating when we did a major refurb on our place after deciding to stay put at retirement in 2007.
It was a natural consideration for us as we had an existing baseboard hot water & domestic system. We wanted to at least replace the 25+ year old boiler with a much more efficient one anyhow. We were doing some renovations which made the old baseboard perimeter run heaters a nuisance.
I must note that were other factors involved as I also installed a whole house propane backup generator as well. Electrical usage/load was a consideration for generator sizing considerations according to my generator consultant guy. That came into play when looking at electrical load for pumping hot water through the system for perimeter line (old system, w/o or with radiators) or the full in-floor system. We also installed a propane fueled "wood stove" as an auxiliary heating unit since we had the propane available. (DW demanded some source of cold hands warmer )
End result and the odd tidbit I'm babbling about is to consider using modern radiators available in lieu of the full under floor radiant heating route if you go hydronic. They can approach works of art as well as heat your space quite nicely. We ended up replacing some of our radiant baseboard runs with radiators.
The US is way behind the Europeans on this, I got the idea after seeing some really attractive radiators in Europe on our trips. I also found that doing a full under floor radiant system refurb to be rather pricey in our situation and opted to stay with a mix of perimeter runs and radiators.
We ended up with some German radiator units. I don't even know if the US has any mfg.s, but I'd stay with the guys who have much more experience with them (Europeans) if you go that route.
Keeping the cost down means not paying for labor. It might take me longer, but there's nothing about installing it (except the boiler and controls) that I can't do. Flooring and the underfloor tubing is not that tough, just time consuming.
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