Home Improvement Projects

[Chris M]

You know, it's amazing what a little paint can do to a house.  Nice remodel there and I'm assuming not to costly.

[name]

You know, it's amazing what a little paint can do to a house.  Nice remodel there and I'm assuming not to costly.

not too bad...
paint and primer - probably about $100
hardware for TV mount - less than $30
new light fixture - $180 ( purchased with a home depot gift card we got for signing up for cable when we moved)
Tile and various supplies for job - about $250
new rug - $200
bookcases - $100 each

Time spent stripping painted over wallpaper and repairing plaster- two weekends plus thurs/fri after work
Painting - a few evenings
Time on mounting TV and conceling components - one weekend
Time on Tile job - two weekends and two evenings- one for demolition, one for tile, two nights for grout.

[BrentS]

Looks great.  You did a very nice job sprucing up that room.  As a side note, it cracks me that you had "old school" ESB on the TV for the before pictures and "new school" Prequels for the after pictures.  Was that intentional?

[name]

intentionally put star wars on....didn't think about which to do for before or after...

[ruiner]

Sith - you do good work.  It's evident in your framing (above) and deck project (somewhere here).

[Jesse James]

Name, the woodwork in the back seems really nice...  old house I take it, judging by that and the register vents?  That staircase has some very nice work on it, as does the mantle.

[I Am Sith]

Great job name.  I like the update to the fireplace a lot.  Room looks great.

[name]

JJ - it was built in 1906, so yeah...you could say it's old.  That staircase was one of the big selling points to me.

It's solid as can be...nothing that has to be done, but a project in every room.  The previous occupants were renters...an old gay couple that the owner allowed to paint any way they chose....they made some strange choices, including the pink living room.

[Jesse James]

The old tile work around the fire place was...  interesting.    It looked like the by-product of an exorcism.

I like the woodwork a lot.  I'm a big fan of looking in houses around here sometimes if there's an open house, just to see the old woodwork.  My hometown has a lot of homes that date back to the 1800's including mine, though my home was just an old hunky mill/minehouse, so it's nothing too special with woodwork and whatnot.

My gf's place was a rowhouse but they've lost a lot of the houses around it so it sits alone now nicely with some distance between houses.  The woodwork in there I can tell was, at one time, nice.  It's been mostly destroyed and removed though as near as I can tell.

My buddy owned a home in downtown Leechburg where I live, and the woodwork in his place was gorgeous.  It would've been a home that at one time had servants and things...  Very nice.  Pass-throughs from the kitchen to the dining room that went through built-in hutches.  Very nice and elegant.  The stairs needed work but were totally fixable.  He divorced in like 6 months and the house got sold, so that sucked for both of them.  If I'd had the money at the time I'd have bought it in a heartbeat.  It was gorgeous.  Zero land though to it.

[I Am Sith]

Sith - you do good work.  It's evident in your framing (above) and deck project (somewhere here).

Thanks ruiner.  My wife says my ******* showcases the fact that I'm a neat freak/OCD/analretentive.  I just like to think that I have attention to detail...

[Matt_Fury]

This week we invested in the best home improvement idea ever.  Hot tub!

[jedi_master_sal]

Woot, looks like i'll be joining in on this thread. I just became a homeowner last Wednesday and moved in on Saturday.

Boxes, tubs and plastic bags, oh my. But at least they are in my HOME!

Lots of painting planned by the wife. I've got a huge enough project trying to figure out where I'm going to set up my collection and what to set up.

Thankfully the finished part of the basement is all mine. Of the other half of the basment, half of that will be for storage while the other part is the laundry and bathroom.

I am SO looking forward to fixing up my home. A small veggie/herb garden next spring. We're buying a puppy some time in the spring. Can anyone give me some ideas for a breed of dog that is easily potty trained?

We lucked into a good sized home for the money at a great rate. The home is 1480sq ft. 2 1/2 bath, 3 bed, kitchen, living, dining, a four seasons room that has a working metal stove/chimney in it. 5% rate

It's in a decent neighborhood. While moving in we saw that most of our neighbors are 50ish and older. So no noise from them.

Gawd, so much more I can say but I hijacked the thread long enough. Sorry, but I'm EXCITED!

[Jesse James]

Labradores...  Though really any dog is about the same, I say go to the pound and rescue a mutt.  Diane's was a pound dog and he trained fine.  He's dumb as a turd too, so I think it really doesn't make much difference.

[Matt_Fury]

Congrats on the new home!  Hope to see pictures soon.

As for a dog.  We're partial to Rotties and Malamutes.   

Seriously, both breeds are very smart and relatively easy to train, although rotties in the teenage yars (1 to 3 years) like to challenge you.

[jedi_master_sal]

Congrats on the new home!  Hope to see pictures soon.

As for a dog.  We're partial to Rotties and Malamutes.   

Seriously, both breeds are very smart and relatively easy to train, although rotties in the teenage yars (1 to 3 years) like to challenge you.

Rotties are out, that's a given for us.

Malamutes are nice, but long hair. We both have allergies to long hairs.

We're thinking a Lab of some color or maybe a Beagle. We don't want a "yipper" type dog, nor one that's going to be terribly difficult to train or maintain.

I'd think about the pound, but I'd like to know the breed or mixed breed. No mutts. They are very unpredictable. Also, we want a puppy, not a youth or adult dog. You just don't know what they've gone through before you get them. My heart goes out to them, but I don't want a dog that is shy of humans and I can't pet because it may have been mistreated by it's former owners.

That decision however won't be made until closer to spring. WE've got a ton of stuff to do before then to get the house in order.

I'll post pics as soon as I can, preferably after much of the boxes, bags and tubs are in place (if not packed away).  The 21st/22nd is another big weekend. That is when I'll be moving my collection HOME! It's been in a storage unit for years, slowly building, while I never get to view it. Now it will be home. While most initially won't be displayed, at least I know I'll be able to view it whenever I like without having to make a trip to do so.