Options.....

Karl Brogger

Member
Messages
519
Location
Dennison, MN
Assuming the inspection doesn't find anything catastrophic this week I'm buying a different house. (lost my old house in the pseudo divorce)

Anywho.... Its a bit rough but not horrible. I'm going to replace all the cabinetry, kitchen/Laundry/bathroom, and re-trim it so everything is consistent as well.

I actually kinda find myself horrified at the thought of designing something for myself! What wood, and what to do for door styles..... Go absolutely bonkers, or keep it simple..... I'd like to do the cabinetry and trim out of walnut, but that'll get spendy quick, and I'm concerned it wouldn't appeal to enough people.


I will have to tear out the ceiling and rip up the floor to level it back out again in the kitchen. The ceiling I think I'm going to go with a narrow bead board instead of rock/texture. I think I'm going to kick it in at an angle as well to negate any visual effects of the room being outta wack or cumulative errors from putting up such a narrow strip. That stuff shows up in the crown way too easily. The floor I'm not sure what I'm going to do either tile or wood. Birch or maple naturally finished against the walnut cabinets would be phenomenal looking though.


Hopefully its temporary and I can flip it in a year or two. I really, really hate old houses. The inefficiencies, and squeaky floor drive me nuts.
 
Karl, I'm building a house for myself right now, and I have the same problem. I can go to a customers house, look it over and make recommendations in a matter of minutes, But my own house, forget it!

I have my own house roughed in and have still not decided where the stairs, kitchen and bath will actually be. I clearspanned it so I could think about it, that was a big mistake.

Be interested to see what you come up with......

The other Larry
 
... I'm concerned it wouldn't appeal to enough people.

Hopefully its temporary and I can flip it in a year or two. I really, really hate old houses. The inefficiencies, and squeaky floor drive me nuts.


At the risk of appearing a Debbie Downer, I would suggest that if you're serious about flipping this place as soon as possible, you make only the changes necessary to appeal to the consumer of a home of whatever price range your home will fit into when it comes time to sell.

Save your walnut cabinets and square and level rooms for the home of your dreams (or alternatively, my house. ;))
 
At the risk of appearing a Debbie Downer, I would suggest that if you're serious about flipping this place as soon as possible, you make only the changes necessary to appeal to the consumer of a home of whatever price range your home will fit into when it comes time to sell.

Save your walnut cabinets and square and level rooms for the home of your dreams (or alternatively, my house. ;))

I agree with Peter. If you're considering moving south, then just do the necessary to make it attractive and tidy and not falling apart.
 
I hear you guys on not dumping too much into it.

But.....

Its a foreclosure. Last time it sold, it sold for $128K, which was five years ago. The agreed to offer is $40,673 (odd number I know), and I pay my closing costs. Which in terms of the house purchase I'm paying cash, so my closing costs are dirt cheap at about $850. I don't have to borrow much, but I'm not using the house as collateral, I'm borrowing against some commodities I have. So I'm not going to have much into it. If I throw a $20k worth of kitchen cabinets in it, realistically it'll cost me less than $10k to get em built. The ceiling has a false/drop in the kitchen. Chances are the plaster was coming apart and it was just an easy fix. I'll just sister something onto the joists to level it out, then throw the bead board up. Drop ceilings are horrible looking, and with a 9' wall I love running the cabinets all the way up.

What I'll probably end up doing is a flat panel door style, with slab front out of cherry, (or perhaps alder stained to look like cherry, depending on what superior alder is going for now days). I'm thinking the essentially red cabinets will look real nice against a white painted beaded ceiling. On the flip side, I don't do any finishing so the cost of staining vs. natural will probably end up a wash and just a waste if I do Alder. At the same time, I've also flipped back to liking raised panel stuff, especially if its inset. Trim will be something simple, kinda the farm style with a plithe block at the bottom of the doors, and a stool+apron for the bottom of the windows. Then just a simple header that sets on top of the sides of the casing, finished off with a small crown.

So, if I dump $20k or $30k into the house. I should still do okay, and have something that's attractive enough that it should move well. Besides, I'll have to live in it for a while anyway. I don't want to live in town anymore, but I can't afford something more secluded.

The garage is what is going to drive me nuts. I'm don't know if I can get my one pickup in, and I certainly can't get the boat in there. Or at least I can't get the boat and trailer in. Throwing up a garage that I'd be content with would be a total waste though.
 
Bought the house. I sign for it Tuesday.

Ended up going down a bit more after the inspection. Didn't turn up anything drastic in the inspection, but used it to leverage the price down a bit more. Ended up being just a hair under $40k with the closing costs.

Planning on doing the cabinetry out of Cherry. Flat panel doors with a part of a plant moulding to wrap the inside of a rail+stiles. Sort of a raised panel look with out the associated costs. I bought 500bd/ft of 11 & 12' cherry for $2.44 bd/ft. My main supplier had a special on it this month and I figured it'd be good and marketable to say "Cherry cabinetry and casework."


This style of door is what I'm going to do:
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I don't have a picture of what I'm going to end up doing for casing, but it'll just be a 3-1/2" wide board, 3/4" thick, ran through the panel raiser. I've got a cutter that is an angle instead of the traditional scoop. Then there will be a back band wrapping the casing for a total width of 4". I'm going just going to rip up some cherry plywood and toss a cap of some sort on it. Shooting for it to finish out in the 6-7 inch height. Windows will be picture framed basically. I'd like to do a stool and apron, but I don't think the extra work will pay out. I'll build all the casings in the shop. With the big profile on the inside of the casing I'm going to jack mitre and pocket screw all the joints together. Provided I don't forget how to read a tape measure casing everything should go pretty quickly.

The stairwell, and the upstairs hallway need some work. The stairwell has some of that [sarcasm here] awesome panelling from the 70's with the kerfs. The the hallway upstairs needs some patching. I think I'm going to go over all of it with some wainscoting that will match the doors and paneled ends of the cabinetry. I'll do it all in paint grade though. That much wood will get to be too much in a narrow hallway.


One thing that is kinda cool is the kitchen has a 9'-4" ceiling.
 
Congrats on the house. I did a kitchen a few month ago out of poplar that where staned cherry and they looked like the picture you posted. The house sold quick. Hopefully yours will to.
 
Progress. Sorta...

Its been a slow road, and tragically not nearly as much as I'd like to have done, is done. Most an issue of funds. Stupid money always in the way.:rofl:


The exterior. I'm not doing much outside. The siding isn't that attractive, but its in decent shape, the roof is nearly new. I'm tentatively planning on throwing about a 10'x20' deck on the back. The front porch needed to be opened up and I removed a short pickup load of rotten material out of that. I can't believe it didn't collapse.
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Here you get an idea of how rotten the front porch is. It was originally built with some pitch to it, so I don't think it was originally covered. We could only get it level in one direction. The rest I'm going to have to take out by furring up the joists to get the decking level.
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A dog says: "RUFF!!!" :rofl:
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A yes, the mellon heads who winterized the place. Thanks guys, also thanks for making me replace the bulk of the supply lines and a toilet with a broken trap.....
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A couple pictures of the front porch opened up. Greek tragedy here. Actually verything worked out really well. The outside joist was a basically completely rotten 2x6 with another half rotten 2x6 sistered on. Replaced it with a doubled up green treat 2x10, and jacked the whole mess back to level and set it on a 8x8 green treat post (instead of a 4x4). The front door is sitting almost evenly in the jamb, the siding is sitting level again and the decking for the porch is level in one direction. I say one direction because it was built with some pitch to it, and other than a complete demo could not be pulled back completely level. The joists will get furred up accordingly to get the decking so it sits flat
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I like the piled up concrete chunks. I can't talk I guess. When the kitchen floor was opened up I briefly considered filling up the crawl space with all the plaster & lathe from the kitchen ceiling. Didn't feel like re-insulating so the ceiling stayed, and the crawl space is just a minor disaster.
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First project was the kitchen floor. There was a weird bubble that I was sure was going to be a footing that was heaving up, or something absolutely horrible. The kitchen floor rock-n-rolled all over the place Turns out the bubble was just an mdf underlayment that had gotten moist and bubbled. There was peel N' stick linoleum tiles, linoleum, 3/8 MDF underlayment, linoleum, wood flooring (I think Fir), and the planking. Ugh.... took 1700lbs of floor out of the kitchen. Could not believe it.

The super sweet box cabinets [sarcasm] that were in the kitchen before
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Floor opened up. Took the opportunity to pull three new circuits to get it up to code, and to properly plumb the kitchen sink. It had 1/4" soft copper lines before. God......
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and the new plywood down. :thumb: After getting the six layers that were there before ripped out, and fixing a few not so happy joists, the floor is pretty dang straight, and close enough level. I was expecting a nightmare, and happily welcome a troublesome dream in its place. Put down two layers of 3/4" CDX, PL400'd it to the joists and screwed it about every eight inches, next layer got screwed down on a rough grid of about the same dimensions. 13' x 13' kitchen, dumped nine big tubes of PL400 into it. It won't squeak, and its actually pretty darn solid.
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The bathroom. It has one thing going for it. Its huge. That's about it. The floor is horrid. Tough to tell with a six foot level and a quick look, but its gotta be in the neighborhood of 2" outta level from the highest point to the lowest. The answer is I'm going to replace four wood posts in the basement with steel screw jacks and try and bring it up an inch, and then finish off the rest with gyp-crete. Also need to cut some stuff out where the stool sits, its spongy. HOORAY!!!:rofl: Did I mention I lived in the house for about two weeks with out a toilet? It was awesome. [also sarcasm]
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I have actually made one full on improvement. So far I've started a boat load of things and haven't finished because something else needs to be done. I replaced the back door. Just the door. After replacing just the door, I think I should've replaced the whole works. The other jamb is pretty rough, and I had to sink some 5" GRK screws through the hinges to get the thing to feel semi solid again. Only paid $150 for the door though, and I think its pretty sweet. Not steel, but it is fibreglass.
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Couldn't get a good angle from the inside.
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Also finally purchased the wood floor for the kitchen. The cabinets are going to be dark, the windows will be crowded by box work, and I figured a light color would be best so I went with a natural birch, 3-1/4" wide, and pre-finished. Got it for about $4.50 a sq/ft, which I didn't think was too bad. Its a bit wild for my taste, but people seem to like that. They use euphemisms such as "rustic" and say it has "character". I say I'm too cheap to pay for the good stuff.:rofl:
 
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