My House Renovation Thread

[Amp34]

We finally completed on our house at the end of last month. A little 3 bedroom 1000 ft2 bungalow with a nice sized garden. It's half renovated but still needs a lot of work. I'll hopefully get most of the important stuff done in the first two-three months of living there, which will be the middle of September.

Front

Back

Detached Garage

Basement

Upstairs

As you may be able to tell, we're not in Kansas any more. It's actually in Calgary, Canada, which is making the planning a bit more interesting - lots of new code, permitting and general cultural differences. All part of the challenge...

The previous owner was a builder who moved away with work so couldn't finish the work. He built the new garage and sorted most of the main floor out before getting rid, along with gutting the basement, which means we have an almost clean slate downstairs.

Current plans are:

Priority
Reshingle Roof
New Windows and External Doors
Enlarge basement windows (cut out concrete and dig large holes on the outside)
Rebuild basement
Lift and relay Drive

Secondary
Reside house
Re landscape front and rear of house (Decks, patios, trees, garden)
Replace attached garage with an extension to the house
Possibly remove tree (due to two of the limbs being held together by a bolt)
Electrify and finish detached garage
Bury power cable to house and move electricity meter to detached garage

The secondary plans will be waiting until next year or two when it's warmer and will be partially money dependent. We are also planning on adding a couple more plug outlets and redoing the kitchen and bathroom floors/work surfaces.

Approx. upstairs floorplan

(using floorplanner.com)

The current plan for the basement - enlarged windows on the left

The basement is the most fun part, it's basically a blank slate, although there are several supports, ducts and the furnace and hot water heater (forced air, rather than radiators) that have to be built round. Most important features for me are a large as possible main room, nice bathroom and a spare bedroom (for guests).

I'm also going to install wired networking throughout and put in some home automation (mostly lights but also door locks and a few water/temp sensors).

It's going to be a big, but fun project, with most of the work not affecting us as it will mostly be downstairs or outside (hopefully!)

 

[Uther]

Great stuff! Subscribed.

 

[Kimi]

Thats awesome!

 

[Tummy]

Fantastic .

 

[anything I don't mind]

Looks good, can't you give us a current floor plan for comparison?

 

[Russinating]

Foreign houses look so funny . You'd never get that here!

 

[Tummy]

Foreign houses look so funny . You'd never get that here!

Much prefer this style of housing over a lot of the housing here.

 

[Spacedeck]

Looks pretty impressive!

why do you never build houses from bricks? they always look so weak.

 

[Russinating]

Much prefer this style of housing over a lot of the housing here.

Yeah, each to their own I guess. It's very new/prefab which is why you don't see many here: most houses are either really old or very new but still made of brick.

Looks like a great project anyway!

 

[Valo]

Looks like it'll be a brilliant house once it's finished!
Good luck with the work, look forward to following the thread and your progress

 

[Amp34]

Going to have sound insulation for the bedroom backing onto the lounge? Or is there are argument for switching it with the office? Don't know when it'll be used/who by, but lounge noise could be annoying in there.

The bedroom in the basement will be for guests so not used all the time, same with the single (bunk) bed in the smaller bedroom upstairs - there are only two of us. I put the office upstairs because I can look out the window and get a better view, the window in the basement will look straight at a fence/side of the retaining wall. That said there is value is just taking over the entire basement and turning it into an epic man cave!

Guest bedroom downstairs (with toilet and "wet bar") means it can almost become a standalone apartment if someone is staying for a reasonable length of time - think parents...

I am going to insulate the floor though, both to reduce the noise from the wooden floor above and so I can have music/films up louder downstairs.

Yeah, each to their own I guess. It's very new/prefab which is why you don't see many here: most houses are either really old or very new but still made of brick.

Looks like a great project anyway!

It's actually from 1959, not old by UK standards but definitely not new. They are weird, basically a large concrete pond (basement) with a wood frame dumped on the top. It should (!!) make work a lot easier though. Things like replacing windows and redoing the roof - just remove old windows, slide inner windows and hammer them in to the wood frame, add some insulating foam and chauk and you're done (in theory). The roof is essentially just plywood with a thick felt on top, just remove the felt and replace - again in theory much cheaper and quicker than re roofing in the UK. That said we have never done either of the above in that way before so there could be a lot of trial and error.

The current floor plan is the floor plan above. We aren't doing much upstairs (just cosmetic stuff). The only difference are the two sets of french doors on the lower right hand side which I want to install, the one on the right hand side leading to the extension if it happens, the one at the bottom will lead to a deck. Downstairs in the basement it's almost completely empty (4th photo), with just a furnace/hot water heater (behind the stairs), three supports down the middle and a couple of bits of plumbing we need to take into account.

 

[Mark A]

Could be a nice looking house if you paint it. Edit, ahh that's what reside means, I forgot they call cladding siding over there .

 

[Amp34]

Haha yep. Horrible yellow is going one way or the other. Either re painting, residing (replacing with modern "vinyl" strips) or the most expensive option which is stucco.

At the moment we are thinking of a combination of siding and stone (around the bottom), the stucco is just so much more expensive. That's way down the list of priorities at the moment, still need to decide whether to go for Engineered Hardwood or Vinyl planks for the basement. We have original hardwood upstairs but not sure if something with less maintenance would be better for downstairs.

 

[alx]

Vinyl planks will almost definitely be the easiest to look after and hardest wearing but the decent stuff isn't always cheap.

 

[Caged]

Is the insulation in the walls going to be that nasty formaldehyde foam stuff?

 

[Amp34]

The most important thing for me is look. There is nothing quite like natural materials (also thinking of limestone flooring in the bathroom), most fake stuff is obviously fake, to me at least. That said the vinyl I've seen looks pretty good. Cost is slightly less than engineered hardwood, which is a big plus as well. I think the deciding factor will be me finding some planks I like.

Insulation wise in the basement its normal fibreglass style insulation. In the roof it's a mix of sawdust (most of it) with some other stuff blown on top! No idea what it is on the external walls.

 

[alx]

The most important thing for me is look. There is nothing quite like natural materials (also thinking of limestone flooring in the bathroom), most fake stuff is obviously fake, to me at least. That said the vinyl I've seen looks pretty good. Cost is slightly less than engineered hardwood, which is a big plus as well. I think the deciding factor will be me finding some planks I like.

Insulation wise in the basement its normal fibreglass style insulation. In the roof it's a mix of sawdust (most of it) with some other stuff blown on top! No idea what it is on the external walls.

Yeah, luxury vinyl stuff really looks the part these days (putting it in my flat soon). Obviously it won't ever be exactly the same as natural materials but it has lots of other positives.

What brands do you have over there? Over here Amtico and Karndean tends to be the ones to go for.

I would still go for tiles in the bathrooms, but if you want hard flooring in other areas vinyl definitely ticks a lot of boxes.

 

[Caged]

Pull some cable into strategic positions in the ceilings for some wireless access points rather than relying on a router in the network closet to do the job. Could even run one to the rear deck area to cover the garden.

 

[Amp34]

Brands wise I'm not really sure. I need to do a bit more research on both engineered hardwood and vinyl plank brands. It's a bit annoying being out of the country because other than the major box stores (Home Depot etc) shop websites rarely have prices. No point getting my hopes up on a brand and realising its way out of my price range!

The router is going to go somewhere as central as possible to get the best signal (possibly bottom right corner of the small bedroom upstairs. I'll have to have a separate modem and a 24port switch in the cupboard so router location will be decided by best wireless cover. That said an AP in the office could cover most of the garden the AP in the detached garage would miss. I'm going to have to do some tests when I get there to see what the signal will be like. I'm going to have at least two wired ports in every room upstairs (except toilet) so should have plenty of options for locating things. Again, more research needed!

 

[Amp34]

Quick update - finally "moved in" today. I have the delights of a thermarest and sleeping bag for a few nights... Updates should be coming fairly frequently from now on. I'm hoping to get a final plan in the next few days and then start on the roof, which will be the first project.

When you can actually look round the place again with a plan of what you actually want to do you realise there are a lot more things to consider in the plans than initially thought. It'll be interesting to see how the final plans tally!