My Home Renovation
This Page is intended to document everything that I have changed in my house. I’ll be making posts one room at a time. I’ll include Before and After Pictures. Maybe even some video’s. I’m hopeful that my posts about the renovation will help other home owners realize the potential of their homes.
I’m calling it Maybe Next Year because I have literally said that countless times. This house has project after project!
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about home ownership and renovating yourself, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I learned this the hard way. I’m going to rant a little about the move and how I got started. First, my apartment was only about 2 miles from the house that I bought. I ended my lease about 6 weeks after the closing date of the house. So, I figured that I could save a lot of money by doing most of the move myself and not hiring anybody. BIG mistake for a pack rat! I did save a lot of money, but I nearly worked myself to death. The other bad idea was starting a new job that same month! So needless to say I had a lot of adjusting to do.
I moved at least one load every day when I got off of work at 530. I stopped at the apartment on my way home and load up my Pathfinder with as much as I could. Drive to the house, and unload it. Then I spent the rest of the night frantically painting mine and my son’s bedroom. Once I finished painting those 2 rooms, I started working on the floors in my bedroom.
I need to back up a little bit. The first thing I did was rent a carpet cleaning machine. I spent the night trying to get that carpet clean enough to live on. It was impossible! No matter how many times I went over it. It was just a lost cause. The stink from the previous owner, did not go away. There were pet stains everywhere and they did not even attempt to clean anything… EVER! I don’t understand how people lived like this. There were cockroaches running rampant and there was no evidence of any roach traps or any attempt to do anything about it what-so-ever. When I first looked at the house, I didn’t realize how bad it stunk nor did I see roaches. It has taken tons of work, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve eradicated those little bastards. I’ll talk more about how later.
For the Floors I got sucked into a Lumber Liquidators ad. I fell in love with one of the first types of bamboo that I looked at. I looked pretty solid for weeks and at various types and styles, but I kept coming back to this one particular style called Sedona Trail. I just love the style and how dark it is, The Imperfections are perfectly imperfect! I also have an affinity for Sedona Arizona where I undoubtedly had the best camping trip that I’ll ever have. Never to be topped!
My Maybe Next Year List
- New Roof (This includes New Fascia and Gutters)
- Paint the Exterior of the house
- Tuckpointing the Bricks or at least patch the holes
- Build a second level deck over the back patio
- Build a fence in the back yard
- Get a dog
- Install a bathroom in the finished half of the basement
What’s on your list?
Clifton Hutchinson 