I hope I’m not jinxing us by posting this, but we are in the middle of buying a house. Assuming all goes well, and we actually close the deal, we would like to do the following:
Before we move in -
Convert the existing radiator heat to gas forced air and add central air (and add serious air filtration for my crappy lungs - our current place has an ultraviolet filter and a bunch of other serious filters, which we added later, which was kind of a pain because our furnace is in a closet and they basically had to take apart all the ductwork to rearrange everything so there was space. No such issues with the new place - yay!);
Do whatever needs to be done to plug the holes in the floor where the radiators were;
Replace the inadequate electrical box;
Replace the hot water heater with a high-efficiency one, probably tankless; and
Paint everything.
After we sell our current place and have some cash (which hopefully won’t take that long), we would like to convert the unfinished attic to a second floor master suite, probably consisting of a master bedroom, master bath, and a large den (or possibly second bedroom, or at least a den that would be easily convertible to a second bedroom). This will also likely involve getting rid of the existing chimney, reinforcing the attic floor, adding a ton of insulation, adding electrical and a ceiling, lighting, etc.
Someday, if and when we have the spare cash, we would also like to finish the unfinished basement to some degree, too. But no hurry on that.
Neither of us has ever undertaken a project on this scale. We are not handy people, so we will be hiring professionals to do the work. Obviously when we do the first batch of work, we will tell the electrician, plumber, etc. that whatever they modify should be done keeping in mind that it will need to support a decent chunk of additional living space in the hopefully near future, but what else should we keep in mind? Any tips on hiring/screening contractors? Have you done a project like this yourself, and what are you glad you did/wish you had done differently?
Ugh. We remodeled our last house–new roof, new wood floors, gutted the kitchen and bathroom, moved some walls. We weren’t living in the house at the time, but it was still the most stressful experience we’ve gone through. Our “new” house needs a new kitchen and bathrooms eventually, too, and we’re balking due to the memories.
My advice is to be sure your contractor knows what the hell he’s doing, and has crews who know what the hell they’re doing. This means you probably don’t go with the lowest bidder. Incompetent crews take forever and have to redo things, wasting time and materials.
If you’re in the US, I’d definitely consult Angie’s List or something like it for reviews before hiring anyone. That has saved us so many of the types of problems we used to routinely have with PITA companies!
Also, don’t choose your companies/workers by the price quoted alone. If the quote seems too low, it’s quite possible you will get what you pay for!
Also, anytime you get something done, EXPECT to hit a few problems along the way because you most likely will. That keeps you from going insane.
Perhaps you should consider cancelling the purchase and instead buy a house which already has what you want. It could well be cheaper.
Second floor master bedroom? If you are thinking of staying in this as you age it could start getting very uncomfortable climbing up and down those stairs frequently.
The fact that you aren’t living there should help to ease some of he stresses of this sort of thing. But accept the fact that it will likely end up taking longer and costing more than the original plan.
They almost always find things they hadn’t counted on, like pipes in walls where there shouldn’t be any or hidden water damage, so just know that going in.
I would make sure to find a contractor who is licensed and bonded. I would ask for references and check them.
I would never pay in advance and I would not hire a contractor that demanded I do so.
Quoted for truth. Unless this house is an absolute steal in a location that is worth a lot to you, find yourself a house that already has most of what you want. These are major and expensive renovations.
Seconds. My wife always dreamed of building a nice little two-story Victorian outside of town on some property we inherited. When we got close to retirement, reality came crashing down on us. Instead, we looked for a smaller ranch-style house within easy walking distance of a decent shopping center and near a medical office complex. The only steps we have are the three into the house at the front and the three out of the house at the back.
The OP sounds like he/she is planning on being in the house a long time. An upstairs master bedroom (or even a basement) sounds great until you have some mobility issues or just get tired of it.
This house is in a good location for us and and at a price that reflects the unfinished attic and basement, and frankly we saw a bunch of other houses with work already done either half-assed or in a way that we don’t like or doesn’t work for us. For a similar total cash outlay, we’d rather be able to customize it the way we want it.
That all makes sense, and the less-than-pleasing remodels you saw reflect the fact that remodeling is hard and/or expensive. If you can get it done in a way that satisfies you, what you are doing is the best way to go, but it is, in my experience, difficult to achieve what you want at an affordable price.
The way you describe hiring various trades (plumber, electrician, etc.) yourselves, it seems that you are acting as your own general contractor. That saves some money, maybe, but it makes it harder to have a unified set of plans that reflect and anticipate the various phases of the job. Is there a way you can have a remodeling company plan the whole thing, pay them for the plans, and then you hire who you want to hire as you can afford to?
When you hire the various subcontractors make sure that they are insured for injuries to their workers and for damage to your property. Also be sure to discuss how much you will be expected to pay up front for materials. Get everything in writing.
When you finish a basement and an attic in a one-story house, you are losing or diminishing the easy ability to route plumbing and wiring around the living space. Do your best to anticipate your future needs and plumb and wire accordingly. A dropped ceiling in the finished basement can help with this, but some people don’t like dropped ceilings.
The rule of thumb for buying a house with these kind of major renovations in mind is: Would you pay the same aggregate price for a house with all those upgrades/replacements, right now? And will those improvements be reflected in the selling valuation of the house, if and when?
Doing something like this and paying significantly more for house+improvements than you would spend for an “improved” house is probably foolish. Doing this when the improvements disappear into the existing valuation is equally foolish. Do it only if the house is already uniquely valuable to you (location, charm, whatever) and the improvements constitute both better comfort/living conditions AND concrete increase in property valuation.
Our real estate agents are friends of mine of 18 years, and I trust them implicitly. Property values are going up in the neighborhood where we are buying, and they are boggled that the seller didn’t make some of these changes herself because a house in that area with an additional bedroom, bathroom, and 1000+ additional square feet of finished space would sell for significantly more than the improvements would cost, and would be outside our total house budget.
See above…part of the issue is that my husband, Tom Scud, is tall, and most other houses in our price range in that area have basements and/or attics with ceiling heights low enough that they are really not usable space for him. That’s not the case with the house on which we are currently under contract; lots of extra ceiling height in both places. And generally, single-story houses in the City of Chicago proper, in neighborhoods where we might actually want to live, are butt-ugly midcentury ranch houses that we wouldn’t want to live in.
This house has three first-floor bedrooms, and if mobility ever becomes an issue (which is more likely for me than for him due to some long-ago leg surgery), we can use one of those temporarily, and if mobility becomes a huge and permanent issue, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Hopefully that won’t be for a long time, and by then we’d be retired and wouldn’t have to worry about locations convenient for commuting downtown on a daily basis via public transportation, which is a major limiting factor for now.
P.S. We likely will hire a general contractor for the attic project, and we have lots of sources for recommendations for subcontractors (and some personal experience with some of them on smaller projects - plumbing, HVAC, flooring, tile, painting, etc.)
Is the attic of adequate height that you don’t need to raise the ceiling? One concern I would have, and it would be wise to figure this out early, is whether or not you’re going to need to re-enforce the foundation to support a living space on the 2nd floor.
Get three bids. Before you do that, you might hire an architect/engineer to write up a scope of work for you with specific line items for contractors to address. The extra money you pay for this service will be worth it, as he/she will be intimately acquainted with local codes and will even oversee the work for you if you wish. You can even have the person put out the requests for proposal for you and screen the bidders.
It sounds like you found a diamond in the rough. That’s always nice. I will probably be looking for just that right fixer-upper in the next year - something underpriced but largely needing things I can do myself (which is quite a bit).
When we bought this house, we considered a colonial-era house that needed about $100k in work to be made livable in a modern sense (== maybe $40-50k in a house that didn’t need to be kept original and work around 300-year-old floors and the like), but the sellers wanted about $50k more than our net budget. Probably a good thing. Just interior paint on this house has produced… friction.
Good points - back in college, I worked as a receptionist one summer for an architect. Super-nice guy. He may be retired by now, but maybe I should call him up and chat. I don’t think he used to work in the city proper, just in the suburbs, but I bet he has some great pointers even if we don’t end up hiring him.
And as it happens, he is still working and has won a bunch of design awards, and also does general contracting. I will totally give him a call and chat.
Wow. Is it meant for walk in access but just unfinished?
Huh. I know a foundation check is important when adding on, but just remodeling an existing space? Seems like storage weight etc. would have been considered.
