That is the thought moving through my head as the spouse is hammering the hell out of subflooring in the upstairs bathroom. Would i do this again, NO! Because with each pound of the hammer a fine mist of crud sprinkled down through the open ceiling of the downstairs bath coating everything. Then every so often big chunks of dank smelly crud fell through and the pounding was so loud my vision went blurry.
Now, I am married to a guy who subscribes to the “brotherhood” of doing it the right way even if it takes years off our lives. Once the dust has settled, rooms will be rearranged for the next project. There is always a next project! This place was a dump, but oh the view is inspiring, damn that realtor who showed us the expansive lakeview before showing us the house.
A simple job is always more complicated. Whip out the new bath in a weekend. Uh wrong, toilets had overflowed and soured the underlayment so it required scraping and grinding. Then patching and waiting and sharing one bath with four people.
I love it when it is done, but I detest the dust, noise, clutter, tools, dirt tracking, dumpster rental, bills, arguments and time spent in limbo, putting off this or that because the house comes first. There was no vacation this summer, not even instate,instead we bought flooring, vanities, toilets, sinks, lumber.
But there is always a but, at least the upstairs bath no longer reeks and soon soon the new floor will be installed (it’s stored in my bedroom along with the clawfoot) and I will say it will have been worth it.
Like childbirth the pain recedes but the memories remain.
Speaking as a guy who thought that he could finish a garage in a couple of months of Sundays, rewired the house over a few years, remodeled the bathroom in a couple of weekends (it’s easier to do something that someone else wants) and still hasn’t finished a stain job started I-don’t-want-to-say-how-long ago, I would do it again. But then again I’m a freaking idiot. YMMV.
Mine is a middle ground - a relatively old house with some character, but in good enough shape to live in. We are very gradually doing various projects.
The same here, very gradually. We have a 12 yo kid who remembers the milestones in her life depending on which stage of remodeling the house was in!
The kitchen took the longest, about two gradual years. We had plywood counters and a sink on sawhorses and the fridge was in the living room throughout the holidays one year.
Now my spouse has made threatening murmurings about installing a third bath for the master bedroom. :rolleyes: I like it the way it is, its like a suite with lots and lots of room. I say we don’t need no stinkin third crapper! However, I would agree to expanding an undersized bedroom into the attic for a sleeping loft. :smack:
We’ll never be done. We own a mid-70’s era home. My husband is a project kind of guy. He remodeled the kitchen in a few months, but we had a concrete floor for about two years, I think. He’s gradually replacing all the windows in the house. He just installed a gorgeous new front door. Still needs to mud and paint the inside, but the siding is up outside.
I remember how badly he cussed when he found out how the ceiling fans were wired! That was a hell of a chore - do you know how hot an attic in Houston gets in the summer?
He’s a trooper, though. I’m about useless when it comes to helping him, so I bring him gatorade and tell him he’s wonderful. (Although I did help tile the backsplash in the kitchen!)
Mrs Turki and I are on house number 4. This one is 275 years old with a 70 year old furnace:eek:. This will probably be our last. We’ve never lived in a “finished” house for more than a year, and I’d like to try that. And NEVER fix plumbing again!!!
I generally think I would until I am in the middle of doing something and then I bitch and moan and say I should have bought a new place in the suburbs and I don’t want to deal with the headaches.
I guess it depends. My parents bought there house new in the 1977 and in the 20 years that they lived there, they were constantly updating things or making improvements so I suppose that all houses will need work.
We wasted 2-3 days re-painting French doors. When I add up our combined woman-time if we had worked overtime, we could have bought new doors, as well as new windows for that room as well. And we broke 3 window panes repairing the doors too, which was a damn, damn, damn mess. Sometimes you have to just know your limitations.
I wouldn’t do it again. I’m finding it more frustrating than enjoyable the older I get, and even for DIY the expense just seems to be climbing out of my range. And by the time I’d be ready to move again (daughter in college), I’ll be in my fifties. Assuming I’m still single if I sell and move, I’ll probably rent a much smaller place (the way things are going, possibly a refrigerator box).
I absolutely would not…we are considering moving now, and I told my husband that I’d like an old house, but that I am not doing any work on it. We’ve been living in this house for almost 10 years, and still aren’t done with everything we want to do (I just ripped the carpeting off the stairs today, as a matter of fact). It’s been a rewarding experience, and I love my house, but it just takes too much time.
Una we too would have worked on the doors rather than buying new, in fact i’m pretty sure if we wanted to put french doors where there were none before we would hunt a set down in some antique flea market, they would probably be covered in ten coats of paint with broken glass panes. And we would buy it, and store it until the time came to use it.
Turki lurki How does one proceed working on a house which has 275 year old bones?! Only preservationists need apply, rehabbers not needed eh?
And here it is 2 weeks since we pulled the plug on the upstairs bath, and then we were stalled due to a hard to find bathtub fitting. This because we wanted a clawfoot tub instead of a simple fiberglass replacement. The spouse had built a deck for the tub, installed part of the shower fixture and ran a new heat duct to that room. He had me standing by to lift the tub in place (grunt) but all worked stopped because his fittings did not fit. After running all over town for a tub drain that would fit the clawfoot he got a lead for where to find his part and went to an old plumbing supply house.
Literally it was a house, that is about 50 years older than the surrounding turn of the century neighborhood it is located in. So he walks in and finds plumbing fixtures of every style shape and application. The walls were plastered with old old ads, paper clippings, posters, and pictures of bathrooms. He was in plumbing heaven and the old guy behind the counter grinned and said everyone says that. Of course he had our part!
We are back in business, maybe by next weekend I’ll get to soak in the tub!
:eek:
