advice (and rant)

[mzteris]

rant:

I hate this house.

No, I loathe this house.

I didn't buy this stupid house my "husband" did (and he's not even living here anymore.) - I never even saw it 'til we moved.

It's a Tudor. Formal areas. DARK brown siding. Everything's DARK. bleh. (I moved from an open transitional with 8' ceilings and lots of windows and a cheery sorta-buttery beige paint. You know - light. Open. Airy.)

It was built and decorated in the 70's. (by a women who was seriously taste impaired).

There's a babysh*t "yellow/brown" BRICK floor in the foyer/half-bath.

There's hideous wallpaper in nearly every room.

There ARE NO CEILING LIGHT FIXTURES in any room but the kitchen and "dining room" (which I use as a 'puter room. (And the light fixture there are, are trugly!!)

There are no CEILING FANS.

The closets are tiny - and have no lights.

There is ONE full bath upstairs. Smallish.

There is a "fourth bedroom" that is about the size of my old closet. It's become the "junk room" - )(Dreaming: it has potential as a bathroom/laundry room and then change the bath upstairs now into a "master bath" - that might work - but the $$$$??) (That room & current bath are sidebyside so plumbing shouldn't be too much of an issue.)

There's a no-outside-egress basement (that has a full bath wtf? - WHO uses that?) and nice little miniwetbar/kitchenette thingie). Half the basement was 'refinished' - in a choppy way. BUT if there was an outside egress - I could make it an apartment for rent? ($$)

The kitchen? Don't get me started. Small dark ugly old cabinets (of which there are way too few). The dishwasher holds three plates, two bowls and a couple of glasses - it's the smallest damn dishwasher I've ever seen. Also old and doesn't clean that well. I don't think the new models will even fit in that space, either.)

There's a beautiful "sun room" - only it has no venting - so it's freezing in winter and broiling in summer. Nice to look at through the french doors, though. (Except, of course, the carpet is getting ruined because that's the in/out to the backyward for the dogs/kids. where the pool is. Not there's "much yard" as there's a freaking pool in it!)

It has a freaking pool fgs (IN WISCONSIN? There's like 3 weeks of summer. I've been in it exactly once since we moved here last August.) $$$$ to run. And maintenance?? - a royal PITA and I didn't even want the damn thing and I'm the one having to "do it" more than half the time. (And I'm not that young anymore, ya know?)

The landscaping. Big-assed ugly shrubs with LAVA ROCKS. Which of course always get scattered all over the yard so you step on them. (Yeah I grew up in the south - I don't wear shoes much unless it's too damn cold. Which in WI is quite a lot actually. anyway. ) And I like more a "natural look". YOu know - FLOWERS and things?

Dark brown painted deck that burns your feet in summer. And it's all scuffed up. Like to remove all the paint and stain. Add a rail, some other stairs, a dog fence for a "doggie area" away from the house (which would involve ripping out 30 year old shrubs.)


Everytime I walk in the door I want to :cry: Seriously.


So why not move, you say? Or just have it all updated?

Well, I would. But my impulsive thinks no further than the end of his nose STBE paid WAY TOO FRICKIN MUCH for it and I'm not sure we'll ever get that out if I live to be a hundred.

So I don't want to pay too much to "remodel" - because then we'd never recoup that. And I can't sell it now as we paid more than we could sell it for. (did I say not-soon-enough-to-be-EX? :banghead: )


I'm willing to do some work myself. THough admittedly I'm not *that* handy - just sorta. But I can take direction pretty well. Heavy (lifting type) work - not so much, though.

I get lots of ideas - but get overwhelmed. Especially when I walk into the DIY stores.


Where to start? What to do? Can I do it? Is it worth it? Is it even feasible?

$$ is an issue. As in not having enough. Not wanting to invest too much (more). (BUT if I have to live here anyway, I may as well do something to make it liveable and try & enjoy it, eh??)

:rant:


SO - wish list (in sort of order of need) :

GET RID OF THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD!!!!!!

KITCHEN: rip the wall out of the "dining area" and redo the kitchen to make it larger open and friendly. - or at the very least, paint the damn cabinets in the kitchen and remove the bar and relocate (new) dishwasher and add new cab/drawer space somehow/somewhere?

ELECTRICAL: put in ceiling fixtures (bedrooms) and fans. add closet lights.

BATH: aforementioned upstairs bath/laundryroom addition and current bath remodel. (or at the very least paint the bath that's there (including doing something about the floor which looks like plasticy-paper "old wooden planks"? or something.)

LANDSCAPING: have all the lava rocks and most of the shrubs removed. (I've started trying to do that but at the rate I'm going I'll be 100 before all the lava rocks are picked up.)

DECK: above mentioned deck and doggie area.

CARPET - rip it all out downstairs and put in "something" else?


See why I get overwhelmed?

[NMDemDist2]

1. pick a room and buy a 5 gallon bucket of paint

you can even paint those yellow bricks :bounce:

paint paint paint first, then look at what you've got. if part of the lack of light is the big @ss shrubs, rent or buy a hedge trimmer and you and the kids knock em back by half, leave the lava rock for now

then look again

if the shrubs are a big part of the lack of light tackle them first, then pick a room and paint it

as Confucius say, the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step and I'd start with cutting back the shrubs and painting the yellow brick

edit to add, I had pyracanthia bushes around my bay window in AZ that were taller than I was, I cut em back to half their size and then half again the next year then half again and the fourth year they were pretty easy to cut down and put stump killer in but I got a LOT of light right away

[mzteris]

2. Not a bad idea, actually.

Painting's relatively cheap in the greater scheme of things.

I'm not sure about painting the brick part, though. Maybe I didn't make it clear that the yellowbrick is the FLOOR!! (aaagggh my eyes!!) and I'm not sure paint would hold up to the traffic. Two boys (teenager and one near big as) and THREE dogs (one of which weighs 150ish depending on his diet.)

Shrubs - just trimming A LOT - might help, too. They seem so overwhelming, ya know?

But those damn lava rocks. ow ow ouch ooooooooo ow!!

[Stinky The Clown]

4. The brick .......

... first off, is it, in fact, real, solid, full size brick ....... or a tile-thin veneer? Use of veneers as thin as a half inch was pretty common in that era.

This is a link to one of the more popular products from back then. I'm not sure this was used on floors, but similar products were made expressly for that purpose.

Anyway ..... if you have a way to check, see if the brick is full thickness, honest-to-God brick or this ersatz stuff. If ersatz, it should be a fairly simple mater to pry it up, clean the substrate, and install a nice, contemporary floor tile.

[mzteris]

5. yeah it's that thin stuff -

did I mention the mortar is "brick red" which goes so well with 'harvest gold', doncha know?

pardon me while I :puke:


I've thought about prying it up, but some guy at the store said there was some "self-leveling concrete" or something that would be easier to spread over it and then put on something else.

I don't know what's under it. There is a semi-loose "brick" maybe I should check.

Thanks.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. To be sure, the leveling compound is easier than removal ......

.... but I would be concerned about raising the floor. Once leveled, this new substrate (the leveled floor) becomes the *bottom* of anything new you put on it. If the new stuff has much thickness (hardwood and tile come to mind) it will stand proud of all surrounding floors.

[mzteris]

7. and it (the brick floor) wraps

into the 1/2 bath - so I was worried about the fixtures in there.

That's why I nixed his other idea of some sort of floating plywood flooring that goes on top and then you floor over that. It would definitely be too high.

How thin can you go with the leveling compound and still have it work?

[Stinky The Clown]

8. It is made to go to zero thickness

In other words, it is meant to have feathered edges. Regular concrete can't do this without chipping and braking.

[Warpy]

10. The self leveling concrete can be stained and polished

However, if one of the "bricks" is working loose, the whole business is probably ready to fail and it might be time to put the boys to work chipping it all out of the way and preparing whatever is under it to accept decent tile or even laminate.

In the meantime, there is no fix cheaper than paint. If the wallpaper (and I loathe wallpaper, too) is strippable, get rid of it first. If it isn't, you can be sure it'll hold at least one color change of paint. Again, it's cheap and dirty, but nobody should have to burst into tears on entering a crummy, dark, gloomy house.

Definitely paint those cabinets in the kitchen.

By the way, you could have stuck your ex with the house and gotten a lump sum representing your equity in it, if any. It would probably get you half of whatever the down payment was. Sticking him with the ugly and unworkable house he seemed to love so much would have been great revenge.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

12. If you decide to keep the brick, don't paint it, stain it...

It holds up MUCH better.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. One giant caution on painting in this case .......

You **can** paint over wallpaper ....... but you shouldn't. It makes removal extraordinarily difficult. As horrible a job as it may seem, remove that fugly wallpaper **before** you repaint.

[youthere]

13. AGREED..Holy crap do I agree!

we just did a bathroom remodel where previous owners had painted (several coats) over existing wallpaper and it was a nightmare!
STRIP THAT WALLPAPER! You will be MUCH happier with the end results.

[youthere]

9. I agree..Paint Paint Paint and then Paint some more...

and when you are sick of painting, make the kids paint...then invite the neighbors over, throw some Brats on a slow grill and hand them all a paintbrush. If you have any favors to call in from family members, this would be the time to do it.
Remodeling is expensive, messy, and time consuming (and overwhelming) so do what you have to to make it tolerable until you can remodel or sell. You might be surprised at the results...you may actually enjoy that old house.
Go one room at a time and DON'T move on until it's finished, and start with the room you spend the most time in, OR the room that depresses you the most. Good Luck!

P.S. And get the kids to pick up those rocks!

[NMDemDist2]

11. removing rock isn't *too* bad

get a big tarp, rake the rock into tarp, rinse, repeat

it's time consuming but not un-doable

seems those teenagers have some chores this summer eh? ask them which chore they'd like to tackle first

[dropkickpa]

14. How old are your kids?

16+? If so, buy/borrow a machete and let them have at the shrubs. My parents wanted to remove the shrubs in front of their house and the kid across the street did it for free because they let him use his machete, with my brothers switching off.

Same thing (no machete) with the yellow tile-brick road, if your boys are old enough (I'd say over 12) buy some goggles and work gloves and borrow/buy a small sledge hammer and big prybar thingy, and let them have at it. I haven't met a kid yet that didn't like doing demo work (hell, I still like doing demo, and I'm a 30 year-old woman!).

Craigslist the lava rocks, advertising them as "free clean fill - you haul"

Wallpaper removal hint - I've found that diluted fabric softner or vinegar in a spray bottle works better than that expensive goop they sell at hardware stores which didn't get barely anything off and was $$$$$. I've never tried to remove paper from drywall, just plaster (I suspect, given the age of your house, it's drywall, not plaster), so you have to work in smaller sections and be much more careful of gouging (our 100 year-old plaster was like marble, so we'd soak the whole wall and me and my dad would strip at the same time).