| Author |
Message |
Merrysea
Moderator
08-13-2004
| Friday, January 28, 2011 - 10:47 am 
My ex put a hardwood floor in the family room, and from the front door you can see how dusty the floor is!
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Maplsyrp
Member
02-10-2009
| Friday, January 28, 2011 - 1:44 pm
Thanks for the advice! I am starting to think hardwood is not going to be a good idea.
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Happymom
Member
01-20-2003
| Friday, January 28, 2011 - 2:30 pm
Our dog has scratched up our Oak (?) hardwood floors a bit, but not really too badly. Now that she's quite old, she doesn't run and doesn't scratch up the floors, but we have to keep these ugly runners and rugs everywhere to give her traction. The hardwood is less slippery than the wood laminate.
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Texannie
Member
07-15-2001
| Friday, January 28, 2011 - 4:39 pm
go with slate!!
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Maplsyrp
Member
02-10-2009
| Monday, January 31, 2011 - 2:09 pm
That's so funny you should say that Texannie cause I looked at slate this weekend and I think that is what I want.
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Riviere
Member
09-09-2000
| Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 6:32 am
Finally got a new concrete driveway this week!!!
The old original was the ugliest eyesore on our street. A giant tree had caused buckling and a network of cracks. The house itself is decent but a driveway like that made it unappealing & uncared for. Tsk tsk, it had been the least of the builder's worries too! When we tore it out we saw builder didn't lay down a sublayer of anything. No gravel or mesh or rebar, it was a concrete pad directly on the dirt since 1973...
Add the giant tree roots and they probably knew it would be a headache for the 4th owner, but they just didn't care!
Neighbors strolling past remarked on the big change, so they do notice. Then, just 5 hours old, some fool left the gate ajar and my dog ran onto the damp cement, wanted to leave her prints of approval on it maybe? I could have screamed! At least it's not too visible from 10' away...
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 5:33 pm
Aw, those dog prints will be a fun memory in years to come.
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Goddessatlaw
Member
07-19-2002
| Sunday, May 29, 2011 - 7:10 am
Congratulations on the new driveway, Riviere. (Were you the fool who left the gate open?)
I want to move in to Mack's bathroom.
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Calamity
Member
10-18-2001
| Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - 11:36 am
So long as the puppy tracks aren't too deep they shouldn't be a problem. People pay a lot of money to get designs stamped in their drives & walks - your dog just personalized your new drive for free!
Mack's bathroom is beautiful and it looks almost as big if not bigger than my bedroom. I love the dark wood and would love to remodel my bath (it's circa late 1950s but not cool late '50s), kitchen, and build a treehouse but am stuck still doing not-fun things like getting a new roof installed a couple Saturdays ago to replace the cheap-o one the people I bought my place from had put on. At least it's a nice-looking roof.
Right now I'm looking for a local place that installs cork flooring just to figure out pricing. Can't do it right now, of course (thanks leaky roof!), but want to have an idea on the cost.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Wednesday, June 01, 2011 - 4:33 am
We're several months into living with our new bathroom and love it. Surprisingly there's very little we'd change from what we did, guess we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted. We should have as we agonized for years about remodeling before we made the leap. 
Right now we're recovering from having an AC system replaced this past weekend. I was mowing the lawn last Wednesday morning and just happened to be outside near the upstairs unit when it "blew up"....actually made this horrible sound and I knew something bad had happened. God bless them but two installer techs worked from 9 AM until 6:30 PM installing a whole new system Saturday. It was 93 degrees by about 2 PM and the base unit is in our attic and it must have been 120-130 degrees up there. They said they're used to it and they did have a fan system to help break the heat a bit but wow! Oh well....house is 11 years old and our cooling systems work probably seven to eight months a year here so a builder's grade unit lasting that long is probably pretty good. Hopefully the main downstairs unit will hold on for a year or too though. Cost more than a nickel to replace the smaller upstairs system. 
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Goddessatlaw
Member
07-19-2002
| Wednesday, June 01, 2011 - 7:05 am
OMG I hate spending money on that kind of thing, Mack. For some reason spending on the cosmetic issues doesn't bother me, but replacing infrastructure makes me wild. We replaced our hvac a few years ago at a cost of $8500. I could have had a house full of new furniture and carpeting for less than that.
Congratulations for getting it fixed so expeditiously, though - it's gotten hot fast this summer. We went from 60 high to 95 degrees high in the space of a week here.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Friday, June 03, 2011 - 1:46 pm
And just yesterday, not even a week after replacing the upstairs unit, the downstairs unit has started acting up. Great, just great! It's still working but I'll have to have it checked early next week. Oh joy......
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Maplsyrp
Member
02-10-2009
| Friday, June 03, 2011 - 2:12 pm
We had to replace both our units 2 years ago and the good news is our electric bill has gone down alot.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Saturday, June 04, 2011 - 4:57 am
I hope you're right Maplsyrp and, in fact, I'd be disappointed to the point of shock if our electric bill didn't go down. The units in the house were the original builder's install from 2000 so they're, or were since we just replaced one, 11 years old. That was before the Feds set up minimum cooling efficiency standards and I've been told those units are probably 8-10 SEER while the Fed minimum is now 13 SEER. The new upstairs unit is 17 SEER and if the downstairs unit is going out I'll replace it with the same model, though higher capacity.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Monday, June 06, 2011 - 1:49 pm
They "fixed" the downstairs unit but truth is that it's still an 11 year old system and is probably on it's last legs. Problem today was that the drain in the system became plugged and condensation was overflowing into the secondary drain which lets the water come out on our patio. Sounds strange but it's a low tech warning system. If you see water on the patio then there's a problem in the base unit upstairs. They unplugged the base unit drain and blew out the line with compressed air but the underlying problem is that the unit is just old and a bit rusty. The rust built up in the pan and plugged the drain. Nothing to do about the rust but to eventually replace the whole unit. We'll just have to see how long we can limp along and it is cooling effectively so no immediate pressure at least today.
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Maplsyrp
Member
02-10-2009
| Tuesday, June 07, 2011 - 10:54 am
We did the same thing Mack for as long as we could because it is awfully hard to part with the money if you don't have to.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Wednesday, June 08, 2011 - 5:00 am
It's a bit of a gamble for sure. We've already had a pretty warm spring, really very summer like temperatures in the 90's with no rain at all. That puts a lot of stress on the old unit and there's always that chance that at the hottest time of the year the unit will totally fail. The thought of going even 3 or 4 days with no AC downstairs, which is basically where we live, isn't very attractive but, like Goddessatlaw said, parting with that much money for infrastructure really bugs us. The relatively good news was that because we had one unit installed by them they'll install another at a slight discount. Really brings the cost of replacing the much larger downstairs unit (5 ton) down to just slightly more than the upstairs unit (3 1/2 ton).
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Wednesday, June 08, 2011 - 11:18 am
I want to re-do my closet, the prior owner did a diy closet design that I hate and it not really that good a material.
I will have it professionally done, but was wondering if there might be a website or something that I could use to play with the design. Anyone know of one?
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Vsmart
Member
02-10-2003
| Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 1:04 pm
closetmaid.com
I had a bid of $2,400 & $2,600 to redo Mbr walk-in closet. Instead got white coated wire shelves from Home Depot & 2 four drawer dressers + shoe closet with mirror doors from IKEA. Entire job less than $800.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 1:09 pm
interesting. I did a quote through one site and it was 989. So I will check out that site and see what they say, LOL. Thanks.
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Northstar
Member
09-29-2008
| Monday, September 26, 2011 - 12:17 am
I'm not sure I'd call it a renovation, but this week I had my crawlspace insulated w/a soy based spray foam, then a layer of batting. I look forward to having lower heating bills and hopefully a warmer floor this winter. Energy was one reason I had it done, but I also want to change my flooring and I'm hoping this will allow for more options. Has anyone heard favorable reviews on cork flooring? I'm leaning toward that but need more info.
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Urgrace
Member
08-19-2000
| Monday, December 12, 2011 - 3:13 pm
Northstar, the only negative things I've ever heard about cork flooring are when the price was not in the budget, the installation
was bad, or the owner had pets with long nails that dug up the surface. ;-)
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 11:11 am
I have a question if anyone can answer it. I'm trying to decide if my house is worth remodeling portions of or if it seriously needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. Has anyone ever been in this situation?
I figure I can start with a home inspector to tell me how bad things are overall but then where do I go? Would you hire an architect to give you different scenarios or go straight to a contractor and see if they work with designers?
Ideally, I'm looking for a comparison similar to what they use to do on the hgtv show "Hidden Potential".
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Texannie
Member
07-15-2001
| Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 6:02 pm
we just went through this. our house has had a few updates but in our neighborhood it really is considered a tear down. we were given a really good offer from a builder to buy our house for the lot value. we started looking at where we would move and really couldn't find a place that we liked as well as our house in a price range we wanted to pay. we have decided to remodel our house. for our neighborhood we can put the money into it and will definitely get it out. if for some reason the market changes when/if we decide we really do want to move somewhere else and we can't sell it for a profit...who really cares, we have a great remodeled house!
i would have an appraiser or real estate agent appraise your house for resale 'as is' then compare that number with what you would have to pay to move somewhere else. also ask the realtor how much you would need to spend in updates and how much you could recoop.
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Sunday, January 29, 2012 - 12:34 am
Thanks, Texannie!
Can I ask if you're going to hire an architect designer to help with the remodel or just do some sketches of your own and go straight to a contractor?
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