My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

Ok so we decided this year to renovate our entire second floor of our house (two bedroom and bathroom) with our tax refund money this year. Sounded simple at first...reinsulate, resheetrock, and renovate bathroom. We had to re-sheetrock since the sheetrock was damaged from the lovely wood panelling.

After we gutted the place ourselves we find some suspicious wiring, so we have the electrician come in. The previous owner had the electricity upgraded before we moved in and they did a shoddy job. Also, the back of our cape is dormered and I guess probably around that time they attempted to splice and tape wires together...behind insulation...behind sheetrock The electrician commended us for gutting everything and for calling him in before the contractor came and closed up all the walls. My entire second floor is now re-wired since the electrician said it was a mess (electrician is a neighbor)

Next we decided to pull out the shower enclosure so of course we go to turn off the water, but we cant. The valve was so old it was rusted and we couldnt turn the water off. In comes the plumber and replaces a few valves for us. Not a big deal but it set us back some time and money

Next, while the electrician was doing some wiring, he notices one of our vents was off (we have forced air) So I call my dad over and he looks at both vents upstairs, and aparently neither one of the vents was ever connected, he is assuming they were never re-connected when the dormer was put up. The dormer was put up in the 70's! It was something we didnt see when looking at the house because you couldnt tell what was behind the wall. Now the woman who lived here before us had two kids who slept upstairs! Those rooms were freezing in the winter and since we only used the space for storage, we didnt really notice it all winter. I just chalked the cold rooms up to the horrible windows we had up there.

So now we have a bedroom and a half sheetrocked and insulated, brand new wiring, and we have to figure out what we are doing with the heating, which is our project for this weekend.

Ok so here is my advice...

1. When opening walls, you never know what you are going to find. Its like a pandoras box and once the walls are open, theres no turning back.

2. If you are going to renovate overbudget yourself by twice as much...we only over budgeted by $3,000. Thank God for savings accounts.

3. If you can do it, open the walls and see what's behind there. Our home is only about 50 years old and things are starting to wear down. I didnt think that 50 was that old for a home and didnt expect MOST of what we found, but then again I am a first time homeowner.

I hope that my advice will help someone somewhere down the road. I know most of this stuff really surprised DH and I and we were not expecting it at all. I am definitely getting an education in electricity now lol.

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

oh i can't agree with you more. I made the mistake of not over budgeting on all of our renn's and now we have moderate CC debt. We had to pay the workers in cash and the supplies on CC because we were estimated 7 days but it was actually 20 days which we had to pay for. And both contractors are relatives/friends so it amazed me how things went up and things "changed."

Also when you open the walls you find EVERYTHING that is wrong in your house and even when you correct it its still not 100% correct because everyone has a difference of opinion. So you gotta do what is best and what you can do at that time.

All I know is we are done with doing major things on the house for a few years because of what we learned. Even though we desperately need a new bathroom/kitchen/siding I told DH forget about it, we will wait until every cc bill is 0, we have a buffer again and we have double saved up for what the renn will cost.

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

yep our kitchen is 60's but we have a donated stove but the fridge may go but i will just pick up a dented/donated one to hold us off. I keep saying to myself how many months since we closed and we did how much - now rest and stop caring that not everything is going to be done right away.

Yea friends/family as great as they are they still want to make money in the end. They will find a way to get what they want and you can't blame them for that. Just unfortunately we made the mistake of thinking what they said it would be is what it would be which is FAR from the truth.

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

completely feel your pain. Our most recent project, our pavers, turned into a bigger project then we thought. We knew the price for the paver project, but then we needed all the grass replaced, what grass we had, we decided to get sod so now we are putting in sprinklers, then the wood stairs going up to the sunroom needed to be replaced and the sunroom roof needs to be replaces. BUT it will be done and out of the way and we will be happy and be able to enjoy our new backyard. I already feel like we have a new house just with the pavers done. Oh and a new light outside, so we have to get electric run.

And believe me, every time we start a project on the inside it's more time then we thought and sometimes more money. It's always like opening a can of worms and our house was built in 1985. So sometimes it doesn't matter how old the house is, if the builder or the contracters aren't the greatest, then you aren't getting good quality work done and you don't know that until after you buy the house and you start doing work in the house.

Our next project is our 2nd bedroom. There were some problems with the AC that was in the wall, we replaced it, but found that there was a birds nest and the AC had been leaking inside the walls. We took out most of the bird nest, but I don't think we got all of it, it sort of smells weird in that room. So now we will be taking that section of the wall down and cleaning and replacing the sheetrock and wainscotting. Then repaint the room. Can of worms I'm sure.

And thank god you opened the walls, now you are safe from a electric fire.

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

JldDolphin im so sorry to hear what you went through with your pavers But you are right, at least you got it the way you wanted it and once you sit outside on your patio furniture on those new pavers im sure all the stress and aggrivation will disappear.

I am dreading doing my backyard since my backyard has a ton of trees in it and roots galore!

Nifheim...you are right. Its very hard but you gotta sometimes sit back and just say to yourself, it will be perfect one day it all cant be done right away.

Re: My home renovations...a bit of venting and advice

That sucks for you guys!! I'm so sorry!

Really great of you to share and warn other homeowners though, thanks!!