House remodel - opinions and experiences

[LittleLebowski]

Congrats, voodoo_man!

[LSP552]

We did a complete remodel about 8 years ago. Went with tile in the kitchen, bathrooms, living room. Laminate in the dining room and foyer, and carpet in the bedrooms. A large area rug in the living room works well to maintain the softness over tile in the living room.

[LSP552]

I need to add that our remodel cost a good bit more than originally intended....because wife. Adding a fudge factor to the budget might be helpful. Like someone mentioned, we used the remodel to open up the floor plan and rase some ceilings and I highly recommend those if you can. We removed a non-load bearing wall and cut window frames into another to open up the living room and dining room areas.

Going to a 10 ft ceilings in the kitchen and dining room were real improvements.

[hufnagel]

Heh. Yea, whatever budget you come up with, triple it.

What was supposed to be a simple $3000-ish laundry room remodel (move a little plumbing, get some new appliances, a new door, call it "DONE") turned into a $10,000 extensive gut out of both the laundry room and the bathroom adjoining it. Each time we peeled back a layer we found more damage, so we'd have to peel back more, find more damage, lather, rinse, repeat. We weren't going to do the bathroon too, but when you discover the floor dips 1" because of a defective joist, things get expensive quick. In the end it turned out fantastic, but man it sure looked like total fail and AIDS as certain points.

Mind you that dollar figure included me doing about 50% of the work. I hired a contractor/friend who does these things and we worked together. If I'd had a contractor doing it exclusively it could easily have been $20,000 total.

[voodoo_man]

Don't congratulate me yet! Nothing is written in stone until it is.

Thanks again for all the info. The total estimate for everything is pretty liberal and we planned on doing it even before this house so we have enough saved up to do exactly what we need and no be hurting.

[TGS]

We had a limited remodel last year. 1 of our bathrooms and 1 of our bedrooms along with getting an outdoor brick patio.

We went with the laminate flooring for the bedroom as that's what our other bedroom, office and den has and we have no complaints. We had the ceiling pulled out and replaced, but kept the walls and had them repainted.

We helped insulation with the house by replacing all of our window blinds throughout the house with some really nice ones that feature a honey-comb structure.

The bathroom was a complete remodel. We did tiling. Not sure on the specifics of the tiling or grout, but everything seems to be A-okay as of right now. At my fiance's behest, we had a compartment built into the wall to hide a pistol.

We had a contractor do all of that, who also did my fiance's mothers house where they did a MUCH nicer job, as we were looking for lower cost materials and styles. If you're looking for custom carpentry like ornate wood trim, that's right up his wheelhouse. At the very least we trusted them and they did well for us, talking us out of pricier options we were considering but wouldn't have served our goals (ruggedness, reliability, maintenance costs and what not). Given most contractors are fucking scum bags, we feel confident enough recommending them based on these ethical qualities alone. If you need their info let me know, they are in your AO.

__________________________

Now for the patio. Different company, much different heartache that resulted in me telling him that he was a pathetic excuse for a man and I'd never even heard as many excuses from a compulsive lying 6 year old. He was a "friend" of my fiance (her working definition of friend is much looser than mine), working as a firefighter in the same town she's on the rescue squad of. The patio wasn't level and such was apparent to the naked eye, which would result in pooling of water against the house. I pointed it out, and it took some convincing for him to finally pull it up and re do it. About half of the plants he moved have died, and he has not replaced them. All of the work was only supposed to take 1 weekend, but 5 weeks later our yard was still torn the fuck up like a construction site with no end in sight. He continually fed excuses.

Overall, our experience with him has prompted us to consider having certain information in the contract for future jobs, like paying for shit they fuck up and kill, times for completion of the job, ect.

[Clobbersaurus]

When we remodelled our condo we did tile in the kitchen and industrial laminate in the living room and dining room.

Our current house has hardwood throughout the kitchen/hallways/dining/living rooms. Hardwood is NOT young kid friendly and at this point I would love to have my old flooring back. Kitchen it the worst. Every dropped knife, bowl, spoon, cup causes dents in the flooring.

[JAD]

I've done a six figure remodel, a twenty k set of touch ups, and we're trying to decide if we like this place enough to dump thirty on it. I don't know which end of the nail to put the screwdriver in, but I write checks like a mofo. I also made two years' salary on the last house, so not so bad at cashing checks either.

Wood everywhere. Including the kitchen. Tile is tolerated in the southwest but you're not there -- wood is warm and easy on joints. Not engineered wood and not laminate -- good wood that looks good. Huuuge resale value and eye grabbing to buyers.

[Luke]

My parents place has tile in the kitchen and they hate it. If you drop anything like a plate or pan or even a heavy type cup (coffee cup?) it cracks.

[JTQ]

Buddy of mine just put down bamboo hardwood flooring and it looks really nice.

I don't know a lot about bamboo, but I've followed the subject somewhat as I think the idea has a lot good behind it as it is a fast growing product and is pretty durable. However, there has been a awful lot on this product in the news dealing with toxic chemicals (glues mostly) used in the production of the product, and since I suspect most bamboo comes from China, I'd be very leery of it and make sure I researched it thoroughly before using it.