I am a DIYer – I’ve done it all. Flooring, trim, electrical, plumbing, doors, windows, siding, framing, roofing, gutters, and even two custom kitchens! I’m not afraid of any job inside or outside the house. Saving money on labor means more money for materials which means a nicer house for less money!
Last summer though, I finally had to hire someone to terrace out my yard. I’ve never ran heavy machinery and didn’t want to crash a bulldozer through my house, or my neighbors house, or flip it down the hill and kill myself. At any rate, I had to hire someone and it was a nightmare. What started out with a $4000 quote and was going to take 4 days ended up costing $8500 and took 2 weeks. Worst yet, I ended up having to work with his crew because he couldn’t get people to show up and work. Then, after all that, the yard didn’t drain correctly and I couldn’t get captain dickhead contractor back here to fix it. I had to spend another $1000 installing drainage so the the water would stay away from my house (which is why we decided to do it to start with). All-in, my project ended up costing over $11k. It’s been over a year and I’m just now getting the grass to grow back there. I had to spend another $600 putting top soil on the yard so the grass would grow (clay mud) because the contractor hauled all the top soil away and nothing would grow back there.
That’s the first and probably last time I’ll hire a contractor for anything. I’d rather burn my money – at least then I’ll know where it went.
TL;DR: Contractors are assholes and can’t be trusted. Don’t ever hire anyone to do work for you or you’ll spend almost triple what they quoted and still have to do most of the work yourself.
@jbartus Originally, he came to me with a bill for $9700. I insisted he provide receipts for materials and logs for his hours worked (which I made a point to keep track of during his stint). I took the receipts for materials and wrote a check for those first, which ended up being $6500. After some haggling and discussion over labor and the ACTUAL time he and his crew spent working, I wrote him another check for $2000. It was the middle ground. I wasn’t happy about it, but neither was he. I doubt he made anything after he paid his workers.
I’m chalking the whole thing up as a really expensive education - the big lesson is on getting “quotes” verses getting “estimates”. Also, verbal “quotes” are useless in court. The court might have ruled in my favor after spending months in litigation, but to me, it wasn’t worth it. Next time (if there is a next time), I’ll get everything in writing and know what to expect and how to handle it.
This little lady and her compatriots did extensive damage to my crawlspace by crawling in under my a/c units:
Note her babies hanging out underneath her:
A better view of her young. Opossum are the only marsupial in North America:
Here’s the after view of the restoration:
My brother thought we should do it ourselves, but I had no interest in cleaning out all those possum droppings. They might have been in there a couple years (I don’t keep anything in the crawlspace so I never go down there). Both people I had out to quote it said it wasn’t the worst they’d seen, but it was up there.
I rent. I don’t have enough credit built up yet to be able to get a loan. I wish someone had explained how important a credit card was when I was younger. I’m on the right track though.
I try to do minor repairs around the house and then just give my landlord the receipts for the stuff. I get to learn something relevant, and it keeps me from bothering the landlord for simple things like replacing a switch. The most annoying thing I tackled was replacing the dishwasher and the garbage disposal on the same day. I didn’t buy enough parts so I had to go back to the store.
I’ve had people (ok, dwarves) flood massive tunnels with lava for magma forges, excavate deep pits to drop goblins and other undesirables down, dig giant moats to keep out the dirty, hippie, tree-loving elves, and designed a maze with a huge field of retractable spikes to kill all the demons of hell.
@dashcloud oh I guess I should have picked that up from the emphasis on dwarves. Like @RiotDemon I originally thought it was a LOTR reference and got lost.
@PocketBrain Get an air fryer. It’s basically a specialized convection oven with a basket. They excel at cooking french fries. They’re not bad for some other things either, but ours does the best fries I’ve ever had.
Did a complete kitchen overhaul a few years ago, down to the studs. I remodeled my family room including stripping the old, terrible wallpaper and installing hardwood flooring. New room for less than a grand. That made me happy.
Contracted someone to redo our 2nd floor, before our new son was born. Said he could do it in 6 weeks. 9 weeks later, we finally moved in and fired the contractor. After a year, I’m still fixing all the problems he created. Worst experience in my life.
After hurricane Andrew, my old house which was rented out, needed almost a complete rebuild, roof, windows, inside walls. One contractor for roof, another for windows, another for walls, plumber, electrician. I had to play general contractor, deal with the insurance company for money and hope that the work was done. And do my regular job at the same time. I sold the place before it got painted, it was too much work for more than a year.
Below is, I believe, the official and best guide for how to do a septic tank. With or without a contractor.
From A Prairie Home Companion, September, 1984. One of the great News From Lake Woebegon editions. I used to listen every week, and so first heard this 22 years ago this month.
Warning: 21m17s.
Warning: so very worth it. No video except a still - just play and listen.
@f00l We used to love listening to PHC every week, in the 80’s. It was about the only thing we could afford to do sometimes & it was so damn funny!!
Thanks for posting it.
@f00l “…where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” Reminds me of meh! Thanks for posting this, I’ll give it a listen when I’m in a less noisy environment.
This inspired me to do an audible look-see. there are nearly 400 of these, just the “News From Lake Woebegon” segments, on audible.com, at $.66 each! I think these come from current and recent broadcasts and re-broadcasts of classic episodes.
I’m sure many of them are also on youtube.
I wish i could get the entire show they did from LA with Marnie Nixon.
@f00l Ah, yes, good memories. PHC and of course, ‘Simply Folk’ which played songs from Stan Rogers and many others. We went to see Garrison do PHC live at the River Center in Columbus, GA several (OK, almost 10!) years back. What a hoot.
I once bought a piece of property in Minnesota that had an old, unfinished/uncovered septic tank on it that had filled with leaves over the past several seasons. I got in it and was slinging shovelfuls of decomposed leaves and dirt (at least, it looked like dirt…) up out of the bottom of the 6 foot deep tank when my wife started screaming where she was standing next to the open pit. “WHAT is that? You gotta come see this…” When I asked what she was talking about, she just repeated the same phrase, and finally (after a few muttered oaths), I had to crawl out of the hole and see what the deal was.
Turns out that, given it was late fall and the temps were pretty cool, I had uncovered a nest of salamanders in the litter in the bottom of the tank, and I had unknowingly slung a couple of 8-10 inch long, bright blue and black salamanders onto the ground and they were starting to revive a bit. Before it was over, I found a dozen of the critters, and was totally amazed that I managed to uncover the first ones without A) seeing them, and slicing one in half.
I have to admit, it was kind of fun seeing them fly through the air though, once I knew they were there.
We poured a new lid over that tank and used it for a year, before we moved to Wisconsin… but that’s another tale altogether.
@chienfou
cross posted all this Prairie Home Companion and Marni Nixon show performances to the audiobook and podcast thread here, so it might not so easily get lost. Credited you
When we bought our house in 2000 we stripped the kitchen and living room down to the studs and subfloor. I redid all the electrical. Friends helped me with insulation and drywall. I hired a plumber to pipe in propane. A friend who’s a pro did most of the texturing and showed me how to do the rest. I did the painting. But I hired pros for the finish work (carpet, laminate, cabinets, granite counters, and tile).
In 2012, after we inherited some money from my wife’s parents, we hired a contractor to do a major remodel/addition. He turned the living room and bedroom with eight-foot ceilings into one large living room with a vaulted ceiling. The carport became a garage with a master bedroom above. Lots of other improvements that turned a piece-of-crap house (aside from the kitchen) in a dream location into a dream house in a dream location. I didn’t lift a finger aside from writing a lot of frighteningly-large checks. We couldn’t be happier. And the kitchen still looked good enough that we didn’t have to spend a penny on it.
Generally a pretty competent DIYer, except for major plumbing work.
Biggest job I ever hired out was a major remodel (designed by my dad, an architect) of kitchen, bath, & master bedroom when I bought my first house (1988, I think). Place was built in the 20s or 30s, had really nice ‘bones’ but had been neglected; perhaps an absentee landlord situation. Even cleaned up a bit for sale was kinda unattractive (read “cheap”). Contractor was a small local outfit run by a guy who knew my girlfriend (later wife). I think most of the work was just him & a helper/laborer. We broke the work into 3 or 4 phases and made payments at completion of each phase. He drank too much but the work was pretty good, and I wasn’t in a big hurry (had 4 or 5 months left on apt. lease across town).
Don’t remember that there were any major cost issues, but I was prepared to finish the job if I had to fire him 70-80% thru the job.
Put in a pool.
EVERYTHING else around here I do myself.
Over the years the old “mill” house I originally bought on an acre of land has been totally gutted, rewired, replumbed, tiled, and re-designed/expanded. I figure the city has hauled away about 80% of the original house by now.
All old double hung windows with sash weights that had broken loose replaced with insulated double pane energy efficient windows (many of which were relocated at the same time)
Entrance doorways moved and redone
Old siding removed and replaced
Roofline reworked and new shingles installed (had some demolition help from a 60 ft pecan tree during a hurricane on that one!)
Old 1/4 inch sheetrock over lathe removed, walls insulated and new 1/2 inch sheetrock put up.
ALL the old wiring has been removed and redone with new 200 amp service.
All the old galvanized plumbing has been replaced with PVC and/or PEX.
New gas lines to new heater, water heater and kitchen stove top.
Several walls removed/moved to reconfigure the spaces.
Entire kitchen gutted, expanded and re-done, including custom cabinets I designed and made in my shop. (for instance I used old wooden wine case ends to make the faces for a set of drawers in the kitchen, ALL cabinets have pull-outs instead of shelves, upper cabinets have vertical pull-outs so things don’t get lost in the back of the spaces, tile listello is stuff we hand carried back from a trip to Chile, )
New addition with master bedroom/master bath (with 4x6 foot walk-in glass block shower stall with 2 shower heads), walk-in closet, dining room with custom cabinets and raised gas fireplace (faced in travertine/tile)
Ceiling in living room removed and new library/loft built overlooking it.
Old kids’ room converted to office space with custom built murphy bed for use as guest space.
*Several pocket doors installed.
*Second bathroom gutted, enlarged and redone with garden tub and separate shower stall, adding a new entry directly from the (other) guest bedroo
*Over 300 sq ft of deck built and covered with Trex.
Plus lots of other stuff over the years. My last inspection (on the poolhouse wiring and new 200 amp suervice) the city inspector asked who did the wiring, and when I told him I had he said, “WOW you do neat work”… I told him I had to live here, so it was in my best interest to do it right…
Bottom line, the house has appreciated about 1200% (not counting materials), we paid it as we went so it’s all paid for, I know what was done (and how), and I have pride in ownership/craftsmanship. Plus, our credit card company has kindly given us a ton of FF miles that we have used to travel (see listello comment above).
@f00l Actually, I learned from my Dad "hey someone else does this, so why can’t I ? "
A lot of the skills I learned as I went, doing some research and reading up on it (started this process almost 30 years ago- long before youtube…) and getting better as I did it more. The key was that it took longer than someone that did it every day, but if I paid attention to the details, the jobs turned out well, and I had pride in the results. (plus my wife was happy… a VERY important side benefit…!)
@f00l I am currently in the process of doing the finish work on a 16x16 2 story prefab barn style building that we bought off the lot at Home Depot and had erected on our property (I did the math and couldn’t buy the materials for what that one cost. It was an ‘old’ model that they were clearancing due to some design changes in the stairway layout to meet the new codes. Since it was a display unit, it had beefed up joists (12" centers instead of 16") on both floors, and extra windows etc.) I took out the ‘barn doors’ in the front and replaced it with a sliding glass door set, and added an 8 foot deep covered porch across the front with a small deck (8x6) to bridge the height change to the pool deck.
We are using it as a poolhouse/guesthouse and I recently installed a small bathroom with a POU heater (from woot!) and will create a small galley kitchen (with custom cabinets/table) and upstairs bedroom later this fall.
@chienfou
Yeah. My parents were incredible people, but they didn’t do any of this. My Mom was a lawyer’s daughter, her parents worked at being genteel. But my Dad was the son of a railroad roundhouse foreman and derailment specialist. I’m sure my Grandfather must have had incredible skills with tools, and incredible knowledge, but my Dad seems to have absorbed none of it. So we just never grew up seeing anyone fix anything.
As an elementary school kid I would try to fix simple things around the house, and Mom would sigh and call someone. Perhaps because my careless fixes involved bent coat hangers and duct tape. Never got beyond that.
@f00l unfortunately being ‘genteel’ meant not doing any manual labor for most folks. I think that we have lost a lot of potential skills by de-valuing working with your hands. My biggest counsel to kids getting out of high school is to consider a trade vs a college education. Skilled electricians, plumbers, HVAC guys, mechanics etc. can make a very good living doing the things that the college kids can’t/won’t do for themselves.
You are esp on target now that University education has become the giant “let’s steal your earnings until you die” suckfest that even public colleges offer to students.
I remember when you actually got dollar-for-dollar value for college education, and when funding it was a public and charitable point of honor.
Now, whatever individuals gain from it, it’s likely the Next Way to destroy our economy, many students don’t get real value, and funding education in key areas (tech, science, humanities, social sciences and economics) ought to be a matter of national security. Not a profit opportunity for public non-profits.
You know where funding quality edu is a matter of national security? China, along other countries.
/end rant
Re genteel: my Mom’s parents were genteel in an age when people lived that way, deliberately. My Dad’s parents weren’t, but he never fixed anything - nothing to do with gentility, as he ran a biz where manual labor was his daily activity.
And Mom could grow anything. Unlike self who can kill silk flowers. But they didn’t fix things, and so I never learned by watching, and then a trad college, and still have Never Learned, tho have done a tiny but of plumbing. My parents were never consciously genteel, my Dad spoke with regret of not knowing stuff. But - own biz - work 80 hours a week - he made choices.
It really helped to live in a setting where you can absorb stuff. I love most of my upbringing, but missed having that.
@f00l OK, I’m with you on that. Biggest mistake we have made as a nation is ‘wanting my kids to have it better than me’ becoming doing everything for them and not expecting something (chores, work, gratitude etc) in return. We have raised a generation (or two) of people that expect/demand to have all the stuff their parents worked 30 years to accumulate as soon as they get out of college. And thanks to VISA, MasterCard etc. they can have it, but they don’t look at the cost factor or satisfaction of having worked/waited for something… sigh, I’ve become a
/giphy grumpy old man
In the last two years, we’ve gotten the back yard fenced in, the house painted, a closet converted into a half bath, two outside doors knocked through, and a second-story deck built. Oh, and some landscaping before the wedding, which I’d normally be against, but whatever.
That’s what the professionals did. We refinished half the floors and painted half the rooms ourselves when we moved in. We also built a decent-sized treehouse and a chicken coop and run ourselves, and are in the process of cleaning out and repurposing the big barn. Not to mention the tons of little mechanical, electrical, and plumbing repairs that go into maintaining a 150-year-old farmhouse.
Build me a garage! I needed somewhere to store all this crap I buy from meh.
Build our home, except I did all the cabinetry, painting, deck & trim work…
Replace carpet with laminate. Two different houses. Lessons: Paint the entire house, then refloor while the house is empty of furniture.
DIY-er here. Money saved gets spent on paying down my mortgage so I’ll be free and clear in 20 years instead of 30.
@narfcake well done, me laddy
living the first major remodel project in my life, i’m too old for this #$%^!
i have hired out ‘build entire house’ before - much easier than remodel.
I am a DIYer – I’ve done it all. Flooring, trim, electrical, plumbing, doors, windows, siding, framing, roofing, gutters, and even two custom kitchens! I’m not afraid of any job inside or outside the house. Saving money on labor means more money for materials which means a nicer house for less money!
Last summer though, I finally had to hire someone to terrace out my yard. I’ve never ran heavy machinery and didn’t want to crash a bulldozer through my house, or my neighbors house, or flip it down the hill and kill myself. At any rate, I had to hire someone and it was a nightmare. What started out with a $4000 quote and was going to take 4 days ended up costing $8500 and took 2 weeks. Worst yet, I ended up having to work with his crew because he couldn’t get people to show up and work. Then, after all that, the yard didn’t drain correctly and I couldn’t get captain dickhead contractor back here to fix it. I had to spend another $1000 installing drainage so the the water would stay away from my house (which is why we decided to do it to start with). All-in, my project ended up costing over $11k. It’s been over a year and I’m just now getting the grass to grow back there. I had to spend another $600 putting top soil on the yard so the grass would grow (clay mud) because the contractor hauled all the top soil away and nothing would grow back there.
That’s the first and probably last time I’ll hire a contractor for anything. I’d rather burn my money – at least then I’ll know where it went.
TL;DR: Contractors are assholes and can’t be trusted. Don’t ever hire anyone to do work for you or you’ll spend almost triple what they quoted and still have to do most of the work yourself.
@capguncowboy did you sue him? Why did you pay him extra?
@jbartus Originally, he came to me with a bill for $9700. I insisted he provide receipts for materials and logs for his hours worked (which I made a point to keep track of during his stint). I took the receipts for materials and wrote a check for those first, which ended up being $6500. After some haggling and discussion over labor and the ACTUAL time he and his crew spent working, I wrote him another check for $2000. It was the middle ground. I wasn’t happy about it, but neither was he. I doubt he made anything after he paid his workers.
I’m chalking the whole thing up as a really expensive education - the big lesson is on getting “quotes” verses getting “estimates”. Also, verbal “quotes” are useless in court. The court might have ruled in my favor after spending months in litigation, but to me, it wasn’t worth it. Next time (if there is a next time), I’ll get everything in writing and know what to expect and how to handle it.
@capguncowboy ah gotcha, didn’t realize it was a verbal commitment thing.
Rebuilding Fats Domino’s home after Katrina. USACE/FEMA money, not mine. But got to handle some of the contracts.
Pour a concrete patio and sidewalks, as well as landscape the backyard.
Vinyl siding my wife insisted on purchasing from Sears. THEY were proud of their work.
This little lady and her compatriots did extensive damage to my crawlspace by crawling in under my a/c units:
Note her babies hanging out underneath her:
A better view of her young. Opossum are the only marsupial in North America:
Here’s the after view of the restoration:
My brother thought we should do it ourselves, but I had no interest in cleaning out all those possum droppings. They might have been in there a couple years (I don’t keep anything in the crawlspace so I never go down there). Both people I had out to quote it said it wasn’t the worst they’d seen, but it was up there.
I rent. I don’t have enough credit built up yet to be able to get a loan. I wish someone had explained how important a credit card was when I was younger. I’m on the right track though.
I try to do minor repairs around the house and then just give my landlord the receipts for the stuff. I get to learn something relevant, and it keeps me from bothering the landlord for simple things like replacing a switch. The most annoying thing I tackled was replacing the dishwasher and the garbage disposal on the same day. I didn’t buy enough parts so I had to go back to the store.
@RiotDemon never start a plumbing job on a sunday afternoon, or within 2 hours of home depot closing, because you are going to need more parts.
@Yoda_Daenerys unless your FIL is a plumber…
@Technologist if that’s the case, I’d hire him, haha
I’ve had people (ok, dwarves) flood massive tunnels with lava for magma forges, excavate deep pits to drop goblins and other undesirables down, dig giant moats to keep out the dirty, hippie, tree-loving elves, and designed a maze with a huge field of retractable spikes to kill all the demons of hell.
@Dweezle Yes, but have you made a good defense against carp?
@simplersimon I think the first version I played was 34.11. I never knew the vicious elephants or murderous carp.
@Dweezle
I just started playing that today.
@DVDBZN I’ve been putting off playing the newest versions until the Dwarf Therapist team catches up, because I’m hopeless without it
@Dweezle @simplersimon @DVDBZN what game is this?
@jbartus Dwarf Fortress- https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/04/16/dwarf-fortress-the-detailed-roguelike-thats-easy-to-play/
Here’s a nice guide from 2014 on how to play and what it’s about:
http://www.pcgamer.com/into-the-deep-its-time-to-learn-how-to-play-dwarf-fortress/
I thought the initial comment was LOTR related.
@RiotDemon
It is LOTR related, so long as you follow a long twisty thread.
@dashcloud I went to get upset when the one article called it easy to play, but really, they’re right. It’s just not easy to survive.
@dashcloud oh I guess I should have picked that up from the emphasis on dwarves. Like @RiotDemon I originally thought it was a LOTR reference and got lost.
Getting ready to replace the HVAC.
Generally do my own work, but anything beyond my limited electrical expertise gets in a professional, who usually shakes his head at what I have done.
Well, the roof was contracted by the HOA, but we contracted to replace the carpet upstairs with hardwood and remodel the kitchen.
I never make my own french fries anymore.
@PocketBrain Get an air fryer. It’s basically a specialized convection oven with a basket. They excel at cooking french fries. They’re not bad for some other things either, but ours does the best fries I’ve ever had.
Demolition down to the studs and a complete rebuild courtesy of Superstorm Sandy. What a nightmare.
Did a complete kitchen overhaul a few years ago, down to the studs. I remodeled my family room including stripping the old, terrible wallpaper and installing hardwood flooring. New room for less than a grand. That made me happy.
Contracted someone to redo our 2nd floor, before our new son was born. Said he could do it in 6 weeks. 9 weeks later, we finally moved in and fired the contractor. After a year, I’m still fixing all the problems he created. Worst experience in my life.
Remodel the kitchen. Didn’t want to mess with it, in the end I could of done a better job for less then half the price.
After hurricane Andrew, my old house which was rented out, needed almost a complete rebuild, roof, windows, inside walls. One contractor for roof, another for windows, another for walls, plumber, electrician. I had to play general contractor, deal with the insurance company for money and hope that the work was done. And do my regular job at the same time. I sold the place before it got painted, it was too much work for more than a year.
I dug a well and a septic system as a kid. We used shovels, and it took us all summer.
Below is, I believe, the official and best guide for how to do a septic tank. With or without a contractor.
From A Prairie Home Companion, September, 1984. One of the great News From Lake Woebegon editions. I used to listen every week, and so first heard this 22 years ago this month.
Warning: 21m17s.
Warning: so very worth it. No video except a still - just play and listen.
@f00l We used to love listening to PHC every week, in the 80’s. It was about the only thing we could afford to do sometimes & it was so damn funny!!
Thanks for posting it.
@f00l “…where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” Reminds me of meh! Thanks for posting this, I’ll give it a listen when I’m in a less noisy environment.
@salaosantiago
@daveinwarsh
There were so many great ones.
This inspired me to do an audible look-see. there are nearly 400 of these, just the “News From Lake Woebegon” segments, on audible.com, at $.66 each! I think these come from current and recent broadcasts and re-broadcasts of classic episodes.
I’m sure many of them are also on youtube.
I wish i could get the entire show they did from LA with Marnie Nixon.
@f00l Ah, yes, good memories. PHC and of course, ‘Simply Folk’ which played songs from Stan Rogers and many others. We went to see Garrison do PHC live at the River Center in Columbus, GA several (OK, almost 10!) years back. What a hoot.
slicing one in half.
I once bought a piece of property in Minnesota that had an old, unfinished/uncovered septic tank on it that had filled with leaves over the past several seasons. I got in it and was slinging shovelfuls of decomposed leaves and dirt (at least, it looked like dirt…) up out of the bottom of the 6 foot deep tank when my wife started screaming where she was standing next to the open pit. “WHAT is that? You gotta come see this…” When I asked what she was talking about, she just repeated the same phrase, and finally (after a few muttered oaths), I had to crawl out of the hole and see what the deal was.
Turns out that, given it was late fall and the temps were pretty cool, I had uncovered a nest of salamanders in the litter in the bottom of the tank, and I had unknowingly slung a couple of 8-10 inch long, bright blue and black salamanders onto the ground and they were starting to revive a bit. Before it was over, I found a dozen of the critters, and was totally amazed that I managed to uncover the first ones without A) seeing them, and
I have to admit, it was kind of fun seeing them fly through the air though, once I knew they were there.
We poured a new lid over that tank and used it for a year, before we moved to Wisconsin… but that’s another tale altogether.
@f00l here’s a link to it…
June 1, 2002 PHC show
@chienfou Crap! Turns out the the “B)” got replaced with an emoji… oh well.
@chienfou
@shrdlu
Paging @shrdlu
Marni Mixon with Garrison Keillor in A Prairie Home Companion show, link above, in @chienfou’s post.
If memory is correct, it was an open-air show, I think in Grant Park?
Real audio. OMG.
But I must listen to this one. Garrison practically handed to show over to Marni. And if you had Marni around to sing, well, that’s what you would do.
I was listening to that when it first aired live. I couldn’t believe my luck I would have recorded it, but was on the road.
Thx @chienfou
@f00l my pleasure!
@chienfou
cross posted all this Prairie Home Companion and Marni Nixon show performances to the audiobook and podcast thread here, so it might not so easily get lost. Credited you
Here
https://meh.com/forum/topics/how-many-hours-a-day-do-you-spend-listening-to-podcasts-music-radio-or-audiobooks#57d7c7a5842a3968098401cf
When we bought our house in 2000 we stripped the kitchen and living room down to the studs and subfloor. I redid all the electrical. Friends helped me with insulation and drywall. I hired a plumber to pipe in propane. A friend who’s a pro did most of the texturing and showed me how to do the rest. I did the painting. But I hired pros for the finish work (carpet, laminate, cabinets, granite counters, and tile).
In 2012, after we inherited some money from my wife’s parents, we hired a contractor to do a major remodel/addition. He turned the living room and bedroom with eight-foot ceilings into one large living room with a vaulted ceiling. The carport became a garage with a master bedroom above. Lots of other improvements that turned a piece-of-crap house (aside from the kitchen) in a dream location into a dream house in a dream location. I didn’t lift a finger aside from writing a lot of frighteningly-large checks. We couldn’t be happier. And the kitchen still looked good enough that we didn’t have to spend a penny on it.
Generally a pretty competent DIYer, except for major plumbing work.
Biggest job I ever hired out was a major remodel (designed by my dad, an architect) of kitchen, bath, & master bedroom when I bought my first house (1988, I think). Place was built in the 20s or 30s, had really nice ‘bones’ but had been neglected; perhaps an absentee landlord situation. Even cleaned up a bit for sale was kinda unattractive (read “cheap”). Contractor was a small local outfit run by a guy who knew my girlfriend (later wife). I think most of the work was just him & a helper/laborer. We broke the work into 3 or 4 phases and made payments at completion of each phase. He drank too much but the work was pretty good, and I wasn’t in a big hurry (had 4 or 5 months left on apt. lease across town).
Don’t remember that there were any major cost issues, but I was prepared to finish the job if I had to fire him 70-80% thru the job.
Put in a pool.
EVERYTHING else around here I do myself.
Over the years the old “mill” house I originally bought on an acre of land has been totally gutted, rewired, replumbed, tiled, and re-designed/expanded. I figure the city has hauled away about 80% of the original house by now.
*Several pocket doors installed.
*Second bathroom gutted, enlarged and redone with garden tub and separate shower stall, adding a new entry directly from the (other) guest bedroo
*Over 300 sq ft of deck built and covered with Trex.
Plus lots of other stuff over the years. My last inspection (on the poolhouse wiring and new 200 amp suervice) the city inspector asked who did the wiring, and when I told him I had he said, “WOW you do neat work”… I told him I had to live here, so it was in my best interest to do it right…
Bottom line, the house has appreciated about 1200% (not counting materials), we paid it as we went so it’s all paid for, I know what was done (and how), and I have pride in ownership/craftsmanship. Plus, our credit card company has kindly given us a ton of FF miles that we have used to travel (see listello comment above).
TL:DR DIY is the way to go!
@chienfou
But what if one is clueless, an id10t, and a klutz?
you took the time and trouble to learn such skills. i am pwnd.
@f00l Actually, I learned from my Dad "hey someone else does this, so why can’t I ? "
A lot of the skills I learned as I went, doing some research and reading up on it (started this process almost 30 years ago- long before youtube…) and getting better as I did it more. The key was that it took longer than someone that did it every day, but if I paid attention to the details, the jobs turned out well, and I had pride in the results. (plus my wife was happy… a VERY important side benefit…!)
@f00l I am currently in the process of doing the finish work on a 16x16 2 story prefab barn style building that we bought off the lot at Home Depot and had erected on our property (I did the math and couldn’t buy the materials for what that one cost. It was an ‘old’ model that they were clearancing due to some design changes in the stairway layout to meet the new codes. Since it was a display unit, it had beefed up joists (12" centers instead of 16") on both floors, and extra windows etc.) I took out the ‘barn doors’ in the front and replaced it with a sliding glass door set, and added an 8 foot deep covered porch across the front with a small deck (8x6) to bridge the height change to the pool deck.
We are using it as a poolhouse/guesthouse and I recently installed a small bathroom with a POU heater (from woot!) and will create a small galley kitchen (with custom cabinets/table) and upstairs bedroom later this fall.
@chienfou
Yeah. My parents were incredible people, but they didn’t do any of this. My Mom was a lawyer’s daughter, her parents worked at being genteel. But my Dad was the son of a railroad roundhouse foreman and derailment specialist. I’m sure my Grandfather must have had incredible skills with tools, and incredible knowledge, but my Dad seems to have absorbed none of it. So we just never grew up seeing anyone fix anything.
As an elementary school kid I would try to fix simple things around the house, and Mom would sigh and call someone. Perhaps because my careless fixes involved bent coat hangers and duct tape. Never got beyond that.
@f00l unfortunately being ‘genteel’ meant not doing any manual labor for most folks. I think that we have lost a lot of potential skills by de-valuing working with your hands. My biggest counsel to kids getting out of high school is to consider a trade vs a college education. Skilled electricians, plumbers, HVAC guys, mechanics etc. can make a very good living doing the things that the college kids can’t/won’t do for themselves.
@chienfou
Oh dear, now I am triggered into Rant Mode
/warning, rant, skip this next bit:
You are esp on target now that University education has become the giant “let’s steal your earnings until you die” suckfest that even public colleges offer to students.
I remember when you actually got dollar-for-dollar value for college education, and when funding it was a public and charitable point of honor.
Now, whatever individuals gain from it, it’s likely the Next Way to destroy our economy, many students don’t get real value, and funding education in key areas (tech, science, humanities, social sciences and economics) ought to be a matter of national security. Not a profit opportunity for public non-profits.
You know where funding quality edu is a matter of national security? China, along other countries.
/end rant
Re genteel: my Mom’s parents were genteel in an age when people lived that way, deliberately. My Dad’s parents weren’t, but he never fixed anything - nothing to do with gentility, as he ran a biz where manual labor was his daily activity.
And Mom could grow anything. Unlike self who can kill silk flowers. But they didn’t fix things, and so I never learned by watching, and then a trad college, and still have Never Learned, tho have done a tiny but of plumbing. My parents were never consciously genteel, my Dad spoke with regret of not knowing stuff. But - own biz - work 80 hours a week - he made choices.
It really helped to live in a setting where you can absorb stuff. I love most of my upbringing, but missed having that.
@f00l OK, I’m with you on that. Biggest mistake we have made as a nation is ‘wanting my kids to have it better than me’ becoming doing everything for them and not expecting something (chores, work, gratitude etc) in return. We have raised a generation (or two) of people that expect/demand to have all the stuff their parents worked 30 years to accumulate as soon as they get out of college. And thanks to VISA, MasterCard etc. they can have it, but they don’t look at the cost factor or satisfaction of having worked/waited for something… sigh, I’ve become a
/giphy grumpy old man
@chienfou
Yeah. It’s way too easy to look at the pleasure/cost factor or the gain/cost factor after the borrowed $has been spent.
/giphy guilty as charged
In the last two years, we’ve gotten the back yard fenced in, the house painted, a closet converted into a half bath, two outside doors knocked through, and a second-story deck built. Oh, and some landscaping before the wedding, which I’d normally be against, but whatever.
That’s what the professionals did. We refinished half the floors and painted half the rooms ourselves when we moved in. We also built a decent-sized treehouse and a chicken coop and run ourselves, and are in the process of cleaning out and repurposing the big barn. Not to mention the tons of little mechanical, electrical, and plumbing repairs that go into maintaining a 150-year-old farmhouse.
@dannybeans Any photos? I want to visit, just to see
@compunaut It’s a beautiful place. I’ll post a few when I get home.
@dannybeans
Now, am jealous: of the place, the skills, the discipline, the vision. But congrats!