So Cheryl, why have you been so distracted lately?
Posted 03-08-2009 at 04:37 PM by cheryl
Tags remodel
I know, it took me a week to respond to your email. I never answered my phone. Left the newspapers on the driveway all weekend...
It seems like a really good idea last August. Tony and I both were both tired of spending all of our free time maintaining the high maintenance house with the oversized high maintenance yard that we'd lived in for the past 9 years. We had been talking about putting our house on the market for the past couple of years, but kept deciding to wait until "next year." Fast forward to August 08 - Our daughter is all grown up, working full time and hardly ever home anymore. The economy was putting the sqeeze on our investments and the CA real estate market was not coming back to life any time soon.
It seemed like a reasonable move to make. All we had to do was remodel a house that had been a rental since the early 90's and then we could move in there. Since the real estate market was continuing to slide we could rent out our existing house instead of selling it and wait out the market that way.
Just like a lot of the remodeling projects that we've done in the past this one has been no where near as easy or as fast as it seemed when we were just talking about it. Sure we saved some money acting as our own general contractors but adding this to our schedules on top of our existing responsibilities has made this a really crazy 6 months.
This remodel has been a long grueling project with nasty little surprises behind every piece of sheetrock.
Some people (you know who you are
) have commented that it they thought we would have been done with this project a long time ago. We also had originally figured we'd be done by the beginning of 09, but now it's February and it will still take a few more weeks.
Then we get to pack up and move... that's another thing that seems reasonable during a discussion, until you have to actually do it...
Anyway, just in case anyone was curious I thought I'd post a few pictures so you could see what we've been up to.
These are a few before pictures:
Kitchen with 7 1/2' tall ceiling. Smells weird in here...
Family room with groovy pink paneling and an even groovier asymetrical fireplace.
It seems like the Brady bunch should be lined up here.
Very plain Living / Dining room. Not really decorated in the 70's so it's not too bad
This stairway was so worn and termite damaged that it was bouncy, like walking on marshmallows.
Tiny backyard, looks like a moonscape with a 1970's era pool.
It seems like a really good idea last August. Tony and I both were both tired of spending all of our free time maintaining the high maintenance house with the oversized high maintenance yard that we'd lived in for the past 9 years. We had been talking about putting our house on the market for the past couple of years, but kept deciding to wait until "next year." Fast forward to August 08 - Our daughter is all grown up, working full time and hardly ever home anymore. The economy was putting the sqeeze on our investments and the CA real estate market was not coming back to life any time soon.
It seemed like a reasonable move to make. All we had to do was remodel a house that had been a rental since the early 90's and then we could move in there. Since the real estate market was continuing to slide we could rent out our existing house instead of selling it and wait out the market that way.
Just like a lot of the remodeling projects that we've done in the past this one has been no where near as easy or as fast as it seemed when we were just talking about it. Sure we saved some money acting as our own general contractors but adding this to our schedules on top of our existing responsibilities has made this a really crazy 6 months.
This remodel has been a long grueling project with nasty little surprises behind every piece of sheetrock.
Some people (you know who you are
) have commented that it they thought we would have been done with this project a long time ago. We also had originally figured we'd be done by the beginning of 09, but now it's February and it will still take a few more weeks. Then we get to pack up and move... that's another thing that seems reasonable during a discussion, until you have to actually do it...
Anyway, just in case anyone was curious I thought I'd post a few pictures so you could see what we've been up to.
These are a few before pictures:
Kitchen with 7 1/2' tall ceiling. Smells weird in here...
Family room with groovy pink paneling and an even groovier asymetrical fireplace.
It seems like the Brady bunch should be lined up here.
Very plain Living / Dining room. Not really decorated in the 70's so it's not too bad
This stairway was so worn and termite damaged that it was bouncy, like walking on marshmallows.
Tiny backyard, looks like a moonscape with a 1970's era pool.
Total Comments 0
