Let's Talk Remodeling

[Am_I_There_Yet]

The Creative Community board gets hardly any traffic, and there are so many people interested in prices and getting ideas, it would be nice to have a thread where we have that in common.

(I'll be happy to high-tail it over there, if the mods want this moved. I personally would rather these posts be on the CB, but that's just me.)

I'll start!

I have already remodeled a kitchen and a secondary bathroom, and just got my first quotes to remodel my master bathroom.

Who knew frameless shower doors were going to cost as much as custom cabinets?

My budget went straight out the window when I saw that!

And, we're going to be without our bathroom for a month, or more. Ugh.

So who else is remodeling or redecorating? We can commiserate together!

 

[Taylor]

A month without a shower? Glad you live in Texas...

 

[Aurora63]

I am living it right now. Not so much remodeling as renovating. Our house had a lot of work that it needed. We replaced four windows, tiled the floors in the upstairs bathroom and the three downstairs bedrooms. This weekend, we are putting in bamboo flooring in the upstairs bedrooms.

We also had to rip out a few walls and replace the beams, cause we found termites!!! Great, huh?

Soon all will be normal, I finally got my bedroom back this past weekend. One day, everything will be unpacked and put away, and all the construction crap will be out of the house!

 

[KimR]

We remodeled our kitchen 2 years ago and I'm now thinking about remodeling our master bath and redecorating our master bedroom. 'Thinking about' being the key phrase here. I just seem to find it so hard to take the plunge and actually start the process. I had the same problem when we did our kitchen. I know I'll love the results but it's so hard to get things rolling and I hate the idea of having a torn-up bathroom! Although better the bathroom than the kitchen - that was awful.

Oh, and if you don't mind my asking, what were your quotes (you don't have to answer if you don't want to!) I'm hoping to be able to do it for somewhere in the $7000 - $10,000 range. Although I'm probably dreaming because our kitchen wound up costing about $10,000 more than I had planned.

 

[chris1gill]

This is us, only we have a true budget to stick with now LOL...

We have a condo in Vermont, last summer I renovated the bedroom and the living area, installed a gas corner cabinet fireplace, put in some fantastic furniture, then found out the replacement (mandatory) sliding door would be 4500.00 - that was my kitchen money!

So, now I am stuck with my kitchen.... We're going to put down strand woven bamboo to match the rest of the stuff we installed.... we already bought the appliances before that door (thank god), but now we need excellent cabinets at a basement price.... we're thinking we'll go to the kraftmaid warehouse in Ohio for small dollars we could do the whole place! What I'd like to do is have DH knock out some small closets there to add space to the bathroom as well, putting bathroom pantry's in instead.... we have to start knocking out the cabinets mid-April.... after that, sometime mid-May we'll have the floor put down, bring up the appliances & hopefully have something to replace the cabinets... Then, if my DH thinks he can knock a few walls down, I can work around the bathroom like that for a while I have until next November to get the place fixed back up....

Course now my DH is looking to re-hab his parents place.... the first estimate was around 100K and was to convert it to two units, it needs new windows/siding/electrical/possible roof, the guts of the building are fantastic though & the walls, solid... We have to get a lot more information, because the whole point is to get the place sold....

So, I will come here to get ideas and hopefully pricing of others' jobs....

 

[KristiKelly]

Our house is not even 7 years old but we had a leak in our master shower. DH tour our shower out in - get this - are you ready - OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have all been using the kids bathroom.

We cannot decide what we want to do. We hated our other shower and don't want to make that same mistake twice.

So, yes, I'm right here with you but I bet I'll be here longer.

 

[kctwinmommy]

No more remodeling for us for quite some time! We live in a brick ranch in the city and in Oct. 2004 we started the massive project of adding a second floor!! It was totally worth it though! We have a beautiful house now that we couldn't even afford if we put it on the market today. We have a great master bedroom, master bathroom w/seperate shower & whirlpool tub, and a walk-in closet (totally done with The Container Store's Elfa shelving)! The kids each have their own rooms and their own space.

We spent about 5 months living in our basement, with 15 month old twin toddlers! FUN!!! We also had some major work done to the living room. So now the front half of my house and the entire second floor is all new, but my kitchen and office in the back half is still 50 year old stuff! But I do plan on painting the kitchen at least to update that some.

Oh, and to the OP - I hear ya' on the bathroom issues! We cut back on some things, but the bathroom wasn't one. We spent over $3000 on the shower and tub surrounds!! But they're beautiful and guaranteed forever not to leak, crack, nothing. And they're very, very nice!

There are just so many things that are hard with renovations!!

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

A month without a shower? Glad you live in Texas...

Glad you live far, far away from me, are ya?

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

We remodeled our kitchen 2 years ago and I'm now thinking about remodeling our master bath and redecorating our master bedroom. 'Thinking about' being the key phrase here. I just seem to find it so hard to take the plunge and actually start the process. I had the same problem when we did our kitchen. I know I'll love the results but it's so hard to get things rolling and I hate the idea of having a torn-up bathroom! Although better the bathroom than the kitchen - that was awful.

Oh, and if you don't mind my asking, what were your quotes (you don't have to answer if you don't want to!) I'm hoping to be able to do it for somewhere in the $7000 - $10,000 range. Although I'm probably dreaming because our kitchen wound up costing about $10,000 more than I had planned.

I don't mind at all! I think one of the reasons I started the thread, was to get ideas and to see if I was getting "are you out of your mind?" quotes!

The frameless shower with brushed nickel hardware came to $2,400. The cabinets came to $2,300 for paint-grade.

We're doing a built in armoire-like piece in between the two vanities. It'll have double doors at the top, then four drawers down below. On either side, there will be three narrower drawers and your typical double doors under the sink.

He's building it all on furniture-style legs and arching the doors to match my existing doors in the house. This is the same guy that did my kitchen and he does awesome work. I honestly expected that quote to come in more around $3,500, so I was pleased.

I'm hoping we can use granite remnants for either side of the armoire, since it'll only be 43" wide on each side. Then we're doing a drop-in tub, sitting on a granite base, with mosaic tile up the sides. The shower stall will be mosaic and the floors will be travertine.

Just typing this all out is giving me hives.

We're budgeted $10k, so that means we'll spend $20k.

I'm contracting it out myself, because I'm nuts.

 

[Taylor]

Glad you live far, far away from me, are ya?

It's not really the distance thing. I just thought that since you live in Texas it wouldn't be that unusual to go a month without a shower

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

No more remodeling for us for quite some time! We live in a brick ranch in the city and in Oct. 2004 we started the massive project of adding a second floor!! It was totally worth it though! We have a beautiful house now that we couldn't even afford if we put it on the market today. We have a great master bedroom, master bathroom w/seperate shower & whirlpool tub, and a walk-in closet (totally done with The Container Store's Elfa shelving)! The kids each have their own rooms and their own space.

I really want to do some sort of closet system. Was it very pricey? If the budget has to be cut, this is where it's going to happen, unfortunately.

Our closet is just so small. I think those would help tremendously.

BTW, I'd love to see pics of your remodeled rooms!

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

It's not really the distance thing. I just thought that since you live in Texas it wouldn't be that unusual to go a month without a shower

I'm in Texas, not in Arkansas.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

Our house is not even 7 years old but we had a leak in our master shower. DH tour our shower out in - get this - are you ready - OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have all been using the kids bathroom.

We cannot decide what we want to do. We hated our other shower and don't want to make that same mistake twice.

So, yes, I'm right here with you but I bet I'll be here longer.

Been there, done that. That's what started our secondary bathroom remodel. We ended up having mold down to the studs.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

I am living it right now. Not so much remodeling as renovating. Our house had a lot of work that it needed. We replaced four windows, tiled the floors in the upstairs bathroom and the three downstairs bedrooms. This weekend, we are putting in bamboo flooring in the upstairs bedrooms.

We also had to rip out a few walls and replace the beams, cause we found termites!!! Great, huh?

Soon all will be normal, I finally got my bedroom back this past weekend. One day, everything will be unpacked and put away, and all the construction crap will be out of the house!

Heck, I bought my house knowing it had termites. Here, if you don't have them now, you will in the future. Gotta love Texas.

Luckily we had no damage though.

I bet you're so relieved that it's almost over!

 

[rie'smom]

We're remodeling our house-it's been 4 years so far. Here are some of the things we've done:
Took down the wall between kitchen and keeping room.
gutted the kitchen and totally redid it
Reconfigured the upstairs bathroom
Recarpeted and painted the 2 upstairs bedrooms
redid the powder room
put down new floors(ceramic and wood) downstairs
built an inground pool
renovated the pool house
working on master bath
working on refinishing staircase

on the to do list:
make the master bedroom our closet
join the 2 other downstairs bds to make one large master
convert garage to media room

I design and DH and his farm workers do most of the work in their down season. I'm the painter and textured sheetrock person-also the seamstress,picture hanger,and general gofer. I always say some couples go to dinner,we go to Home Depot.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

We're remodeling our house-it's been 4 years so far. Here are some of the things we've done:
Took down the wall between kitchen and keeping room.
gutted the kitchen and totally redid it
Reconfigured the upstairs bathroom
Recarpeted and painted the 2 upstairs bedrooms
redid the powder room
put down new floors(ceramic and wood) downstairs
built an inground pool
renovated the pool house
working on master bath
working on refinishing staircase

on the to do list:
make the master bedroom our closet
join the 2 other downstairs bds to make one large master
convert garage to media room

That made me tired just reading it! I love the ideas you have/had! Especially the master bedroom. That's going to be nice!

I design and DH and his farm workers do most of the work in their down season. I'm the painter and textured sheetrock person-also the seamstress,picture hanger,and general gofer. I always say some couples go to dinner,we go to Home Depot.

I love it! This is a true story: when my ex and I split up after 18 years of marriage, my first breakdown was at Home Depot.

I had to high-tail it out of there, because seeing all those couples together making plans for their future was too hard to handle. I was in a divorce-support group at the time, and when I mentioned it, you would have no idea how many people said they couldn't step foot in there either!

So, I guess if there's a bright side to remodeling, it's that we have someone to go to Home Depot with.

 

[rie'smom]

That made me tired just reading it! I love the ideas you have/had! Especially the master bedroom. That's going to be nice!



I love it! This is a true story: when my ex and I split up after 18 years of marriage, my first breakdown was at Home Depot.

I had to high-tail it out of there, because seeing all those couples together making plans for their future was too hard to handle. I was in a divorce-support group at the time, and when I mentioned it, you would have no idea how many people said they couldn't step foot in there either!

So, I guess if there's a bright side to remodeling, it's that we have someone to go to Home Depot with.

Hubby says Home Depot with a cash back program would be the best!

 

[kctwinmommy]

I really want to do some sort of closet system. Was it very pricey? If the budget has to be cut, this is where it's going to happen, unfortunately.

Our closet is just so small. I think those would help tremendously.

BTW, I'd love to see pics of your remodeled rooms!

Oh, and shop Elfa only in January, when it's on sale! We paid about $800 for our entire closet!

 

[mickeysgal]

We're currently remodeling our entire basement. It was already studded out when we bought the house, so we figured, what the heck, lets finish it. All of it...yes, we're nuts. Its a walk-out basement with a separate garage and driveway, so its more like another living level, not your traditional basement. It has a central main hall with a bathroom, media room, exercise room (yeah, right), kitchen, mudroom, storage room, bedroom, office, workroom and garage.

Our original "in our head" estimate has now, in reality, doubled in price.

We're getting a lot of rooms out of it, and finished basements are key to resale around here, so I really think we'll get our money out of it, when we do sell.

We're down to picking the flooring - a mix of carpet and cherry hardwood, tile, and the dreaded vanity for the bathroom. I think I have one picked out on Ebay - finally.

Already I'm looking ahead to our master bath since that is in serious need of updating. We found a granite we love, so we're pushing ahead on that project in tandem with the basement project. But you know how that goes, change the cabinets, have to change the floor. Change the floor, have to change the shower walls. And so on, and so on...

I should be bonkers by June.

 

[mickeysgal]

The frameless shower with brushed nickel hardware came to $2,400. The cabinets came to $2,300 for paint-grade.

I just had an estimate done to convert our gold shower enclosure to brushed nickle. We currently have rain glass. To just change the metal and use the rain glass was about $750. To replace the whole thing to brushed nickle, clear glass, european handle was $900. Go figure. I didn't know the metal cost so much or perhaps thats the "if you really want to do this" price. I didn't ask about frameless, I should have though.

Problem is, if we change to clear glass, my shower is not tiled. Its not a surround, but some sort of solid surface material. If you've ever been to OKW, it reminds me of the shower in the one bedroom. And its white. Very functional, easy as pie to maintain, but unfortunately not very stylish by todays standards. With clear glass, it won't look upgraded. So that means pulling down the walls and starting all over. Problem with that, is the whirlpool tub is made of the same material, and I have no clue what to do with this.