# Our project house



## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

So after a light (10year) remodel of our first home my wife and I felt confident to purchase another house to fix up. My step father is a realtor and found us a 1400sq ft house that was built in 1981(same as our 1st home) that needed mostly cosmetic work. It had been a rental, and had several different owners over the years. The inspection showed no major problems so we purchased it.

The owner was living in California at the time and just wanted to sell it quick. After showing him some of the small issues the house had we bargained him down almost $30,000! what a deal! buuuuut that was in 2007. Does everyone remember what happened in 2008? Yeah, house values plummeted. So, we ended up paying pretty much what the house is worth. Better than being upside down though. 

Anyway, on to the pictures! This is pretty much what it looked like when we bought it.








So our 1st project was removing all the brick and trim on the house and a fresh coat of paint.
























as you can see I had to put some new siding under where the brick was as there was none. Just 1/4" plywood then insulation. No wonder the corners were so cold in the winter.. So after paint...















More to come...


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

On to new windows. A guy I work with just happened to be married to a Jeld Wen employee. He was able to score us all new windows and a slider for about 50% of retail!
















So with that done our energy bills went down about 1\3. I had always wanted to raise the celling in the outside entryway. It was about 4" above my head. So once again I got to work.
















It actually been finished for a few years but I don't seem to have photos of it done. I am way too lazy to go outside and take them now.


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## siggyfreud (Jun 21, 2011)

Looks nice! Any before/after of the interior, or were those changes minor. I myself just completed a remodel of a rental about 1 year ago and posted a thread on it. It's good to see other new-timers taking on this task. I've been chomping at the bit for projects. My gf's parents recently bought a new hot water dispenser for under the sink. I don't think they had set it down 2 minutes before I was un-boxing it and installing it . 

Any future plans for the rental?


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

With that done it was time to move to the back yard. We are BBQ fiends and the yard was un usable. It had a deck that had been painted the same light blue as the house. We cut it down and poured a small patio.
















Good to know people who have Mini excavators
















2 + loads in the old super duty








If you didn't see my intro thread I work for a local ready mix company driving a truck. So I get a pretty good price on concrete and have people that can help.


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

IM getting there....trying to make dinner in between posts so please be patient with me. 
With the patio poured we worked on the rest of the yard. The fence had to go for sure. Here you can see the deck with a half finished handrail and some of the new fence.








The new yard








This is the new fence bordering the driveway that mixer truck was in.








A small fountain some friends gave us


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

Now on to the fun stuff, the inside! The whole house had pretty jacked up drywall from previous patches, cracking seams and so on. It also had white, yes WHITE carpet. WTF? about 3 months ago we finally started our kitchen. We have been waiting 6 years to do this project. Here is a couple before shots.
As we moved in








Yes the cabinets are painted brown.
fast forward 6 years








Pretty much the same I know. Well on with the demo!

















This is the dinning area(kitchen is behind us at this point)
Before

















We ended up taking that little stub wall completely out.
Here is a small pantry that was pretty much useless. It backs up to a shower and we will take that space when we do the bathrooms.








An overall shot of the dinning area with the old woodstove.








The stove did a excellent job of heating the whole house. But it is BIG and UGLY, not to mention in Oregon you cannot sell a house with a non DEQ certified stove in it. SO away it went. I actually sold it on Craigslist to a guy in Alaska.


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

AS you can see in some of those pictures we closed off one window, and moved the other 6" to the right. That means I had to move all the plumbing also. Which of course is on a outside wall so it was a huge PITA. Lots of crawlspace soldering and cursing.








Oh also we did have a electrician friend come wire up the whole kitchen for us. It's good to have licensed friends.
Here is the hookups for the dishwasher and fridge. You see how I had to run the pipes through the floor and into the wall. Kinda cheesy but I wanted the wall boxes. Besides they would be covered by cabinets.








Here comes the drywall! we got a few quotes for giggles but decided to do it ourselves after all. I mean how hard can it be? 
I had hung drywall before and patched several times but this was my first time doing everything. Luckily the guy who took down the big pine in the front yard ( pictures coming later)was also a drywall expert and gave us a lot of tips.
































Bye Bye pantry.


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

I was pretty nervous about texturing. I wanted to make sure it matched as best I could. I went down to Harbor Freight and picked up a hopper gun to spray the walls with. Also, the tree guy showed me how to make a broquet tool and the technique for the ceiling.


























I got it a little heavy but all in all it turned out pretty good.
Next the flooring and cabinets came in. We started with the floors and then put the cabinets in. This took several weeks as we can only work on the project on weekends.









The schnauzer does not approve of the new flooring








So I am just going to kind of fast forward to today for ya. We have all the cabinets fully installed and adjusted, New dog door for the puppies, temporary counter top in and last weekend poured my first test panel for the concrete counters(come on, you knew I was gonna go that way. I drive a mixer truck remember?) Also got the under cabinet lights installed and new lighting in the hallway and dinning room.
















My daughters little Whaa whaa.
MONSTER sink 36" wide.








Doggy door. It is under the last cabinet on the right by the slider.








The other side was a 20+" drop so I built a little doggy deck for them.


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

Here is our living room
As we moved in








No that's not me.....
Today








Oh I forgot about our "office". And by office I mean place I play PC games, Edit photo's and the wife checks her E-mail. The floors don't extend in here yet but will soon.


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

Just found some pictures of our 1st house. No before pictures yet, they are actual printed photos and I have not scanned them. But just imagine it as all original 1981. 
Our favorite was the kitchen. The cabinets were in very good shape so we just painted and clear coated them. Granite tile counters and tile backspash.








You can also see the "island" it was originally just 1 level. 








Bathroom
















The patio I poured and then we promptly moved








The outside








We made this place a rental 6 years ago when we moved. It has not been bad but I could have made almost 100,000 profit if I would have sold it. Doh.....


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## Elburro (Jun 20, 2012)

Made a little progress today. Got a killer deal on a new Microhood at Home Depot and installed it today. Also poured another countertop test panel last weekend.
















































Try to not be too jealous of my awesome shirt.


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