How to buy a “Fixer Up” House to be a Home.

[oldognewtrick]

Be sure and round those corners off.

 

[bud16415]

Also, if you have any left over membrane, cut a strip and lay it under the narrow metal, round the corners on the metal where it lays on the rubber.

This is a great idea only I didn't trim it until I had it all down. Can't get under it now. I think I will put a strip where the extender to the house is screwed down. All I have to do there is pull 2 screws.

Next time in 30 years when I redo it I will try and remember to do that. LOL

 

[bud16415]

Be sure and round those corners off.

Great input . If i get some wear thru spots I guess I will glue some patches on when the time comes or there is always gorilla tape if I get to old.

I'm all ready for the next roofing job. The neighbor saw it laid out in the yard and he wants to do his 10x10 shed.

 

[bud16415]

I got tired of walking thru the house with the water can for all the hanging baskets and plants on the new Riverside front porch. It’s been 6 years and the old faucet out front never got hooked to the PEX manifold.


I bought a new frost proof 12” long faucet and pulled the 1930s heavy-duty brass job out ran the PEX and had it installed in 15 minutes.


Because I wanted water on the porch for summer I mounted a second ball faucet thru the post with a short loop of hose to the other.


If all goes well I will only have to crawl into the bushes spring and fall to attach/detach the hose. Now if I forget and we get a freeze it wont be pretty.

 

[nma]

Mine is a far different story. I was young married, with two kids and broke, no hope for buying that house. But while visiting my sister 40 miles out of town I met a realestate guy who had been in the country for five years and selling houses for one. He asked me if I could fix house, I thought he wanted some work done so I said sure. He said I have a house that you should buy, $700 down. Then he told me how to get gov. grants and rebaits that totaled $700, and he would lend me the money. Then he lent me $10k to sit in my bank wihile I qualified for the morgage. Over the next year he dropped in for coffee once in a while and pushed me to get the house ready to sell. In that year the market was moving up fast. He stopped in one day and said you have two weeks to get it done, there are people waiting for you. I asked him why he was doing all this and he had a strange answer. He said, you thought I was selling you A house, I'm going to sell you five houses in six years and you will not have a mortgage when we get there. If he didn't die in the middle of that, I'm sure I would be doing alot better now.

Wow - that took a dark turn...

 

[nma]

2) Don't buy a house with a wet basement. I think this is the simplest and best tip because it is hard to ever fix a basement completely and it causes mold.

Meh - certainly be cautious of a wet basement, but the issue is to understand why it's wet. Sometimes that can be fixed super easily by mending gutters or drains.

 

[bud16415]

When I first started on the house I noticed the house was built in two sections, the kitchen an addition but still a good 100 years ago. So the basement has a fieldstone-dividing wall running across it. With it being 2 story and a walk up attic above the main house the roof lines were split up above the hand hewn beam that rests on the field stone wall. The wall on the first floor between the kitchen and the living room didn’t feel sound and in the basement there were a few owner installed Lally columns that made me think they were worried about that wall at some point. Because the beam was so wide and in good shape I stripped that wall down to the studs and had room for an additional load bearing wall in front of the old wall that was still doing its job as well. When building the wall I was going to make a new archway into the pantry behind it where the TV is in the photos. She didn’t mind walking around the corner to get in the pantry and thought that location would be a good place for the kitchen entertainment center. Once I had the wall framed out I was looking at all the space in the wall cavity a double stud wall leaves and I thought of maybe using that space for kitchen storage as well. That was 5 years ago and I got the TV mounted and never did anything but leave the wall open. This Thanksgiving I got the ultimatum work on the wall or no turkey day dinner for the family.


So I started finishing it out and making shelves. All the openings will have doors eventually. First of the year project. The wall will look like an all white wall with the TV built in.


Each shelf I add she started setting things on it, starting with the hard stuff. I think she wanted to get the spacing right for what she wants to keep in there. Doors will be close to 8’ tall.


Here are a few pics more after the new year.

 

[zannej]

It looks good, Bud! I like the built-in shelving. I'm looking forward to seeing it when it's done.

 

[albert24]

It does look great