Empty Nest? Now we're adding the second nest! Ideas Needed!

Parent Cafe
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<p>I have to say… I love this thread!! I want to tell everyone my story!! Sorry that it’s so long, but I love house talk!!</p>

<p>As some of you may know, I bought my very first house almost 2 years ago for my 26th birthday. Once I graduated from college, I started saving up money with this as my goal. First I paid off my car, then I watched my bank account grow little by little each paycheck. Finally, after about 3 years of working (and saving) full time, I got myself a Realtor. I honestly must have physically gone and looked at 100+ houses. I think I drove my Realtor up a wall. Every single house I looked at, I had issues with. I didn’t mind some cosmetic issues - I can repaint rooms with the best of them. But what I mean is… too close to the neighbors, outdoor dogs barking in the neighborhood, not a big enough yard, too small of a yard, complete house looks like its stuck in 1950 and every single thing needs to be redone, too close to the highway, etc. But If I was going to spend $$$$$$ on something, it was going to be what I wanted, and where I wanted.</p>

<p>I loved the listing and the photos I had seen of this house, and when I walked up the front steps with my Realtor and saw this house in person, I instantly told him we were going to put in an offer. We hadn’t even went through the front door yet. Finally got inside and looked around. Carpets were a bit old, paint colors weren’t really my thing. Seller was going to replace all the carpets in the house as part of the deal. They came down in price 20k and as a result decided not to replace the carpets (which was fine by me, I’d rather pick them out myself anyway). I bought the house, got a ridiculously great price (great time to be a buyer, not a seller…)… They paid the closing costs, and I put a full 20% down on the house which got me a great rate and no PMI… Soon after closing, it was income tax time… I had gotten a nice regular return plus I got the $8,000 income tax rebate for buying the house. My goal was to put that money back into my house.</p>

<p>I had a complete blank canvas to work with! It was so super exciting! The house, even though 60 years old, looked brand new. It had brand new siding, brand new windows, brand new roof, new central air/heat pump, newly renovated bathroom and newly renovated kitchen. I ripped up all the carpeting to find hardwood underneath… Paid someone 500 bucks and they refinished the floors and they are gorgeous. Bought a couple of area rugs, and re-painted all the rooms to my liking. I went out and bought almost all new furniture. I got a whole new living room set, a kitchen table that looks like it was made to be part of my kitchen, etc. I used my existing bed and my dresser, as they were quite new. I also put my old bed and my old dresser in my guest room. My old living room furniture is in one of my extra bedrooms in my 2nd floor living area. I dug up a bunch of the yard and planted shrubs and flowers and did some landscaping. I do photography as a hobby, so I had prints made of about a dozen of my photos. Spent a couple hundred bucks on the prints and frames, and I would say about 90 percent of the stuff hanging on the walls of the house is my own.</p>

<p>Honestly, the house looks amazing. Everything came out so great. You never would guess by seeing it that I did it all when I was 26-27 years old and designed it all myself… literally… even down to the photographs and paintings on my walls. It’s pretty much almost perfect to me. I have 4 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, about 1600 sq feet, a garage, two patios, and a perfect sized yard in a great neighborhood and school district. The only thing I wish it had is a dishwasher. I have been thinking about removing one of the cabinets and putting a dish washer in, but that’s the cabinet that I have all of my pots and pans in… so I would need to find a new home for them if I do that. We shall see. I also plan to finish the basement… when I get around to it. I need to draw up some plans and do some price checking on that. I’m a pretty handy girl! I have saved a big chunk of that tax rebate for it. </p>

<p>My one tip is, if you are doing landscaping, do not plant a tree near your sewer lines. I had been here a little less then a year when my sewer line wound up destroyed by tree roots. Cost me 1500 bucks to dig up the line and replace it… and that was with hiring a family friend to do the job. I can only imagine what it would have cost had it been someone else.</p>

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<p>Great Story, Fendergirl. For someone so young, you did an amazing amount of work on your own.</p>

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<p>^^^^^ditto on the above post!
Fendergirl it is uplifting to read someone as young as you ,so thoughtful, mature in being a buyer. Glad this awful real estate market is working for a first time buyer like you.
From your details, we can all imagine your HOME ,and feel your "PRIDE " of ownership!!!
Kudos, property virgin- well done !!!</p>

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<p>Well done, Fendergirl. </p>

<p>I recommend a subscription to Fine Homebuilding. It is full of ideas for kitchen layouts, clever storage, new materials and products . . .</p>

<p>We are also in the process of designing a smaller house. Our property slopes to the rear and we plan to have one floor living with guest spaces downstairs. There will also be a “tower” office and yoga space which will take full advantage of the views. The living room sort of juts out to the rear and, because the lot drops off, we hope to get the feeling of being in a tree house, with lots of windows. (We have wooded conservancy land behind us.) The area under the living room will be open, forming a covered patio off the downstairs family room, and we’ll be able to use the living room chimney for a second (outdoor) fireplace. There will be an uncovered patio as well. I want to use native bluestone for the patios and probably in the kitchen, mudroom and entry.</p>

<p>Re: laundry facilities. Now that our kids are in school, we don’t have a lot of laundry. I’m thinking of putting a stackable W/D in the walk-in closet. It will be adjacent to the master bath, so the plumbing will already be there. Does anyone have any experience with those appliances or recommendations? I plan to also put the standard washer and dryer in the basement for big loads and guest linens.</p>

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<p>1moremom
I have stackable Whirlpool Duets in DH’s walk in master closet. Love, love, love it.</p>

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<p>Thanks, laketime. I’ll take a look at those.</p>

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<p>Thank you. I love it. It’s been wonderful!!! One small project at a time. It’s hard to work on a house while working full time!! I really didn’t have much work to do - painting took the most time. The floors were re-did in a weekend. My boyfriend bought a house a few months after I did (we hadn’t been dating for too long) and his house was a nightmare!! It’s amazing what some elbow grease can do to a house. It had hideous wallpaper on all the walls, disgusting carpet on the floors, etc. He ripped up all the carpet and refinished the floors on his own (He was so happy when I hired someone to do my floors instead of having him do it, haha!!). He took down all of the wallpaper and painted every room. He just re-did his entire kitchen, and it looks awesome. He just got done re-doing his bathroom also. Looks like a completely different house now. Maybe I’ll PM you guys some photos.</p>

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<p>DH and I bought our first house when we were 25. We did everything ourselves, laying tile, stripping wallpaper and painting, breaking up and hauling away concrete, landscaping. It was so rewarding. Now we usually pay others to do the more serious work. The results are great, but it’s nowhere near as gratifying as the “old days”.</p>

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<p>I am bumping up this thread since we are starting to move forward on our second nest and I could use some more ideas. I am going to change an interior wall to make the mud room bigger based upon the recommendations of my CC friends…thanks! I will also add extra insulation to the wall separating the master bedroom and the living room/great room. I am not so sure about doing only deep drawers under the kitchen cabinets…I would think that stuff would pile up in them and be tough to get to. I think that maybe just putting pullouts in all the lower cabinets will do the trick? Looking at appliance ideas also (I read up on other threads here). Originally I was going with a very basic kitchen appliance package…now I can’t stop looking at the Wolf range top and Miele dishwashers and subzero refridgerator. Also not sure about which double ovens are the best these days ( I have kitchenaid in my primary home…no issues but not great…they are a bit noisy though). Looking at fiberglass or composite decking material and pvc railings/fence. Also saw glass fence slats somewhere that looked really interesting. There is a lot of research to do and I am excited for this new project. Maybe it will keep my mind off watching my DS’s grades go up and down (he is class of 2012 so it can be stressful).</p>

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<p>

Extra insulation is not that effective at sound insulation, but there are specific construction techniques and materials you can use. For example there is a soundproofing drywall called QuietRock, there are materials you wrap around electrical boxes to impede sound, you can build two thinner walls so that the studs don’t touch, etc.</p>

<p>

We have pullouts (they are like a drawer with 2" sides) in several cabinets (top and bottom) where we store pats and pans, they are great. A deep drawer for that would be a pain. I wouldn’t want them only on the bottom, too much bending over to get a pan.</p>

<p>In the cabinet over our double oven we put in vertical seperators, which provides a great spot for storing cookie sheets and trays and what-not. You just slide them in and out, very convenient.</p>

<p>

We have a SubZero, which looks great but cost a hideous amount of money (I think it was $5500, and the wood panels to match our cabinets cost another $1000). And I am not impressed by their reliability or their warranty. We have had to have it repaired numerous times, and it wasn’t cheap either. I think there is another company making countertop-depth fridges, you might want to look into those.</p>

<p>

I know it’s a maintenance issue, but to me the composite decking just doesn’t have a good look. Same with the PVC railings. Low maintenance may trump everything.</p>

<p>

Is there something to see through the glass that would be worth the expense? I would imagine keeping them clean would be a big headache, too.</p>

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<p>I will emphatically support the deep drawer bottom cabinets!
We have lower cabinets with: 3 drawers and some with 1 small drawer over doors with pull outs below. There is a lot of wasted space with the pull out since framing needs to fit within the door opening. Also things fall off the sides and backs of the 2 inch ‘walls’. It is really a pain getting to those ‘lost’ things.
I wish I had put drawers in more spots. The drawer cabinets are tiered: small over medium over large. We put our deeper pans and casserole bowls in the deeper lower drawers, medium depth things in the middle, etc.</p>

<p>I particularly like my trash/recycling pull out lower cabinet. It is wide enough for 2 of the 13 gal. trash cans to sit one behind the other. We put trash in the front and recycling in the back.</p>

<p>I would splurge on the high quality range and quiet stainless interior dishwasher. We have an Asko DW from 1997, called a repairman only once for a leak, but found out our ancient drain pipe had cracked, DW was fine.</p>

<p>Good luck with a fun project!</p>

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<p>I haven’t read the whole thread so forgive me if this was already mentioned: in one house I lived in, we had what they call an ‘appliance garage’ in the back corner which had a roll-down (or tambour) door on the front to hide all the can-openers, toasters, etc. There was a receptacle box in the back so you could leave things plugged in if you wished. Keeps the kitchen tidy. Sure wish I had one in this house!</p>

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<p>

We have one of these, too - ours is a metal tray with holes cut in it where the cans go.</p>

<p>We also put shelf units on the ends of the cabinet runs where we put knick-knacks and what-not, and put a bookcase unit in place of a base cabinet to store cookbooks.</p>

<p>

Got one of these, too. It tends to get a little cluttered because there is a lot of stuff in there, but it definitely helps keep your countertop neat.</p>

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<p>Notrichenough, thanks for the insulation information post, I printed it out and added it to my file to ask the contractor about. I also printed out much of the info that everyone is giving me (since I have a mind like a sieve). I love the idea of a place to put cookbooks but do not want any knick knack shelves since I want to minimize clutter and knick knacks in this summer house. I also love the idea of putting cutting boards and cookie sheets into a slotted area somewhere (maybe above the double ovens?). All great ideas so far. I am going to have a nice notebook to bring with me to the kitchen/contractor!</p>

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<p>One thing I learned from building a house 15 years ago is that if you want a contractor to do something, he will…if you have the money.</p>

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<p>Outdoor hot tub, outdoor below ground pool (that’s probably not included in building the actual house but whatevs haha). I mean I’m only 17 but I can tell you that half the fun of going in the hot tub is walking through the cold snow/air to get to it. If you were considering a hot tub, do one outside! that is totally random I’m gonna leave now</p>

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<p>Haven’t read this whole thread so I don’t know if this was mentioned – but I’d definitely have the laundry room on the same floor as the bedrooms, and I’d definitely have the garage/garbage cans on the same floor as the kitchen.</p>

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<p>We researched composite decking when building our new house last year. There have been a lot of problems with it. Do some research before deciding. It gets very hot in the summer.<br>
I posted on this thread earlier but don’t remember if I mentioned our decking solution (you mentioned glass panels). We have wood rails and posts. In between the posts, we used galvanized piping mounted horizontally. It is gives an pretty unobstructed view and is maintenance free and inexpensive. It’s a win/win. I have also seen steel cables used the same way on decking to provide an unobstructed view. Our house is on the water so a good view from the deck was very important to us.</p>

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<p>I know Lassie3 and others mentioned it earlier but I would highly recommend the raised toilet in the master. After my family had to install a raised seat and the grab bars in my MIL’s bath room and buy a seat for sitting in the shower, I realized that I would love to have a great bathroom on the ground floor if we downsize. I am trying to look for pictures of grab bars that look ok and shower seats that are part of the design. </p>

<p>Lots are small in my area and most bedrooms are upstairs but a bedroom downstairs is a must for visitors and for us in the future. </p>

<p>ALso, on my list…one of my friends has a mail slot, not in her door but on the wall to the side of the front door. The mail falls on her desk and accumulates there when she is out of town. I told her that I’m stealing this idea. Another friend used her double linen closet upstairs to house built-in bunk beds for her grandchildren. I had only seen this in vacation houses before but she put in drawers underneath and there is still room for storage.</p>

<p>Another must if I ever build would be to have a small tree or two near the front door near an electrical plate so that I could easily light it up at Christmas.</p>

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<p>Everything on one floor for the owners: bedroom, laundry, kitchen, doorways with wheelchair access (in case) bathrooms for handicap access (walk in tub etc.). Easy to bring groceries into house: no stairs or steep walks. Outdoor spa, indoor pool and sauna sound nice! Fun to dream, eh?</p>