In hindsight, double wall ovens are taking up too much space in the small kitchen. But, the appliances are already purchased because we needed to know what appliances we had to design the kitchen. Too late at this point
We got a really good deal on the oven and cooktop. They were in the return/discontinued section of Pacific Sales. Oven was $900 and cooktop only $280. Total for all appliances was only $3,300 including tax which inclues a really nice stainless interior low decibel dishwasher that we found at Sears Outlet and counter depth side by side refrigerator (she is OK with side by side to save money)
The timeline was 8 weeks. We are 4 weeks into project and still working on infrastructure. It is going to take another week to shore up all the opened areas with drywall and insulation. I believe we are 1 week behind schedule because of having to tear off family room ceiling and do a whole new roof. Lots of bad stuff had to get fixed
Today we are going to finish up all the wiring of lighting, switches and outlets in family room, kitchen and bathroom. My electrician had a solution for some of the chewed wire. He has little heat shrink sleeves he put on the wire to make it safe. My key issue is that we had to move forward with wiring up the kitchen and I sure hope that they agree on the cabinet placement or we are going to have to move some things.
Meanwhile we are putting up new siding around the exterior of the kitchen addition and we are adding more footings underneath the addition portion because they actually built the dang thing on a couple of little deck concrete piers that you buy at Home Depot. What a Mickey Mouse build!!!
The homeowner purchased an over range microwave with vent. We have already punched the hole and roofer has proper cap installed with flashing. So it will be vented through roof. There was no venting in old kitchen. There was an old fan that didn’t work but we discovered that it wasn’t venting anywhere except an enclosed heating soffit. Yuck!!!
We also, at the last minute, put roof vent in for laundry drain venting and for a fan in laundry room
We are $23,000 into the budget but we have some major things complete. Roof, Bathtub tile, interior rebuild, addition rebuild, electric re wire, siding on addition, insulation, appliances and all bath fixtures.
The major costs remaining are :
Drywall install and texture
Kitchen cabinets and installation
Window and door installations (windows purchased)
Countertops
Flooring
fireplace surround
laundry room
and lots of painting!!
They claim they want to paint the interior to save money. I’m not going to let them paint exterior because it is in such poor condition it needs a lot of meticulous prep to get done properly.
Our first house was a very solidly built fixer upper…it had THE most awful interior decorating possible. Just awful. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we did the things WE could do…like remove old wallpaper, paint walls, replace switchplates. DH was an electrician in a past life so he could do all of that too.
We only paid to have things done that we just couldn’t do.
DH even replaced all the exterior doors and windows.
If we hadn’t been that handy, we would have purchased a MUCH less costly house.
Hoping these folks can save some money by pitching in…but it doesn’t sound like they knew the upside of a paintbrush.
I keep asking myself "Why why why would you buy a major fixer if you cannot and will not fix anything yourself? "
Especially in a bad neighborhood?? I can understand buying the worst house in a good neighborhood but this is a poor condition house in a bad neighborhood. I’m pretty sure that amounts to a big F in Real Estate 101.
For some reason they bought the first house they saw. They were all excitrd because it was big. Yep, big with poorly built add ons. And big yard that is just full of weeds. They never even asked Dad to come over and look at it. In 2013 they could have bought something well built in a better neighborhood but a little further inland and slightly smaller.
