@VeryHappy , unfortunately my basement is over 100 years old and very damp. It is not conducive to storing much. If I had a more normal house and needed the upstairs storage for other stuff, I would do the same thing. 
Oh, I’m familiar with those basements. I wouldn’t store anything there either!
GRANDMA HOUSE COMPLETE
Well, almost. We finished the long list of details for the inside of the house yesterday. We still have to clear out the garage, although we made a good dent in it by getting the kitchen cabinet company to show up and pick up all the leftover pieces and parts and we made a big dump run yesterday to get rid of all the trash that was hidden along the side of the house
All we have remaining is to trim out the new windows in the front. This is difficult because the trim needs to sit out of the siding and the siding on the house is very thick. So we are inventing a way to stck trim with a big shim underneath to be thick enough for the application. Trim will be finished on Monday. And, unfortunately, the inside door handles that the owner wanted are still on their way. This is going to require another visit back to the house on Tuesday to install door handles.
Then the guys are going to get 3 days off before we start the next project. I always feel it’s important to give them a little break between projects because we are always pushing pushing pushing 6 day weeks towards the end of a project and they get all stressed out. Every time I walk through the house I catch more small details to add to the Punch List and they go bonkers because it is a never ending list!
I loaded some more photos
GRANDMA HOUSE SCHEDULE AND BUDGET
Here is the total scope of the project, to give perspective
Remove popcorn ceilings everywhere
Remove wallpaper (ceilings and walls) in 4 rooms
Gut kitchen and family room
Remove wood paneling and new drywall in family room (this required a lot of final trim work to cover edges)
Open wall between family room and kitchen, install big beam
Rewire a large portion of the house with new outlets and switches everywhere
Remove all hinges and door handles and replace with new brushed nickel hardware
Replace closet door circle grabs
Paint interior of house
Reconfigure kitchen wiring and plumbing, build new island
Reconfigure kitchen venting (plumbing and stove)
New bath fans with heater (requires new venting and new circuit for ceiling heater)
New laundry bath vanity and fixtures
New laundry room countertop / paint existing laundry cabinets
Repaint interior
New thick engineered wood flooring - 1500 sq ft
New kitchen with marble countertops
New appliances (selected by owner)
New lighting in ceilings
New light fixtures
Vault entryway and reroute electrical and plumbing
Ground pool equipment
Fix some sprinkler valves
New windows, sliding door and french doors
Paint out fireplace and a million other little details
Original Schedule = 6 weeks
Final schedule = 7 weeks
Subbed out to other workers:
Tile - two floors
Wood flooring install
Popcorn removal/wallpaper removal/interior paint (although we had to go back and repaint a lot of the trim work because it got dinged or was not done properly)
Drywall for kitchen area
Electrical
Kitchen cabinet installation (this probably saved us one week in the schedule)
ORIGINAL BUDGET = $70,000 (does not include popcorn/wallpaper/interior paint)
FINAL BUDGET = $85,000
What went over budget? A lot of things the owners asked for while we were underway in the project
Kitchen - he paid about $1,500 more for appliances than I would have. He paid about $3,000 more to kitchen cabinet company than it would have cost for me to purchase cabinets and install them
Electrical and Lighting - they added a ton of lighting to the house because they did not notice that there weren’t any overhead lights in the main rooms of the house. Also added pulling out and changing a lot of fixtures that they originally claimed ‘keep’. But it was obvious as we went through the project that the old brown ceiling fans and lighting were corroded, damaged or downright ugly. They also decided to change out all switches, outlets and plates because they were old style and very dingy. Also, the whole house was not grounded and I convinced them to take care of that situation for safety reasons.
Vaulted Entryway - This added about $1,500 to project between re routing electrical/plumbing, framing, drywall and the big new light fixture. But, it makes a world of difference to the entry of the house
Trim - this was my error. Did not realize how much trim work was going to be required on the interior and exterior in order to replace the windows and doors. Trim materials alone added about $600 to project, plus the labor for installation, caulking and painting
Paint - we ended up having to repaint and touch up a lot of the other painter’s work because it was sloppy and/or should not have been painted before all the construction work was completed. But the owner had hired this team and told them they had to be done in 2 weeks. So, it was not my business to tell them Not to paint an area until we were done.
Flooring - they decided to remove carpet from office and master bedroom so the flooring costs were higher than anticipated. When we first started they were going to keep the carpet throughout the entire house. Yikes!! Also, they decided on a flooring choice that was about $1 more per square foot than I had budgeted for.
You did another great transformation. I Love that you were able to get rid of the Brass on the fireplace. I’m going to suggest that to my H. Our 3 fireplaces are good looking but they all have ugly glass doors on the front that were required by code. They have a 3/4 inch trim of brass across the top and bottom. What type of paint did you use?
$85k seems like a bargain to me!
Absolutely! Grandma is lucky to have that much done for only $85k.
The 85k includes project management costs also.
We get high heat spray paint at Home Depot and mask everything off very carefully. It usually is flat paint but I search for satin when we spray on metal because I like it better. You can use the flat High Heat spray to spray out the interior of the fireplace also. The paint is rated to be used on car engines
I suppose this would work, like the paint Mr. used on the old grill:
Don’t use a primer under it.
That’s it
It looks fabulous. Really excellent!! I would be thrilled with all that work for $85,000!
There is a small piece of me that would like to see it with all of their furniture back in there…but then…maybe not!
But I am dying to see where the carousel horses go!
I don’t want to see it with the furniture…although the living room might be OK. They have white couches but 70s tables and the carousel horses.
The family room/ kitchen is really going to be a hot mess. I think a forest green leather heavily used sofa, silk pink flower arrangements, honey oak tables and a pecan dining table with oak chairs. Your basic 80s and 90s stuff
Maybe…just maybe…they will see that their old stuff just doesn’t fit in…maybe!
They are reeling from the cost of the renovation. It was a lot of domino effect going on. “While we are here you really should…”
Don’t think there’s any new furniture in the near future. And I think the whole ordeal has been too much for Grandma. She is going to need some extra care in the future and there are many things in the house that are not right for aging. In fact, I didn’t have the heart to try to point out many issues to their daughter, who was their agent. It’s tough when the parents are in their 70s and still independent but you know in five years things are going to be very different (grandma is losing her balance and declining already. She was dangerous in the construction mess)
Well…hopefully grandma won’t cram too much stuff into the place. IMO that is THE most dangerous thing for seniors to do!
Love the kitchen pictures. Would you mind telling us the brand name of the oven? I really like that the cabinet handles look so nice with the oven handle.
The oven is a Frigidaire Gallery wall oven that was mounted under the countertop.
Just a little followup. Yesterday was ‘moving day’. First they moved everything out of one bedroom but then there really wasn’t enough open space to clear out second bedroom. A giant 16 ft pod showed up (Pod 1 of 3) and they unloaded the pod into the empty bedroom, packed to the ceiling again.
Since we cleared out the garage and cleaned it up yesterday, I’m guessing Pod 2 can get unloaded into the garage sometime soon.
Have no idea where this is all going to go. I just hope they find their bed somewhere in those packed bedrooms so they have a place to sleep. They smartly added a couple more days to their downtown short term rental to try to get things organized.
I don’t know how they are doing this, and hope they have lots of help with the moving! My husband and I moved into our new town home two weeks ago, and thought we had done a good job with downsizing our belonging. Lets just say, there are boxes everywhere, and the garage has not seen a car yet 
I am in decent shape, so I can schlep boxes and climb on the ladder to place things on high shelves; I can’t imagine doing this 10 years from now. The movers packed us, and most of our belongs have been in storage for the last six months. I have found items I didn’t even know I owned; not sure where the packers found them! There are things I want to keep, but don’t need at my fingertips that hopefully will go into the attic once we get the shelves up there. Not really sure why there are so many boxes marked linens; hoping to get to those boxes today.
It took us about six months to get most everything squared away after we moved. But in all fairness, my mom passed away literally days after our furniture arrived so I had other priorities. I had also started packing six months before we moved so it kind of evened out timewise. We have a lot of packed cartons in the garage that are supposed to remain packed (partly due to DH’s packrat tendencies; partly winter clothes, partly wall art that there’s no place to hang, partly memorabilia we didn’t want to discard). Then we have a flat art box behind an out of the way couch indoors because we want to keep it in more reasonable humidity and less marine air than in the garage.
So it might take the couple quite a while before they get stuff located and squared away under the circumstances. Maybe your agent can take a few pictures down the road so we can all snoop and see how it looks!
We had been looking for our silver plated electric chafing dish (yes, we had an occasion to use it) and DH finally discovered it behind wine glasses on a high shelf. I must have put it there when we unpacked but couldn’t see it from ground level (we do have a lot of wine glasses).
DH still claims he doesn’t know where some stuff is, but he can lose track of his phone minutes after he uses it.