Buster's Reno Thread

[Buster]

In the true Beyond spirit of un-contained, joyous narcissism, I thought I would start a reno thread for the new house. I haven't taken possession yet, but I plan to do a lot of the stuff before moving in. There are at least four major projects I will leave for the future: basement reno, home theater build, deck, and kitchen. Although the Kitchen may get done early, also.

(In reality, I like to do these things as journals for myself. I just went back and read through my home theater build thread on AVS, which was fun, too.)

Here are some before pictures:








As you may surmise, it's not really my style.

Here is the direction we might go:

[JordanLotoski]

Super excited to watch this come together

[TomcoPDR]

This should be good

[Buster]

For the beyonders that might wander in:

A couple of immediate needs, I'm looking into:

1. I need a person who has expertise in re-piping PolyB. Some debate about whether I should worry about it. I'm worrying about it. I've found a few guys using the google thingy that do PolyB repipes in Calgary. But any personal recommendations would be good.

2. If the above can do the plumbing on the new bathroom, that would be good.

[Neil4Speed]

Originally posted by Buster
For the beyonders that might wander in:

A couple of immediate needs, I'm looking into:

1. I need a person who has expertise in re-piping PolyB. Some debate about whether I should worry about it. I'm worrying about it. I've found a few guys using the google thingy that do PolyB repipes in Calgary. But any personal recommendations would be good.

We had a guy named Glenn at Mr.Rooter do ours back in 2005. It was very well done with no issues to date.

He has a his own company now: http://www.delisleplumbing.com/

[Sugarphreak]

...

[ExtraSlow]

Dat honey oak!

[cet]

Do you have a link to your build thread on AVS? I was documenting my build over there as well - well, as far as I got with it anyway. It's always interesting to see what other people in the city have done.

[bjstare]

Nice place, lots of potential.

Hope you're planning on keeping the wallpaper in the master bath though, it's lovely.

[mr2mike]

The only other place I've seen with a uglier color pallette is that million dollar place ExtraSlow was trying to purchase with the forest green.

I can see past this... has awesome potential.

[ExtraSlow]

I can say with some certainty that Buster's place is nowhere near as ugly as the one I was trying to buy. But then again, I'm so pretty, anything I'm standing near looks uglier by comparison.

[phreezee]

Subscribed, congrats again.

[rage2]

This color palette was very popular in the 90's. I couldn't stand it then, and can't stand it now. When we looked at moving a couple of years ago, most of the lake front properties at Arbour Lake had the exact same colors. We budgeted 400k for renos to update shit if we had bought and moved.

Awesome place buster, can't wait to see the progress!

[vengie]

Wow! Incredible home! Do you have any pics of the backyard/ lake access?

[Buster]

Originally posted by cjblair


Hope you're planning on keeping the wallpaper in the master bath though, it's lovely.

There only question is if it will still light on fire after I piss all over it.

[never]

Originally posted by rage2
This color palette was very popular in the 90's. I couldn't stand it then, and can't stand it now. When we looked at moving a couple of years ago, most of the lake front properties at Arbour Lake had the exact same colors. We budgeted 400k for renos to update shit if we had bought and moved.

Awesome place buster, can't wait to see the progress!

At least it's not as bad as the 90s house we started with...everything was pink (walls, carpet, tile...even the freaking grout!), along with some really classy light fixtures!

Lots of good potential in your house...the lake view with all of the windows/skylights is great! But where are the kitchen pics?

[bjstare]

Originally posted by Buster


There only question is if it will still light on fire after I piss all over it.

Make sure you take it off the walls first, or you'll have an awfully angry wife.

Unless she's into that type of thing


Are you planning on doing any of the work yourself, or hiring contractors for all of it?

[Buster]

Originally posted by cjblair


Make sure you take it off the walls first, or you'll have an awfully angry wife.

Unless she's into that type of thing


Are you planning on doing any of the work yourself, or hiring contractors for all of it?

I love doing things myself, but I tend to be more just labour, than anything. My father in law was a high-end house builder for 30 years, so I tend to come up with a plan, and he tells me where to swing hammers and drill. But he's in Winnipeg and we need to move fast. I'm more into paying professionals to make my life easier nowadays (hi Jordan! lol).

I think I will do as much demo work as possible. Maybe I can do some of the drywall work after the PolyB comes out. I'll pull up the carpet, etc. I can tell when someone of my skill has done work in a house unsupervised. It's the last 5% of making things look good that the pros get....this goes for tile work, painting, trim work, etc.

[Buster]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Looking forward to this thread!

I was cyber-stalking your current place and judging by that beautiful home theater, you are going to do some pretty awesome stuff to the new pad!

I built the home theater for me....and just hoped that someone else would appreciate it when it came time to sell. Lots of showings already, so maybe it's a draw in the MLS pics, who knows.

I'm not touching the basement in the new house for a while, but one "end" of the basement is a nanny suite with a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, plus a spare room for guests. I intend to take the two nanny rooms, cut one in half and turn it into my office over-looking the lake (no more basement cave!). The remaining 1.5 rooms of the nanny suite will be turned into a 2/3 scale version of my current home theater.

[Kloubek]

Anybody who does this sort of thing can see the potential in that home. It's very dated, but a wonderful space to work with. Good luck!