I’m finally creating a thread for my house 1 year later! I figure it is a very beyond related story with many familiar faces involved, so why not start a project thread on yet another money pit in my life.
Backstory:
I’d been happily renting in crescent heights with Maxboost for the last 5 years, and despite being the best land lord we could have hoped for, we needed more space for a third dog. We started hunting with Jordan for a weird property description, house had to be as close as possible to an off leash dog park. After missing out on another house being sold by a guy I knew from the gmc syclone/typhoon forums in Cambrian, we happened upon 7 houses in west hillhurst that were inside a dog park.
30x182 lots, very 1980’s design, right down the hill from hounsfield heights and briar hill, but about 100k above our max budget. the realtor photos were terrible, we could not make sense of the floor plan and couldn’t even get an accurate estimate of square footage. I convinced my wife to at least walk by the house and park, she tried finding things wrong with the area so she wouldn’t become attached to a house we would lose (see - Cambrian house), but I kept it in my watched list. 45 days after it was put on market, the price dropped 50k, and Jordan got us a walk through. This is a clear case of why a bad realtor can ruin your sale prospects, the place was gorgeous inside, a 5 level split that was fully developed around 2200 square feet, with a recent kitchen reno. It also had all the expected requirements for a 1980’s yuppie coke den, wood burning fireplace, steam shower, jacuzzi, red light in the master bathroom, I’m surprised there wasn’t a broken down 944 in the garage as part of the deal. This is also why you want a good realtor, and I can’t say enough good things about jordan. With his negotiating skill, we got the house for only 7.5k above our budget, over 90k off original asking once inspections were done, etc.
With that, we owned a home, and as soon as we moved in the projects started...
This house has great potential, but there are a lot of things that could be updated to have more of a nostalgic approach to 80’s design, rather than “oh....I forgot they did that” 80’s design. Right after Jordan left on the possession date we started disassembly, painting all interior walls because it would be way easier now. We also discovered all the fun expenses associated with buying our first place, so refinishing the hardwood would have to wait (tbd if this is something we will regret). Along with painting, we had to rip all the poly-b out of the house, one neighbour had highlighted leaking in their house previously, and I wanted nothing to do with any more house floods.
Poly-b removal also means holes in the wall, and ceiling....and many more places. Thankfully my in-laws have a background in building homes and came out to help coordinate the plumbers and work on some other projects. The in-laws also don’t sit still for long, so we attacked 2 rooms to help speed up the plumbing.
The laundry room was the only non developed space, carpet (poorly laid) on concrete, and shoddy 2x4 shelving. A sledgehammer and sawzall made quick work, and with a little drywall and some cabinets donated by family friends, we managed to get it 90% done. Drywall was a pain in the ass, eventually we found a guy on kijiji to finish off the sanding and muddling. This room is likely going to get finished over Christmas this year, I need to learn how to do trim and backsplash still.
The downstairs bathroom also needed a lot of material removed to get out the poly-b, so this room got town apart on day 2 of ownership. It’s a little unsettling ripping apart something you owe hundreds of thousands on, but might as well rip the bandaid off all at once. Gone is the grey tub, questionable 80’s tile, and most of the ceiling. I will highlight, this is a never utilized room unless we have guests, so it is currently acting as a storage room for building supplies until the in laws return and we can finish it off over winter.
Finally we had to deal with the remaining pipe removal in the kitchen, living room and master bathroom. We go lucky, most of our plumbing was vertical above the utility room, which meant we could isolate the work to key rooms. Hearing from our neighbours, that wasn’t the norm in all these houses and they were chasing pipe back to front. Knowing we are going to Reno the master bathroom eventually, we did the drywall I. The water closet ourselves, and cut an access panel into the jacuzzi housing. The ceiling of the kitchen was another story, cuts were as minimal as possible but there were a lot of patches needed. We left this part to a pro for drywall it, I am not fucking up something that will be on full display of guests every time they come over. I will note that our cat loved the holes in the ceiling, and ruined our afternoons multiple times until we got it finished.