Granted, I didn't have cash to do a remodel when we bought our house... but I certainly have learned that if you do, you are blessed!
We recently started doing some remodeling to our 1950 built ranch home. We love our home, amazing layout. Those post-WWII modern architects really were onto something. We looked at a number of homes built in the 1920-1930's and the layouts were just choppy. But while the layout of our home was excellent, the shape of its hardwood floors, sheetrock, and style of bathrooms, trim, etc... just wasn't going to cut it. So we decided to take our house into the 21st century. It's going to be pretty modern, but keep some of the 50's geometry, masonry patterns... but incorporate modern colors, glass tile, corten raw steel, concrete countertops, etc.
What started out as, "hey lets redo the bathroom" has evolved into almost the entire house. Its just all connected! You can't just stop at one spot easily, not when you have long range plans that involve the whole house.... needless to say, the budget has exploded... we no longer eat our own meals when we do go out to eat... we no longer eat at "sit down" restaurants... I eat more ramen. We cut our "fun money" budget drastically... and I've picked up many extra shifts at work. Very tiring. To make things worse, we've only been able to live in our house 2 weeks out of the past 12, and we have about 4 more to go. We're both very in grateful to the kindness of our friends who are letting us live upstairs at their house. I don't think this would have worked otherwise.
While its going to be awesome to move back in to our freshly remodeled house... and I know I'm going to love living there... its also made me realize that my wife and I can easily live in one room. Hind sight, I sorta wish that we would have lived in a one room apartment... or bought a tiny $60k house I could have paid off in a few years before we pursue a family. Then we could have stock piled some money and been way ahead in the game. Kids! when you read this 20 years in the future... take my advice. Start tiny and cheap. When you're newly weds, square footage isn't needed. You love being together.
I'll put together a little "before & after" photo blog when its done... but probably after we save up and get our new furniture... so its nice and pretty.
david
We recently started doing some remodeling to our 1950 built ranch home. We love our home, amazing layout. Those post-WWII modern architects really were onto something. We looked at a number of homes built in the 1920-1930's and the layouts were just choppy. But while the layout of our home was excellent, the shape of its hardwood floors, sheetrock, and style of bathrooms, trim, etc... just wasn't going to cut it. So we decided to take our house into the 21st century. It's going to be pretty modern, but keep some of the 50's geometry, masonry patterns... but incorporate modern colors, glass tile, corten raw steel, concrete countertops, etc.
What started out as, "hey lets redo the bathroom" has evolved into almost the entire house. Its just all connected! You can't just stop at one spot easily, not when you have long range plans that involve the whole house.... needless to say, the budget has exploded... we no longer eat our own meals when we do go out to eat... we no longer eat at "sit down" restaurants... I eat more ramen. We cut our "fun money" budget drastically... and I've picked up many extra shifts at work. Very tiring. To make things worse, we've only been able to live in our house 2 weeks out of the past 12, and we have about 4 more to go. We're both very in grateful to the kindness of our friends who are letting us live upstairs at their house. I don't think this would have worked otherwise.
While its going to be awesome to move back in to our freshly remodeled house... and I know I'm going to love living there... its also made me realize that my wife and I can easily live in one room. Hind sight, I sorta wish that we would have lived in a one room apartment... or bought a tiny $60k house I could have paid off in a few years before we pursue a family. Then we could have stock piled some money and been way ahead in the game. Kids! when you read this 20 years in the future... take my advice. Start tiny and cheap. When you're newly weds, square footage isn't needed. You love being together.
I'll put together a little "before & after" photo blog when its done... but probably after we save up and get our new furniture... so its nice and pretty.
david
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