Complete Home Rehab

So I haven't posted on this blog for four years... I've been busy. My wife and I had a little boy, then we bought a house, then we renovated the house ourselves, then we had another little boy. I'm going to clarify that part in the middle. Did I mention that we fixed up the house? We fixed the whole house. That wasn't all together unexpected since we did buy a project house but the full scale didn't reveal itself until we started to dig in a little. This is going to be a long story, a very long story that will likely take many blogs posts to tell. Let's begin.

I love doing home renovation projects so when it came time to buy a home, purchasing a house in need of some work was definitely an option in my mind. Convincing my wife was easier than expected. Bless her heart. One of my wife's best and worst traits is her willingness to participant in some of my "brilliant" ideas. I love her for it, but she really needs to rein me in more often. In hindsight, this was one of those times ;) Here's a secret. Most "affordable" homes need some work. The more affordable, the more work. We chose to live in Northern Virginia which means the housing prices are pretty high. I've had many a conversation that included the phrase "man, housing prices are getting crazy". Yeah, they're high.

We purchased the house for quite the discount below what comparable houses in the neighborhood were going for. The budget was pretty simple. Spend less than the difference. The goal was to not be under water when this whole thing was done. I think we did a pretty good job keeping costs reasonable when we could, however there's no getting around material expenses. We splurged on professional help a few times but we made sure it was all carefully planned out.

This house took well be being fixed and renovated. Each living space can be accessed from below and above. This made plumbing, HVAC, and electrical a relative breeze. There are also no load bearing walls within the structure. It's beam and joist on the lower levels and trusses support the roof. I knew I wanted to knock out a few walls right away and it was nice to know our design vision wouldn't be constrained.  Not everything went smoothly though. In fact, most things didn't. Every wall hides a secret and every job has a little demon waiting to escape. I found them all!

Our house has red oak floors in all of the above grade living areas. They would all need to be refinished. This is where we started. Buckle up.

NOTE: There will be plenty of before and after picture in subsequent posts.