My Big Fat Renovation

[67ChevyRedneck]

This room is the smallest in the house, it's 10'x12'. It's 100% done. Closet is done, new trim is caulked and painted, new wall color, and ceiling fan is installed. If we ever have a little one, this will be their room.

[biggene]

All of the work you have done looks absolutely fabulous. I came from a construction/remodeling background, my Dad owned his own small company for 35+ years, and grew up working for him with the right way to do things being reinforced.
When you start feeling like you are stressing and worrying about things no one else will notice or even care about, don't forget these 2 things.
1. You will ALWAYS be your own worst critic, I know I am when it comes to any projects I undertake as well.
2. My Dad always told me to perform all the work I did like I was working on my own house and I wanted it to be right.


Gene

[67ChevyRedneck]

Only your 3rd post in almost 2 years, I really appreciate that! My dad has always fixed our own stuff, lawnmowers, cars, home, etc so he taught me how to do all that. If we didn't know how to do something, we figured it out.

I came close to finishing the blue room over new years, but a trip to GA yesterday for a 71/72 5 lug rear side tracked me. Hope to have that room done this weekend and a good start on the closet shelves.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I'll have to get some pics up of the finished inside! Downstairs is D O N E!

Only one room left upstairs and the hallway.

So in between working on the mustang, the C10 and work, I moved to get the "outside" of the house to take care of the highly neglected porch (back deck is up next this fall!)

1&2. Only took about a half hour to knock the old rails out...

3. Warped and somewhat rotten railing.

4. Old rails.

5. General condition of what's left...

[67ChevyRedneck]

The tan/brown stuff on all the posts is an exterior wood filler to make the posts a little prettier.

1. Existing stair case.

2. Existing condition/partially stripped.

3. Fully stripped and smooth... should hopefully hold paint better and not peel/crack (no more grooves, etc to hold water.)

4&5. Decking before pressure washing.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Floor pressure washed.

2. Started the sealer/stain.

3&4. Done

5. Took a good bit of time to get the new posts anchored to the concrete (were originally just nailed to bottom stair rail)... however, this did not work... They need to be moved almost a foot out....

[67ChevyRedneck]

These are all mock up photos. It looked so close to done but was soooooooooooooooo far!

[67ChevyRedneck]

These are the final photos. Things that I can remember I did:

Used new PVC on top and bottom of wood posts, old trim was wood and very very rotten.

Installed new PVC brick molding around doorway.

New Door with new seals.

Repainted entire door/windows/trim.

Installed all new PVC lattice under the porch with 4x4 landscape timbers on the backside to prevent the lattice from bending backwards like the old stuff was (over the years, the mulch bed has been raised 4-6" higher than the dirt area under the porch.)

[67ChevyRedneck]

EXREMELY happy with the result. We have a love seat rocking chair I'm repainting and planning on buying a couple of rocking chairs to match.

The wet spots are just that, water that hadn't dried up from the pressure washing.

This was not cheap. In fact, it was pretty damn expensive. It's the TREX Transcend series with Colonial spindles (would have been MUCH cheaper with "standard" square spindles, but would have looked really plain.)

I saved A LOT of $$$ by ordering from Homedopot.com (a lot cheaper than my quote from LOWES, and less than the home depot store and even other places I found it online.) The only thing that sucked is TREX sent me the wrong stair rails... TWICE. The stair rail covers are rectangular (when flat, they're square, but if you try to install a spindles at an angle, like on stairs, it wont fit, the hole needs to be rectangular) and they're supposed to come with angled end covers. I was sent "straight sections" twice. I had to go to the store, and have them call trex and have someone hand pick the correct stuff because I was sick of waiting. It was over 4 weeks from my initial order to when I got the correct stair parts.

[ERASER5]

Other than that funny looking orange flag thing, it looks really good!

[Clyde65]

Wow, that looks very nice!

I have found, doing something correctly is always more expensive than just doing it, but not as expensive as having o do it again.

[esoxman308]

Your build thread is inspiring, and has turned out great....ever thought of putting matching shutters on the back side of your house? Meticulous and talented....good combo!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks everyone.

That orange flag thing is the reason my wife and I have such awesome jobs

Clyde, I've learned that lesson all too well (mostly with my cars) so I try to get the "better stuff" now a days when it matters. I don't want to repaint 120 spindles and rails every 5 years. The 4 main posts actually fared well, they only needed a few areas cleaned up (aside from all the nail holes I filled.) This stuff has a 20 year "no fade" warranty. It's in the shade most of the day, so we'll see!

Esoxman... thought about that MANY times. My wife is thinking about a little one, so we're on the final push to "get the house done" first. The back deck is up next this fall. (Complete redo, it was built "wrong." It will be 22x16 - will have the same railing the porch has). I might start in late July...

After that, we're redoing the siding. It will be 16 years old by the time it's done, it has a huge melted spot in the back where the PO had the grille too close to the house, there's a couple broke pieces, and when the fence was painted (again, the PO's) they splattered stain ALL OVER the siding on both sides of the fence, both sides of the house! We have the money now... we won't in the near future. Thinking about a lighter tan/sand brown color. Will definitely put shutters on all windows. The back looks really plain without them.

My plan is:

Downstairs is DONE.
Porch is DONE.
Back deck - fall project.
One upstairs room left (just closet and trim) and hallway - winter project.
Siding - Spring/Summer next year - Contractor will do this. I just don't have the time/energy to move the scaffolds, etc. I've done siding before, it's easy, it would just take me months to do it. Contractor will have it done in 2-3 days tops. I'll do the shutters.

[esoxman308]

Busy,busy,busy.....you're doing great!! before you know it, you will have to put that tree house back up for the little one

[motornut]

man that place looks great!
I'm only at square one,I bought a house lol

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by esoxman308

Busy,busy,busy.....you're doing great!! before you know it, you will have to put that tree house back up for the little one

If I do, I'll try to NOT use 4 dead 10' high stumps

Motornut... if you bought a house that's "done" you're already way ahead of me!

I'm done with the homestead for a few months. I used home depots 0% for all the materials and need to get that paid off before I do it again for the deck.

I tore my mustang apart this past weekend. The C4 blew and I'm converting it to a T5, 5 speed OD trans out of a 98 mustang. That will probably take me a month...

[tune_1]

Your house is looking great. I have watched as it has changed from when you bought it. I enjoy watching each of your projects and the end result.

Dwight

[motornut]

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

Motornut... if you bought a house that's "done" you're already way ahead of me!

nope lol,just got it the 13th

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by tune_1

Your house is looking great. I have watched as it has changed from when you bought it. I enjoy watching each of your projects and the end result.

Dwight

Thanks! Keep an eye on the Mustang build... I test fit the T5 tonight... it actually fit pretty well.

Originally Posted by motornut

nope lol,just got it the 13th

So... you bought a giant pile of crap as well (needs lots of love)? Congrats! If I EVER buy another house (I really hope the only time I move is into a 1 story retirement home with a 5 car garage near the beach) I am NEVER buying a "fixer-upper" again. It will be new and done.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Back at it. So close to actually being done!

I've hated this deck since I first saw it. It's ugly. It's Red. The wood is bowed and rotten. It's "sitting on blocks"... and check out the next set of pics...

[67ChevyRedneck]

So after 5 years I ripped it down!

It took all of 15 minutes to get the rails down (no joke) and with the help of a sledge hammer and sawzall it was done and in a pile in less than 2 hours.

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and what I was well aware of when we bought the house, and was more evident when I replaced the back door, but there was nothing I could do until I tore it down.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, it turns out I got lucky. Only the outside board was completely rotten. The inside board was blackened a bit, but was rot free. It was damp, so I let it dry completely over a couple nice 70* days while I cleaned up and formulated a plan.

The flashing you see is from when I installed the door. There was originally nothing there and my floor was rotten (fixed in previous posts a few pages back.)

[67ChevyRedneck]

Once the inner board had dried I installed a new treated ledger board. It was a snug fit... took a sledge to nudge it in.

I then installed a whopping, crazy expensive and ridiculously hard to install (sarcasm)... ~25' worth of flashing

[67ChevyRedneck]

I then installed a new ledger board. I installed the bolts later, so there aren't any in these pics.

While not necessary, I took the extra step of doing a second row of flashing that wraps over the ledger board, so water should never get behind there.

The last pic was after a rain... it looked beautiful to me