We're in the house. Well, "in the house" is overstating it, we've taken possession of it, a couple of days late, but no mind. And true to buying well used homes, there's more work there than we thought. Much of our work can't get going until sealift when we've got a ton of supplies coming in. But there is a lot of work that will be easier to get out of the way before we move in. Such as painting part of the house.
I won't go into a lot of detail right now, but its a heck of a lot of money to pay for a fixer upper. The biggest surprise is the toilet doesn't work. We planned on replacing it regardless and have one coming up on sealift, but that's almost 2 months away. Many houses up here use a marine style toilet, as opposed to one with a reservoir. The chief consideration is water use. This one, however, doesn't use any water, and um the washroom needs attention. So we're faced with getting a toilet here, to tide us over until our dual flush arrives.
The other big item we're not prepared for is even more of an expense. We need to replace all of our bedroom (five) windows. Some have only one pane of glass and some have broken mechanisms. The ones that are down to single panes have been sweating water because of the lack of insulation, and now the drywall below them needs replacing, who knows about the insulation under that. Again, we'd planned on replacing the windows, down the road. I'm not a fan of vinyl windows, certainly not esthetically, and certainly not for this climate. But we'll probably have to make due with these somehow for another 14 months. The windows we'd like are expensive and I doubt if there's enough time to make the sea lift anyway. We'll probably we walling them off temporarily.
But right now its painting and prep work. We filled about 8,003 nail holes in livingroom/dining room/kitchen, got them sanded and the walls and ceiling washed. Leah has done an incredible job putting two coats of primer in the living room. I've been madly pulling off all the baseboard and such, and I've had the front door knob and/or deadbolt off at least four times today. The previous owners had no key so we've had no way to lock up at night. But, as I discovered, the exterior doors on this house have five inch throws for some strange reason. I've finally got a locking knob that'll fit the existing throw, so she's all locked up.
But after the initial "what the hell have we gotten into" and depression that came with it has faded away. It feels good to be back at construction/destruction and now that those layers of fresh paint are up, the place looks full of possibilities. Tomorrow the plumber/o.b.m. and the electrician will be there. We'll have a serviced furnace, a new(ish) toilet, and new plugs for the kitchen and stove installed. And some sconces. The former owners left us with one light bulb. Its not even worth the fight.
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Replacing the windows, doors and kitchen cabinets this year. Material, taxes and shipping comes just shy of 8200. Vinyl windows though. Have fun I love having a house to work on.
Ouch! Sounds like you have your work cut out for you though I’m sure it sill look fantastic in the end. I think there must be some sort of front door disease on the go since the lock on our door started acting up on us when the warm weather hit.
Can you tell me how it makes sense that they ever installed only 1 pane windows in the first place in the arctic? Wow! You don’t even do that down ‘south’… Wow! And ya, you better get that furnace working…summer is short there.
I’m curious. At what temperature do you actually put the heat on? Or, if not to freeze the pipes, how high do you put the heat on? For example: I prefer a comfortable 22 or 23 in the house. If the max is only 15 during the day…then I would most likely have my heater on…(Well I live in an apt. so those are really warm anyways, just right for me).
Thanks for obliging my interest!
Hey Matthew. I love the work too, I’m just anxious to get into the house and to have sealift arrive, which is when the real improvements will begin. And with vinyl vs wood, I’m just a big fan of wooden things.
Thanks Darcy. You do have your troubles with front doors. Or was that Kendra?
Melodie, two panes were installed, but only one remains. The furnace is all cleaned and serviced, and the temporary toilet is in place. I leave our thermostat at around 20. This time of year the windows are open trying to keep things cool. Its been up to 14 out some days. Sweltering.