What are you plans for your house?

[mrs-b]

I know a lot of us have plans for our houses. I have a 5 year plan (ok, this is optimistic - 10 years maybe?) that involves:

1. Extending our dining room on the off chance any of us can ever have people over for dinner ever again
2. Adding a good sized dressing room to our bedroom
3. Re-doing the outside stairs to our basement. Currently they're under a bulkhead and I want to open them up and do a full stone entry with glass doors to increase the sunlight downstairs.
4. Replace 2 high windows in the basement with light wells
5. Enclose our verandah to make it a work-out room for me
6. Put a larger porch out the front
7. Build a large verandah off the back of our garage
8. Put in a pool

Since that would probably take us closer to 20 years (and that's optimistic, given that I'm already 60 and my health is not great), we might do...half of that? Maybe? I think 3, 5 and 8 are a given and will, in fact, happen over the next 3-4 years. The rest? We'll see.

So - what are your plans, going forward?

 

[missy]

@mrs-b looking forward to seeing your beautiful results.

We don't have much on our To Do list.

We do need to repaint Brooklyn desperately. Covid 19 has put this on hold.

We need to temperature control the attic at the beach house and make a walk in closet for me there so I have more room for my clothes. It's a huge attic. Just huge and I want to make good use of it.


Otherwise I think we are good. We have done a lot of reno and changes at the beach house since we moved here in 2011. It was a gradual work in progress and I feel like we are almost where I want to be. We actually completely redid the backyard twice due to Sandy and barring any more hurricane destruction there is nothing I want to do there.

We already completed 2 major gut renovations (Brooklyn and our first beach house) so this beach house was much easier in that we didn't need a gut reno and we have done things gradually here. The kitchen reno was very good to cross off our list as that was the biggest project we had to do here.


ETA I would love an indoor pool here but Greg has nixed that saying the attic cannot handle the weight of a pool. And we don't have space anywhere else in the house for one.Harumphhhh.

 

[MeowMeow]

Optimistically?
Next year: replace water heater

2 or 3 years: move laundry up to second floor so we don't have to traipse from second floor to the basement anymore lol. Painting the rest of the house grey to match my husbands office and the basement would be nice too.

5: This is the most pie in the sky and subject to change might have to be 10 year goal. Change out bathroom countertops and sinks to the vessel type sinks. The prior home owners had already painted most of the bathroom cabinets white so not much more to finish there except for basement bathroom cabinet painting. Possibly rip put old shower and put in new. I suspect the shower we have is what the builders put in 20 years ago and I cannot get all the rust out of the shower frame from people using it so long.

10: rip out builders cabinets from kitchen and replace those and the faucet. The flooring can stay. It's okay.

 

[Austina]

We are currently in the process of completely repainting the whole house.

We had the exterior repainted last year, we’ve already replaced all the gutters and soffits, extended the driveway, completely relandscaped front and back, had an orangery built, replaced the kitchen and master en suite.

We’re starting at the top, (it’s a 3 storey house) so far, we’ve repainted one of the bedrooms, (walls, ceiling, skirting board & door), repainted the bathroom ceiling, and today, we’ve repainted the landing area down to the middle floor. Next week we’re doing the other bedroom up there, then we’ll move down to the next floor, and work our way through the bedrooms and bathrooms, hallway and then down to the ground floor. I’ve had someone in to repaint all the bannisters because I just don’t have the patience to do it.

We repainted the orangery last week because we’ve got new furniture coming on Friday, although as it’s a high use area, it’ll need repainting again before we put the house on the market next year, and hopefully pack up our home and our lives and move across the ocean.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Replace the roof within five years

Build stairs at the back door (we removed a deck so now we have a makeshift ramp until we can find a decent contractor)

Rip the carpet out of our oldest son’s room (the only room with carpet)

Pay off the mortgage in 15 years then we can probably do larger projects like remodeling the kitchen.

 

[dk168]

Nothing much as I spent a lot of money to do up the house the way I liked it back in 2006 when I bought it. Fingers crossed that the bathroom and the kitchen can last a few more years before they need replacing.

I spent quite a lot this year to do up the garden, had a new shed built so that the garage can come down to make room for my campervan/RV etc...

I have also kitted out the dining area in the kitchen diner with wire shelving, to create more storage space and a pantry inspired by food related TV shows like the Pioneer Woman and the Barefoot Contessa.

I have been working from home since September 2019, and have planned to build myself a work station using wire shelving. Got the components already, just need to find the will power and steam to clear the space of mails/junk to make space for it.

DK

 

[MamaBee]

We have a leak coming from the outside wall into our basement. It’s incredibly frustrating because we can’t find the source. I’ve ripped up the carpet downstairs near the leak so we can observe when it starts to leak. There’s no rhyme or reason. We need to get it fixed before we put the house up for sale in a year or two. If we were staying I would put tile in the basement. I dislike wall to wall carpeting but that would be a less expensive option to ready it for sale. I also need to have the outside of the house painted. My husband is averse to doing cosmetic things to the house to make it more appealing to buyers. He just doesn’t get it. Houses sell slowly in my neighborhood....My kitchen is a drawing point...so at least we have that. I redid the kitchen before we moved in. It’s been eight years but it still looks good.

 

[seaurchin]

We downsized because we didn't feel like bothering with a big empty house anymore. Apartment living is easy breezy but I don't like not being able to switch up my space as I please. So we'll probably buy a condo or "patio home" before too long, if having such close neighbors doesn't annoy us too much (so far, so good).

Which reminds me that I want to start a decorating ideas file for it.

 

[Cerulean]

Buy one! Hah. Either small house (ideal), or bigger condo. Move to the burbs, or safer neighborhood.

Curious to follow this along once we do! Plan is for autumn 2021. Saving next year for down payment, hence tiny bling budget...

Live in a condo now that I co-own with family, but it needs a lot of work and is simply too small for our growing motley crew.

 

[winnietucker]

My plan is to sell in the next 5 years. Probably closer to 2-3 depending on how home values go. Our area is ok. We’re across the street from a lake and I can walk my dogs from one park to another. It’s convenient as well (5 min from my office, 15 min to my husband’s office & 30-60 min from his actual job site).

I really want to live in a nicer neighborhood. Our neighbors keep having domestic issues so the cops have been around a bit, which I’m just not comfortable with. The swat team came out once. And our lot is larger than our neighbors so we basically have 8 families that are our direct neighbors (if that makes sense). One property is two duplexes on the side of us. Per our older neighbors our house was the main house before the previous owners subdivided.

Next year I plan to paint the interior of the house a lighter color (it’s all the same dark greige now) and fill in the old well. We have a concrete pad that needs to be broken up (used to have a shed on it per Google Maps). I also plan on doing some DIY landscaping. I’ll have a plumber come out and install water spigots and move my garden beds to an area I cleared out.

We may add a 3 car garage, but I’m undecided on that because again, might sell soonish.

 

[House Cat]

Sell it and move to the country.

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

We've done a total gut job on this very old (bases 1850ies, certain areas 1870ies, some walls 1950ies) home. We have been waiting for our hand forged terrace railing (I'd much rather have three hand forged VC settings for the budget!!!) for twelve months now. It's been delivered yesterday and we're waiting for the installation team to come on Thursday.

We're waiting for the general construction company of our neighbor to take care if the damage they did to our driveway, then we want to install a second deck on the ground floor level. And finally start landscaping.
We have an unused ground floor room (with 4.5 m ceilings but no daylight... Can't decide if we want an indoor pool or something between a play/party/game room for the kids.

Eventually a pool. Our lot is big-ish(huge for the area we are in), but steep, so not sure where to put it...

 

[AprilBaby]

Add a sunroom or redo the deck. It needed to come out this year but got put off. Granite countertops for the kitchen. Refinish the basement; we had 3 100 yr floods in 15 years. no carpet, I give up on that. I think then we are fit to sell.

 

[MamaBear]

We purchased our home as a new build 4 years ago, so it’s in good shape. My husband painted over the flat builder grade paint to a satin finish in most of the home. We still need to repaint the finished basement but were waiting for our son to get married to do that. We will do that this winter. Sometimes, I miss the projects, honestly. It can be fun to dream and renovate a space together! I have been having fun redecorating a room each year, except this year, Covid put a damper on that. So I’m dreaming that I can continue that next year, as we desperately need bedroom furniture!

 

[LLJsmom]

Done a lot so far. 4 new windows. Love them. Exterior paint. Getting new roof. Cleaned the garage and storage. Helped my parents clean out stuff from 30-40 years ago. Has taken about 5 months.

Want to do: replace window treatments in my room in 2021

We updated some furniture and flooring. It's been pretty crazy around here...

After these projects, we are done for a long time.

 

[Tekate]

I'd just like my house to be finished be built. Hello MrsB hugs to you.

 

[elle_71125]

I had a 5 year plan to move out of our “starter” home...and then we hit a recession. Needless to say, we stayed. I’d like to renovate the kitchen and bathrooms. One of the bathrooms has a weird mauve tile everywhere. Let me tell you, it matches nothing! Trust me...I’ve tried.

My main goal is to sell this house and move to the woods. I want some acreage and no neighbors. Is that too much to ask?

Here’s the real question. How to get my DH on board without nagging? We’re on the same page about getting it done but when it comes to actually doing it...not so much.

 

[Matata]

Everything is set to go here for new furniture, tear down old fireplace, build new wall for new fireplace, change old canned ceiling lights to LED, replace front door, paint the entire interior. The hold-up is the contractor who has yet to submit an estimate.

Next year I'd like to replace kitchen cabinet doors and drawers and gut and redo the guest bath.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

I had a 5 year plan to move out of our “starter” home...and then we hit a recession. Needless to say, we stayed. I’d like to renovate the kitchen and bathrooms. One of the bathrooms has a weird mauve tile everywhere. Let me tell you, it matches nothing! Trust me...I’ve tried.

My main goal is to sell this house and move to the woods. I want some acreage and no neighbors. Is that too much to ask?

Here’s the real question. How to get my DH on board without nagging? We’re on the same page about getting it done but when it comes to actually doing it...not so much.

This is why we have to hire people to do stuff, gets things done and keeps us married

 

[kenny]

I just finished installing a new formica countertop, RO water filter, removed garbage disposal and installed new under-sink plumbing.
Did all the work myself, and I only did that because of rot in the 44-yr old formica counter.
My kitchen "reno" costed around $300.
I'll spend another $40 or so replacing drywall around the counter and paint.

Sure, it would be nice to change a zillion things, but I don't spend money that way.
The house fine, good enough, and functional as is.
The roof doesn't leak, etc.

Must be another thing wrong with me.

 

[123ducklings]

We finished a big wave of work on the house the day before shutdown/quarantine started in our area. Timing was a godsend! The next step was to replace all the flooring in the house and gut the guest bath. Now with all the logistical issues added by the pandemic I don’t see it happening for several years. We’re shifting focus to the outside of the house, planning some bigger landscaping changes. In 5-8 years we will need to do the roof and we’ll add solar at that point.

 

[KristyDarling]

Oh gosh where to begin?? Our list is long even though we completely re-built this house (originally built in 1922) only nine years ago. It's infuriating how many problems have popped up in such a "new" house. My guess is we will only get to half the items on this list. In order of priority:

1) Master bath shower is leaking under the tiling and moisture is infiltrating our hallway floorboards, which are now warped and sticking up all over the place. So, we'll need to re-tile the shower and re-floor our hallway. This is our THIRD time re-tiling the shower in 9 years because the first two times were done by careless tiling contractors, ugh.

2) We need to replace our kitchen hardwood floors with linoelum. It turns out that the pale wood and type of stain we used are VERY susceptible to grease marks so we now have 9 years worth of grease stains all over our kitchen floor. It looks sooooo bad and grubby!

3) Paint the entire interior. I had asked for a very, very pale gray but instead got....baby blue?? I've hated these walls for years.

4) Get more art up on the walls. There is a huge blank space above our living room couch that drives all of us nuts, but I'm holding out for the PERFECT painting(s). Still looking!

5) Replace all our couches since they've become super shabby and saggy and beat-up. Kids and dogs....enough said.

6) Re-tile our deck. See #1 re: crappy tiling contractors.

7) Replace the hardwood floors in our laundry room with linoleum. We've had a couple flood situations in there and the wood is totally warped.

8 ) Replace the door in our laundry room with a pocket door. Much more practical when you have a heavy basket of laundry in your hands.

9) Tear down the janky shed in our backyard.

If I'm ever fortunate enough to own another home, I would heed the big lesson learned that I do NOT want wood floors in my kitchen or laundry room. Also, I'm going to hire the best tilers money can buy!!!

 

[mrs-b]

If I'm ever fortunate enough to own another home, I would heed the big lesson learned that I do NOT want wood floors in my kitchen or laundry room. Also, I'm going to hire the best tilers money can buy!!!

@KristyDarling -

I hear you on this! We've retiled the floors on both upstairs bathrooms and put in a third bathroom downstairs. We found a genius tiler who is cheap and conscientious, who took our main bathroom, for example, from *this* (on the right) to *this*:



I loved the 50's look of it, but not the grunge. So we pulled out the floor and did a checkerboard pattern, then did the walls in plain white. We replaced the sink etc and switched the shower doors to frameless. The differences are subtle, but powerful. I love my tiler. And I mean LOVE - the man is a genius with grout!

He did my kitchen backsplash as well, and that thing was a mutha! But I luuuurve it....

 

[Kim N]

Move and buy a new one!

 

[winnietucker]

We've done a total gut job on this very old (bases 1850ies, certain areas 1870ies, some walls 1950ies) home. We have been waiting for our hand forged terrace railing (I'd much rather have three hand forged VC settings for the budget!!!) for twelve months now. It's been delivered yesterday and we're waiting for the installation team to come on Thursday.

We're waiting for the general construction company of our neighbor to take care if the damage they did to our driveway, then we want to install a second deck on the ground floor level. And finally start landscaping.
We have an unused ground floor room (with 4.5 m ceilings but no daylight... Can't decide if we want an indoor pool or something between a play/party/game room for the kids.

Eventually a pool. Our lot is big-ish(huge for the area we are in), but steep, so not sure where to put it...

Could you terrace it? When we were looking a house on 2 acres caught my attention but the land was so steep it was almost unusable. Terracing it was our realtor’s idea. I wanted sheep if we got it, so I never explored the idea further.

 

[ringbling17]

So we just moved this year and we did a lot of stuff once we purchased the house. Future plans for this house listed below are from most likely to do in the next 6 months to least likely to do-

1- add and replace light fixtures. Currently we want to change the foyer light and family room light. Also add a ceiling fan to my son’s room. We can’t do it ourselves bc the ceilings are too high. My son has no overhead light in his room and his room also gets so hot. Got an estimate for this already.

2- paint the front house trim, garage, front doors and shutters. Got estimates for this already.

3- add more landscaping. I want to add a few low maintenance flowery shrubs that will stay around the entire summer into the fall. We had landscaping added this past May but now some of them have died so we will see what survives next year and figure out what we will do.

3- fix broken front walkway. There is a crack there and I would like to fix it. I’ve decided I don’t want pavers BC they get yucky after a while. I would just replaced with new concrete again.

4- add cabinets above the washer and dryer.

5- redo our backsplash. In another thread I mentioned that I fixed a small gap in my backsplash and for now it will do, but eventually I would love to remove the microwave, add a vent over the stove and add some type of mosaic design with subway tile.

6- add a patio covering for our deck.

7- one day redo the master bathroom to have a large shower and probably remove the jacuzzi

8- this is a big maybe BC I don’t think we will do this but I have rough-in for a basement bathroom. So I would possibly add a half bath in the basement but most likely not BC then it would just be another room to clean.

My current project is just making a countertop for my washer and dryer area. I just purchased wood desk top yesterday and I plan to sand it down, stain it and polyurethane it. This will give me counter space above my washer and dryer and maybe I won’t even need to put cabinets in at all.

 

[jaysonsmom]

I want to remodel (update) 2 full bathrooms and my kitchen. The
condition of these are not too bad, since my house was built in 2001, but the materials used were very generic and blah. We have too much house for my family. When my youngest goes
To college in less than 2 years, we may sell our house or rent it out and downsize.

 

[Austina]

When we moved here we also replaced every light fitting from halogen to LED, changed all the door furniture from gold to brushed steel, this included the hinges and keeps and had a wall and electric gates built at the front of the house.

We thought this was going to be our last ever home, but that all changed when DS moved to the US and asked us to move there.

 

[inne]

We renovated our whole house when we bought it a few years ago (new flooring, drywall, rewiring, new kitchen, bathrooms, plaster ceiling medallions made to replicate the originals, etc.). I'm *so* glad we got through the hassle of that ASAP. But there are always things to do. This is what we are planning:

- Replace the roof. I think we are close to being roommates with some squirrels. (next year)
- Replace storm door. (this fall?)
- Fix up the backyard. It is a very small courtyard type backyard in a city and right now it is just very boring. It would be so nice to have some pretty landscaping. My own attempts at landscaping have a 1 in 11 survival rate, so I need professional help. (not sure)
- Landscape the front yard. We have some very pretty flowers in the front and I've been able to keep 3 of my own planted ones alive! But it looks pretty messy. (not sure)
- Repaint the porch. I hope we can actually rebuild the porch and stain it rather than just painting the existing one, but it's not a top priority considering the potential cost. (next year)
- Get a window made for the attic. My house is over 100 years old and the attic window is in very poor shape. Allegedly it can't be repaired and our only option is to replace it. Of course, I love this house due to its character and keeping that character means we have to get a custom-made window since new windows don't come in that design. (next year)
- Waterproof basement. Not sure if we'll ever do this. The only real way to do it is so wildly expensive that it might not be worth it.
- Vault the bedroom ceiling. Also not sure if we'll ever do this, but it would be nice.

Originally, we were planning on buying a bigger house in the next few years (we put an offer on one a year ago, but someone swooped in with no conditions at the last minute - still mad about that). But now I don't think I want to move for a very long time. I love it here and while it's small, it's exactly how we want it.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Strip and repaint outside of house- already have all the paint, just waiting on Gary to get his eye fixed and too feel better, probably also replace guttering

Get house insulated

Redo bathroom - make loo and tiny bathroom into one room

The kitchen - ugh

Instal sun tunnels in the hall and in the kitchen

Paint and decorate inside of house

sew curtains and make 2x roller blinds - i have the kits and material already

strip internal doors and replace door furniture (have the handles etc but need new hinges)

And a million other things

Build a garden room on the back of the garage for She- shed

lots of electrical work - especially better lighting and more plugs plus put power into the garage

I would also love a conservatory but that's a longer term thing