Monday, June 08, 2009

Rebuilding our house...

We bought our first home in 1995, after renting a house in Springfield for 3 years. We really wanted to live in the village of Rochester, close to great schools, our church, and many friends.

We quickly realized that we couldn't afford much in Rochester, so we changed the dream from a beautiful new home with a nicely manicured yard, to a "fixer-upper". We pulled out 3 different colors of shag carpeting, painted over orange, avacado, and gold walls, stripped wagon wheel wallpaper, and made it our own.

Since that time, we haven't done much to the house. We haven't really learned the art of maintenance, instead functioning on an "emergency-only basis". Well, this summer is apparently the summer that everything "expires" on our house.....

  • Floor in the bathroom will need to be replaced....right now we've got a lovely plywood floor around the toilet, and we're on the hunt for a new (to us) vanity and new faucets (ones that don't slowly leak.....quietly, invisibly rotting the floor)
  • Once we have a new floor, we'll need to cover the subfloor with something....considering attempting ceramic tile - they make it look so easy on HGTV!
  • Air conditioning....life expectancy for a typical air conditioner is 10-15 years.....well, ours is over 30. We magruders are over-acheivers, but it's finally bit the dust.
  • Paint - we'll also be painting the house this summer (at least part)....Good thing the former owners painted it mustard yellow so it'd be painfully obvious when the blue/gray paint was peeling off!
Luckily, we've got some great friends who know how to do stuff and know people who know how to do stuff....and after this summer, I hope we'll know a little something, too. Should be an exciting (and expensive) summer!

7 comments:

Missy said...

Good Luck!! Picking out new stuff is very fun, but the paying for it...not so much!!! Maybe some of those handy folks at HGTV could pitch in? That would be cool to let them do the work!!!

elisa said...

Sounds like fun! We'll be tackling our own projects this summer too!

Sam's mom said...

Bathroom = IKEA. We just redid ours (gut) and got the cabinets, sink, everything at IKEA. (well, toilet & tub at HD...) We saved a HUGE amount of money.
Flooring...tile isn't that bad if you get "into" the groove. Only problem is letting it cure. It's our only full bath, so we had to stay at my MIL's house for a while. When we changed the kitchen floor, we used the peal & stick linoleum squares and it turned out really nice.

Amanda said...

Good luck! Sounds like a busy summer, but I'm sure once it's done, it'll be so rewarding.

Lisa said...

I have one bathroom with ceramic tile and one bathroom that LOOKS like tile but it's vinyl (what we used to call linoleum). If I were picking myself, I'd choose vinyl for both. I don't feel like I ever get the tile clean and with the vinyl, you spray down, wipe up, and it's clean.

The Stuemke Family said...

This has probably long since been taken care of, but I wanted to give you a heads up just in case. If you ever need heating/AC work done again, Josh does that kind of work for friends/family for really cheap! Not to mention, I kind of think he's the best in town, lol. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there so you know he's available. He loves doing that kind of work and he gets his materials at cost, and passes the savings onto the friends. I feel like a commercial, lol.

Gretchen Magruder said...

Lydia, good to know!! It must be nice to be handy like that..... :)

We did get a fantastic deal at Capital Group - a scratch N dent vanity, and then they "happened" to have a returned double sink/countertop in the back that fits our vanity perfectly AND was only $50 (as opposed to the exact same thing we were going to have to order for $450). So thanks for the lead on that one!!

Picked out vinyl for the bathroom yesterday, and as soon as our friend can help with the subfloor, we'll do the switch!!

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