The Home Ownership Thread - Page 3

Keep the grass, fill the pool.

I've done a lot of stuff over the last year or so. The wood floors I mentioned, painted the whole house, insulated the bedrooms for sound (1.75" solid core doors = big help; wall insulation = little), added some hvac ducting, added some insulation in the attic, some landscaping, removed a tree/new carpet (paid someone to do these), put down about a pallet and a half of sod, built a garden shed in the back, probably some other stuff I can't remember.

My immediate next project is to cover the crummy concrete deck in the back with some haughty brick pavers and lay a path from the porch to the shed. I'm too cheap to rent a wet saw or a power tamper, so it's going to be a lot of fun.

Then I'm going to remodel the garage, insulate it and put a mini-split in there. No more sweating for me.

Might take a break after that.

I love painted white brick. It's just a really beautiful texture, but I've seen enough bad whitewashed varieties that I'm not sure it's such a wise piece of advice under all circumstances. It takes a very muted facing brick to work well. Sometimes, I can't help but think it looks like the house got abandoned in the middle of a workday, as if the INS crashed the party, like these below.





In most circumstances, I'd just go all the way.

Anyone have a good handle on the cost of steel windows/doors vs. wood? I'm in the early design process on a Spanish Revival style home and would love to use some steel in the back where I really want to bring in lots of light and open the house up to the pool area. I doubt I can afford it but we'll see.

Something like this:



Any thoughts on cost or anything else re: steel vs. wood are appreciated.

Are you talking about stock sizes or having something custom-made? I don't recall a huge difference between steel and wood exterior doors price-wise, we installed a steel door with 3 x 3 windows to our mud room in our old house a few years ago and I've been pleased with it. I will say that wood exterior doors take a major beating from the sun and rain and you'll be refinishing them every few years at least.

re: wood windows, I can't imagine they're less expensive than metal-clad. I could be wrong though. But those sorts of large windows - with the curved sections - are probably much easier to find in steel than wood. Alternatively there may be composites worth considering.

No doubt the pool is vastly more expensive than grass, but the wife likes it, so it stays. As for the grass, I am talking about the front yard, not the back where, yes, the little grass which is there shall definitely remain.

Around here vinyl has replaced a lot of aluminum in windows. Wood is nice, but a maintenance nightmare.

I'm not talking about aluminum clad windows, but rather steel windows. I know them to be significantly more than your typical Marvin all wood window for instance. Just not sure whether it's 30% more, double, etc.

Here's a more detail picture of an example:

I was afraid of that. I don't know what kind of premium you're looking at but it will probably hurt.

Spent some time at the new place today while waiting on a furniture delivery. I just fucking love it. I could go on and on but will just say, I fucking love it. Everything from solid alder 8' doors to the endless granite counters to the huge shower in the master suite with multiple shower heads...I just fucking love it.

everyone here fills in with pachysandra

we are actually not allowed here to have vinyl siding or windows : /

Wood looks the best but is a nightmare for keeping up.

Aluminum can look very, very nice. While it requires no upkeep it is not a thermal break.

Vinyl is the ugly sister of the bunch but it has both no upkeep and is a thermal break.

Talking windows here. Not a fan of either aluminum or vinyl siding.

Never heard of it -- will consider, thanks.


I assume this is one of those "HOA" things I had never heard of until it cropped up in the Trayvon thread? Strikes me as odd that this phenomenon is so popular in what I take to be a more "individualistic" culture of the US as opposed to our squishy communitarian leftism up here in Canadia ...


We have a "half-siding" house (the upper half -- lower half is brick), and I do not like it at all. It's from the late '70s/early 80's, so the "slats" are very wide. When the time comes I am thinking maybe covering everything (siding and brick) with stucco. What do you think?

Glad it worked out for you! Enjoy the new place.

I don't think I've seen aluminum siding, ever. Vinyl siding I've heard about but never seen. I will say that I still think about putting a tin roof on the ol' ranch house, though.

oh that was a bitch move to side the upper half. Not sure about putting stucco over brick/siding, though.

It was quite common in southern Ontario at one time (our house was built around 1980 or so), and is still often done in new construction, particularly on the sides and backs of houses (brick all the way up the front, but only half way on sides and back). The more contemporary look has much narrower (thinner?) slats than the ones on our street, and I think there is more vinyl now than aluminum.

As for the stucco thing, I think they remove the siding first and go with some sort of panel over the bricks and the formerly sided areas before applying the new surface.