What's on your home remodel/renovate list?

[rdawson808]

The neve-ending renovation and updating of my home is somewhat overwhelming for someone with limited time, limited ability, and limited budget.

The list

1. A new coffe table (chrome with glass top, oblong or circular as a near second choice). Can't find one. In the end, we may have to take our third or fourth choice.
2. Side tables. We like the ones at Pottery Barn that are glass and chrome, but they're too tall and too expensive (for PB).
3. Big leather comfy chair. Not so hard to find, but hard to decide on at a decent price.
4. New bed (headboard and footer, etc.). We've found one we like, but we haven't ordered it. Thank the gawds we've at least decided.
5. Floor lamp.
6. Lighting over our dining room table.
7. We have much art work being framed right now, but then we have to decide where to put it.
8. A compact desk--the kind where everything closes up and it just looks like a small piece of closed furniture. What's that called? Anyway, one of those. Must fit laptop, printer, shredder, and some filing.
9. We need to completely gut and rehad our bathroom (our only bathroom, which makes it a challenge). That will have to happen within 18 months just for our sanity and to take advantage of sluggish economy.
10. Closet doors. We currently have none. We know what we want, but need to hire someone to make and install them. That includes framing out the doorways properly too.
11. New floating cork flooring in the kitchen--thankfully that we can do ourselves and at very little expense, and
12. a backsplash in the kitchen. The SS tiles we like are shockingly expensive so we'll have to go with something else. My parents are visiting and my mother offered to do this for us. But that first requires replastering the very uneven walls.


And off into the future we need to move a wall (and potentially the closet which will make #f10 all for naught). It might also include having built-in bookshelves made. We also need to have every single wall re-plastered smooth.


Ohhhh, it's such a long list.

How about you?

b

 

[humza]

1. Finishing the top and basement floors (putting in laminate)
2. Put in marble kitchen countertops.
3. Mount our TV on the wall.
4. Make space for a new refrigirator (Old one is an odd size)

It'll all take some time (ripping out carpet and STAPLES in the floor is a pain **********.)

 

[KBW]

I now leave all the interior decorating and furniture buying to my fiance but I'm working on expanding the garage and adding several cabinets and shelves but after looking at ways to do it myself I've decided to hire out. We have a 3 car garage now and want to at least double that (plans now are to add three full bays and one bay that is walled in half deep with back part for storage/front part for motorcycles). I already have two cars sitting outside and plan on buidling another very soon.

 

[lawyerdad]

Built-in bookshelves. I envy Manton's.

 

[kronik]

1. Buy a house.
2. Buy furniture.

 

[Connemara]

Originally Posted by kronik

1. Buy a house. 2. Buy furniture.
Will never happen.

 

[satorstyle]

Eco-Cem flooring for the living room, kitchen remodel/ family-media room addition

 

[maxnharry]

Redo second upstairs bathroom.

 

[rdawson808]

Originally Posted by satorstyle

Eco-Cem flooring for the living room, kitchen remodel/ family-media room addition

What is Eco-Cem flooring? I guess I could Google it, but let's view this as a learning experience for all of us. Besides, eventually we want to change all of our flooring, maybe this is a nice eco-friendly option.

b

 

[nerdykarim]

This is a good thread for me as I just bought.

renovation:
1. remove wallpaper in bathrooms and kitchen. One of the bathroom has hot air balloons and the other has clouds.
2. paint the entire house. The kids who rented here before I moved in were slobs. I plan on using low-VOC paints as I'm trying to make the place seem eco-friendly as my angle for when I sell. I'm not sure how big of a deal this is.
3. install a programmable thermostat
4. patch up the drywall in a few places from botched installation jobs from previous renters.
5. install engineered hardwood flooring in the living room and kitchen. This one might be more than I can handle, but I'm going to try to DIY it.

furniture:
1. coffee table. Right now, I don't have one. I need something to fill the void in the dining room.
2. side table. My sofa just looks weird when it's perpendicular to the wall...I want something between the two.
3. 30" bar stools. My dining table is a high table and I need chairs for it.

 

[Piobaire]

Getting granite counter tops in the kitchen before Xmas and then the exterior of the house painted early next year. All to get the place looking spiffy for a hopeful sale next year, if anyone, ever again, can get a get a mortgage

 

[Thomas]

Oi. The road goes on forever and the renovations never end.

Just finished: new garage door opener. Not bad, all things considered.

Next up: Pull up carpet in master bedroom, install prefab bamboo flooring (should be pretty easy)

When I get to it:

• finish PVC-pipe greenhouse - doors and sheeting are all that's left. I make it sound so simple - hah!
  
• Strip the awful wallpaper from the kitchen and bathrooms and put faux finish over them. This wallpaper - it's heedeeous - it's pastels/southwestern, like the easter bunny vomited all over our walls. Must. Go. Soon.
  
• Got to remove the oak tree that I think has finally died. Too bad the damn thing is over 40' tall and the first major branch is around 20' up. Otherwise I would have started hacking away immediately. It's shedding leaves/branches into our pool and making me very not happy.

 

[satorstyle]

Originally Posted by rdawson808

What is Eco-Cem flooring? I guess I could Google it, but let's view this as a learning experience for all of us. Besides, eventually we want to change all of our flooring, maybe this is a nice eco-friendly option.

b

Sorry I'm just getting back to your question. It's a concrete based material that's actully mixed with pulp (paper). I have a very minimalist, modern home and I wanted concrete floors on my bottom level. To add concrete now would cause a lot of unnessecary issues. It comes as large as 4' x 10' so this product will give me the look without a lot of drama. I'm not using it because it's a green product it just fits the need.

 

[Lone Wolf]

As a matter of fact, I'm changing out the shower glass and doors in my downstairs and master bathrooms to frameless glass this Friday. I'm also increasing the height so that they're even with the last joint of the shower wall tile (currently they're only a little higher than the shower head).

Next project is the garage. I've already painted the walls which are white. Next I want to put up blinds to cover the water heater and to supplement the paper blind in the window. It's white and matches the shutters on the outside. The ones inside will be either gray or black. I also want to cover the exposed concrete on the bottom half of the walls with black diamond plate metal, cover the stairs with coin patterned rubber tread in gray, and do something with the floor. I'm torn between alternating black and grey tile or just a grey rubber mat. The mat will be a lot cheaper and easier and I'm probably going to go that route. But I'm not going to do the floor until I buy a new car so I have some time to decide.

I've got a small cabinet in my master bath whose top I want to tile so that it has the same surface as the sink and tub surrounds. I'm probably going to have to hire somebody to that.

Semi-remodel, I'm probably going to get a flat screen and recessed rear speakers for my living room before the end of the year. Right now I have big screen rear projection with 5.1 surround sound but I never hooked up the rear speakers because I wanted them mounted in the ceiling.

Long term I'd like to change my kitchen appliances to stainless, but they came with the house which is fairly new and I can't see spending the money right now. If I ever do that, I'll replace the sink with stainless, and as long as I'm doing that I'll change out the counter tops to granite. They're tile right now and also in pretty good shape.

 

[topcatny]

Let's see
1. Dining room - We need a to buy a sideboard. We are still looking for 2 chairs for the head of the table and we need window treatments. I need to install wood paneling below the chairrail and remove the wallpaper on the top portion and paint the walls. We also need 2 sconces and some artwork for the bare walls. We also plan on installing a new window with a window seat with storage underneath some time in the future.
2. Downstairs half bath - Remove wallpaper and paint walls. Replace the vanity sink and faucet and the towel bars, toilet paper holder etc. Install crown molding.
3. Family room - We need to replace the carpeting. Have built in bookcases/entertainment center built since we can not find what we really want. Replace back door with a large window with window seat to add seating to the room.
4. Living room - We need one round end table and a couple more pieces of art for the walls.
5. Complete gut remodel of the kitchen. The only thing that will stay are most of the appliances because we have had to replace them all since we moved in.
6.Garage - I need to install shelving along 2 walls so I can finally put away the rest of our stuff and that will create enough room that I can build a workbench for all the tools.
7. Basement - We finished our basement last year and it is now a large play room/Tv Room. Unfortunately, I have yet to buy a new TV and entertainment center to finish it off and make it even more usable.
8. Master Bedroom - Still need to buy a bed and dressers nightstands etc. Everything we have are handmedowns that thankfully go well together but is not the look we want. We keep changing our idea of what kind of bed we want and we will probably attack many of the other things on the list before we finish our bedroom.
9. Home Office - I need to build shelves in the one closet to hold all of my shoes and other various things. I also need to install doors on the closet I built this past winter.
10. Youngest daughter's room - She will need a bed in a year or 2 and she desperately needs a bookcase now. We might buy her a small table and chairs as well. She als Needs a mirror for above her dresser, but we won't buy that until she is out of diapers and her changing table is no longer on top of the dresser.
11. Our wish list for the landscaping that we would like to do outside is so extensive and expensive it really deserves it's own thread.

I figure by the time I finish everything we want to do we will decide to move the next day. Or I'll die the day after I finish the last major project.