Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We just moved in and we haven't actually "borrowed" money.

My parents have a Home Depot Credit card and they let us charge things on there which we will pay off.

And we have money from closing. We financed 103% and put only 3% towards closing so we could have some money to do renovations.

However, we aren't doing anything major yet.

Basically gutting our bedroom and baby's room for now.

We are not "well" off. We will have to save and wait for refund tax money to do the major stuff. Either that or pray we become millionaires some time soon!!!!

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We haven't borrowed any money or taken out any loans. We put about a total of 30K into the house in the last year.

10K was for the apartment that we built (we used wedding money for that)
8K was for the patio (tax money for that)
2K was for the granite
2K was for the landscaping
3K was for the porch railing and front part of our fence (we are holding off to do the back and the sides to save more money)

Then we also painted, and redid the hardwood floors.

We also bought dining room furniture on a zero percent credit card which will be paid off in the next few months.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We haven't taken out a loan either but we haven't done major projects yet. We will do that as we save. We do not have debt (other than 1 car loan and a mortage oh and my student loans).

We have repainted almost the whole house

Refinished the hardwood floors

Had the chimney relined

Fixed a mold issue in our bedroom

We are having the boiler replaced next week

We installed carpeting in all the bedrooms

We are replacing the front door in a couple of weeks.

I think that is it. Next year with savings and or income tax money we are replacing all the windows and the following year the siding.

Since this is a long term house for us, we go by the motto of slowly but surely.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We just did 14K in renovations from savings. We're doing a little at a time. We're not taking loans, we're just taking it slow.

ETA: I also have to add that I'm not "full of it." We don't need to have it now and get into debt. To say people are full of it and demand honesty is implying they lie the first time and I doubt many folks on here lie. It seems to be a very honest forum no matter what the topic is.

Message edited 7/25/2006 10:47:07 AM.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

I answered "nope." We did the improvements ourselves and will continue to do so.---but we have family members that have acquired home improvement knowledge that help out.-- The electician that the seller hired (who was certified) messed up the electric. My FIL fixed it.---My father is an awsome spackler. He did it for us and we sanded.---We did all the painting ourselves. My MIL was the biggest help. When she was a SAHM with 3 kids, she and the other SAHMs (which was pretty much everyone) used to have painting parties. The husbands would come home and not even know that their houses were painted.

We did have money in the bank when we closed. But you save a lot of money when you are able to do it yourself. We are not well off.

What we did-- we ripped out the old ceilings in the hallway, bathroom and 2 downstairs bedrooms. We spackled over wall paper seams. We primed over an ugly fancy paint job in the bathroom. We took out the closet in the hallway and expanded our bedroom closet into it. And we both worked full time. We bought our house 7/28/06 and hosted Thanksgiving dinner that same year for 20 people. (It's hard to relay this in writing, but this was a big, messy job.)

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We did charge some of it on credit cards, but paid if off at the end of the month so I voted no.

We've used tax returns to start updating the kitchen. In addition each year I can submit for a $7K worth of pre-school bills. As soon as we got that we redid the bathroom. The rest (new cesspool, badly needed landscape grading) were done with savings.

DH & his friends have done the work - so we're getting pretty good deals (ie $500 for his friend to tile our bathroom).

Message edited 7/24/2006 10:59:39 PM.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

I answered no and white we have not done a lot what we have done and will continue to do is pay cash for our home improvements and do them a little at a time.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We paid for everything in cash. If we couldn't afford to do it, we wouldn't. My DH and his family are handy and did all of the work including the siding on my house. We just basically paid for materials. As far as furniture... I paid for everything straight out except paid off my bedroom set at 0% for a year.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

Posted by BabyAvocado
FOLLOW-UP:

So for those of you who voted no my DH has a hard time with this. He feels that 90% of those who voted no are either (and he means this in the most loving, joking way, trust me ):

A) full of it
B) didn't DO any improvements (i.e. skewing the poll results)
C) well off

I feel you can do alot without borrowing and by doing alot of the work yourself, even though it will take longer.

He feels that to get anything significant done in a reasonable amount of time, you pretty much have to borrow.

So...help us settle this debate, please. For those that paid upfront for their improvements - what kind of improvements have you done out of pocket (new kitchen, new bath, siding, whatever you did) and did you do it by saving and doing a little at a time (so how long did it take you) or did you save a bunch of money and then do all (or alot of) the work at once?

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

our first house DH had stock options that he had to take some in cash and our second house we had the profits of the first house to pay for some renovations.


but like lulu said 0% CCs are awesome and very smart. We bought our kitchen appliances with them...why should I take the money out of the bank earning interest, if someone is going to lend me money for nothing...but only do that if you are going to be on time and can pay it off during the 0% time period

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

I voted yes. We put all of our home improvements on our American Express card to earn points then transferred it to a 0% credit card. We did have the money in the savings but why should I lose 5% in interest at ING to do home improvements when I can finance it using 0% ccs. If we have to we have the money to pay them off so I am not worried about that.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

I said yes because we used a credit card and are paying it back.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We used our wedding money and our savings for the down payment which we need to add a very small balance to our heloc (to avoid PMI) which isnt a home improvement, it was the cost of the house.

As far as the work we have done on our house, we paid for it ourselves. My parents bought us a new fridge but that was a housewarming gift.

Alot of work we did was on the yard, which was just us doing manual labor.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

For us here the value of our house has doubled and a halved (don't know the math for that one) so borrowing the money to put back into our house is worth it. Our mortgage is very small, so the extra money doesn't really seem like a lot. I am having a fabby new kitchen this year and I can't wait!

If we waited until we saved up, we could never have anything. Thats just the way it is here.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

No, we paid cash.

DH bought his first house in Dec of 1998 and the value almost tripled when we sold last summer. His original mortgage payment (includ. taxes) was $800.
He's 38. We put most of that equity doen on the second house... 50% of purchase price.

I lived at home for many years, taking care of my handicapped father (I didn't move out until age 33). I paid my Dad $500. a month rent and all of that oney went back into home improvements that were needed. I lived also lived WAY below my means... I couldn't spend a lot of money, I just didn't have the time to, I was sooo busy taking care of him. No vacation for 11 years... maybe a weekend visiting my friend in MA, what $200. maybe? So I hoarded my money away. I also refused to ever finance a car and paid off my student loans 8 years early but making 6X the monthly payment.

The money for the wedding and the home improvements ($105K) came from me. In one year but it's all equity.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

I would have to answer other - so far we haven't borrowed anything for improvements and furniture. We gutted the bathroom and got everything all new (including tile on all walls to the ceiling and a new window), new washer and dryer, new walkway and front steps, new fence in front, painted the inside of the house, garage door opener, fixed a leak in the foundation, carpet on the steps and hallway and we completely redid a bedroom for our nursery. This was done over a few years. I usually used my tax refund each year to do a home improvement, and the rest would be savings.

We are in the process of adding a floor to our house, and for that we will take out a loan (actually, refi the mortgage - it is less expensive for us). We will also do a mini-makeover on the kitchen and add CAC, but that will be out of savings.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

Thanks everyone! You have helped alot.

To answer your question Julz... yes the plan is to sell and move, eventually. We've pretty much decided to push that off for about 3 years. In the meantime, there are improvements we want to make for our own benefit and for the benefit of increasing the resale value of the house.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

So far we have used cash. We used some of the profit from the sale of my co-op (that doubled in 2.5 years) as our 20% down-payment and we used the balance, savings, tax refunds and bonuses to cover the other 50K approx that we have put into the house so far. In 15 months we have:

- Converted to gas with new radiators and barbecue hook-up ouside
- Central Air
- Installed hardwood floors in LR and DR
- All new carpeting
- Stripped all walls of wallpaper and painted every room. Some needed new sheetrock
- All new interior 6-panel doors with new hardware
- 8 new pella windows
- New wardrobe doors in 2 rooms
- Quick fix of bathroom
- New countertop, sub-floor and flooring in kitchen
- All new furniture in kitchen, LR and our BR
- New driveway with belgian block
- New fence
- Inground sprinklers

BUT, I did answer yes to borrowing. We just took out a Home Equity to cover our next project. We are extending upstairs to add a bath, huge walk-in closet and re-do the downstairs bathroom. We're also doing all the downstairs windows, new exterior doors, new siding using hardiboard composite and a new architectural roof

Message edited 7/25/2006 9:29:28 AM.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

Posted by BabyAvocado

So for those of you who voted no my DH has a hard time with this. He feels that 90% of those who voted no are either (and he means this in the most loving, joking way, trust me ):

A) full of it
B) didn't DO any improvements (i.e. skewing the poll results)
C) well off

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We have never taken out a loan to do home improvements - we have always either saved up or already had the money to cover the expenses.

I dont think that there is anything wrong with taking a HELOC or using another type of loan to improve the value of your house though. If you can afford the monthly payments, why not? It's not like you are throwing money away on clothes or cars, etc - you are adding value to your home. To me, there isn't much difference in taking a home equity loan or a mortgage (although the rates are higher). If you choice was to stay in the home you love and not take a loan to do improvements, or move to a new house, thereby increasing your mortgage, I would take the loan and stay put.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

i said No, but the only MAJOR improvement we've done is the bathroom, which we got back about 5K from our closing (they overestimated our payment) and we've saved the other 5k over the past 6 months. All the other stuff we've done we did month by month with money we had extra that month.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We have used 0% cards. Why not? It's worked out beautifully. We furnished our bedroom, living room and did new floors with 0% cards.

All done with cash:

Gutters
Painting
Carpets
Landscaping/Tree Pruning
Insullation

Anything we can put on a 0% card is doable as long as it has at least a 12 month grace period.

I have been thinking about a HELOC , but the thought of taking on debt with that interest rate makes me queasy. I would rather do it over time.

If we had to do major renos, then I would consider it. For now, we are doing things little by little, some things ourselves.

Big things like CAC or finishing the basement may never happen. If decide to stay in the house for longer than another few years, we may consider those things. Hopefully by then, we may have more money in the bank and/or there may be financing that suits our needs.

Not saying taking out a HELOC won't happen, I'm just too undecided and nervous about taking on more debt.

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We didnt borrow any money. We made sure we had a certain amount set aside for what needed to be done right away. Other than that we do a little bit at a time...

I refuse to owe anyone so I can have a new kitchen

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

I voted no...and no Im NOT full of it.

We did improvements as we had the $$$. That is why we took a little longer to do things

Re: BE HONEST - Have you *Updated with follow-up questions for those who voted no*

We are doing all of our renovations with saved cash.
bathroom renovation, complete landscape overhaul, siding, etc.