After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

Did you do all right away or gradually?

Financially were you were able to do it?

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

we have been doing it gradually. room by room. my dad does most of the labor but its going to slowly come to a stop for the winter since thats his busy season at work.

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

We budgeted ourselves to do the bathroom as soon as we closed (before we even moved in).

The rest of the projects (painting, moulding, knocking down walls, etc) are gradual (and totally liveable) - my taste has changed over the years and I don't want to go into it haphazard. That said, I cannot wait to rip out our kitchen - it's our next big project and cannot happen soon eough.

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

I know with our budgets we would be doing it gradually. We just don't have the money to do all the repairs & undates at once.

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We bought our house three months after we were engaged. We renovated the entire house before moving in. We were able to do without a struggle. Our parents were a big help and also my uncle who is a big contractor helped out alot.

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

we are doing it all gradually. we did mostly quick fixes like painting every room, painting kitchen cabinets and all the furniture right away. next on our plate is the roof and the basement.... everything has a priority and as much as I can't wait for it to all be done that isn't realisitc for us. that being said, I am way happier in my "needs updating in some places" house then I was in apartment life. its of course different for everyone though

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

my husband thinks he can do the bathrooms himself- he has done some before in gross rental houses he lived in when he moved out at 18

we will hire someone to do the kitchen- He admitts he can't hang cabinets straight

everything else besides electrical work we will do ourselves- he has 2 friends who are master electrians

I think for the neighborhoods I like- a fixer is going to be the only way to go- unless we buy a condo

depending on what is needed we will make the decesion then

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

we did it gradually. We did the bathroom, trim and painting immediately.

Furnituyre we waited on, and new kitchen we are still waiting on.

We like to pay for cash for everything and we didnt want to deplete our bank account after we moved in, so we are doing it slowly.

And we refuse to charge furniture

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Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

We bought our house in April and we are almost done with the first phase of rennovations. When we are done, we will still have the kitchen (hopefully a two story extension) as well as the master bathroom left to do. Both were re-done about 12 years ago so we dont NEED to do them, but they aren't our style. I think we will wait about 5 years or so before we tackle those projects.

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We bought our house in the summer and still haven't moved into it yet. We wanted to do everything before moving in. We basically gutted the entire house (interior) and we're redoing everything. We did a little work on the exterior too (new roof, new door, removed some trees, etc)

We knew before offering on this house, that this would be our plan, so we budgeted for the renovation.

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We did the inside renovation right away. We closed in september....Started buying supplies, and did planning for what we wanted to do and then started the 9 week renovation on the inside of the house in october.

My father in law, my brother in Law Tom, My brother in Law Lance, Our friends, Danielle and I and our neighbor Jerry.....Did all the work.

My father in law did most of the work

Jerry helped out when we needed a hand

Scott

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

Unless we get a REALLY good deal, we will have to do it over time.

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We did wood floors new carpet upstairs and painted before we even moved in. We are still doing some touch up painting here and there since its so hard to get painting done with an 11 month old. The only thing more that I want is new countertops in the kitchen and a new tile floor in the kitchen since a few tiles are cracked. But that we will prob wait a few months on. Other than that, the house needs nothing else.

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

our house had no interior sheetrock, electrical, doors trim, flooring or insulation when we bought it...so all of that had to be done right away. We renovated one bathroom & the kitchen right away, painted, finished 1/3 of the basement. This past summer we did a lot of work to the backyard.
We still have things that need to be done, we've been here over 2 years.
Our main staircase needs new railings & new stairs, we need front yard landscaping & some kind of new siding.
We are still putting up window treatments, still finishing details. We have a long list of things we want to do, but we do everything ourselves & need to save up money for new projects.
Its a process, I don't mind if things are incomplete for a while. It gives me something to look foward to.

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

We were fortunate enough to buy a house that was completely redone by a contractor, so we had no "interior" work to be done with the exception of painting our bedroom & office. Of course, there are projects lined up already to be done in the spring like the boiler (it's the original)

However, the grounds of the house were not maintained for over 2 years. We spent a good portion of last summer, fall & this spring attempting to get things in order. Luckily it is all labor but my dad LOVES to work outside. We have taken him up & have all chipped in. This past summer, we upgraded & had our driveway, stoop & light posts installed.

Our motto was one room at a time. There is no need to rush into things & strap yourself financially if the house is liveable the way it is & you can just do a little at a time. I think that is the best approach....

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We were going to do it gradually, but we decided to for the work we wanted to do it was easier to do it all at once.. our house has a studio apartment it in that we lived in while we did the renovations.

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We saved up to do it all at once. So far its been 1 year & 5 months and all we have left is the Kitchen and basement. We've gutted & redone everything inside & out but that.

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We've been in the house for 4 years now and it's been very gradual. We are now getting the stoops and patio done and a new door and frame. Next after that we are painting and re-doing some trim.

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

we bought a less expensive house and spent 25-30k on the renovations upstairs.our house is now worth alot more than the renovations cost.

as you know we did the down stairs a year later.

next year we will do the outside.

if you have the luxury of lving at your parents while work is being done, i HIGHLY recommend doing the work you can do before moving in. it sucks to live in a house while work is going on, plus if the house is empty while the workers are working on it, you wont ruin any furniture.

it also helps to have a contractor go with you on your walk through or before hand, so you know how much the renovations cost.

good luck debbie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: After buying a home, Repairs and Updates...

We made sure we had an overlap of about 8-12 weeks for each house, so that we could do the repairs while we still lived in our apartment or other house - in my experience, if we don't get it done right away, it takes FOREVER. So we get the majority of the major renovations out of the way before we actually move in. With the first house, we didn't have the cash so we put all the renovation costs on 0% interest cards and made sure to pay them off by the end of the 0% interest term. We did most of the work ourselves, which kept our costs down. With the second house, we made enough of a profit from our renovations on the first that it covered our down payment and all our renovation costs

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When we moved in we did the painting, wood floors... We bought a house that didn't need much work.. but it seems that there are always little things that keep popping up.. We got the money from the sale of our co-op.

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We will either by a house that does not need any work or if we want to do renovations, they will be done prior to us moving in. My DH and I cannot live in chaos!! We are high stressed enough as it is. We will take this into consideration with the purchase price of the house.