anyone completely "gut" their house?

How much did it cost and how big of a house is it?
We are househunting still. Trying to figure out if there is a big savings in buying a house and "gutting" it vs buying a house with evertything redone or new construction. So, I don't have a house to get an estimate on, just trying to get a rough idea.

We wanted to have everything "done", but we are just not finding what we want yet.

Is there any other house forum you like that might discuss something like this?
Thanks!

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

Yes ma'am.



People kept saying "oh you get to pick everything, how exciting". I just wanted to stab myself

I would say our house was 1700 sq feet and we literally knocked down every wall redid plumbing electric insulation windows doors kitchen bathrooms siding roof

I think it was around 100k

If you like the neighborhood and the house is cheap enough go for it

Only piece I advice I'll list here is to know what you want in terms of bathroom vanities sconces lighting wtc so that when your walls are open you can just be ready to go and not have to change things mid project

anyone completely

When we house hunted we were like you. Couldn't decide what to do. DH wanted new construction, I didn't. Ultimately we bought a house that was done but could use some updating, especially the kitchen. I did not want new construction because I knew it would be to easy to go over budget. I didn't want a house that was completely redone because I did not want to pay for someone else's taste just to have newer stuff. We looked at a couple of houses that had great bones but needed complete updating. I wasn't ready to take on that task. What we bought was a good compromise. We also raised our budget by about 30k to find the house we bought.
We thought about redoing the kitchen when we bought but I wanted to wait to see if I liked the layout. 2 years in and my mind changes everyday. I'm glad I waited.
Ultimately you'll know the right house when you find it. I wouldn't compromise with the thought we can redo it. It's a lot of work and money.
Friends of mine bought new construction. They went and looked at a house that was 350k (model). All in with upgrades they are at 500k. And now they have a beautiful home but can't afford anything and actually may lose it because once the property tax resets they wont be able to make their payments.

Message edited 2/26/2015 9:01:12 PM.

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

I pretty much did that, have to do that. What do you think needs to be done? Need more details to give you an idea.

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

If you have someone in the family, or you will be able to DIY then you can save money. But if you are going to have to hire people for virtually everything, I will cost you more. We priced out a house with good bones on a nice street that needed everything done and we ended up deciding to just increase our budget to find what we wanted. We waited three additional years.

anyone completely

We did the entire first floor of our house. We did the work our selves so it was probably all less than 30k. We did it in stages so I didn't keep track after a while. We didn't do anything upstairs besides paint and flooring because we plan to dormer at some point.

We lived there for some of it.

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

We gutted out ENTIRE house (about 1850 sq ft) from the electrical sockets to the trim to the drywall. EVERY single room in our house was gutted and redone. It's hard to say what it really cost because we did it over a few years and we DIY'ed ALL of it. We didn't pay anyone for anything. My DH, family, and I literally did everything from replacing windows and doors to opening up walls.

While it's nice to have everything how we want it in hindsight, it was a HUGE undertaking to gut and renovate an entire house and I would NEVER want to do it again. If I had to guess we've likely spent at least $70K over the years in renovations but I'm sure if we paid someone to do everything, it would've been triple that amount.

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

We are gutting the entire house over time. We have done a lot so far 2 bathrooms, laundry room, all new electrical, and one kitchen (our house has 2 full kitchens) so far $35k. I think by the time we are done it will be $60-$70k.

Eta- most of it was done by family and some by professionals.

Message edited 3/1/2015 6:47:59 AM.

anyone completely

We gutted our entire first floor (3 br 1 bath kitchen dr lr) down to the studs. Electric and plumbing were redone. My DH did a ton of the work himself and it still cost us about 90k.

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

We gutted our entire house down to the studs also. Probably cost us total about 100k. 60% of the labor was done by my dad, so we saved on that. I have a 4 floor split

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

We gutted about 90% of our house (didn't do the bathrooms)....as nice as it is to have everything we want, we would never do it again. The aggravation, stress, blood, sweat and tears was just way too much for us. If you can find something close to what you want and then maybe fix a couple of things then I highly suggest you go that route. Once we opened up the walls, we found so much more that needed to be done then we had expected to do.

Re: anyone completely "gut" their house?

Totally agree. After you open walls you will realize that you need to do 3 or 5 times more work than you planned. If you plan DIY and have a full time job etc. It will take FOREVER, FOREVER. Also all endless dust and dirt you will be dealing with. You will be sick and tired of it. A lots of sweat and tears. Make sure that this is what you want, or hire someone to do it for you. They will be done way faster than DIY. Of course, it comes with a price...