Making the Best of a Cramped Bathroom

We've all seen them or worse, lived in a house that had one. I'm referring to your typical 5'x8' bathroom with a tub, toilet and vanity shoehorned into 40 sf of space. What's worse is that usually the bathroom has fixtures of poor quality - golden oak builder-basic cabinet with limited storage, a toilet that clogs every other time you use it and a fiberglass tub stall that's dingy from years of use. These baths are common and they're not going away any time soon so a few ideas to make them livable can go a long way.

Our goal for this house is to make memorable spaces on a budget that wouldn't look out of place if you saw them in Houzz or magazines. To do that we've concentrated on a couple tactics - we change the floor plan in ways that add drama and excitement and we use materials that are uncommon but look great and can be made by anyone if they're willing to get their hands dirty.

For our hall bath there simply wasn't any room to do much with revising the floor plan - the bath is flanked by an already too small laundry room on one side, a hallway on another and the master bath on the other. We were stuck with the existing footage. We decided the tub needed to go away and we'd replace it with a shower, the original 1960's tub looked terrible and neither of us was ever going to soak in a 5' basic tub even if it weren't a complete piece of sh#t. The decision was made to go with a shower instead. Now the thing about showers that I dislike are the glass doors that usually get installed with them. Unless you spend big bucks on a frameless enclosure with 3/8" glass and European hinges these things look cheap and cleaning the glass after every shower is tiresome. So in this case we designed a shower with no door. There's a tiled wall separating most of the shower area from the bathroom with a large enough opening to walk through. The wall is low enough (6 feet tall) that the room doesn't feel cramped from it and it's also low enough that light from the window still lights up the bath. And surprisingly little water that splashes out of the open doorway.

New shower and separating wall

As you can see in the picture (sorry about the crappy camera/phone shot) that we have a window in the shower. Normally I avoid windows in wet areas like this because water is your home's worst enemy and will always eventually win but the day of reckoning can usually be delayed with good waterproofing practices and keeping the window up high so it avoids getting direct blasts of water.

The wall is covered with slate on the dry side that matches the wainscot around the room. The slate was the major cost for this bath - if memory serves we spent $600 for enough slate for the wall, wainscot, shower floor and bathroom floor. On the inside of the shower we used a 2x4 subway tile from Home Depot that cost under $2 per sf - it ran just under $200 for the tile for the shower. At the curb and transition between the shower tile and the slate wainscot I used concrete pieces (5/8" thick) that I poured in the garage. The concrete adds a custom look and was really inexpensive. I probably spent $50 on materials.

We splurged on the toilet a bit - we got a Delta Riosa ($270 from Home Depot) which has a low volume flush that actually works. Believe me on this - being in the building industry for 20 years I have hated low flush toilets. They were a huge problem simply because they always get clogged. But this new toilet is has been a revelation - not only does it use a paltry 1.28 gallons per flush (great if you're on a septic system) but the darn thing never gets clogged. Simply a terrific product. What we really liked about this model is that the side skirt goes all the way to the floor - there's no flat area that's constantly collecting dirt and grime.

For the vanity we wanted a piece that was ope underneath, a cabinet will give you concealed storage but it makes the room appear smaller which we didn't want. Beth found an old steel work table some welder had cobbled together with peeling and rusted legs to which I added a gray concrete top that I ground to expose the aggregate. For the sink we used a stone vessel sink that a builder friend gave to us - the industrial look of the table and concrete complement the polished green stone of the sink quite well. A metal basket on the floor under the sink provides storage for TP and a recessed medicine cabinet is just enough for other essentials. Being a hall bath the need for storage isn't as great as the master bath will need. To make the room appear larger I made a mirror that runs the full length of the vanity and toilet that matches the style of the door trim.

Welder's table with concrete top and stone vessel sink

 Lighting is provided from a couple of sources - LED recessed cans and a pair of pendant lights at opposite ends of the mirror. Ventilation is handles by an ultra-quiet bath fan that's on a timer - just hit the switch and the fan runs for a pre-determined length of time and then shuts itself off. It's important to ventilate your bath (gotta minimize the effects of all that water) and an electronic timer is a great way to ensure the fan gets used. I also ran a heating run into the bath, something that was missing from when the house was built.

The bathroom is still a small 5'x8' space but by using some imagination on materials and configuring the shower to be quite useful it's no longer a room I dread to enter.

Cost Recap:

Slate - $600
Subway Tile - $200
Accent Tile - $150
Backerboard/Thinset/Grout - $150
Concrete Trim and Counter - $50
Shower Waterproofing (Schluter System) - $400
Toilet - $270
Custom Mirror - $90
Drywall - $50
Electrical/Lighting - $200

Plumbing - $200

Medicine Cabinet - $30

Paint - $30

Welder's Table - $100

HVAC - $75

Window - $175

Framing - $75

Total - $2815

Mission Accomplished - Kitchen Is Complete

One of the first projects Beth and I took on was to remodel the kitchen. If you saw my earlier posting with the video of the house when we bought it you could see the kitchen was a mess. It was tiny and cramped, cut off from the family room and hadn't been updated with anything other than startlingly ugly orange paint on the walls and depressing blue paint on the cabinets. It was a mess.

Something we had to do was open the kitchen up to the family room and that was a bit of a challenge. One of the major issues I've consistently run into over the past months has been the that the prior owner was a bit of a remodeler himself but he appeared to not concern himself with small things like sufficiently supporting the structural changes he made, caring whether plumbing and electrical were to code (or even remotely adequate) or even that walls and floors were plumb and level. Fixing this guy's work has been somewhat of a challenge.

After taking down the drywall and pulling up the flooring around the wall I needed to remove, it became apparent that the former owner had worked his "magic" on this part of the house. He had removed a post that was holding up the ceiling and the ceiling was being held up literally by drywall screws and very thin sheet metal strips. With the drywall removed I could begin to decipher the electrical and it was a mess - basically all the appliances and wall plugs were being supplied by a single 20 amp circuit and some of the wiring was 14/2 Romex (meaning it's not rated to carry 20 amps). The sink drained slowly and I suspected a clog; what I found after jackhammering up the slab surprised even me. The 2" cast iron drain pipe had been crushed and any water that was going down the sink drain was ending up under the slab. I suspect this has been the case since the day the house was built which meant 50 years of crud and gray water had accumulated under the slab. These are some of the things you run into when remodeling so think hard about taking on a job like this.

But with the new plan in place and all the problems identified we got to work. Beth took on specifying all the products we'd use (something she has a remarkable talent for) and I got dirty crawling around in the attic chasing down wiring and digging up plumbing lines. While I don't dislike this type of work there is a distinct lack of a sense of accomplishment because all you're doing is putting in things that nobody will ever see or ever think twice about, unless of course it doesn't work. C'est la vie.

But with the drainlines in and plumbing supply lines run to the sink in the new island, the electrical revamped (a separate circuit for each appliance and wall outlets), windows moved about and drywall installed it was time for the fun stuff.

Beth chose Ikea cabinets - off white for the cabinets around the wall and black for the island. We'd decided long ago to do the countertops in concrete which was something I'd been researching extensively. The technology has changed quite a bit since my first foray in concrete tops in my Reno house renovation in 2001. Beth had her heart set on a Wolf stove which are way cool (red knobs) but ungodly expensive. We eventually found a used one up in Thousand Oaks that we bought from a chef who was moving back to Europe. He even threw in some sausage (yum). Ebay and Craigslist were the source of our refer, range hood, dishwasher, stainless steel farmer's sink, sink faucet and just about everything else you might need. Beth decided to add subway tile for a full height backsplash which were incredibly cheap (Lowes) but look great. I added some custom touches with a crown treatment at the upper cabinets, open shelving with an industrial look flanking the range hood (which I initially fought Beth on but eveentually gave in and now I'm glad I did), a stainless steel recessed panel wainscot at the island back and a chalkboard backsplash at the desk. I'll write more about the experience with the Ikea cabinets and precasting the concrete countertops but for now I'll just have to say that both experiences we quite rewarding. The concrete tops might be the best thing I've ever built.

Cost-wise I'd say we did great. Here's a breakdown of what we spent:

Demolition and Dump Fees - $300
Concrete Floor Repair - $100
Framing - $200
Electrical - $200
Recessed Lighting - $225
Pendant lights - $175
Plumbing - $750
Drywall - $175
Paint - $50
Cabinets - $4,000
Concrete Counters - $900 (includes the casting table I made in the garage)
Stove - $3,700
Micro - $600 (Ikea)
Range Hood - $300
Dishwasher - $175
Refrigerator - $1650
Flooring (laminate) - $400
Miscellaneous - $500

Total - $14,400


Here are a few pics of how the kitchen turned out (Sorry for the lousy camera phone pics).

Yes, You Can Build Your Own Garage Doors

Been quite awhile since my last post, it's not due to a lack of things being done but too many things that are in process and I've been too busy to write. But with the completion of our garage doors it's time for an update.

When most people think garage doors they think sectional metal doors and they do this for a reason; they're a good product and it's just about all anyone installs these days. These doors are great - low maintenance and they do the job but OMG are they boring. I didn't want boring for our new place so I decided to build my own sectional doors out of wood.

Now I've never done this before so I had to do a little research before I could get going. I knew I could make the door portion but I didn't know about getting the metal hardware - track, springs and hinges and all of the other bits you need to get the doors to operate. A little research online and I found a place in Chicago (DDM Garage Doors) that would would take my design parameters and send me the complete hardware package. After a few emails with Jim at DDM where we went over all the pertinent information like door weight, size, headroom, etc. he was able to design my hardware package and send it off via regular freight. All in all it was a pretty easy thing and a step I was apprehensive about was very manageable. (Just a sidenote about DDM - one of the shafts was damaged during shipped - bent almost into a "U" - and when I emailed DDM a replacement was on my doorstep in a few days. Great customer service).

SO with the hardware aspect solved all I needed to do was build the doors. I decided that each section would be built around the concept of a torsion box so I could have great strength while minimizing weight. Since I didn't have my table saw operating at the time I made the frame out of dimensional lumber (2x2's at the top and bottom with 2x4's on the sides and middle). On each side of the frame I attached 1/4" CDX plywood faces with copious amounts of waterproof glue and brad nails. The units are strong and will last forever.

We wanted to add windows to the top panels of each door and I was lucky to find beveled glass units on Ebay that we purchased for $12 each. Unfortunately we were one short and this last one cost $60 from the glass shop. It pained me greatly to shell out that much for the final piece.

I needed to figure out a wood facing that would be attractive and hold up to the elements. I was at Lowes one day and found myself standing next to some ugly cedar fence boards and I figured I'd experiment with a couple to see how that would look. I planed the picket down to 1/2", cut rabbets on both sides and cut it into three pieces. After staining, the ugly pickets had been transformed and were quite acceptable for my purpose. I went back to Lowes and bought 60 of them which was sufficient for my project. At $2.10 per picket the total cost was a very manageable $145. The only issue I had was that each picket was wetter than soggy toilet paper and it took a week of air drying before they were dry enough to chance machining them to  the proper dimension and shape.

The problem with wood doors is that harsh weather (sun and rain) will damage them over time. My house faces to the SE so I really only get the morning sun and I have a decent overhang protecting the doors from rain but I still wanted to use the best exterior polyurethane I could find. I ended up using 3 coats of General Finishes Exterior 450 waterborne polyurethane which should last at least 10 years before needing to be refinished. Since cedar is a soft wood and soft woods look blotchy when stained I evened out the finish by applying 2 coats of a 1 lb cut shellac and stained with General Finishes gel stain. Although it was a pain in the butt the finish turned out great.

I'm somewhat ashamed to say that the first door and opener took me a day and a half to install, the learning curve was admittedly pretty steep. My garage ceiling is only 8' tall so I had to use track that's different from your standard doors. As you can see from the picture it's actually a double track system with the top track designed to get the top section moving backwards immediately without gaining any elevation. This complicated the install (mainly because the instructions I had were for a standard garage door) and it didn't help that the instruction for the Genie opener I bought at Lowes missed a key step that I only discovered after everything was up. The second door was a piece of cake - roughly 4 hours to install the door and GDO - I'm not worried if I ever have another door to install in the future.

The garage door project was time intensive and there was a pretty good learning curve; I'm quite confident I could cut the time in half for future doors which is significant. Cost-wise I was quite pleased. I haven't priced wood sectional doors out in a long time but 10 years ago I saw price of $3000 or so per door so if prices had stayed the same I'd be looking at $6k minimum to buy them from a garage door dealer. My costs were quite bit less.

Frames (dimensional lumber and plywood) - $300
Cedar - $150
Hardware - $800
Openers (2) - $450
Stain and Polyurethane - $100

Total - $1800

So I think the doors turned out great and I'd do this project again in a heartbeat. (The pictures don't do the doors justice - my cameraphone sucks)

A Video Tour of the Job Ahead

We started moving our things into the new house today and I shot a quick video of the job ahead.

A number of neighbors came by today to say "hi" and they told me a little about the history of the place, particularly regarding the room in the garage. Apparently the room was used by the owner's son and due to a drug problem he wasn't allowed into the main house except to use the bathroom. His access to the house was a bit wild, a trap door had been cut into the floor and he would climb a ladder into the house whenever he needed to use the bathroom. Unfortunately whoever installed the trap door removed a section of a floor joist so I get to fix that... hooray.

There's no other way to say it other than the house is the poster child for deferred maintenance. There's not a single fixture worth saving other than some new-ish kitchen appliances. Everything else will go along with moving some walls. It should be a fun project.

Toolzzzz

Part of the fun of remodeling is that it allows a person to expand their tool acquisitions. There are some things a person must have, some things can be skipped and some things can be rented. Since this blog is all about stretching your dollars that generally means doing as much labor as you possibly can without calling in a professional that will run $65 to $100 an hour, thereby blowing your budget. But to do this work it means you need to have the right tools. If all you have is a hammer and a paint brush you're not going to get far.

The good thing about tools is that they are of various qualities (and prices) and a lot of the time if you're just doing a single project you don't have to buy top of the line stuff. And like a lot of things paying top dollar does not necessarily mean you're buying the best. I no longer believe the expression "you get what you pay for".

So to remodel a house from top to bottom you're going to need a garage full of tools, there's no way around it. Starting from the beginning and working through the end here's a list of what you'll need. Some of the items are used in multiple trades and for the sake of brevity I won't repeat them:

Demolition

- A sledgehammer - I prefer the smaller type, not the big ones you see the DIY'ers on TV trying to swing. They look so stupid swinging a 10 lb sledge and missing awkwardly, a single-handed 3-5 lbs one would do the job.

 - A hammer - preferably a 21 - 24 oz framing hammer. The little ones that come in household toolkits are worthless.

- A Sawzall for cutting nails and old plumbing.

- A prybar, nail puller and flat bar - the nail puller you'll need to salvage any lumber you take out. I reuse every stick of lumber I possibly can.

- A sturdy workboot - I see people tearing out drywall with a hammer, what a waste of time. Trust me, it's way faster just to kick through the wall with the bottom of your foot. Pretend you're Bruce Lee, just don't hit a stud though (and be careful if you suspect there may be plumbing in the wall).

- A sturdy jobsite broom, a powerful shop vac, contractor garbage bags and a utility knife.

- A floor scraper

Framing

I find that the vast majority of my framing when remodeling is done with screws rather than nails. Due to the ceiling generally already being in place, building walls on the floor and then tilting them up is a pain; I generally install the bottom plate and top plate and then fill in the studs and fasten them with screws; just my preference. Because of this I don't really use a framing nailer or even a hammer much.

- An accurate 4' level and 2' level.

- framing pencils, chalk line and a speed square for laying out plates.

- tool belt (a nice side benefit is that you'll look pretty manly wearing one and a girl wearing one is downright irresistible, they're even available in pink.

- a 25' tape measure that will extend 10' to 12' without collapsing.

- Cordless impact driver and/or a cordless drill - Impact drivers are relatively new on jobsites (the last 10 years or so) and are terrific at driving screws. Get a good cordless one and you'll be well ahead of the game. For this remodel I bought a new 18 volt kit that consisted of an impact driver and a hammer drill (great for regular drilling and drilling into concrete.

My new babies - impact driver on the left and hammer drill on the right

- A circular saw or Skilsaw - I have a few of these but you can get by with one. There are nice cordless models out there but I'd get a corded one as it's got more power and it's batteries will never run out.

My new cordless circular saw

Plumbing

The needs for a plumbing kit are surprisingly small. Mainly it comes down to a torch (I use MAPP gas which burns hotter than propane) and a bunch of small hand tools. It's probably easier just to show you my kit rather than try to list it all, it's surprisingly small but does everything I've needed:

A couple bottles of MAPP gas, tubing cutters (small and large), reamer, teflon tape, pipe dope, pipe cleaners, flux, solder, tub drain removal tool and a whole lot of 3/4" and 1/2" fittings.

A bimetal hole saw kit and spade bit kit for drilling large holes for drain pipes and running copper

Electrical

Not much to running romex - a multi-tool electrical plier, cable ripper and  the aforementioned cordless drill and bit kits for boring holes.

If you need to run wire in conduit you'll need a conduit bender.

Sometimes you need to run wires in existing walls and for that you'll need a fish tape.

Low Voltage Wiring

-For running cable TV wire you'll need an F-connector compression tool

-For running phone and network wiring you'll need a punchdown tool kit

Drywall

Drywall can also be done with some very low tech tools. You'll need:

- Taping knives (I believe I have 6" and 10" sizes)

- a drywall square

- a paddle mixer

- a drywall mud pan or two

- a corner tool

- finally, you can get by w/o one but I prefer to tape with a banjo taper

Painting

Painting is another trade where you can get a good finish with surprisingly low tech tools but I prefer to expand the arsenal a bit to get a better finish in less time.

For painting interior walls you'll need tarps, a roller with an extension pole, an angled 2" cut-in brush with synthetic bristles and a 5 in 1 tool. If you've got a lot of walls to paint in a gutted house I'd recommend renting an airless sprayer and spraying the walls. The finish is better if you have someone backroll it while you spray.

For painting trim you'll need lots of sandpaper and sanding sponges, a caulk gun, and the aforementioned 2" cut-in brush. If you want to get a better finish and save time you'll need a hand masker and a way to spray the paint. I would recommend either a self-contained HVLP sprayer (high volume, low pressure) or using a sprayer and large air compressor combo. Because air compressors are so helpful for a variety of uses I like to use the latter setup. Painting this way requires a very large amount of sustained air pressure and a smaller compressor just isn't able to keep up. Here's the compressor I just bought for my upcoming remodel (I'd be lying if I didn't admit it gives me wood):

This is a big, high volume compressor. It's damn heavy so it will
live in the garage permanently and I'll just run a long air hose when
I'm painting inside the house.

If you go the way of the compressor/gun combo you'll also need a water separator so water doesn't contaminate any oil-based paint or polyurethane.

Doors and Trim

Finish carpentry is another task that can be done well with very low tech (hammer, hand saw/miter box and a nail set) but to do the job right and in a reasonable amount of time you need some real tools. For cutting trim you get by with a chop saw but I would really recommend spending some money on a sliding compound miter saw. It's expensive but you can do so much more with this tool than just finish carpentry.

Another tool that's somewhat expensive but incredibly useful is a portable table saw which again can be used for so many things other than finish carpentry. Since I typically live in the homes I remodel my setup is a little less mobile but incredibly diverse and efficient. My rig started life as a simple contractor's saw but is now a table saw, router table and horizontal router table all built into one unit with a lot of onboard storage. It also doubles as a workbench and is on wheels so I can roll it out of the way when I need the space.

My tablesaw - I have a variety of homemade jigs that allow me to do just about anything with this setup - ripping and crosscutting, building cabinet doors and making custom moulding are just a few of the uses. At less than $1000 in parts and materials (when I initially put it together) it will pay for itself during the first job.

Fastening trim is best done with pneumatic nailers and for this I have a small compressor that's easily portable. For a nailer I like to use a brad nailer rather than a finish nailer as the holes the 18 gauge brads leave are much smaller and easier to fill than the 15-16 gauge finish nails, particularly in stained wood. 

If you want to run your trim correctly you'll want to cope your inside corners and for that you'll need a coping saw. Most people simply miter these joints and they usually open up and look terrible.

I use a biscuit joiner and pocket hole jig for a variety of joinery. Both are fast and strong.

A random orbital sander is useful for pre-sanding panels that might be inaccessible after they're installed. The random orbit feature reduces scratch marks.

You can never have enough clamps of all shapes and sizes - I use bar clamps and spring clamps quite a bit and have a large assortment.

While it's a bit of a luxury I have a surface planer that gets some use in special circumstances.

Well that's mainly the list. I'm certain I've forgotten a thing or two and I there's a bunch of small stuff that I haven't mentioned or items needed for specialty work but with the things I've listed you can end up doing most of the work at a very high quality for your remodel. Having the right tools allows you to do the work and not have to call in expensive subcontractors.

Changing the Floor Plan

The first thing I do when walking through a possible renovation project is determine just how bad the floor plan is and what can be done to remedy it. Is it as simple as moving a few interior walls or are there structural considerations to take into account. If the floor plan tweeks require structural changes I'd be more inclined to pass on making an offer unless the seller is willing to drop the price enough to make things pencil out. In the San Clemente house there were some noticeable layout issues that were immediately apparent upon walking in the door. Below are the original layout and the revisions I plan to make.

Original Layout

Revised Layout

The first issue was the lack of a hall coat closet, something that many people overlook until actually living in a house and it subsequently bugs them until the day they move out. In this case I could see I'd be able to borrow some space from the generously sized bedroom next to the entry door to carve out a closet. Taking space from the bedroom also allowed me to work a built in desk/office setup in the bedroom which is nice because I work from home.

The next problem was a biggie and probably was a huge turnoff to prospective buyers who had seen the place - the kitchen was shut off from the family room and was inaccessible as well. To get into the kitchen you either had to walk around from the dining/nook or via the laundry/mechanical room. With most people nowadays embracing an open concept home, being able to open up the kitchen and improve the accessibility was a must. Fortunately there was an easy fix - knock down the wall separating the kitchen from the entry and add a large kitchen island. Making this change adds an eating area at the bar and allows someone who's cooking to participate with the goings on in the family room. The only possibly challenging aspect of this is that the kitchen/family room is built on a concrete slab (the rest of the house is over a crawl space and garage due to a sloping lot) and I'll need to jackhammer up part of the floor to run the necessary plumbing and electrical. One thing to take into consideration when messing around with a slab is to find out if it's "post-tensioned", meaning it has sheathed steel cables within it that are pulled tight after pouring the concrete to provide strength to the slab. Accidentally cutting one of the cables wold give you the surprise of your life. I didn't see any indication of the tendons on the slab edge outside and I believe this house was built before post-tensioning became a viable method so I doubt there will be any surprises here. Just an FYI - in homes built today, if it has a PT slab there will be a stamp on the garage slab indicating that.

Post tension stamp - located in the garage

In the case of this house the last major consideration was whether or not there was a true master suite (bedroom, bathroom and ample closet). Unfortunately, while it has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, the layout was such that there was no true master suite and there was no way apparent to me to revise the plan so I could retain all three bedrooms and still have the generously sized rooms we desired. One lesser consideration to take into account was that we both want a master shower that was large enough to not require a glass door/glass surround as we both hate squeegying them and the glass still looks terrible after every use despite your best efforts. Add to that a nice 3/8" glass door/surround is hugely expensive so eliminating it entirely saves not only time and energy but money. With all this in mind the decision was made to incorporate two of the bedrooms into a single master suite, something I probably wouldn't have done if the house was going to be flipped later on (The appraiser our lender used on this purchase values bedrooms at $25k each so deleting one isn't a decision to be made lightly). But since this part of town is aclectic and we're going to live here we decided a great master with the features we wanted was more important than a small 3rd bedroom. With the extra space I was also able to add a 2nd vanity to the bath and as we both can do without having a soaking tub we decided to save money by not including one. An even bigger bonus was I was able to carve out a niche in the bedroom for Beth's huge Mexican armoire, which took 5 guys to get into the house we're currently at.

Heavy *^$%$^*# Armoire

The only limitation I feel I wasn't able to address was adding stairs from the garage (which is located under the master suite) into the house. There simply wasn't room. We'll still have to walk outside to get into the garage. Oh well.

One sidenote is that if you're interested in doing this sort of thing, the software I used to create the floor plans is relatively cheap, has a quick learning curve and saves countless hours per project. Drawing with the computer is vastly superior to doing drawings by hand - changes are easy to make on the fly and the software can pretty much do everything. I purchased software called "Home Designer Suite", it was $100 and can be downloaded right off the net. This version has most of the features I want although the professional version ($500) has everything a person could ever desire. Maybe someday I'll upgrade. There are free design software programs out there but the ones I tried all were seriously limited in their features and functions.

So that's the process I use. Walk through the house, determine it's limitations and then figure out how much it will cost to fix them, if they can be fixed. Knowing things like this can help you get a hidden gem and hopefully prevent you from making a huge financial mistake.

Where Am I and How Did I Get Here?

Life has a curious way of changing things up on you in a way that's unexpected and often so slowly you don't realize it's even happening.

After years of being single I met my girlfriend two years ago and we've been living together in a rented house in Laguna Beach since last April. Along with Beth's cat Princess, we recently acquired two Lab puppies, one we planned to get and the other was a rescue who's picture was so cute there was no way to say no. Needless to say that having never been married before and only a few relationships where there were deep feelings involved finding myself with a live in girlfriend, two dogs and a cat (along with frequent visitor Zoe the Retriever) things had rapidly changed from my carefree bachelor days.

A month ago our landlord told us she was selling the house and our lease would not be renewed; essentially we needed to be out when our year was up in April. Since that was 3 months in the future and I've had a somewhat nomadic past I wasn't too concerned but for Beth it was a different story. Finding a new rental on Craigslist, Zillow and Trulia dominated the next week and we found several houses that fit the bill but the idea that a decision of someone else could throw her life into upheaval obviously was causing her a lot of anxiety and we found ourselves talking one day about buying instead.

Now California real estate is an interesting thing, I'd spent from 2001 until 2007 in the homebuilding industry and had a firsthand view of the spectacular rise in prices and the inevitable crash that followed. From 2004 until 2006 every month saw the local newspaper trumpeting the huge jumps in the median price (as if that were a good thing). People camped out at model homes to buy houses unseen thinking they could flip the house to the next buyer for 6 figure gains and they were right for a time, at least until they weren't. And then, despite the best efforts of the government and the Fed, the housing market crashed. Trillions were lost in housing values and foreclosures dominated the real estate scene. Despite interest rates at never before seen levels buyers stayed away in droves. I will admit I suspect that home values are still higher than they should be due to these remarkable rates and I wonder just how long government will continue in its efforts with Europe and China to see which country can devalue its currency the quickest. It's a race to the bottom and I'm not certain anyone will be a winner.

But that's neither here nor there, we needed to move and Beth was motivated to buy a house, a course of action the avid remodeler in me approved of. My last renovation was completed in Reno in 2001 and I've been toting my shop tools all over California just waiting for another opportunity to turn a dump into a real home to be proud of. Beth hooked us up with a realtor and off we went in pursuit of the perfect fixer. By perfect fixer I mean a real piece of trash in a nice neighborhood, a home with lots of deferred maintenance and perhaps a funky floor plan. I also like a place where there's been no attempt to update the place for the sale, these owners typically want to be repaid for the money they put into the updates regardless of how hideous they are.

We found a place in Dana Point that I immediately wanted. It was dated and ugly and the owners had made some questionable upgrades to it over the years (like taking out the wall of the master bedroom so it was open to the kitchen). Not only that but their taste in furniture and furniture layout was so poor that most anyone other than an avid fixer would walk in, take a look and immediately walk out again. I loved it! But the neighborhood wasn't right for Beth so we moved on (I've since learned that this home has had 2 price reductions - the first from $645k to $610k and now it's down to $579k).

So we moved on and subsequently found a place in San Clemente that fit the bill. It's 1300 SF with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths and best of all (to me at least) it has a 2 car garage that will become my new workshop. The seller was asking $530k (like I said, I suspect prices still need to come down a bit) but after looking at comps we felt that wasn't a reasonable price. Our realtor found out that there had been 2 prior offers (neither accepted) so we figured it had been investors doing some serious lowballing. Our research led us to think the house was worth a top end of $480k so we decided we'd offer that and if it wasn't accepted we'd move on. The seller must have seen the writing on the wall (over $500k wasn't going to happen) and she accepted our offer so we're now in escrow and it's time for me to get my butt in gear and get a plan in place.

The idea is to do a seriously classy remodel on a skimpy budget. Frugal is the best word for it. I'm not penny-wise and pound foolish but if there's a deal to be had I intend to get it for this place. I love the challenge of turning a fixer into a real home on a budget that will make people do a double take. And that's the purpose of this blog, to chronicle how I go about it to meet this end. I've done other remodels before but unfortunately hard drive crashes have made me lose all the pictures and documentation. That really bums me out because my other efforts have turned out pretty well and I have no way to look back on them. Never again.

So I'll be posting pictures and videos of the process because there's really nothing that I enjoy more than remodeling and sharing and I hope anyone reading this enjoys it as well.