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.