Still remodeling after 20 years.

[Courtesy Flush]

Nearly finished with my old house. If you'd told me 20 years ago that I'd still be working on it after I retired, I'd have bought a double-wide instead.

Photo is from ten minutes ago. Now to dust myself off and go buy some beer.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Me, too, it never ends.

[csziggy]

2. If you'd bought a double wide twenty years ago you'd be fixing it now!

Seriously - when we purchased this farm we put a brand new double wide on it in 1979 in order to get onto the property fast. By 1989 we started having to make repairs - added a water heater and re-did the master bath. In the mid-1990s we replaced most of the floors since parts had rotten through. Then we had to put the second roof on it. In 2001 we replaced the siding.

Finally around 2005 we decided we were pouring money into a black hole and began designing a house which we completed in early 2008. Just as we were planning to move, the plumbing in the double-wide gave up the ghost and the older water heater fell through the rotted floor because of a hidden leak.

We gave that house away and were happy to not have to pay to haul it off (just the dump charges would have been $2000-3000 per side, and it would have been about $3000 to have it moved). The family that we gave it to had been living in an RV - three generations, eight people. They were happy to have it and among the family members had the expertise and time to make the repairs we would have had to pay for.

Even an older house that needs lots of repairs is a better investment than a mobile home. While ours was a good place to live for a lot of years, I wish we had not put the money into upgrades and repairs and instead built a house earlier while we could do our own work. The floors we put into that double wide were much better quality than the ones the contractor put into our new house - and the installation and finishing were better done!

[auntAgonist]

3. Welcome to my nightmare !

12 years in.

[Courtesy Flush]

4. We bought this four years ago.

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. Bought my first home this past spring - a fixer-upper for sure

.
.
.

BUT

I enjoy doing it, although I wish I had enough $$ to do it faster.

Quite sure I'll be changing/repairing/remodeling one thing or another until the ole body says no way.

but i figure that's quite a few years off.

Although I'm not overly fond of being single at the moment, there is NO discussion (besides the many arguments I have with myself) about how and when to do what.

I wanted to put my bedroom and a raised bathtub in the sunroom for the views - DONE!

I wanted to remove the frosted window from beside the toilet in the washroom and replace it with one I can see out of, again for the view - DONE! (I live way in the bush - privacy is of no concern).

And so on . . .

I remember an old saying my father told me decades ago:

"When I die, I want to have at least one thing left undone".

Well, I'm quite sure I'll have one or more things on the go when I go -

I won't be pining away out of boredom;

of that I am certain.



CC

ps: - and no guilt for my beer breaks either -

[Courtesy Flush]

6. I like your dad's saying

I can't imagine ever running out of things to do. I'll stop working on the house soon (notice I avoid using the word "finish&quot and paint some pictures. I'm really inspired to make some great art these days, but this darned house is sapping all of my attention.

[femmocrat]

7. We bought a ten-year old house 27 years ago.

Almost all of the rooms need to be updated now. I've been getting to them one at a time. The bathrooms need A LOT of fixin' up.... I dread having those torn up.
Our problem is finding someone to do the big stuff. It's really hard to find a good remodeler! I don't even know where to begin.

[sammytko]

8. Glad to see I am not the only one in this boat

Seven years now..

[Madam Mossfern]

9. It's been over 25 years for us

and now, not only do we still have to get to stuff, but we have to redo what we did in the beginning. Raising four kids here put a lot of wear on the place.

How old is your house? Ours was built in the 1880's.

[Incitatus]

10. Heisenberg lives! nt

[trof]

11. It's always something.

Been in this house almost 21 years.
Longest we ever lived anywhere.
Coastal Alabama.

We're on a brackish bay just north of the intracoastal waterway.
EVERYTHING eventually rusts or corrodes.

Re-screwed all the pier and dock boards down last year.
The old screws had rusted and corroded.
The new ones (zinc coated) are now rusting and corroding.


There's always something breaking down.
Usually the heat pump which provides heating and A/C.
The A/C usually craps out in August and the heat fails in January.
Natch

Sewer service is available ($40/Mo. fee ) but we're still on septic.
So far so good.