How many of you are living in your house while you're re-building or re-modeling? Or perhaps living in a trailer, etc. on same property? How far along are you? What is your goal? What's been your biggest challenge? How are you taking it emotionally? Has it cost what you thought?

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), November 28, 2001

Answers

Hi Cindy, I read your thread and had to chuckle at the memories I have of redoing a house. We lived in a 21 foot travel trailer in the driveway. Hubby, me, two daughters, a retired greyhound and two cats. Cozy. We had to move into the house the week before Thanksgiving even though the house wasn't even close to being liveable because the garden hose providing water to the trailer kept freezing. Try telling junior high age daughter "sorry no shower or hair wash today" yeah right. Anyway, we moved into the house with no kitchen, little to no heat, but with a bathtub and toilet. The biggest problem we had was all of the canned goods were freezing and expoding and the dog's dish of water kept freezing! We slept fully clothed with hats on, made the dog a sweater out of old clothes and used heating pads to keep the kitties warm. You know what though? They are some of the best memories we all have. We still laugh about the frozen cans exploding in the night!

-- Janice in Maine (kenjan@nh.adelphia.net), November 28, 2001.

Hi Cindy,

We are updating and remodeling an old two story farmhouse that is over 2000 square feet. We have been working on it for about three years now and it will probably take us at least another three to finish it.

The vinyl siding and new energy efficient windows, some of the plumbing and wiring and part of the bathroom had been completed when we bought it. The kitchen and the upstairs are our biggest challenges. The front living room, plate glass picture window and the one in the dining room are still the original but are pretty efficient because they have glass storm windows on them. The back dining room window is still the old, let-all-the-wind-in style :-). We believe it may have been left so as to have a window that an air conditioner would fit into because all the windows were made smaller when the new ones were installed.

We haven't had a kitchen sink for three weeks now (yes, right through Thanksgiving) but it will be worth the wait as my husband is doing such a good job. We kept the original cabinets because we like the design and for the most part were still in good shape. My husband had to rebuild part of them due to some wear and tear and because he wanted them plumb. His boss gave us a dishwasher because they were installing a different color in their kitchen, so that was a nice surprise we had not planned on. Two years ago I found a very nice stainless steel double sink along with a Moen faucet in perfect shape for $5.00 at a garage sale. We try to do as much as we can as inexpensively as we can without sacrificing quality. The original cabinets have two huge turntables with two shelf heights in each bottom corner and two huge ones with three shelf heights in each top corner. A LOT of storage there. We will be laying underlayment boards and tile next and then my husband is adding a 24" deep, 5' wide, floor to ceiling pantry at one end of the kitchen and another smaller, floor to ceiling one behind the kitchen/laundry room door. We have added wallpaper-look paneling and he will be routing my cabinet doors to make them look as if they are "planks" and all the cabinet doors and drawers will be painted white with the colonial looking hardware on them. Oh yes, four of my kitchen drawers had to be removed for the dishwasher but the two corner ones are wonderful. They were made SO long that they hold tons of stuff and they each have a pull-out work board above them. The cabinets and trim won't get painted until this spring when we can take a lot of the work outside and open windows inside.

Next we will work on the laundry room but we don't expect it to be quite the job the kitchen has been.

Our downstairs bedroom was an unbelievable mess but we finished it last spring and I love it now. It was a shambles (and our bed was in the living room) for 3 1/2 months though.

Our youngest son's upstairs bedroom is done now except for the closet and laying carpet - I'm very pleased with it too.

The worst thing about the house was (we and the realtor cannot believe we didn't notice this before buying) was that they had let animals ruin all the carpet with urine). YUK, yuk, yuk!! I don't know what they did to hide the smell at the times we looked at it but when we walked in after closing we almost gagged ourselves to death. We had people helping us move with their pick-ups and had rented a moving van for the next morning. My husband works evenings but fortunately my two older sons were able to help. We spent from 5:00 in the evening until 2:00 the next morning removing carpet from the dining room, living room and two upstairs bedrooms and then using a shop vac to sweep up probably 30 years of dirt and scrubbed and scrubbed with bleach water. I was NOT going to set any furniture or boxes on that carpet. My husband came out after work and all of us got sick at least once that night. I could not believe it. We also found out the the only way to permanently get rid of the smell after scrubbing and scrubbing is by using oil based kilz to cover where it penetrates wood. All is well now - no more odors and for now we just have room size carpets over the floors my husband painted. He did lay carpet in our finished bedroom though.

My husband is learning a lot of this as he goes. He learned a lot in the house we lived in and worked on in Maryland too but this one is a much bigger project. It goes very slowly due to this and the money factor - a little here and a little there. My Mom is sending us money for Christmas this year and my husband is putting his towards a router and mine, along with birtday money is going for the wood for the pantries.

For me, the biggest problem is the house always being in such a "mess". I would rather build a new house than try to repair and redo an old one, especially while living in it. However, part of me likes it because old houses have such character and I dream about what all the other families were like that have lived here, especially the original owners.

As far as the cost, it is true to always expect it to be more than what you originally planned on. You just never know what is behind old paneling and in the walls until you open them up and find more to work on (more expense) than you had bargained on.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001.

We moved in our house, with 2 smal children. No doors, no windows, no water except a cistern, only 4 plug ins for the whole house. Every year we would do a little more and now we are almost finished. It has cost pretty close to what we had planned, we thought to spend about 25k and have spent about 32k but we added on a huge addition, and that includes our barns, fence and everything else. I was thinking about our cupboards, we had to cut the trees, have the lumber sawn on a sawmill wait for them to dry, then build them. Took about 4 years total!!! But they are solid cherry and there are lots of them!!!! It is hard to live in a messed up house, but we alwasy tried to be as organizes as possible, and never have a big mess for too long, which has helped a lot. This winter we should finish all the little things that need done, I will be so glad, as it has been alomost 13 years since we started!!!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 28, 2001.

We lived in a beat up singlewide trailer for 2 and half years while we were bulding our house. We've been in the house a year- we moved in during election week last year. I did Thanksgiving without an oven-its possible, but I don't recommend it. We only got our interior doors up about a month ago, save the bathroom, we just had blankets over the doors! But, I WILL NOT complain because it is so much better than the miserable trailer we were in-The basement is just floor and wall frames. The upstairs bathroom is completely empty, and there is just (nicly painted) sub-flooring in the kids rooms. The windows and doors are not trimmed out, no kitchen cabinets, no baseboards but the important stuff is here and its more or less organized albiet in milk crates and cinder block and board shelves and cardbord boxes but I'm getting there!

-- Kelly (happy cat@fakemail.com), November 28, 2001.

Hello Cindy, We opted to live in a small (21 foot) RV as we built our A- frame house. Since Meli and I built everything ourselves it took about one year before we could move in. We are still working on it but, we installed most of the insulation, woodstove, plumbing, and are now working on the wiring. We used the RV as a "base of operation" and have gradually used it less and less. The computer and the phone are pretty much the only reason we are in the camper these days. Once we get the electric finished, then we will no longer need it and will probably sell it as soon as we can.

The hardest part about building while living in the house is figuring out what is needed the worst. We had been taking cold showers all year and we finally got a tub/shower enclosure put in the house. Though we do not have a water heater yet, we heat our water on the woodstove and that serves our purposes for now. We insulated as soon as we knew cold weather was coming. Electric is just extension cords right now, but, as soon as I am finished wiring and laying the underground cable from the pole to the house, then we will have full service. This were our priorities in that order.

Doing everything yourself does give you lots of self- determination but, it has a price of waiting to do certain tasks as you need them. Also, we are "paying as we go" for the materials and sometimes there is not enough money for the project we want to start on. The payoff is of course. The house will be ours without any mortgages to worry about.

A perk in living in the house while you are building it, is that you can just about "see" what your needs are as you go along. A lot of people have an educated guess at where rooms, cabinets, etc. should go, but living in the house you become more familiar with the placement of these things, since you are living in and know the arrangement of your lifestyle verses placement of walls, etc.

There will be dust. There will be times when something that you did, is not working the way you expected it to. You will have to move things around to work behind or under them. You will feel frustrated, but the frustration goes away after you see you final results. We dust and sweep nearly everyday and I am always having to move a piece of furniture or our 20 month old daughter to get the next step completed. But, that is to be expected and I get use to it.

Sincerely,

Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001.

Ernest - Have you (or anyone else) seen the 2 storied storage sheds at Home Depot that look like a barn? The 16 x 16 ft 19ft tall 2 storied one is $5100. That looks like it would be a good shell to start out in, gradually add instullation and wiring and plumbing?

I've been looking at that (they come in bigger sizes and you can add more windows, etc.) for when I find a piece of property I can afford. (a wedding came up this year) -

I'd be interested in knowing more about your Missouri adventures, I've read your web site and check in often. (by the way, what's a chicken moat?)

My hotmail account is temp closed down cause I did not use it, If you want to correspond directly let me know here and I'll e-mail you from the company computer I am using.

REgards, to all AngieM2

-- AngieM2 (ameininger@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001.

Lots of stuff in your posts sure is familiar.

A little over 2 1/2 years ago we were give first dibs on this place. This place is a very old farm house, built in 3 stages. The first part was a log cabin, then two more addition were eventually added. Now we are finishing a new addition as well as rebuilding the original house. When we started the house was literally full of antiques and trash with a path running through. It had not been lived in for over 2 years (long story) We worked off and on (mostly off) for those two years emptying out all that stuff-dumpster loads of trash. Because of the smells, I couldn't work very long at a time and there were other matters to be taken care of. Finally this past spring, Gary started working on the house re-wiring it.

Since then (with the help of his brother and a few friends), he has re-built most of the wall. 2 ceilings will have to be replaced. Installed a heat pump and duct as much as can be done to this point (that's what he does for a living). Replacing windows and some doors. A lot of this stuff he's never done before. I'm really proud of him.

We discovered hardwood floors in 3 of the rooms, (that's a blessing). He has put 3 kinds of insullation on or in the whole house. Installed a shower, a toilet and countless other jobs. I'm getting fairly good and finishing drywall.

Seems there's always something to be done before you can do what you need/want to do.

The siders started siding just yesterday. We had a new roof put on.

There's still lots to be done, including installing the woodburning stove, I really miss it. There's two barns, with most of the doors hanging. We turned a shed into a chickent house for the 63 babies. There's an old very run down chicken house that we're using for storage. It's really exciting and very trying, but we are thankful for all we have here.

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), November 28, 2001.

Cindy,

I didn't even go into all the stories about repairs on the barn and outbuildings. LOL!

We moved into this house on Dec. 19, and I believe it was two weeks later that we had a blizzard (and I had never experienced one before). I was awakened by the wind and when I got up I found a pile of snow in the dining room and more blowing in the dining room window. I looked outside and two doors had blown off the small addition to the barn and one of the large doors was blowing back and forth, about to go. What a sight it was seeing my two older sons and husband trying to get doors back on in that blizzard.

This was part of our housewarming I guess :-). But you know what? We all love this old house!

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 29, 2001.

So nice to know I'm not alone!!!!! Its been 3 years with no end in site .The hardest part is not KILLING each other .Never ever again !

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), November 29, 2001.