[Contrary Housewife]

It looks like you have quite a lot to work with and quite a lot to do. I look forward to hearing your plans and seeing your ideas happen.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Wondering why a church would have a bathtub, was this a remodeled house? Did you say this was on a busy street? I guess you'll have to install fencing for the dogs. I'm sure your head is whirling with plans.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

That is a good sized porch. Seems about as big as mine, lots of space to enjoy. Lots of room for planting and landscaping. Is that your fuel tank?

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Updated electrical will be one of the biggest improvements you can make. Our 1970's house couldn't handle the electrical needs of today, I'm not sure an 80's house would either. Having extra outlets and lights added to our kitchen remodel really made a difference, as did putting in all new LED lighting, USB outlets and internet cable in our basement remodel. The days of having one outlet for the tv and a lamp are over. Just something to think about on your long journey with the new house.

Those makeshift piers are pretty scary. I wonder what other surprises you'll find as you go.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I would move that closet door opening from where it is over to just below the W in "wardrobes". Then put what you can against the outer wall or the corner where the door is now. Might open up some space for you. You won't have a narrow corridor behind the wardrobes and useless wall space.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I'm glad we put a laundry sink in. DH was against it, but now uses it all the time. I wanted a metal one but they are so expensive. It would be great if you could find a nice one 2nd hand. Just think of all the fun you'll have shopping flea markets and thrift stores in the spring.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

It's good to have time to plan. I had years to think about what I wanted in a kitchen, although we weren't able to make all of it happen with our space or the resources available. Do you have any kind of floor plan for the existing space? I'd like to see what you're working with.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Not sure I understand what's going on in the restroom/coat room/stairs area, but I think I got the rest of it.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Ah, that's what I thought, stairs right in the middle of everything and more hallways than you need

What do you think about incorporating that hallway into the master bedroom? It seems like a waste of space to me. I know you want to avoid demo, and you'd need to match the flooring, but look at the space you'd get back. The en-suite laundry/bath area should be really handy.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

That's clever. I like the handles on the side. In my family we used to store the jars on 2x4s nailed between the framing in the cellar. Of course, if you don't have a cellar.....

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I'm also thinking about someday building a tiered closet above the steps in this gigantic waste of space. That's so far down the priority list I can barely see it from here, but if we can't get the basement dried out, we may need it for storing things that can't be in a musty place. I'd rather have the doors for that storage in the long hall and not the LR.

I'm thinking you can frame in a cabinet or storage closet accessible from the hallway or whatever is on the far end of that. (entry?)

 

[Contrary Housewife]

SD, have you checked into any of those places that do $199 windows? We got all ours replaced about 10 years ago, and they were custom made double pane windows. Every window in our house is a different size. They measured, and came back a week or two later and put them all in during one day. It was significantly less expensive than any other options I looked at and are pretty nice.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Happy to hear the news, SD, and glad you got so many of the extra things like the cork board and mower.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

When we had our moldy basement re-done several years ago I believe they put down a mold resistant sealer on the concrete floor after getting the carpet out. That seems to have worked for us. I think a lot of the smell in our house was from smoking (previous owners) and water leaks. Getting rid of the carpet improved it considerably.

And we got rid of the wood paneling too. I know you like that rustic look but that knotty pine would drive me to arson.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

OMG! Rubber hose and clamps? That can't be up to code.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Great find on the flooring, and I'm glad you found a match for the other room. Hopefully you'll have some left over for repairs if needed in the future. We made sure we have extra tile and carpet squares when we redid the kitchen and basement. DH learned the hard way in his last house, when kitchen tile had to be patched. And our bathroom tile isn't made any more, we got the last half box of matching tile years ago when we had to do shower repairs.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

The basement already looks better, brighter and larger with that carpet gone. I'm sure the sink will scrub up nice, as long as it isn't dinged or chipped. Do you have hard water?

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I like the rustic doors.

Asbestos is very good at what it does, it's mostly a problem when you breathe in the dust from it. We had it all over our high school ceilings as a fire retardant. It caused a big stink my senior year, but they said as long as the layer wasn't disturbed, cut, scraped, punctured, etc. it shouldn't be an issue. I'm glad you had some kind of mask on while tearing out the walls.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I would look at that again, since it's a residence and you're planning to live there.
There were govt rebates available when we installed our "new" HVAC system years ago, but only if we bought the most expensive brands. We didn't find it worth the extra cost, and went with a reliable, cost effective brand.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Looking good SD!