For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

[seasprite]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

You always want to add or do something because you're in position now where you can, and you can make it count... so some stuff gets done now, and some later.

I've always wanted wood floors though..buddy at work told me he did his own floors and it basically cost him about 600 bucks for his 2000 sq ft home

Im sure it took him a couple of days to get it done but he did it.. I'll try to find someone I know to do it for me though, forget that, i wouldnt know where to start no matter how many times I watch DIY lol

Installing flooring is one of the things I would never do...........#1 Im sure its a pain in the back to do that crap all day long, and #2 it takes a good bit of skill to have everything line up perfectly. We ended up paying roughly $6.50 a sq ft and lucked out and had a guy put them in for $3 a sq ft.

[seasprite]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Also, the laminates are not bad nowadays and considerably less than hardwood or eng hw. My parents had them put in their house a year ago and they honestly dont look or feel like laminate. You can get those at roughly $1.50-$3.00 sq ft

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

what was your overall cost though seasprite

[Trevytrev11]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

We had hardwood (hand scraped engineered) put down in our last home. It was about 900 SF (family room, dining room, master bed and master closet) and it cost us about $5500 - $6000. This included all of the trim, transitions, etc.

The base price was like $4.50 or $4.95 installed, but then we had to pay extra to float the floor up to level. Apparently our foundation was extra uneven as it required the most bags of float the installer had ever required on a job of this size. In some areas there was almost an inch drop over the span of 10' or 12' So I think we spent another $600 or so in float.

It is much cheaper to put in a floating floor than a glued floor and a lot quicker. I have installed flooring before without glue and it is just basically cutting and fitting pieces together. Gluing, I would never try. It is way to messy and I want nothing to do with it. To me, gluing is the way to go though. It is a bit harder on your feet as there is no give to it, but it feels completely different. It is solid, there is no give or hollowness to the floor. I never knew the difference until we put ours in. It is 100% solid and connected to the ground. My bothers is a floating system and with each step you can feel and see the floor bounce a little up and down (and creak and squeak when it does).

The price we received was a special they were offering for a home show and I think was like $0.50 per sf less than their normal price.

http://www.southerntraditionsfloors.com/hardwood-flooring/Rodeo-hardwood-flooring.aspx

This is the flooring we went with. I think we went with the stallion.

The benefit of engineered hardwood is that it can be laid down on concrete. You can float the floor (no glue) and put some sort of vapor barrier underneath or glue it to the concrete (with some special vapor barrier urethane). With hardwood, there are some weird workarounds, but it is not typical and therefore typically not recommended to be laid on concrete.

The bad thing about engineered wood is you have a very thin veneer of the actual wood sitting on multiple layers of engineered plywood. Because of this, you only have very thin surface of actual wood and can't really sand it down and refinish it down the road like you can with real wood flooring, which can be done over and over again. It may be a little tougher to scratch, but when it does, there isn't much you can do about it.

There are also some laminates that look very good these days.

We are in the process of building a new home and the price is even higher due to the fact that they will have to add an additional layer of something because the foundation will not be fully cured for a year or so.

Another note...if you have pets, don't go with a real dark wood. If you look at the link above, you can see the wood we had was fairly dark and it showed every strand of cat hair and dust. It was a pain to maintain, especially when our house was on the market.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

No pets for me man... I just want to know what ballpark i'd be getting myself into.. would like some cherry colored wood to go with the kitchen cabinets so it wont contrast so im going to have to save for this... laminate may not be so bad

[Trevytrev11]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Does anyone own/live on/maintain any acreage?

We are building on 1.15 acres and I need to purchase some sort of lawn mower/tractor this winter.

I really want a zero turn mower, but I'm not sure if it is worth the additional cost (about an extra $1,000).

From what I have read, a regular lawn tractor is recommended for anything < 2.0 acres and for 2-5 acres a zero turn is recommended. Our land will be a flat rectangle. The lot is roughly 175 wide. The front yard will be about 75' deep and the back will be about 180' deep.

Any input anyone has from personal experience would be greatly appreciated.
Time is a huge factor, so if I knew I could chop my mow time in half by switching, it might be worth it, but if the time savings was minimal, I don't think it would be.

[NDAlum]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

@23

I didn't read everything thoroughly but remember that if you do them yourself you need to have the necessary tools. They cost money too

[C the Lyte]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Had Murphy's Law hit me 2 weekends ago.

Water backed up into my basement. And the way the condensation piping was fixed, the water backed up into my a/c, knocking it out of commission. We were to the point we couldn't even take a showering without having to mop for hours.

Had to install a condensation pump, call a plumber and clean out my main drain (as best he could). I now have to dig up some piping and replace a section b/c it is so blocked.

Add to that my main water line started leaking as well as kitchen sink!

And I had a flat tire on my car that same weekend.

Overall costs so far... $750.00. **** this!

But it's all good. We've been really fortunate up to this point with the house, so a bad stretch was due sooner or later.

Hard to commit to home improvements as home repairs take priority.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Does anyone own/live on/maintain any acreage?

We are building on 1.15 acres and I need to purchase some sort of lawn mower/tractor this winter.

I really want a zero turn mower, but I'm not sure if it is worth the additional cost (about an extra $1,000).

From what I have read, a regular lawn tractor is recommended for anything < 2.0 acres and for 2-5 acres a zero turn is recommended. Our land will be a flat rectangle. The lot is roughly 175 wide. The front yard will be about 75' deep and the back will be about 180' deep.

Any input anyone has from personal experience would be greatly appreciated.
Time is a huge factor, so if I knew I could chop my mow time in half by switching, it might be worth it, but if the time savings was minimal, I don't think it would be.

I live on several acres. Takes me a tad bit over 3 hours to cut it all. Zero turn is nice and all, but hey you can always back up and then go forward to make sure your lines are straight on a regular riding mower.

So if you got the money, then yeah go for it, if not, it won't be too big of a loss. Best time to get a lawn mower is during the winter, be way cheaper then. And if you are in the military, VFW, American Legion or DAV some stores give you a discount ranging from 10% to 20%.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

@23

I didn't read everything thoroughly but remember that if you do them yourself you need to have the necessary tools. They cost money too

I dont plan on it man once I finally do get some

C Lyte I feel you man, could've been much worse too

[seasprite]

what was your overall cost though seasprite

Our overall cost was around 6500,but we didn't do the whole house, only the main living rooms

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2

[Phobia]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Alright guys, time for a update on the remodel.

We just went ahead and getting the house refinanced. We went from a 5.75 interest rate to a 3.2 interest rate. Knocking off 100+ per month when it is all said and done.

The issue is I have to have a appraiser come in and "reappraise" the house. Well for that that remember I been remodeling the house. So anything that was not complete, needs to be completed before they come. So I been busting my *** working from the time I get home from work till bed working on the house. Then I took off work monday and tuesday to do another 14 hours of work each day.

It has been a complete nightmare and I am WHOOPED!!

I installed 600 square feet of Brazilian Teak wood flooring, that took two days to finish the 2 rooms I had remaining. Plus another day installing thresholds.

Then I had to replace some fascia boards on the front the house that had some wear. Louisiana heat of 90+ for hours on end will wear you out.

My hot water tank went out, so I had to remove the old tank and replace it will a new hot water tank. Before I could do that, I wanted to repaint the concrete laundry room floor. So I had to remove the deep freezer, washer, drier, and hot water tank. Then I took hours to put 3 coats of paint down. Then once drier reinstalled everything.

I then took the fiance' closest and installed a double rod hanger higher up so she now has double stacked closest. Which helped a lot.

Today, I got to load the old hot water tank and some of the old aluminum window frames to bring to scrap yard for few extra bucks and get rid of. Got some caulking left to do, cut the yard and get looking good, paint some soffit that I installed, and clean up the back patio that looks like a construction zone.

Tomorrow, is a entire new list.

I will tell ya guys, I am completely burnt out for the first time. I am no slouch when it comes to remodeling, but the amount of stuff I been doing and hours working on it has completely burnt me out.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

It will be worth it when complete, though once you own a home, it is never complete...as you said, there is just a new list.

With that being said, you will have a lower interest rate with lower payments and your house is going to look awesome. Post some pictures of the floors if you don't mind. We are still not sure what we want to put in our new house and are looking for ideas.

[Dirty Turtles]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I agree with everyone who says it never ends. My dad has been remodeling their house for 27 years.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

To throw in pieces

My 2nd to last real estate agent was part time

She got "busy" so she wasnt looking as much if at all for us

I was on the computer day and night looking at homes

Every single home I put an offer on, she told us we should probably put more so they would accept it.. yet we never not ONCE in 6 months ever got a counter or acceptance or anything, it was always silence.

I dont even think on some homes she would check for offers or not and Ill explain why at the end

I did find one house it was a short sale ( a couple was getting a divorce) who accepted our offer of 5k less than the sale price and agreed to pay closing.

She never checked on it over time, if we'd ask she would just say "well i texed the lady (sellers agent)but not response" but if we didnt mention it, she would never mention it which was odd.

It got to the point, she just added my email to their auto generated send a house listing which kicked me emails everytime it updated about twice a day, and she never looked at them. How do I know? becuase even a month
after we left her, i was still getting the same emails everyday..she forgot she put me on the thing.

basically every single house we offered on, I found it. The one accepted short sale offer, I found that one too, and it didnt have any offers on it at the time, it was just too easy but she wasnt attentive enough.

Finally we had to give it up to leave her since she was the agent who put the offer in for us, it had all the rooms space, backyard space and everything we needed in a great neighborhood too

The very first house we offered on was a foreclosure here



It was a low amount and she told us specifically that we could offer lower.. She didn't advise us or anything, I fell like we got some bad information from her, so we got no answer back from them because we lowballed them too much, but we only did it because she said we could. all of this could've been avoided had she told us to give them their asking price which wasnt much. This place was a 3 and 3 and we would've been done long ago

Anyway with the new agent, i put in 2 offers, both got counters, 1st one with a pool but they accepted someone else's counter, and the 2nd one is the one im living in now. She made it all easy, she negotiated for us, she checked to be sure it wasnt offered on or anything, she was great. A good agent can make your life so easy you wouldnt believe it

Last thing that made me bounce the last one... we went to see a house on a Thurs

We sent her the offer paperwork that next morning. She's like offer more money because asking for closing will make your offer less.. Im thinking, why are you telling me to give more money and even talking negative.

By 3pm that day, she still hadn't sent in the offer, and tells us that we need to re-fill out some paperwork because she decided on her own that we wanted to pay for termite inspection which we NEVER did before.

So I get home about 2 hours later and the house is off the market online. Im thinking huh, we were just offering on it... she didnt say anything that day. The next day my wife does her daughters makeup for prom.. she said nothing that day, nor the next day.

Monday comes and she sends us a text saying how good the makeup was and all of this (as if i had anything to do with it or if I cared)then throws in a complimentary, oh by the way the house was sold they accepted another offer.

Im thinking, you probably didnt even put our offer in since it was off the market less than 2 hours after you were sending me paperwork back from your own error. So I just simply replied, thats fine, Ill just have someone else help us look and left it there and left her too.

The underwriting was fine, we had everything and got it all to the lender within 5 minutes or within 24hrs.. No horror story there.. the only part i didnt like was having to wait after submitting everything and after the inspections and stuff for the lender and escrow to handle their parts.. but my most stressful part was dealing with the other agent. I felt like it just wasnt for me to have a home, wasnt meant to be because she just wasnt on her job.