We did alot of the work our selves.My husband has own construction company.My 2 sons work with him.We did all but the replacing wood trim, built wood windows same that was here,complets with screens,storm windows. etc that needed replaced.Floors some were ready to give.We wanted all to look like nothing was changed.We had some people here that do just restoration,Those guys were great.Beautiful restoring work,painter did all painting,antiqing.

The size and steepness of the roof/chimney made that job more than we could handle so that was hired out.
So was the replacement of a few boards and the recreation of a outside moulding that was rotted.
All the painting,plumbing and landscaping has been done by DH and myself....with occassional help from the kids.

So far all of it except the steam boiler when we first moved in was DIY. That's why it will be 2025 before we're done. People that say 'we' did this and 'we' did that, when all they did was write a check have nothing on my wife and I. We have a saying around here, "Only newcomers have someone else do it.", it's a point of pride in a mostly Finnish community to do everything on your own.

Two previous owners of this house did a lot of the work themselves. We've needed to hire pros to re-do a lot of it. Some of the plumbing and wiring was scary; some of it was just badly done (a pedestal sink where the pedestal didn't sit flat on the floor; DYI tiling by folks who had trouble with straight lines, no concept of finish carpentry). Happily they didn't do any slate roof DYI -- just did nothing instead, which had to be better than their crawling around.

I like to think that we know the limits of our skills -- painting, demo, landscaping, tiling, simple plumbing and electrical. For the rest I'd rather write a check.

The first (and oldest) old house, I was young and knew no fear, would try to do anything & everything.

The second old house, I was divorced, close to broke and feared insane by my family. I knew the limits of my construction skills (baptism by fire from the first house) and took it slow and got creative about financing the things I could'nt do myself.

The third old house, I was a newly remarried empty-nester working 55 - 60 hrs a week along with my equally ambitious, famously non-handy husband. We paid someone to do what wasn't already done, which was minor interior painting and wallpaper stipping - something I never would done previously. In fact, I felt extremely wasteful paying someone although I didn't have the time or the energy to do it myself.

In the fourth old house (closing in 3 days) - Since I recently went part-time (actually 1/4 time, I plan to do all the landscaping, painting and construction detail work but will pay the pros to do the foundation, plumbing, electrical, stucco, etc. etc., including major redos of PO mistakes and disasters. I'm tired, older and a whole lot smarter!

I will DIY anything that won't flood, burn down, or blow up my house, or cause us all to die of CO poisoning.

I have also paid contractors to do work for me where the cost wasn't so great that it was worth my while to spend two weekends trying to do it myself, instead of enjoying my limited free time. We had a hole in the kitchen wall from a plumbing repair. The plasterer cost me $250 to fix it. Considering it would have taken me all weekend, I thought it was a bargain. Sometimes, you need to consider the value of your time, too.

I agree knowing your own limits is a major thing. Nothing is worse than redoing someone elses "handywork" especially when the quaility isn't that good to begin with.
If I or DH can't do a quaility job we don't touch the project. We wait till we have the cash to have it done. Yes it takes longer but in the long run it's worth it to know the job was done correctly.

Do good intentions count for anything?

We planned to do all the work in our fixer upper old house, but 6 weeks after we moved in, DH landed in the hospital with a heart problem and was told "no more heavy work"!

So we paid various folks pots of money (new line of credit :-( ) to do all the stuff we had planned on. Fortunately we had great workmen who didn't gouge us, and the easier stuff was left for DH to finish up.

We (meaning me mostly) do almost all of the work around here ourselves.

It is a pride thing with me.

I cannot stand to pay someone to come in and do something that I am perfectly able to do myself. When I paid the plumber $85 to do a couple of simple things here right after we moved in I vowed that I would not do that again.

Now, I give each and every project a lot of thought and then I educate myself as to how to do it. I get a lot of info from here on the Net or go to the library and get a book to teach myself how. I have gained a lot of skills this way and end up helping my friends out on their houses too which gives me a pool of favors to work from.

There are some things that I will still pay to have done though. I know that there are some limits to my abilities.

I also know that there are some things that I will never do again for myself. For example, anything to do with sewer lines I will gladly pay the plumber to do....just cannot do it myself ever again.....Ewwwwww.

Aubrey

For me, the issue is safety and expertise. Anything that involves heights or would void my homeowner's insurance, I pay others to do. I payed to have the roof replaced, chimney rebuilt, asbestos removal, heating system and water heater, and major electrical work. Also, anything structural-subfloor framing, and the upcoming foundation work-that might be a safety issue if done incorrectly I hire out. And I will pay to have the house painted (although that one *really* hurts) because it involves safety issues-working around power lines with scaffolding 1 1/2 stories over very uneven concrete surfaces. Other than that - all plumbing other than the water heater, all demolition, kitchen remodel, finish carpentry, flooring, tile work, restoring windows, interior painting, and landscaping, I do myself.

I usually hire out things that are large ( windows, roof, sunroom addition ) or can do serious damage ( re-wiring the house, demo and re-do bathroom )

I'll do minor electrical stuff like replacing a light or moving a socket over a stud. I'll do minor plumbing like replacing a faucet.

Most of the carpentry inside we have done, moving walls, sheetrock and plastering.

I think the danger risk and size of a job are the determining factors. Sometimes price. I'm not sure I'd 've saved any money doing the sunroom or roof myself. Most of the cost was in materials.

I can paint a pretty picture, am a muscian and do a decent job of garden landscaping; but I can't read a ruler! Most projects I hire someone else to do. This is an excuse, I know, but I think having another person to encourage and help you makes a difference. I come from a family of carpenters, but could never get any of them to volunteer thier skills. Wish I would have listened and learned from them. My father was always, "do it right or don't do it at all". Didn't give me much confidence in myself. But, I guess a person is never too old to learn. I did actually go to the library today and get books on upholstering furniture!

It all depends on how much you are willing to undertake, willing to risk and/or how much you can afford.

I am a firm believer that anyone can do anything they put their minds to and do it well. Like schoolhouse I was taught "do it right or don't do it at all" so...I learned to do a lot of things right the first time...unfortunately my parent's had no DIY skills what so ever so I had to teach myself. I will tackle just about anything except things that I feel may jeopardize the safety of the house or my loved ones. And like mwkbear there is a time vs. money balance one must contend with...it sometimes pays to hire out....often just so you can keep your sanity. We had 10 doors to hang in my parent's house - a new skill to both my husband and myself and a heck of a lot harder than it looks. After taking 2 days for my husband to hang ONE door (and a whole bunch of very interesting and creative cusswords to go with it), we decided it was worth the extra nickels to pay someone else so we could concentrate on other things that needed doing within our tight deadline. No guilt feelings whatsoever and we still feel it's one of the smartest things we've done. If there were no money or time constraints we would have tackled the job ourselves...but in this case it made sense.

Between the parent's house and our fixer uppers we can plaster, drywall, refinish and/or install hardwood floors, restore/install (only in the rancher) windows and doors (the kind with the jambs), replace and repair joists, sills, rafters, sub floors. I do most, if not all, the finish carpentry, have designed and built kitchen cabinets, can tile anything and been offered outside work as a tile setter. My DH is a landscaper extraordinaire and does most of the structural stuff and anything else he puts his mind to....

Barbara in Hollywood

Well, lets see...I guess about 90% is DIY, only the roof and
part of the electrical has been hired out. Needless to say I'm exhausted! I married "Fred-Bob" Villa, and he's more than qualified at most restoration tasks(this isn't the first house), the work is tedious, meticulous and usually as well done as any professional contractor,actually considerably better than most. I'm the research/visionary part of the team, and he gets it done with mostly my help alone. The down side is time or the lack of it. We're at this old place almost 9 years now and I'm toast! All the exterior work on the house and barns, we did. The interior includes every bit of it, from replacing rotted framing to preserving the original horsehair plaster. There are days I hate to get out of bed and face another day, but then their are the shiney "look what we did" days. It's tougher when you are older, but it's a dream we had to have. Do you find it's a love-hate thing with your old house? Love the house, hate the drugery? Certifiable? Maybe.

We do most of it ourselves. Things DH does: Plumbing, electric, appliance repairs, installations & carpentry. Me: Paint, refinish, wallpaper, tile, some flooring. In fact we've only hired a floor refinisher for this old house. Previously, we've hired an electrician to upgrade electric & a plumber to clear the big pipes. Our floor guy is so reasonable that it's just not worth doing it ourselves. We have a talented friend who installed the crown moulding in the bedroom.

There may be a day when we can't do the heavy stuff. Last year I pulled my back removing a subfloor and that took a lot out of me physically.

We have no experience and are looking at a kitchen remodel- can we expect to be able to tear out soffits, pull up floor tiles (terra cotta) and terra cotta backsplash by ourselves without ruining something?

We have put flooring in two rooms, taken down an old plaster ceiling (payed someone to put a new one up), replumbed nearly everything, fixed and wired many things, tore down all the crappy moldings and put nice ones up, painted, tore down wallpaper and put new stuff up, re-roofed a section of the roof, fixed rotting wood, put in a pond, hiked up our garage roof overhang and replaced rotted beams, hiked up and secured our sagging porch,tiled and relandscaped..phewww!
We are having people put new windows in though. (thank goodness!)
My husband has a firm belief that we will get ripped off if we have someone fix the house for us. I have to admit I wince any workers come to my house. I am always afraid they are going to damage something.
sighhhh...I just want something done in a timely manner! It is tiring and frusterating doing everything ourselves when we both work full time. It is rewarding though. This is our first house and we have learned a lot!!! This summer I just heard my husband mumbling about replacing another part of the roof...ugh. Just think...one more bedroom, one kitchen and one bathroom to go! Not too bad!
Oh, I forgot we tore up and replaced concrete also.

-renee

I bought a 1926 schoolhouse 10 years ago, that had been horribly "housified" in the 60's. I had never done any construction before but was reasonably fit, mechanically inclined and independant enough to just go for it. I bought a 9 lb. sledge hammer at a garage sale, borrowed a crowbar from work and gutted all the interior walls out in four days, gutted all the original plaster in the classroom (ruined by the previous owners) in another four days and insulated by myself. A friend helped me drywall (12' pieces). It's amazing how quickly all the friends that said they would help became scarcer than hen's teeth!:) Over the years I have renovated the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen only hiring friends or relatives to work on things like plumbing and electrical-people that I could work side-by-side with and learn from. Then I was able to do things myself, like rejuvenate and install antique school-lights to hang in the greatroom. At the same time I renovated the barn for my horse and built fences around the pasture. I practiced my carpentry skills on the barn before I unleashed them on the house! Ironically, after I finished these major projects I met my partner who is a whiz at electrial, plumbing and building things. He did a great job at cleaning up all the wiring in the basement which was a spaghetti factory of live wires that led nowhere. Together we have built a greenhouse and furthered renovated the barn into a artists studio.
The only huge job remaining is replacing all the drafty 60's windows back to their original 1926 sizes and placements. This is one job I think we'll be hiring the pros to do.
One of the most important things I think I did when I first bought the school was plan my budget to include buying a number of important power and hand tools. It makes a job so much easier if you have the proper tool for the job.
Five years after I bought the school, I got laid off from a very good job and was never able to replace it with one that paid as much. So, the major projects have pretty much ground to a halt for a while. On the bright side, I became a professional horticulturist and the landscaping around the house suddenly improved by leaps and bounds!
Like Renee, I absolutely dread hiring strangers to do a job. The one time I had to hire to do a concrete job for the front porch was a nightmare. I had to constantly "babysit" them to make sure they did the job to code and to make sure they even came back to finsh it.
Anne-Marie

It's mixed....hired out for:
electrical
plumbing (but wiht our help)
roof
foundation

We worked with our contractors though, so we did a fair amount on the demolition, ripping down and putting up sheetrock, flooring, etc. Stripping p aint from doors and windows all ourselves. Tiling ourselves. Painting ourselves....

"Housified" - I love that term! Now, I know how to describe my place.

We are lucky enough to have a contractor as a best friend.
He has patiently shown us how to fix the things we can, and given us the wisdom to know when to call him to fix what we can't:)
We payed him to put the gutters on, and he showed us how to install our tankless hot water heater.

We are rewiring, we are doing pumbing, we are refinishing.
If it's not going to kill us, we'll try it.

siighhhh, I wish I had a contractor as a best friend!
My friend has a friend that is a contractor and I called him asking for recomendations for plumbers and builders (just curious) and he said "honestly every person I hired did a sh*tty job. I had to stop one guy from drilling two huge holes in my 100 yr old fireplace. They just have no respect for old homes".
so I guess it is better we do it all ourselves!!!
-renee

My dad is a carpenter by trade but did everything in his youth and my BIL is an electrician so pretty much the only things we don't DIY (with help from family sometimes) is work on the slate roof and plumbing (more than minor stuff like changing a faucet or hooking up the fridge to the water line). We also have a maintenance contract on our boiler, even though my dad used to clean his own, it's a dirty job and he has no desire to do that anymore and I can't say I blame him.

I know often you can spot a bad DIY fix a mile away but I, too, am willing to try just about anything. I have infinite patience and I know what it's SUPPOSED to look like if a pro did it and will work at it until I get it right. I recently tiled my kitchen backsplash with a combo of glass mosaics and subway tile. It took me 12 long work days to do a job that most pros probably would have done in 3-4 days (including demo and prep) but when I was done, I had a professional look (and the best compliment I got on it was on the kitchens board from a tile setter who said it looked like a pro job!) I believe that pro results CAN be had by a DIYer with enough time and patience and ability to visualize what the end result should look like.

I've found, like Renee mentioned, that a lot of tradespeople just "don't get it" when it comes to working on old houses. They don't respect the idea that you WANT "that old junk" like original trim, fixtures, fireplaces etc. and they're only too ready to rip it out and replace it with cheap, tacky modern stuff or damage the original stuff to complete projects on your house.
Anne-Marie

Funny, I'm slightly different than most folks here. My threshold is whether I need something to look really good and how long I realistically believe I can finish it. These are usually related - I will usually take me a lot longer to do something than a pro. And time is stress when you are living in a construction zone. I am amazed at some of these folks who live in a remodel for months or years at a time! That said, I demolished and redid two rooms in my attic. I did framing, electrical, floors, painting, etc. The main thing I paid for is sheetrock and mudding, which I think is the most thankless job. I know I would spend 5 months trying to get the mudding smooth, and the pros did it in a week. Well worth the investment. I paid the same contractor to finish some of the framing (I was in a hurry expecting a baby soon), but was horrified at how bad his work was compared to the work I had done, so I had him stop and finished it myself. I realized there were some things I would have done better, but realized it would take me WAY longer than paying someone. I'd like to think it would turn out better, but can't be positive....I did pay to have a great contractor put in a whole new bathroom, and revel in the quality of that every day.

I thought I had exorcised my remodeling bug, but now I'm itching to redo my breakfast nook and deck. I guess it never stops!

I love my original schoolhouse door. It's distressed to say the least and leans a little more every year; but, I cannot part with it. Once, I asked a carpenter to repair the door jam somewhat and adjust the hinges. He took one look, turned around and left. Most insist I replace it with a modern steel door!

my old house nothing is level, square, nor modern so I feel my skills fit right in and I do everything myself. I don't have to worry about being the PERFECT carpenter.

I agree with Carol from ny -- If we don't feel confident doing it ourselves, we're going to wait until we can afford to have it done FOR us. I understand the "point of pride" in doing your own work. My dad is what I would call a true craftsman, and I know he would never hire out much of the work he's done in his home. My husband and I, however, have talents and skills that obviously lie in OTHER areas, and as we're neither gifted DIY'ers or have much desire to become practiced DIY'ers, we see no shame in paying to get things done around the house.

We hire electricians for anything more complicated than installing a light fixture. Really like those guys and respect what they know and do.

We hire a plumber for anything more complicated than fixing a faucet. We have a terrific plumber. We hired him to install our new HVAC system and have had him back for laundry room and kitchen stuff.

We paid for professional installation for our new kitchen cabinets and I am glad we did (it was a difficult install).

We quit hiring carpenters after two bad experiences. The first did a lousy job of patching the wood floor where a floor heater had been taken out by the PO--we could have and would have done it better. The second put a d**n bare aluminum threshold in a doorway with some lame excuse about why he couldn't use the wood we had discussed. Now we do our own, even though it takes us a lot of time--if there any mistakes left in place, at least they are our own mistakes.

I hate shoddy DIY work, and the POs left plenty of it. But I hate even more paying someone to do shoddy work on my house, and the POs did a lot of that too--used the cheapest replacements for everything and didn't give a rip about preserving anything.

DH wants to hire someone to paint the house. I want us to do it. We will compromise by doing much of the prep--that will save lotsa $$$$. DH hates painting, I enjoy it, but it's too big a job for just me. We have been lucky to find a painter who is VERY HIGHLY recommended and we know firsthand he does great work.

We refinished our own floors. It's backbreaking work, but expensive to hire out and hard to find someone who will do a better job than we can do.

We patch our own plaster and hang drywall when we have to. We have replaced windows, upholstered furniture, made draperies, rewired lamps. Built flowerbeds and paths and planted shrubbery and trees.

Now, ironically, we pay someone to cut the grass and I have at times paid for someone to clean my house. Go figure!

Unfortunately, we don't have much of a choice: we have to hire people for almost everything that smacks of renovation or fixing. My DH has MS and is physically unable to do things he used to be able to do. I am great with paint & decor but I have a black-thumb and an unnatural fear of hammering/sawing/nailing my fingers (pianist).

Home improvements get really expensive so we have to do things on a priority list: those things that absolutely need to be done (like our 2004 bathroom renovation)and re-roofing to when-we-have-enough-money-saved (kitchen reno & house addition).

We would LOVE to be DIYers for the obvious reason of saving money but I imagine it's a great joy to be able to use and enjoy those improvements you've made with your own hands. *sighing with true envy*

I sure can appreciate and am envious of paying to get a job done by a pro. Although there is satisfaction in doing a job yourself and knowing it was done right and appropriate to the house, it sure would be nice to have a job done as quick as the pros can do it. My previous post may make it sound like I gutted and restored the school pretty quickly, but the reality is, I lived in a construction zone of various stages for a year and literally sat on the floor to eat etc. while my furniture was stored out of the way. When you live in a one-room schoolhouse, there's no closing the door on your mess and going to another room! Fortunately my bedroom was separate so I had a clean little cubbyhole to sleep in. I lived alone and had a pretty high threshold for the inconvenience...after 10 years it does begin to wear a little thin. :-)

With the exception of hiring a plumber to move pipes from the cold side of the exterior wall to the warm side of the interior wall we have done all of the renovations ourselves. New roof for the house and garage.
Replacing floors in the kitchen and baths.
Remodeling the whole kitchen.
Remodeling one of the bathrooms, 2nd and 3rd bathroom works in progress right now.
Replacing cast iron pipes in the basement with new pipes.
Painting inside and out.
Wallpapering.
Landscaping.
The next project will probably be this Spring when we replace rotted floor boards on the wrap around porch.
All these projects have been spread over 11 years so it hasn't seemed like all that much to us. The satisfaction we get when we do it ourselves is an awesome feeling. It also tires you to the bone at times and sometimes we have wanted to quit but you just work on through those feelings and get the job done. NancyLouise

DIY? Now that's living!

We've done most of ours ourselves or with some help from my dad - installed sheetrock & beadboard, tiled floor & shower surround, put in new doors, put up door & window casing & crown molding, put new spindles & columns on porch, repaired floor joists, installed storm doors, replaced all plumbing, did all the electrical wiring for the laundry room addition, painted, put siding on addition, roofed addition, and landscaping.

Things we've hired others to do: frame up addition & put up exterior walls, turn electrical panel into another room (DH can do regular wiring, but had never dealt with the main service before), make & install kitchen cabinets, lay brick pavers on the concrete porch & over old steps. We also did have someone come in & do the drywall in a couple of rooms, mainly because of a time issue.

I always wanted to be the guy who could fix anything. I found I don't have the talent or worse, the patience for a lot of the projects. Lack of patience leads to shoddy work, and there is no pride in that!

I have built and helped many projects - decks, hang drywall, electrical (my dad is a retired electrician - did what he told me to do), tile, suspended ceiling, ceiling fans, landscaping, paint, etc. But some things I just don't want to do.

Being a Finance major I long ago figured out how much I can make per hour with my business. If I can make more per hour to do my business than it costs to pay someone to do the home project - AND I don't have the skills (or patience) to complete the job, then I pay to get it done.

Another great aspect of having your own business is the ability to barter. I traded a couple of custom wool rugs I designed for central air in my home. Last year I traded a rug for the installation labor for a hardwood floor in my hallway. This way I trade something I'm good at for something somebody else does well. We both win.

Jerry

We redid a kitchen.

What we did:

-demolition and haul-away
-framing of false wall next to outside wall (clay tile
block construction)to accomodate new wiring, cabinets
-wiring (including new circuit for dishwasher)
-install of recessed lighting
-kitchen cabinet layout
-backsplash
-sand and finish new heart pine floors
-painting

What we paid for:
-drywall
-new finish carpentry (window trim)
-kitchen cabinets and install
-granite countertop and install
-install of new heart pine floor
-plumber for dishwasher, disposal, faucet/drains

We bought a condemned old farm house(1902) about 3 years ago. We do everything we are capable of doing ourselves because I think we, as homeowners are pickier than the contractors we hire. Besides, it is so expensive to hire out every little thing!

Little off topic:(I was at Home Depot the other day waiting for paint, and I over hear the conversation between a contractor and Home Depot employee. The contractor is asking what kind of paint to buy for the exterior of a house and the guy at Home Depot shows him a brand of paint. But the contractor wanted something less expensive. So, the Home Depot guy shows him the less expensive paint and says it will last 5 years max. The contractor says, I don't give a sh**t, it's not my house. ANY CONTRACTORS READING THIS: hope you don't all think like that because we as homeowners are getting more informed, pickier, and demand more professional results for the money you charge.

Okay, now that's off my chest, what we've done:

Strip, varnish, reglazed all 16 windows.
Stripped all woodwork in the house. Everything was painted white and full of grease and cow poop. Doors, trim, baseboards...
Gutted and redid entire kitchen, hung cabinets, built a bar. (hired out granite countertops)
Removed wallpaper, replastered, and painted.
Put in an upstairs bathroom. (hired out plumbing and granite)
Gutted and redid downstairs bathroom. It was full of bugs, grease, and cow poop and there was no running water. The pipes had froze and exploded in the wall. It was GROSS!
We build walls, closets, insulate, do trim work, tile work.
Changed our butlers pantry into a bird room for our parrots to live in. They have there own window and we put in a door with a big window so they aren't secluded from us.

I have so many horror stories from crappy contractors that we do what we can ourselves and are choosier when hiring out.

We hired out rewiring our house and outbuildings.(we didn't hire the contractor who told us he couldn't give us an accurate bid because he wasn't sure how long it would take or how many guys were needed. lol)

We hired out our furnace and ac with all new venting. (we didn't hire the contractor who wanted to rip out plaster walls, drop the ceilings lower, and leave a bunch of exposed vents for us to "box cover". We also didn't hire the guy who wanted to concrete over our 100 year old floors for in floor heating. lol)

We hired out our cedar shingled roof because our roof is sloped and neither one of us likes heights. (We didn't hire the contractor who told us he was licensed, bonded, and insured but upon checking further, there was no record. We also didn't hire the guy whose bid was double the guy we hired)

I'm always a wreck when hiring contractors. Sometimes you have to babysit. The original electrician we hired(friend of a friend, never again will we hire a friend of a friend)... we didn't live at the house yet, stopped out one day to see how it was going... there the 2 of them sat drinking beer. I was livid! Can you say fired!

DIY projects can be a lot of fun... more customization for a better price and sometimes it turns out better than hiring the work out would have.

Our projects coming up are installing new wooden storm windows, built in bookcases with a fire place for the dining room, and redoing our rough looking stairwell.

Here's to all you DIY's!! Sometimes it's the best choice.

We have done 90% of our own work which would be why with 5 kids it's going to be 2 more years till we are done! We did have new HVAC put in up stairs and down and hired the roofers ( good move.. well worth it) oh and we hired an electrican to wire the house until we fired him...ugh that was a mess. Now I will say we have an old and funky house so I think this makes me feel much more comfortable trying things as opposed to living in a new Mc mansion sort of place. 100 years of hands have shaped this place.. mine is but another set.

Maddiemom

Now I will say we have an old and funky house so I think this makes me feel much more comfortable trying things as opposed to living in a new Mc mansion sort of place.

Now that's funny. I feel more constrained with what I can do in my old house than I would in a new one. I'm always second-guessing about any little change. I'm almost glad that we have a blah 50s kitchen; I can redo it without feeling bad about removing original fixtures.

I could totally live in a well-built McMansion. :-) My sister lives in one, and it's beautiful; lots of light, high ceilings, a kitchen that a professional chef would love and up-to-date wiring, plumbing and HVAC. Tight windows. Good insulation. There are some good things about living in new construction.

But my old house has history (George Gershwin's sister lived there in the 30s) and other kinds of construction. The heavily textured plaster on the walls of the halls; it looks like the pattern was rolled on, but I can't find any repeats, so I guess not. The old-fashioned face-nailed narrow oak strips on the floor. (They face-nailed the floors around here in the 20s, you find it all over.) It has charm and maturity. I love it.

But I could live in a new house and love it, too.

I'm almost glad that we have a blah 50s kitchen; I can redo it without feeling bad about removing original fixtures.

Thats funny.... someone "improved" the kitchen in my little 1957 home and I'm going to put it back the way it was. Its true that beauty is all in the eye of the beholder... LOL!

P.S. Wanna throw those blah 50's fixtures my way let me know... ;)

DH and I are 96% complete with a bathroom gut and remodel that we have done entirely by ourselves. The floor wasn't level, so we had to remove the flooring (subfloor, 2 layers of linoleum, plus two layers of CARPET, ugh), build out the wall studs (they had used picket fence planks to "level" the existing studs), put in all new electrical (there was only 1 light in the existing room which you turned on at the light itself-- no switches, no outlets either), ran new plumbing and drain for the shower, etc. The ONLY thing we got help on was to install the shower drain, and we traded the labor for dinner with a friend's husband, who is a licensed plumber.

This is our first house, and DH and I are totally new to the remodeling thing. DH is an electrician which helped a lot, but everything other than the electrical was uncharted territory. None of it was particularly HARD, but everything took us a LOT longer than if we just hired it out-- we started over 4th of July weekend, and we're just finishing now! (It's hard to do it when we both work full-time and we each have after-work obligations 3 nights a week, too.)

So far, the only thing we've paid a professional to do was to paint our tin roof-- the roof is quite steep, and we couldn't see the sense in one of us getting up there, falling off and getting hurt, and having one less income to help pay the mortgage. So we paid someone else for that.

Hello (I found this board via Kitchens and Appliances).

We do small jobs ourselves -- painting, some plaster and patchwork, finished the basement, changed fixtures in the bathrooms, small lighting projects, etc.

But we are hiring out for our heating work (major upgrades needed in 100 yo house), the roof, and our complete kitchen remodel, which is a total gut.

Thats funny.... someone "improved" the kitchen in my little 1957 home and I'm going to put it back the way it was. Its true that beauty is all in the eye of the beholder... LOL!

P.S. Wanna throw those blah 50's fixtures my way let me know... ;)

No, when I say "blah," I mean "BLAH." There is nothing about this remodel that says "50s," I'm just assuming. Maybe it's a 60s or 70s remodel. Hard to tell. There is no charm, no style... it's just blah. Not-particularly-well-built knotty pine cabinets in awkward sizes, a stainless steel sink, some ivory formica countertops. That's about it. (The stove and fridge are more modern, and they're fine, if undistinguished.) Not bad, really. I can cook just fine in it, it holds all my things, but it's boring.

When we redo, the cabinets are going to the Volunteers of America, I'm sure someone can use them, but you probably really don't want them. Trust me. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: My kitchen

No, when I say "blah," I mean "BLAH."

Thats a bummer! (For you and me... HAHA!)

DH and I are DIYers. We have to do it ourselves because we can't afford to do otherwise! 1906 farmhouse, 3rd owners, no remodeling ever done. It's alot of work. We wish I had the luxury of hiring out. DH is too picky. Has to do it himself.