That house will be a Jonah,or as my dear mother would have called it, "a joaner" while doing as you perpose. If you and your parents are up to the ride,go for it but shots are best called by "boots on the ground" cause those will certainly by big boots to fill.

Well, the reason we aren't just looking elsewhere, is that in our area- there is nothing else. There are very very few properties for sale, and what's there is either worse that this one, or just flat out never going to meet our needs (we need 10+ acres of high dry land and a house ((NOT an mobile home)) that's at least 3 bed 2 bath). Our options are to buy and renovate (here or elsewhere) or buy land and build new.

There isn't a suitable piece of land available at all. And there are no other houses for sale that we could work with. So it's this or nothing, really. We are still waiting, hoping this spring more homes will come available, but it's likely this will be our only option. We're taking a chance with waiting, that it won't sell! But we hope we can get the price down a bit if it sits for a few months. We are hoping that since it's so awful, it won't sell!!!

Since it is the only place available, you will have to do it, no matter what it costs. There is therefore no question.

Casey

I guess the question would be where it is more time and money efficient to tear down the existing structure and build up from scratch on a solid footing, as it were. You'd have the advantage of having a place to live while you do it. From your description I'd be sorely tempted to start over and do it right rather than patching a bad original.

As much as I'd LOVELOVELOVE to tear it down and rebuild... not possible. The purchase price plus demolition and construction would cost twice or more what the final finished house would be worth, and be well above our budget.

This floor height issue is something we'd either have to get a home equity loan for, or save for a few years until we had the cash to do it. So we'll probably save our money and live with it as is and decide after a year or two, if we really want to do it.

The plus for all of this is- the cost of this place is low enough, that our mortgage will be very reasonable. We will have $30k+ a year of income disposable for doing renovations, since we're buying far below our max budget.

I guess the negative for it is- I'll spend the next 2-3 years working on the house every weekend and holiday!

Great - we got that settled - buy the house - cause it's the only one there is - might be the last house for sale in the US. Work on it every chance you get. Let us know when it's done.

Keep existing structure, complete gut the space, new footer(s) inside existing structure, load bearing structure above those, floor joists above that, subfloor and refinishing. Have engineered plans/permits before starting. Basically an insulated and interior crawlspace below the new floor when done. Have access to down there, you could use it for storage also.

Not impossible. Plenty of work but not impossible. Sounds like it would need a big reno anyhow from description. Just more work than a standard DIY gut and redo due to structure work involved. This is something a GC and crew normally does. This does give you a chance to make it how you want it. Hopefully selling price reflects the need for a large reno.

what unexpected or nasty surprises did you encounter?

I have found a lot of things in my current house where I ask myself, what were they thinking? So you will probably find a fair amount of stupid behind the walls. When I redid the drain system, there was an old 1-1/2" drain line from the kitchen that had so much gunk built up there was maybe 1/2" left for actual draining. Also the electrical was mix of grounded and ungrounded wire, and tons of junction boxes in the basement, I redid all that mess. Found a lot of the wire nuts where the wires were loose or arcing was happening and it welded the wires and nuts together, at least they used junction boxes or the house probably would have burned down... In laundry area, an ungrounded range receptacle was used instead of a grounded dryer receptacle even though the wire they used did have a ground. At the panel the fuse was rated at 30A so it was safe, just annoying I had to get a different cord to plug it in when I moved in. I eventually changed out the outlet for future owners... Oh yea that old fuse box the main fuse connection started arcing! Talk about fire hazard! So that was replaced with a breaker panel. Also in the laundry room the washer standpipe was a 2 inch that went into that same 1-1/2" from the kitchen with a vent tee instead of a sanitary tee... (so much fail). It now has its own vent and drain to the soil stack. Higher radon level than wanted, had to add active mitigation. Kinked gas line multiple places... Bath vent in attic went to above a soffit grate so 'some' moisture went outside but some got in attic. Not enough attic ventilation. Lots of other stuff, but cant remember it all lol.

You love the land. Is this house historic or an architectural masterpiece? (My requirements for extensive renovation.)

We planned to renovate a 1950's ranch until we thought about the value of the end product. Post renovation -- in a couple YEARS of time -- we'd have an old house with improvements that was worth...less than we'd spent. With a teardown, we got an all new house in nine months that was worth...more than we'd spent. (And it was exactly what we wanted as well as requiring NO repairs for ten years.)

You don't have to build *big* if you can't afford it all right now. Re-read Vith's post and decide if you want to live a *life* or spend years living in chaos -- with lots of nasty surprises -- at the end of which you would have an old house with 'improvements'.

The land sounds beautiful. It sounds like you may not have a choice on purchasing the property, if you are to buy in your area. I totally understand you seeking out opinions on what to anticipate on a project like this. I would personally move in and live in it for a year. Then decide how you want to tackle it. It may be that you end up wanting to do different floor plan changes after living in it. Or keeping the house as is and doing an addition.

I bought a house that I had to gut to the studs. I quickly renovated one bathroom that, after having lived in the house now, I will be moving, so a lot of the money spent on that bathroom was wasted. But I waited on the master bath which was a good thing because after living in the house, I now want to do a ma. bath addition. Good luck with the house. It would be fun to see pics of it if you get it. It does sound interesting!

You will need to tear down one side of the house to be able to bring the floors level with the other side; that is how platform framing works. The floor joists sit on the walls below. The floor system needs to be there to prevent the walls from folding in (like a knee).

Casey

Is there another location on the property that would be good for your new house? Do you really want to try renovating a house on this uneven hillside that needed a terraced floor plan to work?

Why not just live in the existing house for now and start new construction for the new house you want? With a budget of $30k/ year you could probably build your new house over 3-4 years and then spend the 5th year's budget on tearing down and moving out the old house. You appear to have lots of family with construction experience, and can build it in a very code-tolerant or no-code area. It seems very feasible to do staged build of your new house.

Bruce

Are you really sure you need to raise the floors? Clearly there is a lot of remodeling to be done, but I'm not clear on why that is necessary, and it would cost a huge amount. I live in a modern house on a gently sloping hill side and the first floor space is at four different levels, each successive space separated by three steps. It's not annoying or impractical, and it gives it interesting character...I wouldn't change it.

What I am suggesting is that, if you love the property, classify the possible remodel projects into: must-do, nice-to-do, and not-really-necessary. And then decide if the amount of work you have to do or really want to do is affordable or not.

I think we will likely move in and immediately give the kitchen a facelift (not a gut and replace, just new doors and paint and counters)... replace all the gross old carpet with something inexpensive... then wait. Save our $$. And see what bothers us.

Kudzu9- we are pondering if we could raise the floors, because we plan to retire here. The current owner is having to sell due to being unable to navigate all those steps any more. There is a master on both the first and 2nd floors- but he can't even live on the 1st floor thanks to the 2 sets of steps between the master, and the kitchen/living room. It's something to think about, it gives us pause. Knowing we could fix the floors if needed would make us feel a lot better- even if we decide not to, at least unless it becomes necessary.

Also- if we did for some reason have to sell- it sure would sell faster with a conventional floorplan!! While we hope to be there into retirement- we planned to retire in our last house, and life had other ideas! However- I do worry we'd be putting far more into the house than we'd ever get out.

I think "live there for a year before renovating" is sound advice. :)

Yes...excellent advice to hold off on major stuff that you don't know is absolutely necessary. You may get used to the multi-level design and even come to like it! I'm of an age where I guess I should be concerned about this, especially since we also have a second floor, but I still take the steps two at a time, so I'm not worried yet. You've got enough on your hands at the moment that worrying about making this house user-friendly for your old age is premature now for several reasons.

Anyway, best of luck. Having a great piece of land goes a long way toward compensating for an imperfect structure. And you can always change a structure, but there's not much you can do to make an inferior piece of land wonderful.