Remodeling ain't as sexy as HGTV makes it out to be.
 

I purchased a very small but highly suitable home in a retirement community here in AZ at the end of September.

This is the place I have decided will be my final home to live out my life from nearly 62 to whatever time is left.

I began a nearly 90% remodel in November starting with a new hot water heater and all new parts in the external closet after a leak from the old one.

I started at the rear of the home in my bedroom by ripping everything out: built in cabinets, ugly decorative boxes above the window, tore out all old curtains, ripped up rug, expanded closet from slider to walk-in for more storage, changed every light fixture, changed utility closet for washer dryer from behind door to hall, changed plumbing, added 3M whole house water filtration at water meter, brand new bedroom window, electrical changes, custom closet design, new paint, new sheetrock, custom wall design behind bed, new bed, new hanging end tables, new art work, new sconces above night stands, new rug, new washer dryer. .

I have a complete new bath, all new floors, all new kitchen and appliances, all new windows, new porch and stairs and new office shed upcoming.

I hired people for all of it and it takes a shit load of more time than I could have imagined.

Wish I was a craftsman....

Oh yeah. Remodeling is a ****ing nightmare....but it's worth it when it's all done. But in the meantime, it sucks.

I did it about 10 years ago now but I went the more craftsman route. I think the only thing either me or my Dad didn't do personally was the cabinets (kitchen & bath) other than that all electrical, plumbing, HVAC (we both work in HVAC) & even removing a few walls was done by us. Since we were doing it ourselves we had to do all the work on weekends so it took almost 2 full years to get it done. Granted we moved in after about 16 months & finished the basement while we were living upstairs, but yeah it was a real bitch.

I will tell you kind of a funny story about the big remodel we did on our Gilbert house years ago. One of the things we did was have our pool redone. One late afternoon, our GC came by and asked if a few of his crew (who were very good but spoke no english) could come over at around 10 to fill in the pool. The next day was a Saturday so I figured he was just getting the green light to come over on the weekend, so I said "no problem" and went about my day. I immediately forgot about the conversation. I'm usually a night owl, but that particular night, I fell asleep early. At around 1030p, my wife wakes me up in a panic, "There is someone in our backyard!", she says. I go and look through the blinds and see a flashlight in my yard. I call 911, grab one of my handguns and wait for the police to arrive while watching the guy in my yard. It's Gilbert and not much happens crime wise so within minutes what seems like the whole police force is in my yard, guns drawn, getting these two dudes out into the street with their hands up. The guys are freaking out because they can't speak English and none of the cops can speak Spanish. Finally, the get a cop who is bilingual and the guys are able to tell him they are workers coming to work on my pool. The GC had meant 10PM that night. So it was fine, but those dudes may have shit themselves. lol. Sorry fellas, my bad.

Make sure to include a shed out back for the dead hookers.

I feel ya, scho

I have zero handyman skills, and that is no exaggeration. If I want it done, I either have to have the money to outsource it or it doesn't get done. The bitch of it all is that my Dad (may he RIP) and 2 brothers are both HIGHLY skilled in this area. While they were off building shit, I was out playing baseball, basketball or football - which have provided a sum total of jackshit for me since the age of 18. :(

Are the hired remodelers as cute and sexy as they are on HGTV?

I'm considering building an addition onto my home, and it comes with big pros and cons. I love thinking through the design and picking out fixtures and stuff, but living through the construction is a nightmare. (I've done a complete rehab of my home over the years, so I have real-life experience living amidst construction.) I'm hoping that an addition would be a lot easier than my previous projects, because maybe we could just keep it closed off until it's done, and then have a ceremonial removal of the plastic tarp. I suspect it won't be that easy, though. And now that I think about it, it would also need to involve redoing the space that is currently our kitchen. So yeah, it would be a nightmare.

But wow, it would be so awesome when it's done.

And I would do none of the work myself. If I try to hammer a nail, there are explosions and fires. That stuff is not in my wheelhouse.

I'm pretty sure they are.

In one of my remodeling projects, the rastafarian wood stripper got into a fistfight on my front lawn with the stoner drywaller, and the police had to be called.

Hope you get that sweet breakfast nook

Does your home have a garage and/or curbs?

Did you wear leggings when mounting the cabinets, Scho?

The garage has will have wall to wall carpet.

I did the kitchen in the last house/

Sheet rock, floor, plumbing. The only thing I did not do is hang the cabinets.

NEVER AGAIN.

Good luck Scho. You earned it.

Hahaha. I would pay good money to watch that TV show.

Bruh, I feel you. Me and the wifey tore out the carpet and padding in two rooms and replaced it with vinyl linoleum sheet (a couple of dogs we got required potty training and thoroughly violated the carpet in those two rooms). We did all the work ourselves and just that kicked our asses. I can't imagine doing a full house. I'm getting too old for that shit.

We just tore out our old master bath tub and small standup shower and replaced it with a full custom walk-in shower.

I paid for 100% of that job to be done by someone other than me.

#feelsgood

I finished my basement myself. Neighbor did his for $50 grand. Mine was less than $10k. Can’t justify paying someone that much to do my shit. The basement looks as good if not better than the rest of the house that “professionals” did anyway.

As I sit, taking a shit, in my 70% remodeled main bathroom I pity you.


**** REMODELING!

HGTV is the source of 90% of my home projects, or wich about 30% have been necessary.

I Am at the point in my life on certain things I just pay the man. I’m handy but time is handier. I can live with chaos and bossing contractors.

Did you take advantage of the Christina Across America deal?

I designed mine and had most of it built in 2017, so I don’t anticipate a remodel ever. Most of my work has and will be outdoor stuff, which I enjoy. Large deck out front has hosted a lot of bands and handles a 5-piece comfortably. I’m paused on the tiki bar off to the side, but it’s got a roof and is mostly framed. It’s just me and a dog, so I don’t need much. I don’t miss the idea of another remodel.

WTF is that?

I'll pay you $30k to do my basement. Win-win.

I've done a handful of small DIY projects. It ain't my forte. At all.

I’d never be able to wash the Denver stink out of my hair.

Should've hired some of these capable handywomen. They'd have had it done in no time, and under budget.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-theme="dark"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’ll break her the news �� <a href="https://t.co/y0TJNvUvVe">pic.twitter.com/y0TJNvUvVe</a></p>&mdash; FigManFlex (@FigManFlex) <a href="https://twitter.com/FigManFlex/status/1900823943940100179?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

We had an addition, larger than the original house, added to ours when it was still our second home before retiring.

The downside was that we were 11 hours away while the work was going on and the highly recommended contractor had a memory shorter than my Johnson. Many things were not done as we specified and he had never heard the saying "the customer is always right." It was a horrible experience even though we love the addition minus his errors.

Just in the past few months, they have cost us over $10,000 to get right. It was hard for me to imagine paying $7200 to have the water heater, water tank and water softener moved to the correct location allowing handicap access. Another $3000 to replace a support beam that had not been properly protected from the weather with metal flashing completely covering it that rotted out.

If the hail storm/tornado hadn't happened to require the siding replacement, we probably wouldn't have known about it until the whole thing came crashing down.

This week on Street Beefs!

I have completely remodeled the 2 houses I’ve bought the last 16 years.

I am in construction so it’s no biggie, but the 2 things I didn’t touch were the drainage system and mudding.

The drain system for obvious reasons and I just never learned to mud. Weird. I probably enjoy electrical the most.

I've been involved in remodels, and though it usually looks great at the end, it always takes longer than expected and most home owners are like just give me my house back already.

It can be a taxing process for sure.

I redid my bathroom. Nothing crazy. New shower, new tile floor, washlet bidet, ..... But I cannot find a vanity that I want.

I'm going to have to order the bottom
Order the top, find the sinks that I want and faucet.

It's a small space for a master bathroom...

I've given up for a while until I have the energy to go look for one again.

Did you make it zero entry or small curb to step over?

I'm doing the bathroom next and need to find a reliable contractor who can do a zero entry shower that drains correctly.

I will have a complete wet room with nothing touching the floor, including a wall mounted toilet and floating vanity.

They wanted $7000 to sheetrock our new garage, so I bought a sheetrock jack and scaffold and hung the 84 sheets myself on a week of vacation in 2013. Wouldn't want to attempt that now.

Wouldn't want to attempt that now, sold both of them.

Working on my second complete remodel. Bought our current house in 2008 (right before the correction and recession). It was a foreclosure and needed just about everything. Previous owner was a house-flipper and had done everything on the cheap. Hired out Hvac and electrical but have done most of everything else myself: new bathroom with a claw foot tub and a warm floor (where it used to be a bedroom); theater room with sounding proofing on the floor and walls (used to be the garage); new kitchen floor (tile), island, and refinished cabinets; laid and nailed in a wood floor as well. In the yard, put up a privacy fence and got rid of all the landscaping fabric (that shit kills your soil), 4 raised bed gardens, deck addition and repair of older, water-damaged side; and an underdeck ceiling. That's a partial list.

Seventeen years later, and about ten or so neglecting upkeep, we're looking to sell, so I'm back at it: last year did the exterior, which was mostly dealing with the wet rot on sills and trim and putting up fresh paint. I left the high trim for this year. Bought a 28' foot ladder last year to do the work but haven't been up it yet. Climbing that ladder at 68 years old is a bit more intimidating than it was even at 50.

Been working on the interior this winter: painted the entire interior (2500 sq feet); just finished two minor bathroom remodels (new stick down floors, refinished vanities with new tops); and restored the finish on all the doors, trim, and baseboards. Just have to replace the tile in the entryway and finish up outside, and we're ready to put it on the market.

Also have a second home that our daughter and family have been living in for the last ten years. Deal was that they would put in the time, get some sweat equity into it, and take any gains when it was time to sell. Instead, they've trashed it. So, that deal is no longer. Purchased it for 60 grand and it is valued at 200 right now, if it were to have been updated instead of trashed. Hopefully, they will be out before the end of year, and I'll be working on another remodel. We are moving out of state (in K.C. now) but will keep the trashed house for a home base to visit the grandkids and work on it slowly.

About our next move (to Michigan to be near our son), I've told the wife: no more fixer-uppers. I'm done. We'll see.

Pay other people to do all the hard things in your life.

Rule #1

I've remodeled so much of my house, and still have a couple very large projects to do, i should have my own HGTV show...

Hanging drywall isn't too bad, just have to know your limits.

There's a dude around here that looks like he's wearing shoulder pads under his t-shirt (he's not) that single arm presses a single sheet of 5/8" 8x4 onto the ceiling and screws it with the other hand.

He's just a man. Straight-up MAN.

Flippers are the worst. They do nothing but waste homebuyers' money.

Shortcuts everywhere.

The quickest way to check if it’s a flipped home is the trim work. If there is more silicone than wood that’s just the beginning.

Bathroom tile is best way. The cuts, the layout, the straightness, the grout lines. I've seen some abortions on flipped properties including some of the TV shows on HGTV.

It's been decades since I've been a homebuyer, but I remember being annoyed by bathroom vanities and fixtures. We'd go into a house that wasn't cheap, and the bathroom would have the absolute cheapest vanity and faucet possible. Any homebuyer would immediately pull it out and replace it. Even though it wasn't a huge waste of money, it was a big indicator that the flipper was not thinking about quality at all. I would never buy a house from a flipper, and you can tell when they've been involved.

There are MILLIONS of bathroom vanities online of all styles, colors and sizes.

I must have looked at 100,000 different ones.

I do a very specific Google search, then when the results pop up I changed to Images selection from All along the top and start scrolling.

Yep. Another sign is the gray VCT plank. Some of it’s good, a lot of it is trash.

Check around the door casing to see if they took the 30 seconds to undercut or if they just jammed it in and caulked. Same with toilets.

i've done remodels all my married life, i'm your age too.
did the whole west end of the house last year, took a sunner break, and did the east end of the house this last winter. just finished up a few weeks ago. always always worth it after done, no its not like HGTV but its kinda fun.
have fun finishing yours and good luck man !

One of the most annoying spokespeople ever. She was on Flip or flop and so ****ing high maintenance.

Her Jacuzzi commercial is an uptalking disaster.

Did you know that most showers have 300 linear feet of grout?

“I had no idea?”

You supposedly made a fortune by flipping houses but had no idea how much grout is in a bathroom?

New 5 panel solid prehung, interior door for my walk-in bedroom closet arrived from Home Depot and is now lying on the floor in the box taking up more space.

I got rid of a lot of small boxes from all new lights, (9) total plus other things like my 3M whole home water filtration system. but still shit all over in boxes including shelves, my bedframe, desk, my hanging night tables, door handles and everything from my bedroom.

Still have to do a reframe of my utility closet, sheetrock-tape and-knockdown, one entire wall of white oak panels in a unique pattern I designed, paint, do the trim, and then lay down the rug, then do the custom closet.

I have a new LG fridge and LG stackable washer/dryer coming in late April.

I hope to be done by Mid May at the latest. This will have taken 6 months to do everything. Way too long.

When I do the bathroom next, I will have all the items needed stored at the house before the contractor begins and need it done in a week. There will be no shower door or glass door to worry about water marks. All items off the floor so it will be easy to keep clean.

Difficult to do all this while living in a small place. :(

I think she is on her third marriage. Who could stand to be around her?

She is divorcing hubby #3.

Her voice and speech cadence as a high talker is so ****ing annoying.

High maintenance bitch.

<a href="https://imgflip.com/i/9o1eix"><img src="https://i.imgflip.com/9o1eix.jpg" title="made at imgflip.com"/></a>

That voice is annoying.