What's Your Favorite Home Remodel Project?

mau February 28, 2012 at 09:50 pm

None. Our house has been a state of turmoil for well over 5 years. The entire inside of our prefab house was paneled. We are going room by room and stripping them down to the studs and then dry-walling. We went on hiatus after remodeling both baths. We haven't finished the shower yet. I cringe thinking about having to start up again. We are about 1/2 done with the house. We still have drywall stored in the living room for our next project.

Janine Anderson (Editor) February 28, 2012 at 09:59 pm

Oh no! My home office, which is a fabulous place to work these days, was covered in three layers of paneling, a drop ceiling, fluorescent lights, nasty old carpeting and had only a very tiny horizontal window in one wall. We've redone just about every room in the house (about one per year) over the years.

mau February 28, 2012 at 10:13 pm

We were holding off on getting new appliances in the kitchen and fixing the kitchen sink. We were saving that for last which would be in a couple years. Then the oven door broke on my 40 year old stove. That set in motion a temporary fix which ended up with a new stove, refrigerator and my son redoing the kitchen plumbing. It was actually a blessing that the oven door broke. We experimented with putting fiberglass panels on the wall around the stove, like they use in commercial kitchens. If it holds up nice for the next couple years we may use that on the wall behind the sink too.
Sorry to say I am much too embarassed to show before pictures :)

James R Hoffa February 28, 2012 at 10:56 pm

The first big project I'd like to tackle would be restoring/enclosing my barn so that I can finally move all of my cars out of my parents' pole barn and into my barn!
I'm sure that my parents would also appreciate seeing this project get done as soon as possible! Hopefully this summer - that is if I don't move first!

Craig February 28, 2012 at 11:27 pm

It all started while looking at model homes. My wife fell in love with one of the houses, and I saw an opportunity to copy the look.
My biggest remodel project would be relocating the kitchen to a different part of the house ( family room ). We combined our living, dining and old kitchen into a great room. This went quite smoothly because we were never without a kitchen, at one time we had two. The whole project involved removing 30 feet of load bearing wall, and incorporating a laminated beam in the attic to avoid the appearance of a remodel. (this avoided the use of a typical header) We now have a large kitchen with a fireplace, and a very spacious great room. The whole project took me less than 4 weeks, of which I used my vacation time. It was still an expensive project, but it sure beat building a new house and having a new mortgage. I regret not taking before and after pictures, was too busy trying to get the job done.

Sofia Reino February 28, 2012 at 11:32 pm

We bought a beautiful home 4 years ago. It is a tri-level built in 66 and was very much babied throughout the years. We have slowly been updating it to the 21st century yet trying as much as possible to keep its original charm.

$$andSense February 29, 2012 at 01:51 am

Kitchens and bathroms are the best investment. A long standing axiom
Hoffa has the same problem my brothers do, too many cars. But they let me drive them from time to time so I cannot criticize.

J. B. Schmidt February 29, 2012 at 02:59 am

I am currently in the midst of the Kitchen remodel. We had a 1970's cabinets with an awkward peninsula and impossible corner cabinets. Doing complete DIY. Got cabinets from IKEA, counter tops from Menards, eliminating the peninsula to create an island and labor painfully supplied by my own hands. It will look good when done and will come in under $4000. With 4 kids under 10, I don't need anything fancy they will break. I need cheap and easy to clean. Swedish made all the way.
Personally I love DIY projects, until I start them.

Heather Asiyanbi (Editor) February 29, 2012 at 01:46 pm

@J.B. - I know what you mean about DIY! Sounds awesome, even through demo ... and then comes putting it all back together. OY! We did our son's room a year after moving in because it was designed as a "castle" for a 5-yo and he was 14 at the time. We tore the styrofoam "bricks" off the drywall (yes, they were glued directly on), stripped and repainted most of the woodwork because they'd been painted with something mixed in to look like stone, ripped out the "stone" floor and put in carpet. Luckily, the walls were all painted a color much like sand, but to customize the look a bit more for our young man, we painted two walls a deep, dark teal color that is a vibrant shade that has most of the light sucked out of it (if that makes sense). Now, it looks like a young man's room and not a child's and when our son moves out on his own, the colors will stand for a few years yet.