# Working on your own house!



## English Roofer (Dec 26, 2008)

Do any of you work on your own house(i don't just mean decorating) i have just brought this house and we had to tear down the garage(a leaking sewer pipe under mined the foundations of the wall) and rebuild it from scratch, i have changed the flat roof in to a pitch one and used 2nd hand slates on the roof to match the main roof, the next plan is to re-roof the main house when funds allow.
Cheers
Dave


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## shazapple (Dec 3, 2010)

Very nice house. How old is it? The sun porch is very neat!

At the moment I'm installing basebaords (real ones, not those fake things you see nowadays). My 'general contractor' has degreed that our addition will be starting this summer, so I'll be elbow deep in that.


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## Grumpy (Oct 29, 2008)

Nice looking house. 

I have a list of things to do but no money to do them. I do what I can myself and hire professionals to do what I don't feel comfortable doing or don't have the time to do.


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## dougger222 (Aug 13, 2010)

We've done a fair amount of work to the rental and the primary home.

When we lived in the rental my wife and I did,
250ft of cedar fence and 200ft of chain link fence. Never did fencing in my life and after I did it became friends with the neighbor who's done fencing for 15 years, he said overall it turned out ok. We use gravel for the footing for the cedar fence and concreet for the chain link fence. Took about a week to do from start to finish, saved about $5,000 in labor.

We tore apart the upstairs bathroom and made it 5ft bigger my taking up a closet. Everything got replaced except the tub, turned out nice had about $5,000 it, again saved about $5,000 in labor.

My wife over two Summers transformed the back yard into a landscaped/garden masterpiece. She put up several arbors, ponds, patio's, etc. She had a few of her brothers and myself help with a few rock loads but other than that 95% of the work she did herself. She had about $4K in materials and for a landscape pro to do the labor it would have cost a ton of money. To be honest was shocked how nice it turned out. It was very comparible to what you would see behind a half million dollar house with a big landscape budget.

Had some extra materials off a few jobs so roofed the house and detached garage. The roof at the time was perfectly good just got sick of looking at white three tabs.

On the current home we bought a couple years we finished off the main level bathroom. It was just a plywood/sheetrock plumbed in room when we started. When finished we had $7K into it and we get compliments by everyone who sees it. We subbed out quite a bit of other things on the house such as the two sided fire place in the master that's getting close to being done.

One thing for sure is if you act as GC it may take a tad longer than hiring a GC but you save quite a bit of money in the process.

My brother in law used to buy very cheap rental homes and go through and replace everything. Some he'd buy for $15K and in 6 months turn around and sell them for $100K. He had a ton of money and work into them but always turned a profit.


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## English Roofer (Dec 26, 2008)

shazapple said:


> Very nice house. How old is it? The sun porch is very neat!
> 
> At the moment I'm installing basebaords (real ones, not those fake things you see nowadays). My 'general contractor' has degreed that our addition will be starting this summer, so I'll be elbow deep in that.


Thanks Shazapple, it was built in the late 20's, it has some family history on my wifes side, it was once owned by her Gran and Granfather on her dads side around 30 odd years ago so when it came up for sale it was a must!
Cheers
Dave 



Grumpy said:


> Nice looking house.
> 
> I have a list of things to do but no money to do them. I do what I can myself and hire professionals to do what I don't feel comfortable doing or don't have the time to do.


Thanks Grumpy ,im in the same boat as you know,iv'e not got any money left and alot to do, so its a long term job, its what they call a forever house so i wont be moving again any time soon!!
Cheers
Dave


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## English Roofer (Dec 26, 2008)

Hi Dougger, sounds like you can turn your hand to most things!: well done
thumbup:
Cheers
Dave

P.S. Sounds like your wife is handy too!


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## MGP Roofing (Mar 23, 2010)

I just did my big move last week. I had the block of land since 06, started the carport/workshop late last summer. I will finish it this summer. I first got offered this house nearly 3 years ago by a contractor who I do a bit of work for, who wants to build a new house on his property. It took a while for him to get the architects/finance/council sorted, but anyway here it is. The main roof is around 5 years old, the lean to at left has about a 1 year old roof (I helped the previous owner replace it after the ceiling nearly came down in a bad rainstorm!), the office roof is nearly shot, so I will replace the rusted steel with the leftover shingles from the garage roof. Near new wc and bathroom that only need a little touch up of cracks from the move, the rest of the house needs redecorating. Oh, and recent carpet and blinds throughout. Its a work in progress, I hope to have it ready to live in early in the New Year.:thumbup:


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## Interloc (Apr 6, 2009)

whats the guy doing in pic 3?...pushing the truck?


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## MGP Roofing (Mar 23, 2010)

Interloc said:


> whats the guy doing in pic 3?...pushing the truck?


He's directing the driver so that the wheels miss the storm water catch pit in the partly built road. We had to use a narrow crossing point over a stormwater soakage trench that runs down centre of the road in the new subdivision behind my property.


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