Go fig. The moldy old house is in Tullamore.
2 Likes
6 Likes
Granted, this is a highly desirably located neighborhood, in which folks will kill to own.
8 Likes
Nah. I try to keep a low profile online. No videos. Plus I think it would’ve destroyed my marriage to follow my spouse around with a camera during the remodel.
Reuse will save you massive money. But I also spent a year with a (sparkling new) toilet in the back bedroom. I live in the kind of neighborhood where people stack up rusting car carcasses in the yard. No one says peep about the kitchen sink and tube of marmolium sitting under the carport. But for the smaller things like the new to me vintage sink, shower pan, and sheetrock, it was worthwhile to step around it in the house for a few months. You can squirrel away a lot under the bed, too. With the ongoing supply chain issues, you will likely need to spend some time and space gathering materials before you start.
Labor costs can be a big savings, but the knowledge and skill base you need for it to not look like garbage is high. Plus tools, so many tools. There will also be times of desperation where you will cut corners just to have the damn thing done. Some former neighbors hire a retired contractor to help them with bits if their ongoing remodel and I think if you have such connections, it’s the best way to manage it.
This was a rotting wall issue in a house with only one bathroom, so we just powered through. I would not recommend this method for anyone in a less dire situation.
That said, if the local reuse place has online listings check them often. If you have a friend or family doing a build, ask them for leftovers. They won’t use all that water membrane and it’s $150 a bucket. And maybe settle on the boring tile. Once I gave in on my dream tile, we found an open box for like $20, plus $8 for some other tile to go around the new window.
2 Likes
Oh, absolutely. A very large portion of what ends up in reuse stores is extras left over from a professional bulk buy. No body really wants to spend $2,000 on tile if they can avoid it.
2 Likes
jeez. where’s the gatekeeping police when you need them…
2 Likes
I get what you’re saying, and there are folks complaining in Philly about what appears in your first image - blocks of similar older homes broken up by additions or modern structures that are much taller. It’s even more jarring in homes with shared walls like rowhouses. However, I’ve seen homes where the contrast between the exterior and interior (or a mix of old and new décor) made it more interesting. Personally, I was wishing more of the exterior elements of the stone house in the video would’ve been evident on the inside, but if the owner likes it, who am I to judge? 
4 Likes
Most likely, they weren’t. And that’s the problem.
I’ve realized that an awful lot of people, apparently including most DIY builders, are really bad at planning ahead, and may skip it entirely.
6 Likes
I’ve never planned a head.
But then, I’ve never built a boat.
8 Likes
(Never had the pirate’s hat work so well as part of the gif!)
9 Likes
Having recently built a divider wall in an old house with tall ceilings, I’ll bet I can guess why. Standard drywall sheets are 8’ tall when stood upright. You can get them up to 10’ tall if your local building supply place stocks them. But if the ceiling is taller than 10’ or if the folks doing the work didn’t want to bother getting non-standard sheets, someone probably didn’t want to do the little bit of extra drywall work trying to add extra height and clean up the seams.
In my case I got the 10’ drywall pieces but the length did make it a little harder to get them home.
2 Likes
I’m well aware of standard drywall dimensions. I guess the sarcasm didn’t come through. The answer to “what were they thinking?” is almost always, “it’s not worth it to me to do it right.” And in our case, “easier to do it wrong and create a rodent haven than to do it right.”
All those accessible wall cavities…ugh.
5 Likes
I just don’t think lovely old homes should be gutted and made hypermodren inside. It’s like cracking an egg and finding no yolk inside, only white.
There are plenty of new builds that will satisfy those with modern tastes - like that vertical shoebox above which someone built in our historic 'hood - so why mangle something old with lots of character?
1 Like
Well some people DO just think that this is good and desirable. It is a valid design approach. And what others want to do is not up to you.
You’re applying an awful lot of constraints to the purchases or remodels that other people do without knowing anything about them or their market. I like modern styling but definitely could not “just go buy one of those modern boxes”. It took three years to find anything I could afford in an okay neighborhood and I was lucky to get it. I’ll remodel it however I damn well want, thanks.
4 Likes
If it was easier to emigrate to Japan, I feel like people would be all over this. Old houses are really undesired and if you’re willing to live one one, they can be had for a steal. With the population shifting to the urban areas there are a lot of uninhabited homes just slowly rotting into the ground in small towns. If it goes uninhabited for something like ten years the government will knock it to the ground and hand you the bill.
It took some doing to convince the owners to rent to non Japanese, but we rented a whole house for half the cost of our two LDK apartment. Plus it had a few mini workshops on the property.
We renovated the place since I’m pretty sure the last thing that lived there was a pack of raccoons, and the prior inhabitants did not do a good job of taking care of the place. Nobody wants to live in a showa era mud walled house, but you can fix it up with not too much effort.
Sadly DIY isn’t much of a thing so you’re limited to six colors of paint at the hardware store, but it’s a small price to pay for more space and less rent.
2 Likes
Which part of Japan did you rent in?
:Sigh: My wife and I are looking at buying a house not too far from Tokyo in the not too distant future, and she refuses to even entertain the notion of buying a used house even though it would save us about 1/3 to buy even a house built this century.
3 Likes
I’ve lived in a few places, but the mud walled house was way down in Nagasaki prefecture. We used our connections with the little old ladies in town to get our foot in the door
1 Like
