Moxie Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 We needed a big house and this one was a steal in a great neighborhood. We thought we could be happy fixing it up over the next 10 years but, 3 years in, we've done all the cheap stuff. There are so many things that will cost a fortune and some that we can probably never fix and just, ugh. I need my home to be beautiful and this one is so far from it. It just occurred to me, today, that I will not be sad when it is time to downsize from this house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoutingmom Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Sorry, it is a pain to be in a house you don't want. Â Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustEm Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I hate my house and hate that dh bought it right before we started dating so I had no say in a house o am stuck in and hate! The only perk is that it is less than a mile from dh's work. Â I also refuse to move until we can move into a house I like. I don't need to love it and it doesn't need to be beautiful but it does need to have a few specific things. One major thing is it needs to be super close to dh's work as well or else I will just deal with this place until he's retired Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mimm Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I hate my house. I try to be content and not focus on the things I hate about it but if I'm really honest, I can't wait to move. We are working toward paying off debt, paying off our van, saving up some money and then we'll be able to move. I'm hoping and praying it'll be in a couple years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtomom Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I'm sorry you feel stuck in home you don't want. Â We have things here that I wish we could afford to do as well, but we did the major things I needed to be ok in the home within the first year here. We actually bought "down" so we could afford that, because I had a similar to you stuck feeling in our first home. It was never going to be ok with me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2OandE Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I'm not crazy about our house but it checked a lot of boxes (even if I don't like how it checked the boxes) when we bought it. Fortunately, we bought when foreclosures were happening and now we have a lot of equity. We are in the process of refinancing to remodel. I think after that we will enjoy our house a lot more even if it isn't our dream home. In 6 years or so we hope to sell and find our next home and I hope that will be our dream home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marbel Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I hate my house too. Really there is nothing good about it. It's in a safe neighborhood, that's about all I can say.  My husband and I were stunned by how run down and ugly the kitchen was when we moved in. We both looked at the house before we bought it, and were OK with it, but the day we moved in (4 months later), we were like, ugh, how did we not notice this? We haven't had the $$ to fix it up. Hoping to do it before it's time to move to the next house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarbecueMom Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I love my house...when I close my eyes and pretend I've just spent the $50,000+ inheritance from relatives that I didn't know (so I'm not sad that they're dead) on the contractor that fixed everything in the house to perfection. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runningmom80 Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Hate mine too, we'll hopefully be out this time next year. Â I'll join the pity party. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeghansMom Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I like the floor plan of my house and the location. I like that our landlord is fantastic about repairing things! I like our elderly neighbors. I love that our landlord allowed us to keep our pets! I do not like that there are no children Meghan's age to play with her. I do not like the woods literally out our backyard and one of the sides. (we do have a large front yard though) I wish the bathrooms were nicer/updated. Â Okay I don't own but I don't think I ever will at this rate. :( 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 We needed a big house and this one was a steal in a great neighborhood. We thought we could be happy fixing it up over the next 10 years but, 3 years in, we've done all the cheap stuff. There are so many things that will cost a fortune and some that we can probably never fix and just, ugh. I need my home to be beautiful and this one is so far from it. It just occurred to me, today, that I will not be sad when it is time to downsize from this house. Â Â I feel your pain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I need my home to be beautiful and this one is so far from it. It just occurred to me, today, that I will not be sad when it is time to downsize from this house. Â If your house was beautiful, you'd have to police your kids constantly to prevent them from messing it up. An ugly house makes it easier to accept the inevitable scratches and stains that accumulate with kids. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILiveInFlipFlops Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) I'm right there with you, except we'll probably never move from this house *sigh*. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for this house, and I know so many people have less. I try to remember that. But the paper-thin walls, the frustrating lack of storage space, the crummy layout, the tiny windows, the 1960s-era kitchen with NO counter space that we're never going to have the money to update, the bilevel/worst-of-both-worlds design, the ants... Ugh.  We chose this house because it was in a decent school system, and because it was the closest we could get to our jobs and still be able to afford more than a shoebox. However, within a year, I was working from home and DH was doing outside sales in a totally different part of the state. If we'd any idea those changes were in our future, we'd have had so many more options! Edited April 25, 2016 by ILiveInFlipFlops Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartlikealion Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) We were planning on moving this summer to what we thought would be an upgrade... a second bathroom and a dishwasher! But then we discovered it is less bedrooms. So, we are staying here. We are trying to look on the bright side and thinking of how we can make it better work for us. We might even invest in a dishwasher later this year, but I don't want a portable one so we'll see. Â I hope you can find a way to make your home work better for you. We're concentrating on decluttering. Edited April 25, 2016 by heartlikealion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I'm right there with you, except we'll probably never move from this house *sigh*. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for this house, and I know so many people have less. I try to remember that. But the paper-thin walls, the frustrating lack of storage space, the crummy layout, the tiny windows, the 1960s-era kitchen with NO counter space that we're never going to have the money to update, the bilevel/worst-of-both-worlds design, the ants... Ugh.  We chose this house because it was in a decent school system, and because it was the closest we could get to our jobs and still be able to afford more than a shoebox. However, within a year, I was working from home and DH was doing outside sales in a totally different part of the state. If we'd any idea those changes were in our future, we'd have had so many more options!   Paper thin walls.  Don't get me started.  Our bedroom and our son's bedroom connect and you can hear people breathing in the next room.  It is just so, so bad.   1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILiveInFlipFlops Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) Paper thin walls.  Don't get me started.  Our bedroom and our son's bedroom connect and you can hear people breathing in the next room.  It is just so, so bad.     My biggest issue is that, from the living room, you can hear everything that goes on in both bathrooms (and one is downstairs!). No privacy whatsoever. And no matter how low we keep the TV at night, youngest DD can hear everything that happens in the living room.  Again, I try to be grateful. But this is not exactly the forever house I envisioned for us, especially once the work situation resolved itself. And I would love love love to move to lower COL area. But DH will never move from here, so it is what it is. Edited April 25, 2016 by ILiveInFlipFlops 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I am sorry. Â Can you just do ONE room? So that you can feel the love and imagine the house when all the rooms are done? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebcoola Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Purple Double Wide that's all I need to say the only good thing is its cheap. Â Can't wait to be out. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammi K Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Hugs. I feel for you. We've done the 'fixer-up'er route. Unfortunately, although DH is handy and can do a lot of repair and maintenance, he also is a procrastinator so it seldom gets finished until we are ready to sell.  While we were house hunting for our last house, my husband told the realtor, "We would be happy with a house in need of repair. I know Tammi would agree with that, " to which Tammi firmly replied, "No, she absolutely WOULD NOT be okay with that! If it's a fixer-upper don't bother showing me because I will walk out."  I think DH was a little surprised by my vehemence but after 25 years of marriage I was tired of living in a house that wold look good 'some day'.   More hugs to you. I get it.    3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoutingmom Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 One word. Mold  Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaKinVA Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I'm so sorry...that has to be difficult. Â I do understand. Â We purchased our 2nd home, I liked it, except that it needed some major updating, which we started (moving the washer/dryer out of the kitchen and into the utility room off the eating nook, for example). Â I hated that we never got to finish fixing it up. Â I hated cooking in the kitchen while we waited to get the money to fix it up. Â The stove/oven was right in front of the doorway, and the dishwasher opened up into the space in front of the sink. Â Re-wiring and re-plumbing were not going to be that expensive, but replacing the cabinets held us back. Â I like the floor plan of my current house, but hate the lack of built in storage. Â Having to purchase temporary storage kind of stinks... Â I'm fairly certain when we move back to the states, we'll be getting a major fixer-upper. Â I'm both looking forward to the design challenge, and dreading the time investment and actual work. But, I lived in a basement for 10 years, with one bathroom...so my level of tolerance for crappy housing situations has pretty much been set kind of high. Â It doesn't mean I LIKE crappy housing situations, though. Â They are still very frustrating and get on my nerves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I love my house. I just hate living in it, not affording everything that needs to be done to it, and having it in a gated community. Â That's all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I like my house ok, but I don't like the location. Â I really, really want to move closer to town. Â And we had planned to do just that by May of 2016. Â Well, next week is May, 2016 and we are considering staying after all. Â Moving to the city is far more expensive than we thought. Â Taxes are $2400/year more for starters. Â Water bills and electric bills are higher, by about $100/mo. Â Â And to get a house even somewhat close to what we have in size, add $100K to the cost. Â UGH. Â Â We are just going to make it work here for at least 6 years, so youngest can get through high school. Â He will be going to the local Jr. High next year. Â Thankfully it is ranked top in our entire metro area. Â Â And you know what I HATE the most? Â Our stupid kitchen! Â We hired someone to paint the cabinets, which I did only because the realtor told us to. Â He botched the entire job and the paint is HORRIBLE. Â I hate painted cabinets. Â Â If I had known we were staying, I would have just gotten new cabinets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I'm another house hater. Dh bought this house quite a few years before we met. He bought it for the property - we are in a very quiet neighborhood, on a river, very wooded lot, no close neighbors - not easy to get in NJ if you want to be close to jobs. He always planned to tear down the house and rebuild but it wasn't a priority when it was him and his two dogs. Then we got married and I came with one kid. Then we were pregnant within two weeks of the wedding, then dd came along. We were two weeks from tearing it down (bulldozers were scheduled) and he was laid off from his job, where he had three years left on a contract so that shouldn't have been a concern at all.  We are in a safe neighborhood, and it is quiet and peaceful, very good schools if that should ever be a concern (I guess it was for oldest dd). But those are the only things good about it. It's a 1940's summer bungalow.  Dh did upgrade the bathroom and kitchen when he moved in and he had to remove the propane wall heaters and upgrade the glass circuit electrical system. But those upgrades are over 20 years old at this point.  We made some changes to the inside of the house like new insulation in the kids' rooms, walls built in the corner of what was a very large living room so we'd have a private bedroom, took out some windows. But it needs a lot more. The windows and walls are still drafty, the floor is a cracking concrete slab, the kitchen has 3 feet of countertop and NO lower cabinets, the siding is ugly, stained and warped in places (and the spots where windows were removed are bare wood), and at the moment the roof leaks so has a tarp over it.  We live in a town with building regulations stricter than the state and because we are on a river, we need DEP approval for most renovations. It makes everything more expensive, more involved, and more tedious. We have some ideas for simple renovations that will make it more livable but we have to wait until we can pay cash for them.  If we move, we'd have to go far away from jobs to get anything better for similar money and right now we are 4 miles from dh's job so that's not going to happen.  The only thing that could possible make the house better anytime soon, is for us to stick the kids in school, and I return to work so we can use my salary on the house. And that's not going to happen because the kids education is more important at this point.  Even our furniture and carpeting are crappy at this point but we won't buy new until the kids are a little older and our puppy learns some manners. Maybe in the next year we can at least do something about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amy g. Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 We had a house that I LOVED! It was my favorite style with plenty of room in a good neighborhood with a pool and a tiny mortgage payment. I never wanted to leave. I never felt like my kids had to be super careful in that house, in fact I often had tons of neighbor kids over as well. Â Every time that house flooded, I fixed it more and more closely to my idea of perfection. Then it flooded one time too many and we would no longer be able to buy flood insurance if we didn't sell it to the county so they could tear it down. Â When we moved, we bought for the location and the acerage. The house has enough room, but it is nothing special. I intended to do some work to make it more enjoyable, but never got around to it until we found out we were moving. Â We redid the kitchen and flooring and painted inside and out, planted flowers as well as sending a bunch of extra stuff to storage. Wow! What a difference. I wish I had made these changes a decade ago. I agree with the advice to pick one room and make it super nice. Â We are moving to an area with a much higher cost of living. I resigned myself to having much less house. Â The stars seem to have aligned though and we have a contract on a house that is the stuff my house dreams are made of. If everything goes as planned, we get the keys in 2 weeks. Â Inventory there is super low, so if we hit a snag on this deal, I will need to get a house that is functional, but that I don't like. I tell myself that I will be happy in a house that is filled with my stuff and my people. I would just have to start with inexpensive items like paint and curtains and start setting up some areas in a way that bring me joy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Hate our house, but love the location so I don't want to move. So many repairs, so little money. Our house seems to have been built by the 3 Stooges (nothing level, crazy-cheap materials, corners cut). We've been slowly chipping away at just bringing it up to standard, not even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mergath Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I love our home and its location. I hate that it's a month-to-month rental. If our landlord decides at any time he wants to, say, rent the place to one of his daughter's friends instead, we're out with thirty days notice. The rental market here has gotten really tight over the last six months too and we still have too much medical debt to qualify for a mortgage, so if that happens we'll most likely be homeless for several months.  It stresses me out. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 We live over the restaurant, which I hated at first but now it doesn't bother me at all. We need to do a ton of remodeling, which is a huge pain because this place has been remodeled by amateurs several times already. I had my dream house in Oregon, so I know that you can have your dream house and then it's not all its cracked up to be. In my case my dream house was too close to a busy road and had some terrible neighbors. Â As far as the OP, if you need your house to be beautiful, can you just make your master bedroom and another area beautiful? Like say a sheltered porch for entertaining or the dining room? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopmom Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I hate ours too, except it almost paid off, it's mostly self sufficient as far as utilities (solar panels & wood heat), so we can live here without worries even when finances are rough for any reason, I don't have to worry about returning to work. We purposefully bought it so only one of us would need to work. But we only has 2 kids then. Â But- it's WAY too small, crappy layout for the age spread of my kids, galley kitchen, lots of stuff done wrong, me too with the paper thin walls & floors, too far from town now that the kids are busy with activities... Â We started looking at bigger places but they are ridiculously expensive. Now we're going to try to add on 2 bedrooms instead. At least it will fix the space problem... So I'll have a bigger house that I hate, sigh. Â I try to remind myself to feel grateful we are not all living in a one room shack without running water. It helps, some. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) Ya know, I'm really sorry that you all hate your homes, but I have to admit to a little relief at hearing these stories. Â My house is waaaay too small for us, and rather cluttered up, and in a neighborhood that ebbs and flows in safety/crime rates/noise. Â We have other compensating good things about our situation, and I really can't complain, but I have realized from this thread that hearing so much about people remodeling and redecorating their homes has made this seem more abnormal than it probably really is. Edited April 25, 2016 by Carol in Cal. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terabith Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I hate our house here, too. I loved, loved, loved my house growing up and the house we owned in San Antonio. But we had to buy this one quickly and there wasn't much in our price range. I hate the house and now the neighborhood quality is crashing, too. It sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stratford Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Our house was a nice house for us when we bought it 8 years ago....we had 2 kids at that point. Â Add 2 more kids and it's just not a good fit for us anymore. Â Too many people and limited storage and not a lot of options for adding meaningful storage. Â We don't have the money to build an addition or finish the basement, and, with all the real estate fluctuations of the past few years, we're just now back to being not underwater. Â Selling won't be an option for some time. Â I hate feeling stuck. Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsWeasley Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I hate my house. It's a fixer upper, and I honestly feel like I'm drowning under the weight of home repairs I don't have the money or ability to fix. I often fantasize about just abandoning the property and letting it go into foreclosure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TianXiaXueXiao Posted April 26, 2016 Share Posted April 26, 2016 (edited) When we bought our house last August, I thought I was going to hate it because we really were just settling for a house that had no competing offers and was in our price range (low 200ks). Â I find that it has really grown on me. It's small and manageable. It has decent sized front and back yards. It's walking distance to stores, a park, and a nature preserve. It's quiet and doesn't smell too bad given that the former owner smoked. I only notice the leftover smoke scent every once in a while and fortunately burning incense is beginning to overpower the smell. Â It is strange that I like this house so much because nothing about it stood out as particularly charming. It's a very plain 1960s ranch. It's built solid but there are no nice touches of fine craftsmanship or the like. I am quite content in this boring brown little L-shaped box! Edited April 26, 2016 by TianXiaXueXiao 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimerinkydo Posted April 26, 2016 Share Posted April 26, 2016 (edited) I like the idea of making a room how you like it. Then you have one space you can go and let your brain sigh relief.  Can you create a small outdoor space that you love? If I move from this house I will miss my garden sitting area- it has no grass but I enjoy sitting in it in the evenings or looking out at it through the window. We have an above ground fire pit for bonfires surrounded by chairs and a table nearby to set food on. I strung globe lights from the house to the fence. A long garden box for vegetables, a climbing cecil brunner rose that blooms in the spring, a lemon tree, a fig tree, a small circle of bricks for herbs and flowers... It is a space that makes me feel happy. A space I can escape to in good weather when I'm sick of being in the house. Edited April 26, 2016 by skimerinkydo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted April 26, 2016 Share Posted April 26, 2016 Post pictures of your 3 most hated things. We'll come up with suggestions to make them prettier for cheap.  How comfortable are you with DIY? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TammyS Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Paper thin walls.  Don't get me started.  Our bedroom and our son's bedroom connect and you can hear people breathing in the next room.  It is just so, so bad.    We've had that, too. A few things you can do:  1. If you're handy, tear one of the walls off and add sound batting insulation. It's not really hard, though messy.  2. Hang a LARGE picture on the wall (either or both sides) with sound batting underneath of it.  3. Put some dense furniture on one or both sides of the wall (book cases, armoires, dressers, whatever). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sun Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 We had a house that I LOVED! It was my favorite style with plenty of room in a good neighborhood with a pool and a tiny mortgage payment. I never wanted to leave. I never felt like my kids had to be super careful in that house, in fact I often had tons of neighbor kids over as well. Â Every time that house flooded, I fixed it more and more closely to my idea of perfection. Then it flooded one time too many and we would no longer be able to buy flood insurance if we didn't sell it to the county so they could tear it down. Â When we moved, we bought for the location and the acerage. The house has enough room, but it is nothing special. I intended to do some work to make it more enjoyable, but never got around to it until we found out we were moving. Â We redid the kitchen and flooring and painted inside and out, planted flowers as well as sending a bunch of extra stuff to storage. Wow! What a difference. I wish I had made these changes a decade ago. I agree with the advice to pick one room and make it super nice. Â We are moving to an area with a much higher cost of living. I resigned myself to having much less house. Â The stars seem to have aligned though and we have a contract on a house that is the stuff my house dreams are made of. If everything goes as planned, we get the keys in 2 weeks. Â Inventory there is super low, so if we hit a snag on this deal, I will need to get a house that is functional, but that I don't like. I tell myself that I will be happy in a house that is filled with my stuff and my people. I would just have to start with inexpensive items like paint and curtains and start setting up some areas in a way that bring me joy. Â This. Absolutely this. In our last house, we did a bunch of things to get it ready to sell, and once we did, we wondered why on earth we hadn't done them while we lived there. It looked so much better after we'd effectively "staged" it. We'd painted, removed the hideous wallpaper borders, painted the baby-poop-colored cupboards (seriously--who would have chosen that paint color???), rearranged the furniture, and decluttered. I think we hung one piece of "art" (a mirror from TJ Maxx). It completely changed the character of the house. Â That taught me a lesson. When I'm dissatisfied with our current house, I look at it as if I were going to stage it for sale. I declutter, organize, and contemplate the changes I could make that wouldn't be too expensive. I had to live with a tiny 1980s kitchen and a bathroom with cracked 1950s tile for years here, but I had the rest of the house looking as nice as it could for the long years until we could remodel. It helped a lot. Â Like everyone else, I get it. But I hope that even though you've done the cheap fixes that maybe there are some things that would help you like your house more (short of a gut remodel!). For example, one of my favorite organizing blogs lives in a small, cookie-cutter home, but she's done so many things to that house that it would spark joy for me to visit, even though it's not my preferred style of architecture at all. Come on, ask us for help! The hive always loves to weigh in on those things! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 This. Absolutely this. In our last house, we did a bunch of things to get it ready to sell, and once we did, we wondered why on earth we hadn't done them while we lived there. It looked so much better after we'd effectively "staged" it. We'd painted, removed the hideous wallpaper borders, painted the baby-poop-colored cupboards (seriously--who would have chosen that paint color???), rearranged the furniture, and decluttered. I think we hung one piece of "art" (a mirror from TJ Maxx). It completely changed the character of the house. Â That taught me a lesson. When I'm dissatisfied with our current house, I look at it as if I were going to stage it for sale. I declutter, organize, and contemplate the changes I could make that wouldn't be too expensive. I had to live with a tiny 1980s kitchen and a bathroom with cracked 1950s tile for years here, but I had the rest of the house looking as nice as it could for the long years until we could remodel. It helped a lot. Â Like everyone else, I get it. But I hope that even though you've done the cheap fixes that maybe there are some things that would help you like your house more (short of a gut remodel!). For example, one of my favorite organizing blogs lives in a small, cookie-cutter home, but she's done so many things to that house that it would spark joy for me to visit, even though it's not my preferred style of architecture at all. Come on, ask us for help! The hive always loves to weigh in on those things! Well, I've already painted the kitchen cabinets. They were red (everything in this house was red--trim, light fixtures, vent covers, I'm not exaggerating, it is hideous). The kitchen is 70's original and needs gutted. All the walls have a layer of paper over the drywall. The paper is all peeling off. The only help for it is to pull the paper off and have it skim coated. We've done some of the rooms but not all. The backyard and garage flood. We spent $1500 to get it fixed and it only helped a little. The all brown (tub, toilet, tiles on all the walls) master bath has a leak in the tiles. We need to replace that bathroom and have the entire wall, from the upstairs to the basement, replaced because they had a water leak for SEVEN YEARS. The carpets are blue shag and gross and need replaced. The windows need replaced. On and on and on. Thanks for the offers but, really, it is a matter of $$$ right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Well, I've already painted the kitchen cabinets. They were red (everything in this house was red--trim, light fixtures, vent covers, I'm not exaggerating, it is hideous). The kitchen is 70's original and needs gutted. All the walls have a layer of paper over the drywall. The paper is all peeling off. The only help for it is to pull the paper off and have it skim coated. We've done some of the rooms but not all. The backyard and garage flood. We spent $1500 to get it fixed and it only helped a little. The all brown (tub, toilet, tiles on all the walls) master bath has a leak in the tiles. We need to replace that bathroom and have the entire wall, from the upstairs to the basement, replaced because they had a water leak for SEVEN YEARS. The carpets are blue shag and gross and need replaced. The windows need replaced. On and on and on. Thanks for the offers but, really, it is a matter of $$$ right now.   The things I bolded can be addressed for not much money, depending on your ability to DIY. You can rent a steamer (if you don't already have one for cleaning) and get a $5 tool that scores the wallpaper and get it all off in one day. IDK what that costs in your area, but last I looked the whole thing would be less than $50. If your walls need skimcoating, there is something sold at Sherwin Williams stores called a Magic Trowel. There are tons of blog posts and youtube videos featuring this thing, but it's basically as easy as painting. Wait for a sale at SW and buy one, then get a cheap bucket of premixed drywall compound from any hardware store. One person uses a paint roller to roll on a thick coat of thinned drywall compound, another follows behind with the magic trowel (it's basically a huge squeegee) and smoothes it out. It comes out as well as hiring a drywaller and takes much less time and money. If the walls are in really poor shape it might take two passes, but then it's smooth and perfect and also costs less than $50 (assuming you wait for the sale to buy the MT). You can rip out a bathroom yourself, and replace rotten drywall with cement board, and new everything. If you watch carefully for sales and do all the work yourself, it can cost about $500. I've done it repeatedly. Not nothing, but not the thousands it would cost to hire a contractor either.  If you didn't have the water leak, you could use the enamel tub & tile refinish paint and make it look better temporarily for about $35 and a day's work. You can rip out the carpet, carefully clean or paint or stain the subfloor, and live with it for a while. It would cost less than $100 for an entire house. There are plenty of bloggers who have done this sort of thing. I'm of the old windows are underrated opinion. Nicole Curtis has a video about why old windows are much easier to repair and have historical value and shouldn't be replaced. As to the kitchen, the cheapest option that looks good is building your own cabinets and topping them with wood countertops. There are a lot of blogs out there about that, and Ana White has a whole section about building kitchen cabinets on her website. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarbecueMom Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Half of our living room and hallway is bare subfloor and there are two colors of paint on the walls that need to be painted over. The new flooring is sitting in boxes in the office and the new paint and supplies are in the garage. It's been this way for over two months. Â Right now, I have zero child care or remodel help (including DH), no way of blocking off these rooms, and have yet to figure out how to keep the toddler out while I do these projects. I would try to get some done at night but he wakes up and roams every 15 minutes if I'm not right next to him. Â So not just money, time is an issue too. I wish I could snap my fingers and it would be done. And that sucks because I like house projects. I dislike doing projects with a 2yo hanging off my leg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingersmom Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 I lived in a house I hated for 10 years. Not only that it had insanely high taxes and a next door neighbor I had to call police on. Â I moved 3 years ago and that old house is a very distant memory. I like to pretend we never lived there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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