Enclosing a bad open concept remodel to restore upper cabinets and decrease kitchen noise in the TV room, remodeling master bath to include a walk in shower.

Thank you for your comment Elizabeth. I am hoping the contractor, when I find one, will soon be able to get cracking on the house.

@cardsbymaggie4 Your photos are stunning and took my breath away!! So glad no one was injured. Will keep good thoughts for the mending and repair of that dear house (and you!)

1st photo is the view from the middle of our lot. Oh dear! We have our work ahead. 2nd photo is the view from the back of our lot. Our back yard neighbor is the State forest. Woo Hoo. We have been in planning now for 2 years. In a few weeks we will get to watch the land get cleared and meet with the architect we have chosen to design our energy efficient home. Boy oh boy have I been collecting ideas. The kitchen has to accommodate my arthritic hands and my very bad back. We are also designing an aviary for 6 very large macaws who will love the move to Florida from Missouri. I have already made plans to theme my guest bath to be a testament to New York Grand Central Station and incorporate an antique batchelor's chest brought over from England by my family and use a bathroom vanity bowl that looks like an old wash stand bowl from China town. Can't wait.

The bathroom needs a major overhaul....so tired of reno....so...hubby replaced the garage door in the unattached garage and I put a new car in it.

Bathroom needs major reno.....Husband replaced bent garage door on the unattached garage. I put a new car in it!

Oops..sorry..did not think my post posted! Where is the delete button!

This year is all about doing the maintenance work the previous owners left for us... I have to replace at least three boards on the deck & refinish the whole thing. I have to fix the sump-pump drainage line outside of the house. I have to paint the master bathroom & closet. I need to get a quote on residing the house. The 4x8 sheets of cedar siding have started to rot.

I'm blessed that the kitchen is in good shape (already sealed the granite this year). The master bathroom was updated before we arrived. I just need to figure out where to plant my memorial oak (for our Great Dane that passed away last year) and put in a fire pit.

Oh... and we're broke. :D

Getting quotes on "re-modeling master bathroom". Taking out tub (which I never use) & having a new tiled shower installed. The "tiny, tiny shower" will be turned into a linen closet. I'm really excited about the new bathroom. Ask me in approx. two months after the renovation "how fun was that?" ; 0

@cardsbymaggie4 good luck! That is just awful.
After more than five years, we finally redid the poorly done "Florida condo" staircase in our 1700s home. Finishing touches are still in progress but the difference is huge! It's also allowed us to restore a bedroom that had been opened up to make way for the ill-proportioned stairs.

I am hoping to get new posts for my back covered porch. The old posts' footers are failing, which in result means the roof of my porch is starting to sag. Luckily I have a father who is very handy. We plan to tackle the project later this year. Hard to tell in the photo but the old posts are painted an ugly blue. We painted the house last year, but decided to skip these posts since we knew we were going to replace. I'm thinking the new posts will be stained to emphasize natural elements. Once the posts are complete we can start thinking about better landscaping around the patio.

We have a small 1910 Victorian that is currently broken into two apartments. Plans are underway to turn this into our new home. This involves turning the second floor apartment into two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and laundry area. In addition, we are opening up the stairway and creating an additional bedroom and bath on the first floor. We are also rebuilding an addition to add a mudroom and deck on the first floor with an office and small porch above.

After renovating the house last year, we are selling. My husband's company cut their pay over half the first of this year and we can't afford the house and 5 kids. Since selling the kids would be frowned upon.....;) the house has to go!
We should be able to clear enough for a down payment on a smaller house (which we are all happy about! Even with 7 people 3600sqft is too much house!) and give us enough funds to start our own business. Win/win!!

Casandra383 - I like your attitude! You and your family are going to be ok - in fact, I think it's going to be better than you can imagine right now!

Lauren, those stairs look wonderful. I fully understand about the stairs. Ours are terrible, two lots of them. The ones to a really fabulous attic, the one that is not damaged, are not as bad as the more important ones from the basement to the next floor. I did ask a carpenter about them and he said he wouldn't/couldn't do them. How did you get yours fixed?

@cardsbymaggie4 - we called a few and only about half were willing to do it. The age of the house and a rotted, though no longer load bearing, beam in the basement scared a few people off. We went with a one man shop from the next town over and had a great experience! If you're anywhere near nh I'd recommend JPV construction.

I live in NH. Where are they located. Is it Amherst?

We are progressing on our doublewide renovation! Check out our blog here www.sixlittleacres.wordpress.com

Here's a hint of before and during! (And that's just the kitchen.) We took this down to the dirt so everything is new.

@cardsbymaggie-yes!

New kichen, back patio and roof....no more money! Lol

my current kitchen

Similar Plans for new kitchen. i am going with polished chrome hardware instead of gold.

WOW!!!! It will be beautiful, what a difference from your previous kitchen. Congrats

@cardsbymaggie4 - saw the news report about the tree. We're just a few miles apart!

@Mo-Mo Jones, I have that exact same garden tub in my master bath and I absolutely HATE it! It's going to take a couple of years as I save same $$, but I'm ripping that thing out! I'd like a nice walk-in shower though. I'm trying to decide what I want to do with my den now...so many decisions to make..

I'm going to put in a deep soaking tub. This will give me a whole lot more floor space. Plastic should not be in a master bath...ewe

That is so true! That thing is a beast to clean, and it never looks clean to me!!

Last August, we began construction on our home on the Corrotoman River in the Northern Neck of Virginia. Currently, framing, siding, and roofing have been completed. Plumbing and HVAC are underway and electrical will commence soon. We are hoping to be finished by early August. This is a completely custom home. We designed it with an architect with the following two design guidelines: we must feel like we are outside from everywhere in the house, and the house must be designed to fit the land - the land will not be changed to fit the house. This resulted in a unique design that we could not be more proud of. Having started this whole process in August 2015, we have learned that nothing happens as quickly as we would prefer, but moving from Washington, DC to Lancaster, Virginia, we need to learn to slow down anyway!

We started building our one story forever home in August, moved in last month, love it!! Gave away a lot of stuff and it's so feels so good to be surrounded with only favourite things.

When warmer weather finally comes we will build the steps, paint the balcony and do the landscaping around the house. I planted the perennial gardens before we started building.

Only thing left to do inside is the cabinets and bookshelves around the fireplace.

We live close to the water and looking forward to kayaking, but it'll be a while. This pic was taken yesterday after a big snowstorm!

This pic was taken yesterday after a big snowstorm!

We made a major mistake. I left an earlier comment about downsizing, selling our large house, moving into a loft apartment at an old cotton mill. Well, we did it. Major mistake. We moved in and decided within a month that apartment living was not for us. Luckily we had not sold our house in that month so we moved back into our 3,000 sq ft home. So glad to be back home. Well, it's one way to declutter and spring clean! Downsizing is for the birds!

Finished ceiling and backsplash:

Update on refinishing master bathroom. Change of plans. Still removing bathtub to install a larger shower. Turing tiny shower into a vanity sitting area. Demolition to begin on Mon. 4/17. Am I crazy or what???

Update on our year plans. Our land is just about cleared. A few more hours of work tomorrow will finish. The contractor says some hand work along the canal and some more grinding and it will be finished. We meet soon with the architect to get started on our house design. I have been working on putting together prices on cabinets and tile I like. Budget is coming together. My hubby is going to be the general contractor for our house. We are so excited. It's finally coming together. We have sold house number one of three, so money is in the bank to break ground while we sell house number two. Whoo!

Basement off garage is becoming a home gym, mudroom and extra bathroom.

Update on my "broken" house, finally reconstruction is to start next week with a new roof and then they can start on removing all the debris inside and really be able to assess the damage, i.e. see if there is more than they thought. One benefit is that this will take care of some of the projects I had intended to do.

Whatever your plans are we can are here to help you guyz by proving you with amazing window blind treatments that will make you love your house even more .!! Thanx @BLINDS-US

Whatever your plans are we can are here to help you guyz by proving you with amazing window blind treatments that will make you love your house even more .!! Thanx

www.binds-us.com

Thanks to all the rain we have been having, badly needed though to remove the drought situation, work had not progressed as Much as I and the contractors would have liked. They did remove all of the indoor debris and have made a slow start on the roof. Once that is in place they can then start checking for further damage and also remove what they were unable to before. The local cub scout troop and their parents came and removed all the branches that were everywhere, also removed leaves and they donated plants which they also planted for us. The photos show some of the branches and where a branch went straight through the old floor and work has started

Trying to convince husband to paint our oak trim white :)

Well, I planted some things. Lessons learned:

1) Plants in NYC are a fortune. Shown in this picture is $225 worth of plants.

2) That flagpole base (the concrete thing in the right foreground) goes to the core of the earth. It will not be removed, although it does mess with my chi.

Shown, left to right: Nancy of Robinhill Azalea, Henry Kelsey rose (pre-existing and apparently 70+ years old,) zebra hydrangea and possibly the only nikko blue hydrangea available for sale in all of NYC. Everyone has the "endless summer" varieties but I really wanted a nikko and it took forever to find one. This little guy was hiding in the corner of a huge nursery.

Knowing that both the hydrangeas and the azalea can get quite large, I have no idea what to do with that big dead area in the middle/right. I'll need some groundcover for sure but I want to make sure these plants survive before putting anything else in! Also gotta prune back that rose to give the zebra some room to grow.

Greenwoodframed, I think your fortune will be worth it; what a special area you are creating. And your comment on the flagpole base made me giggle - I have the same problem. Maybe mulching the area would cover it over? Wait, though - in NYC a second mortgage may be required for that!

diannewierenga my husband was all "I bet I can dig out that base!" and he spent about 30 mins digging... still didn't get to the bottom of it. I have no idea how far down it goes but I should probably try to find something that will grow large enough to cover it?

Mulch is actually reasonable- honestly, most things are not THAT much more expensive here (outside of labor and rent/property) but the prices on those plants totally shocked me. Trying to decide if I want to risk ordering some more from a nursery online... any experience? It's literally about a quarter of the price.

When we lived in the Midwest I ordered online a couple of times and had good luck, but I can't remember exactly who I ordered from. Good luck!

One idea I thought of was to place a bird bath on the "flag pole base". It would have a solid foundation underneath it. Another idea is a very large flower pot with a plant in it. Depending on the temp.s there would dictate what kind of plant you could place in it. You've got a good start, mulch will hide a multitude of flaws.

Pat Brown a pot with something edible might be nice (the soil here is full of lead so we can only do planters, nothing edible in the ground.) I, too, considered a birdbath or something similar. You don't see so many birdbaths here in the city- I have no idea if the birds will actually use them or not (although we do have quite a lot of birds around here, including a random colony of brightly-colored monk parakeets that live in the cemetery up the block!)

I could also do a low planter filled with succulents for the summer, although that would be seasonal as they won't survive the winters here.

Husband desperately wants a japanese maple and that could grow in a planter, however I'm afraid it will end up casting too much shade and sucking up all the sun we get there (north facing, so just a few hours in the AM)

A "lacy leaf" Japanese Maple is not a fast growing tree. A maple would would look lovely.

Update - My forever (and completely handicap accessible home for my daughter) is coming together quite nicely!

That is wonderful news

Update..sunroom demolished and new kitchen / living extension well underway, back wall dividing original kitchen from new build yet to go but helpfully will come down this weekend... some of the windows gone in today final one tomorrow..three slider glass doors on one side, three tilt and turn on the other and six panel vertical window out to the garden ..

Forget to mention the window frames are black, they're covered with white plastic to protect them

Forget to mention the window frames are black, they're covered with white plastic to protect them

the attic after repair of the 200 year-old flooring, the light-coloured boards, sanding and one coat of polyurethane. Two more coats to go. The chimney is in the centre of the attic. Once the new windows are in my daughter will be moving up there