Hellobee Boards

We are closing on a house this week, and we're not doing any of the work ourselves...we just can't get stuff to look professional.

eta: When we had the house inspected, the inspector pointed out all of the DIYs the previous owners had done. They were all up to code, but done in the most basic manner. You can just tell when it's DIY unless it's done by someone who's been trained. It doesn't have the same level of finishing.

That being said, we're having an electrician put in some small pot lights in a cathedral ceiling in the living room, ceiling lights in all bedrooms, a carpenter is building a wall for us, a painter is doing all of the walls and trim and we're getting all the hardwoods sanded and restained.

We will tackle the kitchen in a few years, and that will also be hired out. We will also have to redo the pool in a few years, and that needs to be done professionally.

We gutted our kitchen, did a cosmetic reno of the bathroom and put in hardwood floors throughout. We hired pros for the kitchen and floors. We did the bathroom demo ourselves but had pros do the installation.

The shorter answer would be what we did not DIY. Which is electrical because we have a low voltage system that not many know how to fix.

We have completely gutted our family room, living room, dining room & kitchen. The only thing outsourced in the kitchen was the island quartz countertop and building of the cabinets. In a few years we will gut the 1/2 bath downstairs into a full bath and the main bath completely.
Next summer we will put in a new stockade fence around our whole property. This summer will be minimal backyard clean up and gutting off overgrown greenery and establishing our vegetable garden.

We are going to be in the very near future!! In our backyard we had a huge swingset, and under it was just mud/dirt. Well we are going to sod those areas (we took the swing set down) Also we have a floor bed going around our house filled with random bushes (that are way overgrown) and lava rocks (hate them!) Sooo....we are digging everything up, and just putting sod down everywhere in the back yard. Then I'm going to land scape more in the front

We have done a lot of work on this house. Roof, all the windows, furnace, a/c, paint (ugh peeling wall paper!) but our biggest so far has been the kitchen. Here is a before (before we moved in) and a few afters. We are currently in the process of doing the main floor bathroom (you can see it in one of the pics) as well as painting the front living room. One day I'll tackle the family room wall paper...one day...
We hire professionals for the electrical, plumbing, ect but hire and arrange each ourselves (no general contractor). We are always over budget!

We moved into a brand new house so nothing needs to be re-done, but we are adding a lot of finishing touches ourselves.

We painted before the trim was installed, we are adding crown molding ourselves, we built and are installing built-in fireplace/entertainment center/storage wall, we added bead board and lots of shelving in our mudroom, and other small details. I really like building furniture, and we have a few projects planned.

Our basement is unfinished and in the next year or so we plan to finish it (mostly) ourselves.

We have done the following:

1) Painted every surface - including stupid trim ($1000/ 2200 sq ft house)
2) Cosmetic Update on Kitchen (painting cabinets, removing some overhang cabinets, installing backsplash, new granite counters - hired out)
3) Changed many lighting fixtures
4) Cosmetic Update in master bath (new paint, painted cabinets, installed new granite counter)

Most projects came in at budget - none under! I always have a 10% contingency plan built in though. Here are some pictures of the kitchen- unfortunately I dont have ones with the backsplash done.

@Mrs. Jump Rope: I love your windows!

@Mrs. Jump Rope: I don't know if you remember my diamond paned windows in our old house, but it was one of the features (along with my walk-in closet) that I was saddest to lose!

This past year we added an addition on the back of our house using the existing pad and roof of our screened in porch and adding a powder room. We used a general contractor for the building job and he took us to studs and insulation. we did sheet rock to finishing. Electrical was done by my uncle (an electrical contractor) and general contractor hired the plumber. Our contractor stayed on budget. electrical went a bit over what we thought and finishing and decor we really didnt know what to budget for so we just did our best shopping sales and finding deals.

You can check out the before and afters in my facebook album here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.550475420786.2127273.10502156&type=1&l=3479d08ee0

We put in laminte floor, built a wood fence, completely finished out basement, and built a fence, and tiled out bathroom floor.

This is the living room portion of the basement before we got our furinture and dart machine in.