Contractor Nightmares

Once we get our budget together I contacted a couple of different contractors. I try to stay optimistic with all the high pressers sales and the constant phone marketer all day long. Contractors seem to think that if you live in Pasadena you me rich. The estimates they would give us were down right laughable. 60k just for the porch...400k to redo the whole 2nd floor..You got to be kidding me.

The biggest thing I learned about dealing with contractor is that you never show your cards. Never tell the your budget right out the gate. That way they have to work for you business and give you a fair price. Most general contractors take 20-30% right off the top. They give most of the work to their sub contractors.

I started to think why would I pay someone that is a presser salesman for bad trend. I started doing my research and with the support of my reno guru Jairo, I was able to take control of my own reno.
I was a lot of work but I saved thousand and was able to get more done than I was ever get done with a contractor.

The bathroom that was buried under a sea of sea foam blue

This our down stair bathroom It's the biggest bathroom in the house. The walls and trim are painted with 3 layers of paint. Colors ranging from Sean Foam, Mint Green and Pink. I'm guessing there were painted in the 50s. Pastels were big then. The window once looked out to the back yard. At some point the back porch was inclosed. There is a big framed in window on the porch so it still let a lot of sunlight in. All the cabinets, claw foot and pedestal sink are original to the house. The sink matches the design of the 1920s. The lighting at this point was a 70's fluorescent box light. They just the same kind of light in the kitchen.

Look out how thick the layers of paint are. Here is Sean heat gunning the trim of the bathroom door.

Designing the Perfect Craftsman

      As you can see we had a lot of great ideas. That's what fun about sketching it out. There's no dollar signs and the sky is the limits. Over time elements fell away for financial reasons or design reasons. The more I learned about the style and the history I was able to refine our plan. I planned for about a year. Researching and sketching out my ideas and working with Sean my husband on where to put the budget. I used Pinterest to help me find and organize my designs. https://www.pinterest.com/kranma/

 

The reno started slow and working through our weekend. We started with small project like scrapping paint. There was a lot of that. Because it was a rental there was several layers of paint on all the trim. Luckily the main living and dinning room remain unpainted. 

(This is one of the upstair units.)

Just this would take a while weekend. One day scrapping and one day sanding. We would also patch the cracks in the plaster as we went. 

 

Here you can see that not all the wood was sealed before painting. So it made if difficult when heat gunning. The paint would be like glue and had to be sanded down. This also bad it hard to stain because the pores of the wood were clogged. Even with pre-stain conditioner the stain still went on patchy in some spots. At that point you throw up your hand and call it "Character."

This door was sealed before it was painted so the paint came off fairly easy. It just tok a long time. With 3 of 4 layers of paint we had to be careful  not to burn the wood. This would still need to be sanded, stained and resealed. But that's for another day....

Where do you start when facing a huge Craftsman Renovation

First you identify the issues. And after years as a rental there was a lot to do. There was also a laundry list of repairs that had to be done before we could qualify for a VA loan. I'm veteran of the Air Force of 10 yrs. Of course with any government program they make you jump through hops and red tape to get the benefits you have earn. Let's just say getting a VA loan for a 100yr house is almost impossible. But that was not going to stop us from saving this house. It has been waiting so long for someone to love it. As you can see below the list is very overwhelming.