EXUP Worldwide

I finally got my building permits and passed the local red tape to build me a 25x35 foot addition onto my house. It's not cheap but it is more economical for me to stay and build than to buy a over priced home somewhere else.

They broke ground today!

This will be a 2 1/2 story w/full basement addition to my existing house. The addition will add 3 bedrooms, family room, dining room, sun room and a huge loft in the attic 35x25 with plenty of head room in the middle.

...we are really looking fwd to this.

02/09/06

















day 2

You should go rent The Money Pit with Tom Hanks...lol. That way you can tell the wife "Hey, that could be us!"

Congrats on the upgrade, John. So fess up. Is the addition just a new bedroom for the Fizzers?

I can relate John
We're replacing 1250 sqft of deck and building office space in 900 sqft downstairs. I'm not sure when it will EVER be done

yeah....I dont know when mine will ever be considered done

I have contracted out the exterior weather tight shell only.

This means all interior work will be done by me - with the exception of rough plumbing and electrical - and that is just to get the permits required.

But all in an effort to save money.

Best of LUCK in your attempts of completion...

Don't you just love upgrading the house. It all starts out good, then it starts to fall behind, then in the end it really was worth it. The concrete work that got done in my backyard was a dragger. 5 weeks of delay, 20 12-packs of heineken, and 10 buddies in the garage brainstorming while drinking was fun! In the end it only took 14 cubic yards of concrete and 10 hung over buddies

barneyfzr600 wrote:Don't you just love upgrading the house. It all starts out good, then it starts to fall behind, then in the end it really was worth it. The concrete work that got done in my backyard was a dragger. 5 weeks of delay, 20 12-packs of heineken, and 10 buddies in the garage brainstorming while drinking was fun! In the end it only took 14 cubic yards of concrete and 10 hung over buddies

the contractors here are from NH, so no doubt this might be a similar situation where the beer is concerned lol

a good link to see what your home is worth

http://www.zillow.com/

seems to be somewhat accurate

states only

As a UK brother I'm interested in what the cost of an 'average' home is in the U.S compared to the U.K ? you guys seem to get everything cheaper than us and when you do get it it's bigger than ours! (apart from the gallon of course )
Prices in the link below from my village, it is around 60 miles from the centre of London and is bloody expensive for what you get

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails- ... 4&tr_t=buy

BTW this is not my house, mine cost a fair bit less than this.

I now have to work my ass off untill I'm 63 to pay the £99895 mortgage

Mark

housing is expensive here as well, mark. on each coast the housing prices are much higher than in the central states, which is to be expected. there are a few cities though like chicago where the market still demands a high price.

i have recently been comparing prices where i am at now (10 miles north of wilmington, delaware and 25 miles south of philadelphia, pennsylvania) with where i grew up in cleveland, ohio. the figures are staggering. a new 3 to 4 bedroom condo with 2 bathrooms and a garage in a nice part of town starts in the low-to-mid 300's, where as the exact same thing in ohio starts in the mid 100's. houses are the same, with new construction starting in the high 300's (they just build a development of mid 600's up the road from me) and in ohio the same would start in the high 100's.

a 2500 square foot house is around 400 to 450 thousand bucks. sickening.

i may be forced to change my geographic location just so i can afford to live.

Within 20 miles of Boston you would see a typical 2 bedroom 1 bath home avg 360k USD - and that would be a fixxer upper

My friends 3 tenamant house was pruchased in 1999 for 225k and is now worth over 600k - no really!

Anyways...the NorthEast part of the states was hit with a blizzard - not sure if the sustained winds legitimately made it a blizzard but there was alot of snow.

And when I went outside at 6am to start the wifes jeep - I forgot about the frickn HOLE. I went flying.












So now I have a very badly bruised knee and...well heck everything hurts. The good thing about the knee pain ? It minimizes the pain perceived from my sprained ankle on the other foot.

The day after the snow storm....the construction crew was back to dig the remaining part of the cellar.

John, John, John......sigh....

u poor bloke lol i was goin to ask about that hole. are they diggin to china. those pics are amazing, from dirt to snow feilds.

my wife and i brought our little house about 5 years ago,just before the prices started to rise,we paid $55000 aud for it and its got 1 acre of land with it.

now its worth a cool $250000 but we are not movin for a while,till the kids grow up a bit.we are about 400klm from melbourne,australia.

Bought my house last year as a newly built home. 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, and about 5000 square feet lot. Now remember that I live in the San Francisco bay area. Kinda pricey, but I got it for $400k and since then, it has appreciated about $100k! The newer homes I see being built around here are nice homes, but not much of a backyard. They usually start at about $600k on the low side.

Where are you priorities--basement, family room, 3 bedrooms, and loft but no mention of an expanded two story heated garage a with loft and built in bike lifts and attached machine shop!

Great neighborhoods and good schools but tired homes makes for tough decisions. My wife and I are contemplating changes. Do I move 30 miles out and triple my commuting time for something newer and affordable? Or take a second job robbing banks to pay for a new million dollar home in my area (that's all they build now--land is too valuable for anything else)? Or remodel for a ton of money and aggravation? Or tear down and build new on the same lot? (My next door neighbor tore down their home--same model as ours--to build new). Or just be content with what I have (well I'm content, but my other half isn't).

Tough decision. We haven't made ours yet.

My brother "lucked out" you could say. His house was hit by lighting (aluminum ridge vents are bad!) and was written off. He's rebuilding on his lot, adding a four car garage. And he is putting reinforcements for a car lift. Of course he's single and an engineer motorhead.

Kontoboy

My original plans were a choice between a full size double car garage with apt upstairs OR an addition to my existing home. Seeing as how I have two small kids....and havent figured the secret to keeping them the size they are....the addition won out over the garage. Although down the line I full expect a respectable size garage to be built.

foundation walls and floor would have gone in today 02/17/06 but heavy winds and rain forced them to reschedule till tuesday next week.

sigh......

I measured the basement excavation and it is not at the depth I desire.

Looking to have the contractor tear it up all up....dig it deeper and start over.

The dept for the basement I wanted at 8.0' from cellar slab to bottom of rafters (of 1st flr). Instead they left with 7'3" which is not okay to me as I am 6'2" and I don't want to feel closed in. Plus I think the basement will end up becoming the new family room instead....where it will be more than 26x35. Should work out nice as I specced out a nice steel beam to carry the load down the center with few posts - to create a more open feel.


~edited for content~

flames removed!

your jokin mate. hope its at there expense? and just wen u think your gettin some where.