It is smart to do the remodel first. We done that in the house we live in now. My younger brother completely remodeled their house while they lived there and it was a serious PIA for them.

Yeah

I don't want to deal with PIA. LOL

Ben, when you remodeled, did you RV and camp most of the time? We're living in my angel mother's basement. She is counting down the days.

The contractor is a family friend and told us he would invite us to do grunt work or menial tasks whenever possible to keep down labor costs. So far we have scraped popcorn ceilings, rolled up carpet and padding, and removed trim and door jambs. I am still supposed to remove tiled floors from the bathrooms.

Today we are ordering cabinets and flooring. My wife is humming and hawing about countertops. We're looking at buying remnants and having two different colors in the kitchen. Currently Formica is budgeted.

No we owned the house we lived in. It needed work and was in a horrible neighborhood. So we bought a decent house super cheap close to my wifes workplace. I done 99% of the work on it and it took close to 2 years. We replaced pretty much everything but the 2X4s in the walls. We saved a ton of money by buying unfinished cabinets/island in the kitchen. Just staining them ourselves saved us easily half the cost.

two years?! sounds like you were a weekend warrior.

Off topic story. My friend got a down payment from his parents to buy a house when he was 20 or 21. It was in a nice neighborhood. But....an 80 yo man died in August, alone, without the air conditioner on. He literally melted in the house. After they ripped out the carpet you could see his body outline on the subflooring. He was found 7-10 days later. It was gross. His body had even evaporated into the double paned windows. Everything needed replaced. Luckily, his dad had lots of experience remodeling, so they worked on the house together. At some point his dad stopped working on the house once the major projects were accomplished. I think even 7-10 years later there were still small unfinished projects a guest could see around the house.

Anyway, the his was sold at a bargain price which my friend and his parents thought was a deal too sweet to pass up.

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I couldn't get a house cheap enough to buy one like that. I can't imagine they ever got the smell to completely go away. Somewhat similar I had a friend that bought a beautiful early 70s Trans Am that the owner shot himself in. It was also during the summer and he wasn't found for a couple weeks. They ended up putting in a complete new interior and it still smelled on a hot day. If you left the windows up it would almost make you puke.

I don't know why it makes a difference, but I don't think I could sit in a car like that. but I've been in the house, and it doesn't bother me. maybe it has to do with personal space and claustrophobia.

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