In November of 2016, I purchased a crappy bungalow on a beautiful property over looking Picton Harbor. The house had a cement block foundation that was not properly drained and therefore caved in due to frost. The house had little street appeal, no front door and a poor layout. It was built in 1956 and had a basically sound structure.
The first thing I did was install a temporary front door and then proceeded to gut out the main level of the house. The roof, floor joists and exterior framing were in excellent condition. I then proceeded to jack the house up to remove the foundation.
The foundation was completely removed and a new ICF foundation replaced it. The house was lowered on it and fit like a dream. We then installed a hydronics floor heating system and poured the new basement floor. Weepers were installed around the footings, delta was applied to the exterior and back filled with drainage material
I then went to the main floor and laid out the new floor plan. A totally new electrical service was installed, PEC plumbing installed throughout and the upper exterior walls were spray foam insulated. Drywall was completed, new hardwood and ceramic floorings were installed, new windows in the bedrooms and an IKEA kitchen.
I then went down to the walkout lower level and started all over again. Here we poured a colored concrete floor so no additional flooring. The same wiring, plumbing, drywall and trim. There are 100 9watt pot lights drawing only 900 watts. Everything possible in the house is gas fired, 2 fireplaces, 2 ranges, 2 barbeques, 97.5% furnace and a 65 gal hot water tank that also heats the basement floor.
I did all the electrical, all the plumbing, all the framing, the drywall with some assistance, the hardwood flooring and all the siding. Things are so busy in the county, that most trades are not available so I managed to hire a couple of helpers and proceeded to build most of the house myself. I was going to jack the house, but could not find a good supply of jacks and timbers and luckily found someone in the Peterborough area to do it. I was then going to build the ICF basement but felt the investment was too great to make a mistake so I found a local company that had done quite a few and they managed to squeeze me in. As well, a large deck was built on the rear connected to a side walkway since we are on a sloping lot. A new front entrance with a proper door and verandah were added
The lower level
There is a bit of a bush lot on the property an so I decided to discretely build a storage shed since the house has no garage or real basement storage. My wife did all the staging and landscaping.
This project has taken thirteen months of long days and like building a car, a lot more money then I initially anticipated. We were going to rent it out, but I was so tired that we decided to sell. It was listed and sold in three days.
wow, that was more than a little fixer upper project. it sounds like you went 1st class from top to bottom and it show's it. i can only imagine what that view is worth down there overlooking the bay the way prices down there can be hard to reason. - good for you warren seeing that potential. as they say, location-location-location is everything and a lot of people don't see the tree's for the forest. good for you bud. - ps, i hope you bought one of the neighbor house's beside you before you went to work on that one OR, they threw you a heck of a welcome to the neighbor hood party. you sure put the value of their places way up. lol i can relate to how the budget usually ends up with a project like that also. i learned how to do a 150g re/build when i done the stone house, i budgeted for 75g. - ---2 thumbs up.
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"if you are not the lead dog, the view is all the same"
Like everybody has said.. Thats really nice Warren.. you did a super job of that rebuild.. looks like a great piece of property with a great cottage .. thanks for posting all the pictures..
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There is no elevator to success — you have to take the stairs.
I had thought of moving in there for a while, but residency rules are getting very complex for this very reason. So yes, I will have to pay some tax. We'll figure out if capital gains or income is lower. Thanks for the comments guys. It was fun but exhausting so today I played with the Bantam.
