Getting Started, Catching Up

So, I've been at this a while now, and at Jennifer's suggestion decided to write about the efforts and experience of remodeling my house.

Back to the beginning, then, and let's catch up -- I bought a tiny house in the Santa Cruz mountains as a fixer-upper in late 2008.  The house was livable (though some days that word is questionable) though it did need a lot of work to be "nice."

A few things I've learned about myself and my house since 2008:  Living an hour from town via twisty mountain roads does sometimes suck.  Living in a house in the mountains with only a wood-burning stove for heat also sometimes sucks.  Firewood is heavy, and is pretty worthless when it gets rained on.  It's fine to pay someone to do something, but you better get an accurate set of expectations in writing and agreed to beforehand.  Doing stuff "under the table" is cheaper and a great way to get screwed.

Having said all that, living in the Santa Cruz mountains among the redwoods is pretty freaking rad.  Being able to work on my house and make it what I want is too.

So, things I've done (or had done) to the house since I got here in an effort to increase both livability and resale value:

1. Roof leaked pretty bad, so I gave a contractor $5k to fix it.  He got his money, and I had leaks as soon as it started raining again.
2. Basement needed some sort of roof over the part of the deck that it's under, so I gave the same contractor $2k to build one.  The roof's too short front-to-back, so when it rains it drips directly onto the deck it's supposed to be covering -- and he never put up the gutter he promised.  I eventually put up a gutter, which helped some, but the front half of the deck still gets rained on.  That's the last time I hire that contractor.
3. Generator needed a shed, so I built it one myself to teach myself basic carpentry.  The shed roof doesn't leak, and it has a gutter.  The door/lock design is pretty dumb.  The generator stays drier than I do.
4. The stairs up to the deck were in terrible shape, so I tore them out and built new ones.  I used Trex boards for the treads, and that worked out fine.
5. Currently, I'm underway on the living room and hall remodel.  I've discovered a lot of stuff about this house since I bought it, and even more got uncovered as I demolished some walls.

I'll post more details about these projects in separate posts so that I can share what I did and what I learned from it.  I've got a lot of pics, too.

I hope you enjoy reading about this little adventure I'm on.