this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Do It Yourself

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Make it, Fix it, Renovate it, Rehabilitate it - as long as you’ve done some part of it yourself, share!

Especially for gardening related or specific do-it-yourself projects, see also the Nature and Gardening community. For more creative-minded projects, see also the Creative community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

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Older houses are fun to renovate (beehaw.org)
submitted 8 months ago by LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org to c/diy@beehaw.org
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I appreciate a creative use of scrap lumber as much as the next person, but jeez. I'm getting tired of floating sistered joists and framing.

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[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This is a space that used to be two closets in our dining area. When we redid the bathroom to replace rotting subflooring we decided to enlarge the bathroom footprint from 22sqft (2.04m²) to 36sqft (3.34m²), which gave these closets only 8" of depth. They're too shallow for what we used to store in there, and the swinging doors took up additional floor space with their clearance needs. In a <1200 sqft (111.48m²) home that stuff adds up quickly.

Our plan is to build in shelving to consolidate our book collection, which is currently overflowing from a number of smaller bookshelves and stacks. We picked up some great boards from a local sawyer that I'm excited to get to work on for this project. Once the initial demo and resheathing of joists is done I'll be able to cut the boards for depth and get them installed. If folks are interested I'll try my best to record steps in the build to share with the group.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 10 points 8 months ago

Yes, please record the steps, I'm interested in following along!

[–] Rekorse@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago

I'd be interested in following along as well, I can't afford any renovations at the moment but anything I can learn about in advance is a great help!

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I feel your pain. 140 year old house with 3 additions and several remodels over the years. Still had a coal cistern when I moved in!

The middle bedroom has a partial window where the addition was tied in but they couldn’t be bothered to seal up the hole fully.. it’s about 8 inches wide and made of a custom storm window and nothing else (currently sealed up well with insulation until I can re-do siding).

Fireplace hearth (way overbuilt thing for a pellet stove -previous owner was a mason) was installed over a layer of hardwood flooring, which they didn’t realize wasn’t subfloor because there were 2 layers of hardwood flooring, old kind that was thick - the house sighed with relief when I ripped it all out and I gained 4 inches to my ceiling height.

Had to drill through a 4-inch thick cement wall to install my dishwasher. Someone moved the entry from one side to the other at some point, probably when they added the driveway and garage, and the walkway is still under my lawn. And my cabinets are different internal heights for some reason?

Weird stuff. Every project becomes 5-15 projects to do right.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Every project becomes 5-15 projects to do right.

Ugh, this is it entirely. And then add to the 15 that the final product is going to require imperfections to make it look like it fits the rest of the space.

And my cabinets are different internal heights for some reason?

Our ceilings are made for someone shorter than six feet tall, but our cabinets have spots that my 6'8" friend has to go on his toes to reach. Cabinet logic in old houses is bizarre.

[–] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 4 points 8 months ago

You need some of those rolling ladders like in old timey libraries.

[–] Etienne_Dahu@jlai.lu 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I feel you man. Let's not forget about hacked up electricity, shoddy repairs from the previous owners, lower building standards back then and other surprises that make a somewhat doable project turn full teardown.

Yeah, I also bought an older place recently.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

<3

Please please please go through and double check wiring and housing for your light fixtures if you haven't. We've been here a while and have been renovating as we're able to afford to (there's a reason we bought an older house) but that was one of the first things we did and there were nightmares hidden in the ceiling

[–] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 6 points 8 months ago

We had a mold issue stemming from a shower vent not connecting to the roof and just dumping humid air into the attic so we wanted to fix that. Found rotten newspaper from the late 40s as insulation mixed with vermiculite under a thin layer of cellulose, which we treated as asbestos and had that professionally removed. Under that found a whole spiderweb of live knob and tube which wasn't connected to any devices, was disconnected from many of its knobs, and was missing insulation in many places while it was draped loosely over some metal plumbing up there.

The project started as a disconnected shower vent causing mold, and ended up with a whole rewire of the lighting and outlet circuits in the house. Wild stuff.

We were also swapping out the breakers for ones up to code since we had messed with the circuits, and one a/gfci breaker just kept tripping. Found a light fixture that had evidentially been sparking away up there for who knows how long.

Feels really good to have had eyes on every box in the house and know that what's there now is leagues safer than what was there before.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

One of our friends found that wall severely browned and crisped behind the oven after it was improperly installed for decades, lol. Terrifying wiring mistakes too, the type that make your hair stand on end. They were remodeling after bad water damage and found all sorts of terrible surprises.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm glad they found that and (hopefully) rectified it! Surprise reno and remodels are never much fun.

Terrifying wiring mistakes too, the type that make your hair stand on end

This particular turn of phrase has me in stitches, well done!

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Omg, haha. I didn't even realize the unintended pun xD

And yes, they are now properly wiring and insulating their house and oven :)

[–] meowbotage@beehaw.org 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh geez, what an adventure!

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago

Definitely filling out my punch card with this one