Eyes bigger than stomach: describes a situation where someone takes more food than they can eat
Life has been pretty busy over here at Rancho 1500. When the girls go back to school, I flip the switch back to Full Throttle Home Improvement Mode. The tools come out of summer slumber and I start building again.
Mindy and I have owned our current home for slightly over two years. Back in September of 2019, the deal was just too good to pass up. We knew we’d be able to put some work into the home and make a healthy, tax-free profit sometime down the road.
Now, the deal is looking better than ever. We bought the home for $365,000 and will put around $100,000 into it. If the home was finished and we sold it now, it would fetch somewhere north of $650,000.
Quick note: See a YouTube video tour of the house here and my live-in flip article that details our process.
I had hoped to be farther along with remodeling. COVID set everything back. I have also found it difficult to find time to work on the home.
In FIRE life, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. While I enjoy the construction process, I’d rather be working on this blog, my podcast, hiking, or reading. When I left work, I was so worried about being bored. Now, I have to practice self-control daily (saying “No”) so life doesn’t overwhelm me.
However, the house is far along and most of the work is done. So far, I have (chronological order):
- Remodeled a bathroom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB4CuLY5l08
- Finished most of the basement. This was the single biggest project and involved:
- Manually digging out and installing an easment window
- The basement didn’t have rough-ins for a bathroom, so I had to break up part of the floor and tie into the main waste line
- Framing, plumbing, wiring, and insulation (I paid someone to hang/finish the drywall)
- Installing vinyl plank flooring
- Painting
- Installing a kitchenette
- I still have to finish the bathroom
- Windows and doors: I replaced them with fiberglass units. In areas where we cared about sound, I installed triple-pane glazing.
- Built a deck and pergola: This was the second biggest project. The curve on the deck and the 25′ pergola span with no middle support made these projects complex. However, the result is great and we spend many hours on the deck, so this was totally worth it.
- Moved a kitchen wall and built a mini-loft: I had to move the refrigerator back to make room for an island and this solution worked great.
- Replaced most of the carpet in the home with vinyl plank.
We got very lucky with our construction timing. I bought most of the materials for the basement remodel in January of 2020 and the deck materials in March. Had we waited another 3 months, I would have been paying triple the cost for some of the materials. Close call!
This will be our last live-in flip. We don’t need more money; just more time.
Shed And Solar And Kitchen! Oh My!
Right now, I’m working on three projects:
Shed
Our home has a small garage and little storage. The tools and bicycles don’t have a proper home, so I’m building a shed:
In the summer, the bikes will hang off the right side of the structure, so I’ll install a little roof there to protect them from the elements.
Solar panels
DIYers in-the-know ask why I’d put solar panels on a home that we may not stay in long-term. Solar panels are expensive and the payback period is not short.
The previous owners installed vinyl siding on the home. When the summer sun heats up the roof, it melts the siding. <sarcasm alert>Great product!!!</sarcasm alert>
It turns out that solar panels don’t get nearly as hot as shingles. While shingles will heat up to 160 degrees, I found that solar panels stay at least 30 degrees cooler. So, a solar panel close to the problematic siding will cut down the heat and keep the siding from melting.
DIYing my solar is also cheaper and more fun than putting new siding on the home. I’ll spend $13,000 on the solar project (about $9,600 after the 26% tax credit). Note that installing solar would NOT have made sense if I paid someone to do it. I got one quote for fun and it was over $30,000! Oof! And no thanks.
Kitchen
I am suspect of IKEA quality, but after MMM’s writeup of an IKEA kitchen, I decided to explore the idea of purchasing cabinets from them. It turns out that IKEA makes pretty great cabinets, so I’ll be installing an IKEA kitchen shortly.
Amazing Friends
And, I have helpers for these projects. My local friend Todd is meticulous, super-smart and he’s helping me out with my panels. Thanks Todd, you’re awesome! I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have done this without you.
Another local friend, Jim, also volunteered to help me with the panels. Thanks Jim!
Finally, Chris from TicTocLife offered to fly out and help me as well. I’ve never met Chris, but I could always use an extra hand, so I readily took him up on it. We’ll focus on the kitchen, but are going to make some time to run a 5k too.
It will be nice to roll into 2022 with the home mostly done. I’ll finally be able to move on to another super-delayed project that I’ve wanted to complete for years…
More 1500 Days!!!
You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:
Mile High FI podcast:
Also here:
- EconoMe: Hey look, I’m speaking at EconoMe later this year!
- Facebook: Facebook group and page
- YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
- Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
- Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
- Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know.
Other resources I like:
- Camp FIs are amazingly fun! I hope to attend Rocky Mountain and Joshua Tree this year. See you there?
- Need to learn how to invest? The Simple Path to Wealth is all you need.
- New to FIRE? Need some FIREy guidance? Check out Fiology and the accompanying workbook!
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It’s pretty amazing how much of the home renovation projects you’ve been able to learn and complete yourself (and how great they all look)! I really enjoy reading about your adventures and look forward to seeing more on the solar project.
We’re working on our own live-in flip that, like yours, was just too good of an offer to pass up. Especially, when compared to surrounding real estate prices. It’s our first one, and won’t be our last. Although we weren’t quite as ambitious as you are and hired out some things back when we were both still working. We should make a healthy profit if the market holds.
Mrs Richfrugalife recently posted…It’s Time to Show Vacation the Respect it Deserves!
Oooh, have you written any posts about your work? I’d love to know more!
I wrote back-to-back posts on our project in December 2020, but no recent updates. Most of the renovation occurred while we were both working and with a 3-4 year old., which wasn’t super fun. But we’ve enjoyed learning new skills and think it would be fun when we have more time and a less needy kid. We’ve slacked off quite a bit since the pandemic began.
Here’s a link to the first of those posts: https://richfrugallife.com/fixer-upper/
The second post goes a bit more into the tasks we took on ourselves.
Great progress there. We are currently sinking about that much into our new house since it’s a fixer upper. Like we don’t have floors right now fixer upper. What’d you replace your large window with? We’ve two very large (110×90″) termite eaten windows that need replacing. Wanted more airflow than picture windows give so we don’t have to get AC.
We put fiberglass windows in. Termites can’t get those!
Great to read you took my advice. You will be very happy next summer not having to move stuff around to get access to the bikes or the other way around. Convenience in getting to a bike helps a lot to use a bike!
financialfreedomsloth recently posted…Monthly expense report: September
The shed looks great! I did a similar project/size for our back porch. I used the MMM tiny house post for a lot of the material as it is built pretty similar complete with sloped metal roof. Only big difference is it’s attached to our house.
When you get your bike storage part built make sure to post it somewhere , twitter, instagram or something, I’d like to see it. Our garage is also full of bikes and are becoming a trip hazard 🙂
Ha, I borrowed Pete’s design too! Mine is almost the same. And my bike storage is another thing I’m borrowing from Pete. I’ll be sure to share it when it’s done, but that may not be until spring or early summer…
have fun with our 5k. y’all would whoop my ass right about now. i’ve always like ikea stuff. friends of ours had those cabinets and they came out great.
freddy smidlap recently posted…Long Live The Upper Crust!
5K! I’ve run once in the past 5 months. I’m hoping for a time under 30 minutes. It will not be pretty.
Seems like you’ve got your work cut out for you Mr. 1500! Good luck on all those diy projects!
Really impressive work you’ve done so far!
Mr. Tako recently posted…Is The Economy Telling Me To Sell My Stocks?
this is an annoying question to be fair, but with that said, is that deck up to code with no railings? I know that obviously its not that tall, but in some states I think that height would require rails..
Not annoying at all! And yes, it will need a railing before I close the permit. I’ll probably do a stainless stell cable system to maintain the view.
Seems like you have a pretty sweet gig you’ve built for yourself; get to do interesting construction when you want, and only have to do the stuff that interests you.
I’m about to wife-FI soon to, and then I think I might try to take on more aggressive remodeling like you. Too date the most hard core thing I’ve done is laminate flooring, so plenty of room for improvement.
I totally get the self imposed anxiety with trying to do all of the things. I struggle with biting of more than I can chew now; I imagine more free time is not going to help. I’d love to hear if you’ve found anything that helps.
Keep on being awesome, and thanks for the update!
I like to block time off for myself. For example, I can only work on the house from 9am until 1pm and then I must stop. If I didn’t do this, I would work nonstop!
Thanks for the kind words!
The house is looking beautiful Carl! Love the finishes you chose, and that window will let in a lot of light. I don’t know how you do it all, but making over $150k over time by doing the renovations yourself sounds like you earned it!