We are doing all kinds of crazy projects to the home we recently bought. I call it Uglyhouse because it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wrong. The renovations on Uglyhouse have temporarily turned our lives upside down. I’m not sure if things have ever been so chaotic. We spent Saturday tearing off part of the roof and loading a 20 yard dumpster to capacity.
My body is sore. My lower back hurts, my right quadriceps has a big bruise from dropping a pile of wood and I am friggin’ exhausted. As I’m carrying heavy piles of junk around, I look west and see the Rocky Mountains taunting me: “Come on, stop all of that construction nonsense and come up for a hike.” Sorry mountains, no=can-do right at this moment.
The siren call of the Rockies is tempting, but I think the self inflected torture has all been worth it. We’ve saved thousands of dollars by doing many of these tasks ourselves. Today, I’ll talk about a couple of them.
Concrete Conundrum
Uglyhouse has a massive garage of about 700 square feet. Great, I love it! Any man who doesn’t appreciate a large garage isn’t right in the head. What isn’t so great is that the rest of the home is just 1400 square feet and has only 1 bathroom (not fun for a family of 4). We did some research and found that we could legally expand the living space into the garage! Woo! The only thing stopping us was a concrete wall. We researched the attic trusses and discovered that we could eliminate the wall without compromising the structural integrity of the home. Another woo!
We found someone to cut the wall out for a couple hundred bucks. Unfortunately, that couple hundred didn’t involve taking the concrete away. How much could that cost I said to myself? Turns out a lot.
As is typical with contractors, the first couple guys we called didn’t call back. When someone did call back, he let us know that the cost would be $125/square foot plus mileage fees to get to our place. I confirmed with him that the price was “one-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollars-per-square-foot” (it was) and told him I’d get back to him. I did some calculations and discovered that it would cost $3,000 to have this guy cart the wall away. Whoah, no way.
But what to do now? The Internet told me a 60 pound jackhammer would probably break up the concrete. I called the tool rental place and found that we could rent one for $44. I wondered if scrawny me would be able to operate it? To my surprise, it was easy and it only took 2 hours to demolish the whole thing. We had to get a dumpster to throw out other building materials and the trash people let us know we could put concrete in it. Great! So, we went from $3,000 down to $44. It was pretty miserable loading all of that concrete into the dumpster, but it only took a couple hours. Score one for me! (Mrs. 1500 note: Apparently, all this construction has produced a time warp in Mr. 1500’s brain. He is forgetting about the approximately 5 hours it took to pick up all that broken up concrete and put it into used grain bags from the brewery down the street. We still saved a ton of money, but it took more than a couple hours to dispose of it.)
Hellish Hot Hole Digging
We’re also building a deck and changing the roof-line of our place. This required that we dig 11 post holes. Again, it was nearly impossible to get a contractor on the phone, but when I finally got someone, he wanted $500. Hmmmmm, I’ll get back to you.
I grabbed a shovel, my work gloves and headed out to the yard. It was hot and miserable, but in about an hour, I had my first 3 holes dug. Success! Also, I got a great shoulder workout! As of this writing, I have about 7 holes dug. I hope to complete the other 4 in the next day or so. I admit that it is pretty miserable work, but I’ve got $500 more dollars in my pocket as a result. (Mrs. 1500 note: I dug half of one of the holes.)
Try it Yourself
With the exception of Mr. Money Mustache who seems to know how to do just about anything, most folks seem to stay within narrow comfort zones. Toilet leaks? Call the plumber. Car won’t start? Call the mechanic.
I challenge you to think about problems differently. The awesome thing is that you have the most powerful research tool the world has ever known. It’s free and called Google.com. If your faucet leaks or your toilet runs, I’ll bet someone else has had the exact same problem. I am always pleasantly surprised when I can often find an accurate fix for my issue on YouTube, right down to the same make and model. This past year, I fixed a leaky faucet and a busted washing machine by following videos on YouTube.
Back to Uglyhouse
Some day, in the not too distant future, Uglyhouse will be complete. I’ll have a ton of sweat and blood into the project by the time it’s done, but I’ll have saved loads of money too. The sense of gratitude you get when you step back and look at a newly remodeled kitchen or bathroom is just fantastic. Sometimes, especially with a big project, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is where I’m at now. However, gradually, and in very small steps, Uglyhouse will become beautiful*.
*Mrs. 1500 note: I cannot wait. We removed the gutters over the weekend. As Murphy’s Law dictates, a huge thunderstorm rolled into the area on Monday. We hastily put a bunch of plastic totes on the ground to catch the runoff. As I bailed water out of the plastic totes in the middle of a downpour, I thought ugly and evil thoughts about this house. Giant thanks to Colin Hay for Beautiful World, which I sung – rather loudly and probably to the dismay of my neighbor – to keep my sanity. I had to bail water 4 times…
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Buck says
September 10, 2013 at 12:25 pmColor me super impressed. Can’t wait to see more pics of the finished product. How are the neighbors in this ‘hood? Have you had a chance to meet any yet?
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:31 amYeah, we’ve met a bunch and they are pretty good. It is an interesting mix. The ‘hood is about 40 years old and some of the original inhabitants still live here. They are starting to move on and young families are moving in and fixing things up. Very good sign.
Allie says
September 10, 2013 at 1:57 pm“I challenge you to think about problems differently. The awesome thing is that you have the most powerful research tool the world has ever known.”
This is something I’m still working on. I’m not very handy, so my first instinct is to call someone else to fix problems, if it’s something I don’t think I’m capable of doing myself. I found our shower leaking the other day and immediately thought I should call a plumber, but I’m sure my husband would be able to figure out the problem and get the part from Home Depot for significantly cheaper.
1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:23 amOh cripes, plumbers cost a ridiculous fortune to hire! Avoid it all costs!!!
Mom @ Three is Plenty says
September 10, 2013 at 2:05 pmMy problem with DIY around the house is finding the time. I’m not strong enough to do some things (working on that), so Dad has to help – so who ends up watching the munchkin? She’s still at that age where she needs almost constant watching unless we plunk her in front of Netflix, which we’d prefer not to do. So, as a result, we might get an hour an evening to work on stuff unless we’re lucky enough for Grammy to come visit for a weekend. At an hour an evening, I *still* haven’t scraped up all the carpet glue in the basement – we might get that done sometime next summer….
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:22 amAgreed. It is very hard to do things with kids. Like you, I hate the thought of putting them in front of a TV.
Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies says
September 10, 2013 at 2:32 pmReminds me of when we were doing major work on our house the first year we owned it. There was a week in there that we had no siding on the front wall and no landscaping because it was all ripped out and we didn’t have time to finish before needing to go back to work on Monday. Oh, and there was a giant dumpster in the driveway for months. We were so classy. But the neighbors were so nice. Every small improvement we made they’d come over and tell us how much better it looked than before we moved in. The positive reinforcement helped. =).
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:21 amAll of our neighbors have been cool too. Very thankful for that. We just got the dumpster and I’m sure my neighbors are thrilled because before that, we had a huge pile of garbage sitting there.
CalDMint says
September 10, 2013 at 3:16 pmMy kind of house. Trying to convince the wife this is the sort of project we need in a home. I can do most all these things and really believe in a couple years I can put enough sweat equity into a place to make it worthwhile. And although I know the work gets hard and sometimes the end of the tunnel is far off, I still consider this type of work fun.
1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:18 amIt is fun and you’ll save a ton of money on the house. Hardly anyone wants the ugly ducks. Get an outdated 80s home and go nuts.
Pretired Nick says
September 10, 2013 at 5:27 pmI had an interesting issue with concrete at a past house. About a month after I bought it, I went out and to dig up a spot where the grass wasn’t growing to see what was going on. I threw in the shovel and CLANG there was a chunk of concrete beneath a half-inch of soil. And another. And another. Turns out the ENTIRE YARD was covered in broken chunks of concrete. I spent days digging them all up and throwing them into a gigantic pile. But then, what to do with them? I had some drainage problems on the property so I decided to turn it into underground water storage. I hired a manual laborer to dig me a deep hole, like eight feet deep and eight feet square and then I chucked all the cement in there and covered it up. Worked great! But, wow, what a lot of work that was!
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:10 amHoly crap, was your manual laborer a UFC champion? That is one crazy ass hole.
Done by Forty says
September 10, 2013 at 6:37 pmI don’t know what kind of people this makes us, but we leave our ugly house as ugly as it wants to be. 🙂
We do actually tackle some DIY stuff but it’s slow going. I’m impressed with the quick progress you guys are making!
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:09 amLOL! I couldn’t care less what our neighbors think, but these improvements will make the home a bit more livable for us. Can’t wait to be done though.
Jane Savers @ Solving The Money Puzzle says
September 10, 2013 at 1:01 pmGood job Mrs. 1500. Digging a post hole is a lot of work. I have no arm or shoulder muscles so I find your digging impressive.
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:29 amOh man, digging post holes is the worst. I do not have the shoulders for this kind of nonsense. My arms are the diameter of pencils. I’m never doing this again. Ever.
finishedby45 says
September 10, 2013 at 2:59 pmLooks like you’ve made awesome progress already! Looking forward to seeing the next set of pics. What a great investment, and you’ll be able to customize it to your liking. V. sweet.
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:19 amExactly! It will be mine when it’s done. In the meantime, my Sawzall will get a lot of use.
Rory says
September 10, 2013 at 4:36 pmI have to say I’m envious of your ‘I’ll figure it out’ additude. I pat myself of the back for fixing vacuum cleaners and doing drainage projects on my own home. I just don’t know how I’d find the time to mess with another property.
Kudos to you!
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:17 amFixing vacuums and doing drainage is still more than most people do. Next time something breaks, just get out the toolbox and go to town.
1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:08 amYeah, it never hurts to try though. Chances are, you won’t screw things up any worse. However, if you fix it, you now have a skill to last a lifetime.
1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:16 amOh, I could write a whole blog on this house at the moment. More posts in the very near future…
Micro says
September 10, 2013 at 11:29 pmI remember digging post holes to put up fencing for the farm when I was growing up. It was not an enjoyable way to spend the day. It’s hot and exhausting and the worse part was still having evening milking even after we were done. Congrats on the work you’ve gotten done so far. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished project.
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 4:08 amThanks and yes, digging holes sucks! My back is killing me right now. I got halfway done with a bunch yesterday and then it rained like crazy, so I was shoveling mud. After I’ve done a couple hours of this stuff, I can’t even type because my arms are shaking. Bleh.
Laurie @thefrugalfarmer says
September 11, 2013 at 11:56 amUgh, the house we bought in October is super old and has its fair share of needed renovations/repairs as well, so we totally get where you’re coming from, and yes, it is very, very exhausting. In fact, I think if it weren’t for the 4+ car garage, Rick would’ve said “No way.” And as much as he hates the old house, he loooooves that garage. 🙂
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1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 1:11 pmRick is a wise man!
Jamie V says
September 11, 2013 at 12:31 pmThis is inspirational, thank you for posting. Next time we have a problem at our place, I really want us to at least make an attempt to fix it ourselves. Who knows, maybe it’ll work, we’ll learn something new, and save money all at the same time!
1500 says
September 11, 2013 at 1:11 pmYes, do it! Hit me up if you need help. Seriously!
Nitin says
September 11, 2013 at 3:35 pmGreat job! One question – how does one get a dumpster to dispose of stuff like you had? (I know I should probably google 🙂
1500 says
September 13, 2013 at 12:49 amHi-
Just call your local trash company. They can usually have one out to you same day if you need it.
SavvyFinancialLatina says
September 16, 2013 at 9:06 pmAnd it doesn’t cost extra?
charles@gettingarichlife says
September 12, 2013 at 8:21 amAwesome work on the house. I hate this kind of stuff, I admire those that are good at this stuff. How may hours have you put in so far?
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1500 says
September 13, 2013 at 12:48 amI have no idea how many hours. Lots and lots, but I try to compress it. For example, I’d rather work 16 hour days and get it done than 4 hour days and have things drag on.
Steven says
January 7, 2014 at 10:40 amYou are a better man than me sir. I would have stuck with making a few extra calls to get the concrete hauled away and asked “my guy” about a good fence guy.
I once used a jackhammer, it was the summer before college at my construction job, I thought that was fun for about 5 minutes.
Great job in saving money, it all adds up for sure.
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1500 says
January 7, 2014 at 9:02 pmThat concrete was miserable! I think my shoulder still hurts!
Even though I’m a wimp, the jackhammer wasn’t so bad. It was a newer one though, so maybe that made the difference. You basically just hold it and it does all of the work.