Home Remodeling Blog Introduction

As I mentioned before in one of my first posts on this website I have been in the commercial construction industry for over 15 years, and like to think that I can call myself an “expert” in the field.  I would like to share some of my experiences while I am doing remodels within my own house as well in my DIY home remodeling blog section of capitalimprovement.org.  In THAT field I would definitely call myself an “amateur”.  I think I know what I am doing but if you would put me up against either 1) one of our superintendents or 2) a real residential remodeler then you can see that I know a lot about construction but once I put my tool belt on then I am a little less like an “expert” and a little more like the “average Joe” out there.  Nevertheless when people ask me what I do outside of work I usually tell them that I remodel because I truly love to remodel.  I am keeping this as part of this website because even though this is not necessarily the same as a “capital improvement” for a business as defined by the tax code everything that my wife and I do to our house can be considered a capital improvement, because we are hoping to build value to our home one step at a time.  I will tell you that we are not that couple who is going to just pay a general contractor to come in and gut our house and then say we are “remodels”.  Why?  Well first of all I work for a general contractor in the commercial world already so I think that between my wife and I we would probably make a residential GC lose his mind.  Second, we really don’t feel like taking a loan out to do a big renovation, (i.e. refinance our house) so we really like to try and get creative when performing our renovations – either by hiring a subcontractor or by performing the work ourselves.  That’s why I think it will be helpful to our readers, because one thing we know how to do is make a deal and get small projects done around the house, one project at a time, in hopes of improving our house one project at a time. 

Before we lived in our current house, we lived in a condo, and remodeled basically everything you could perform on a condo within a mid-rise building.  In addition, we have lived in our current house since 2014 and even though we were “in the trenches” and moved into our house with our first daughter when she was only 8 weeks old (and have since had a second daughter, with just as much energy as the first!), we could resist upgrading our house as much as possible as soon as we moved in. 

Here is what we have performed in the past at our condo – right before we moved out of it of course, that I will detail in our DIY renovation blog:

1. Bathroom Remodel
2. Kitchen Remodel
3. Living Room Remodel
4. Crown Molding Upgrade
5. Wall Layout Modification
6. Floor Base Upgrade
7. Engineered Wood Flooring Installation
8. New Paint
9. Install New Teledata Throughout Condo
10. Laundry Room Upgrade

Here is what we have performed in the past at our current house:

1. Electrical Device (Outlets and Light Switches) Upgrades
2. Light Fixture Upgrades
3. New Paint – Interior
4. New Paint – Exterior
5. New Family Room Molding
6. New Family Room Mantle
7. New Family Room Chair Rail
8. New Doors and Hardware – Interior
9. New Exterior Door Hardware
10. Concrete Exterior Concrete – Driveway, Rear Patio, Front Patio, Sidewalks
11. New Hot Tub (and Electrical)
12. Upgraded Landscaping
13. Repair Irrigation System
14. New Plantation Shutters
15. New Faucet and Plumbing Fixture Upgrades
16. Appliance Repairs

Here is what we have plans for in the future at our current house and what we will cover in the DIY renovation blog in “future” articles:

1. Continued Landscaping Upgrades
2. New Bathroom Vanities
3. New Flooring
4. Kitchen Remodel
5. Garage Upgrades
6. Basement Remodel
7. Ceiling Upgrades

I am looking forward to giving everyone a description of what we have been through to date and what we plan on doing for our home remodeling blog in the future.  Hopefully you can learn from our experiences (i.e. mistakes!)

Please feel free to leave a comment or question about anything above and I hope to write again soon!

Thanks!

Dan