House Renovation pics as ktdave requested!!

[ALBERTA_LEXUS]

Hey gang, here is a bunch of pics of my house renovations I did last summer and over this winter. A little bit about the house, Located in Edmonton, Alberta and built in 1957. We purchased the house for $312,900 and gutted the top floor in August of last year and moved in September 1st. It was a lot of long days but I did it all mostly myself and my girlfriend and contracted nothing. We as many of you have seen also reno'ed the pool and yard this year, the great news is that our house is now worth $550,000, thats $237,100 profit in less than one year. Good thing our market is hot, thank you oil. Heres the pics. I have millions more but heres a couple.

One of the first days. Kitchen was nasty.

Looking towards dining room. Wall is now gone and an archway is now there.

Dining room towards kitchen. Camera phone pic.

demolition.

Now Towards kitchen from dining room. Brand new everything including slate floor.

Living room facing dining room.

Now.

Living room.

Now. Don't mind the top line of the fireplace, its painted now.

Old hallway. The shelving on the left turned into the new art niche.

New. We also redid all the corners when we drywalled. They are now rounded.

Old Master bedroom. Tearing off the wallpaper was heck!

View from other angle in hallway.

Now. Sorry for the mess.

other angle

 

[From_Arizona]

Wow - the reovation looks great!! I am sure seeing the results s quite rewarding. Great way to get things the way you want.

 

[Buggsw]

Dang, you do good work! Wonderful transformation.

 

[mikergibson]

Did you do all the work yourself or did you have to contract it out?
Looks great!
I really like the colors you chose

 

[ALBERTA_LEXUS]

Did you do all the work yourself or did you have to contract it out?
Looks great!
I really like the colors you chose

I did absolutely everything myself with the help of my girlfriend. It was diffinitely a learning experience. I never did anything like this in my life but I reseached alot of stuff and watched lots of HGTV for some tips and tricks. It was a very rewarding experience both financially and for my confidence. Thanks.


Alex

 

[deenamccauley]

Renos

Wow, beautiful work Alex.
I can certainly appreciate how much work that is. We've spent the last 2 winters renovating our house.
Summers we run our campground so we hardly see the inside of the house except to fall into bed.

Our housing market is remarkable right now. Are you planning on selling or are you staying there?

If you're ever out east of the city come and visit us. www.lindbrookstargazer.ca

 

[ALBERTA_LEXUS]

Re: Renos

Wow, beautiful work Alex.
I can certainly appreciate how much work that is. We've spent the last 2 winters renovating our house.
Summers we run our campground so we hardly see the inside of the house except to fall into bed.

Our housing market is remarkable right now. Are you planning on selling or are you staying there?

If you're ever out east of the city come and visit us. www.lindbrookstargazer.ca

I used to live on a farm by Elk Island Park, kinda in your area. Housing is crazy in our province right now, I am gald I bought when I did.

We are going to keep our house just because we have spent so much time on our house making it how we want it would be hard to settle for something else. Plus as you probably know to build a new concrete pool around here is $100,000 so that would be another added expense. We aere going to completely redo the basement over the winter and then new stucco and stone next spring for the outside.

Alex

 

[Buggsw]

You did it all yourselves. Again, great job! ...and good decor tastes, too. I love the look of that kitchen, especially.

 

[matt4x4]

NICE WORK!!!

Nice work! It's an amazing transformation - I'm quite impressed with your abilities.
One thing I don't agree with is your math - there is NO possible way you would make that much profit unless you're actually a thief by trade and acquired everything that went into the transformation through stealing it.

 

[ktdave]

GREAT WORK! I bet you are very proud! I am extremely impressed! I love seeing REAL people do this as it gives me confidence and ideas to do projects like this myself. Thanks for sharing!

Dave

 

[ALBERTA_LEXUS]

Re: NICE WORK!!!

Nice work! It's an amazing transformation - I'm quite impressed with your abilities.
One thing I don't agree with is your math - there is NO possible way you would make that much profit unless you're actually a thief by trade and acquired everything that went into the transformation through stealing it.

Thanks, although I am no thief. I have to credit most of the profit to our insanely hot economy. I think this year we have $19BILLION surplus for our province. No debt and an oil industry that supplies most of the oil the US uses. Where I work we are shipping 2.5million barrels per day. Everyone is moving here because the job market is insane. Tim Hortons and other fast food places pay $15+/hr to start, and places like 7-11 offer $1000 singing bonuses. The oilfield steals everyone away because you can make $100K/year as a starting wage with little or no education! Hope this was informative.

Alex

 

[matt4x4]

Alberta

Oh, I know full well what the Alberta Economy is about - I have family there, I was just questioning the math for your profit calculation - (current value) - (purchase cost) = (profit) is not taking into account (cost of renovations) is all I was trying to point out. If you put 100k into the transformation, your profit is MUCH lower - although by the time I post this, the house likely doubled in value AGAIN. But that goes to show you that the 100K a year starting wage you mentioned is starting to look like the poverty level - it's all relative - the cost of living in Alberta has skyrocketed SO much lately that unless you're willing to camp permanently in a tent or trailer at your local roadside campground, it's just not as profitable as it sounds.

A few of us here have had some really sweet sounding offers from out west, however, after researching what it would cost us to continue our current life styles on a 1:1 basis, not giving up anything, it's not worth the uprooting involved (to us anyways).
If I was willing to leave my family for a good length, live relatively meager for my stint out west and just pocket everything, I could come back with a nice chunk, but the trade off isn't there for me.

Anyways, I just love what you've done to the place - like night and day - since you're able to do this stuff so well, are you looking at a future of turning over properties while the going is good or is this a one shot deal?

 

[ALBERTA_LEXUS]

Re: Alberta

Oh, I know full well what the Alberta Economy is about - I have family there, I was just questioning the math for your profit calculation - (current value) - (purchase cost) = (profit) is not taking into account (cost of renovations) is all I was trying to point out. If you put 100k into the transformation, your profit is MUCH lower - although by the time I post this, the house likely doubled in value AGAIN. But that goes to show you that the 100K a year starting wage you mentioned is starting to look like the poverty level - it's all relative - the cost of living in Alberta has skyrocketed SO much lately that unless you're willing to camp permanently in a tent or trailer at your local roadside campground, it's just not as profitable as it sounds.

A few of us here have had some really sweet sounding offers from out west, however, after researching what it would cost us to continue our current life styles on a 1:1 basis, not giving up anything, it's not worth the uprooting involved (to us anyways).
If I was willing to leave my family for a good length, live relatively meager for my stint out west and just pocket everything, I could come back with a nice chunk, but the trade off isn't there for me.

Anyways, I just love what you've done to the place - like night and day - since you're able to do this stuff so well, are you looking at a future of turning over properties while the going is good or is this a one shot deal?

Hey Matt, my money is was about $35,000 or so. I guess the total profit is around $180K. Where abouts are you from? Me and one of my friends were going to flip houses but it would cost $300K for a condemed house and the area would never allow much profit, once things come down I would love to do a flip but it may take a long time for the house prices to come down enough where it doesn't take a huge investment initially. Unless someone wants to do the funding for me :lol:

Alex

 

[matt4x4]

it's always like that!

Funny how that works isn't it?
My house doubled in value in the last 5 years too, however, moving to another house like it would cost me that too, so you never come out ahead on a 1:1 move, however, if you can pick up a fixer upper and are willing to live in the construction and it's located in the right neighbourhood, then doing it yourself CAN turn you a nice little profit, have done that as well, that's how I paid for this one.

a bunch of us are currently looking at some investment properties slightly west of you (land only)...possibility of tripling in a few years......beats uprooting and moving the family to make more money.

BTW - I'm from southern Ontario.

35K is pretty good for all the work (materials) you put into it. You'd think a lot more by the pics.