Investor · Boston, MA · Member since 2014 · 232 posts · 165 votes
Hi BP!
My wife and I are making a move out to the burbs and buying a small SFR that will need a reasonably extensive rehab.
Rather than going through the entire rehab thought process with everyone, I wanted to ask:
1. What's something you wish you had incorporated into the build that you didn't realize until living in the new space (e.g. laundry / trash shoot, built-ins, creative uses of space)
2. What's one thing you went overboard on, spent too much time obsessing over, or wish you had done differently?
3. What's a creative idea you had (functional and/or aesthetic) that you now can't imagine living without. This can be interior or exterior.
Here's some things that went well, and some things I would have done differently):
We love the 'pocket' style windows with recessed jamb looks, (ie: no trim) what I did wrong though, was to order those windows with the jamb extension on them , instead of having that done with the drywall crew. It's cheaper, and we have small cracks forming in between the wood and the drywall edge looking at the windows from the front. It's a forest vs trees thing but when close, a detail that could have been better managed
We figured out with our basement layout, that we have a trash chute built right into one of our kitchen cabinets. So, we open the cabinet, and drop trash / recycling down and it falls right into the actual containers we take out to the curb each week. Will depend if feasible based on layout but saves a ton of time and is very slick.
The open floor plan when you can take something down to the studs and when the layout accomedates, is really really nice
Pancake style low form factor lighting (LED) has come a long way. Nowadays recessed downlighting still adds a nice look to a place - however you barely even can tell that something's not recessed with those thin pancake LED fixtures. I'd think really hard about doing these especially if you aren't completely opening up your ceiling....
Floor leveling compound works in theory but make sure it's REALLY level if you do use something like that. Don't buy the $40/bag stuff, you can just as easily go with the $10 / bag stuff that you use as tile adhesive (ie: thin set)
Get a good texture crew, that goes quickly. I wouldn't have skimped on that if I had to do it over. I used the wrong joint compound (non thick structural stuff) and we're seeing some cracking here and there.
Investor · Boston, MA · Member since 2014 · 232 posts · 165 votes
7y
Thanks @Jim Goebel! Do you have pictures of the recessed jam look? And my parents had a trash chute when I was growing up but have never seen one since. Always thought it was super cool and functional. Great advice on the rest - will keep these in mind and relay to the GC we end up going with. Thanks again!