The Home Ownership Thread

[RedLantern]



I ripped this "box" down which only housed an ugly light fixture. Going to add 2 can lights above then get a different mirror and sconces on the sides. Still debating on tile but that is far down the road for that.

That framing though . . . are those true 2x8's? Looks beefy.

 

[jbarwick]

The left was is 2x8's to fit HVAC and some original 4" cast iron drain pipes. Ceiling is also 2x8 for what I can tell and it is not always even spacing. The white divider thing is on the edge of the vanity area and if removed will leave a space in the tile. We are leaving it as finding 55 year old tile could be rough. We will cap it with some sort of decorative molding.

 

[otc]

I didn't realize that the tiles in my shower were painted...until I was cleaning the bathroom yesterday and my scrubbing started to flake off some paint out around a grout line.

I feel stupid for not realizing, but it is well done: the tiles look like tile and the grout has enough texture that even with paint on it, it still looks like grout (and can hold dirt like grout). If I had known, I would have been more gentle with my cleaning...now I have a rougly nickle-sized oval of paint missing showing original tile/grout.

Not sure how I am going to fix this. Pretty sure they didn't leave any paint behind (ideally it should have been a 2-part epoxy paint anyways...) so I would have to guess at paint/color.

 

[RedLantern]

Electrician just left - I now have outdoor outlets, improved exterior lighting, and TV hookups in the most-difficult-to-get-wiring-to wall of my living room (So I can now set the room up the way I want!).

Replaced water main passed inspection today and is getting covered back up tomorrow.

Concrete guys are coming in the morning to pour my patio!

 

[BobStrauss]

Did a DIY light upgrade for my girlfriend's house. Replaced a builder-grade fan light with six recessed LEDs on a dimmer. Have since done her bedroom as well, along with replacing a few other fixtures.

Electrical isn't too difficult to tackle.

For less than $400 we went from this (paper templates taped up)



to this:

 

[jbarwick]

Do the LEDs dim that much? I always thought LEDs dimmed slightly but not enough to really dim them like incandescent bulbs.

Came home and all of the plumbing work is done but one small issue with the new p-trap where we tore the old "box" down. The new p-trap hangs maybe an inch lower than the ceiling drywall line. Called the PM to see if they could change this. A 2" trap would work instead of 3" but I think removing the drain from the shower is the best option. Instead of the drain base being short as in the picture below, it is elongated so the new 3" pipe can seat as close to the drain top/tile level.

The other option is installing a "mini-box" to hang lower which is not what I want to do.

 

[BobStrauss]

The LEDs I got, Philips Warm Glow, dim way down. I think it's 3% at the minimum. They're also designed to dim with incandescent-like hues, which they do a pretty accurate job of. They're not perfect but I'd recommend them over incandescent bulbs any day.

 

[LeatherBoot]

I have LEDs throughout the house but mostly use recessed Number 8 LEDs (Xicato LED chip) with Lutron HomeWorks (....controlled through Savant) and they definitely dim but not in a particularly linear way. When we were doing the programming we had the keypads do scenes at 50% and 25% and we had to adjust them down much much lower so that we ended up with 35% and 20%. the difference between 100% and 75% was very hard to see. Below 15% the lights get a bit flickery and at the time (about a year ago) they were one of the best recessed LED cans on the market at about $500 a lamp (if I remember correctly). LED is evolving so quickly they are probably even better now.

 

[RedLantern]

Hoping mortgage rates stay where they are for the next month or so. We just did a refi in October, went from 4.5% to 4.25% and got rid of our PMI in the process (could have got a lower rate but chose higher to eliminate up-front costs). Figure if we can get down to 3.9 or something we can do a small cashout, keep our payment the same, and get enough cash to redo our kitchen this year, rather than next year.

* - we need to wait another month because my wife just started a new job (same job, different company) and doesn't have 8 weeks or whatever they want to see as far as income verification.

 

[archetypal_yuppie]



Did a DIY light upgrade for my girlfriend's house. Replaced a builder-grade fan light with six recessed LEDs on a dimmer. Have since done her bedroom as well, along with replacing a few other fixtures. Electrical isn't too difficult to tackle. For less than $400 we went from this (paper templates taped up) to this:

How did you run the electical wires - did you have access from an attic? I'm guessing yes given the irregular ceiling shape. If so, I can picture it being that easy. We had 8 recessed cans put in our living room (in addition to replacing the entire 1940's knob-and-tube electrical), but since we have bedrooms above it, it required massive amounts of drywall cutting and patching. I would not have attempted it myself.

 

[upthewazzu]

Hoping mortgage rates stay where they are for the next month or so. We just did a refi in October, went from 4.5% to 4.25% and got rid of our PMI in the process (could have got a lower rate but chose higher to eliminate up-front costs). Figure if we can get down to 3.9 or something we can do a small cashout, keep our payment the same, and get enough cash to redo our kitchen this year, rather than next year.

* - we need to wait another month because my wife just started a new job (same job, different company) and doesn't have 8 weeks or whatever they want to see as far as income verification.

Isn't it rather expensive to do multipl refi's so close together? We refi'd in 2013 from 5.125 down to 3.5 and it was a pain ***********. There were some fees and it was a lot of wasted time getting paperwork to the new lender.

 

[brokencycle]

I would think so.

 

[RedLantern]



Isn't it rather expensive to do multipl refi's so close together? We refi'd in 2013 from 5.125 down to 3.5 and it was a pain ***********. There were some fees and it was a lot of wasted time getting paperwork to the new lender.

I don't really find it to be all that much of a PITA, lot of stuff to sign, but for me at least, it probably doesn't amount to more than 10 hours of time with all the phone calls, document collection, faxing, signing etc.

Fees of course can be expensive, but you generally have choice to take a higher rate to avoid the up-front costs. For example, when we bought our house we only put 5% down, so we had PMI of $266 a month. A year later property values had increased and we had made some improvements, so we had enough equity to refi and get rid of the PMI. We could have gotten 3.85% or something and paid the 2-3k in closing costs, but elected to take 4% and not pay any costs, as the difference in the monthly payment was only about $25-$30 and we were already lowering our monthly payment by about $300 from the elimination of PMI and through the lower rate.

A good friend of mine who works for Wells Fargo has recently gotten into their mortgage department and has said she would be willing to reduce her commission to get us a preferable loan.

 

[texas_jack]



Hoping mortgage rates stay where they are for the next month or so. We just did a refi in October, went from 4.5% to 4.25% and got rid of our PMI in the process (could have got a lower rate but chose higher to eliminate up-front costs). Figure if we can get down to 3.9 or something we can do a small cashout, keep our payment the same, and get enough cash to redo our kitchen this year, rather than next year.

* - we need to wait another month because my wife just started a new job (same job, different company) and doesn't have 8 weeks or whatever they want to see as far as income verification.

This sounds interesting, I wish I understood it.

 

[BobStrauss]



How did you run the electical wires - did you have access from an attic? I'm guessing yes given the irregular ceiling shape. If so, I can picture it being that easy.

We had 8 recessed cans put in our living room (in addition to replacing the entire 1940's knob-and-tube electrical), but since we have bedrooms above it, it required massive amounts of drywall cutting and patching. I would not have attempted it myself.

Yeah, I had attic access. Without it I'm sure it's quite a bit trickier.