About Project First House

I recently bought my first house on the 15th of June 2009 in the North York neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  My friends and family are quite happy for me and ask if I’m excited about it, but I can honestly say that I’m more nervous then anything else.

It’s a semi-fixer-upper in a great neighbourhood.  After watching numerous home improvement TV shows, dealing with some trades people myself, seeing poor workmanship on new homes and just the overall lack of care other people take in construction work, I have decided to do most of the renovations myself.

As they say, “if you want is done right, do it yourself”.

I’m excepting surprises and extra costs.  I just have my fingers crossed that I can afford all of them.  I’m ambitious, but I think this may be a real good test of my self control.

My father had put tools in my hands at a young age – getting me involved with household projects.  I’m not an expert by any means, but very handy.  I will be doing the work on my home and learning through books, contractors I know, home improvement stores, TV shows and online for those things I don’t know.

As a bachelor and business owner, this process is going to take a while.  I really only have evenings and weekends to work on the house.  My motivation is to get out of my parents house and on my own.

I will journalize step-by-step my first house project, including some ranting.  All in an effort to help keep my friend and family updated on my progress and provide others in the same situation some guidance of what I learned along the way.

This is my list of things that need to be done so far, excluding cosmetics:

  1. Redo and repair the roof.
  2. Redo the basement and build into a rental unit.
  3. Remove the awning covering the front door.
  4. The two walls separating the kitchen and living room/family room I was hoping to remove one and move out the other, more into the family room to make the kitchen larger.
  5. Remove the carpet covering all the hardwood floors.
  6. Replace all the hardwood flooring throughout the main floor.
  7. Redo the main bathroom.
  8. Redo the main kitchen.

Second list, that has now come about while the first list was being completed:

  1. Remove plaster walls and replace with drywall.
  2. Insulate upstairs exterior facing walls.
  3. Repair inside fireplace.
  4. Redo & add new electrical.

I really don’t want to move into the house until most of the work is done. Having to live in a construction zone with dust and everything isn’t really ideal for me.

This will be interesting!