starting your diy remodeling

This is the first property I bought from the local county government tax repository. When a property is taken from the owner for not paying the taxes the property is put up for auction. When the property is not sold at the auction it is put into the tax claims offices repository. You can check with your local court house in order to find out where your local tax repository or tax property sales office is located. I don't know if each state or local government calls it a repository.

This property had been empty for about seven years and had not sold at auction. I bought this because it sits behind the house I had bought with a traditional mortgage. It was not much to look at, more of an eyesore, but it was cheap and I didn't need to finance it. Once I bought it all I have to do is pay the yearly taxes the same as I do with the property that has a mortgage.

I believed I could, and would have to, do most of the work myself. My brother volunteered to help as much as he could but I don't really like to ask for help. I told him he could work on whatever he wanted to as long as I had the money to buy the materials at the time.

This first purchase is an example of the American CAN DO spirit and of chasing the American dream of owning property. This is also the house my daughter now lives in after I have remodeled it and made it a livable home.

The first thing I did was rent a dumpster in order to clean out a lot of the junk and personal property that had been left behind by the former owners. The house had also been broken into and vandalized by who knows. Some of the walls had holes from being kicked and punched by the vandals. Clothes, from the previous owners, were scattered all over the floors. The basement walls had leaked and the gas furnace had become a pile of rust. There was also a washer and dryer that had not fared very well, along with quite a few empty plastic detergent bottles. The basement was basically a total mess. I have a job where I work daylight shift so I cleaned out the basement after work until it got dark.

It took about two weeks and two dumpsters plus one to two trips a day to the recycling bins, set up by the city, to have the basement cleared out and cleaned out enough for the next job.

The first thing I did after getting most of the junk out of the basement, and I had the money, was to have a registered / certified electrician install a new electrical panel. I needed the electrical panel installed in order to have power for my battery chargers for the power tools as well as light to be able to work after dark.

It took a while and I paid for it with lack of sleep and long hours at a regular job and cleaning the place out after work. It was like working two jobs.

When you are thinking of remodeling and do not have the money to hire the different contractors for plumbing, electrical, carpentry, or anything else you might need to have done DO NOT count on anyone like friends or family to help you. Your family and friends have their own lives, jobs, children and other friends and family and may not have the time to help you.

Remodeling can be time consuming, expensive, and hard at times but as long as you are only counting on yourself you can adjust your time schedule. I had friends who helped for an hour or two and told me I was wearing them out and I was crazy for wanting to be so picky but, it's my house and I wanted it done my way.

I only worked on this house from 2 to 6 hours a day when I had to work the next day. I cleaned out the basement by putting the trash in garbage bags and setting it out on trash night because I could not afford a dumpster. I put out between 5 and 10 bags per week. It took a lot of time to clean out the basement.

On my days off I worked on the house from 4 to 10 hours and that was only if I had the money to buy the materials for whatever job I was doing. An example would be if I had money to buy 1/4 inch OSB for the walls or 1/2 inch OSB for the floors I bought what I could and when I ran out of material or money to buy material I was done until my next payday. I, also, spent a lot of time cleaning out rooms to be able to have a clear work space for when I could buy more materials.

It seems that over 75 percent of the different projects was the preparations, cleaning out the area, patching any holes in the walls before putting the OSB panels up. I tore out the duct work for the cold air returns and had to frame in the holes and put plywood in the holes to make the floor even with the old floor. Then I put down the 1/2 inch OSB panels on the floor to make an even more solid floor. The floor was solid but some of the individual tongue and groove boards had started to splinter because of the weather and the house having been empty for so long.

Since this was my first remodeling job it probably took me twice as long to prepare for a project as it did to do the actual work. I would spent two hours getting the floor or walls ready for the OSB and an hour putting the OSB in place.

If you have never done any home maintenance or remodeling it is very challenging but as you, slowly, learn what you are doing you get faster and it becomes very rewarding. I have learned quite a bit and people where I work have even had me do work at their homes or have had me explain to them how they could do the job themselves