January Construction Part 1

During the last three weeks we have made some great gains on the renovation of the house. Since I have been a little slow and getting the pictures and narratives posted I’ll break this out into a few parts in a couple of separate postings.

Sill Replacement

We were very fortunate during the second week of January to get some very mild weather and our contractor got to work on the sill that runs along the western side of the house. This side had the most water damage and faces a ridgeline on the property next to us.

The four pictures below show the sill at the rear door to the addition, where we will move the kitchen to, and the front of the addition. Our contractors made quick work of replacing the sills; I have some comments below concerning this problem.

Lesson Learned

Beth and I have learned a number of lessons since we began this work and luckily for us we were prepared a bit more since this is our forth home. However, the biggest lesson we learned is to really check out your contractor. The man we presently have working for us was our first choice, but at the time we started to get this under way he was working on another project that prevented him from taking the job. So we began to look around and came across another contractor from the community. We found one and went to one of his jobs and spoke with the home owners, who gave a glowing recommendation. Without out checking further we went with the guy. The lesson we had learned earlier in our marriage was not applied, and as you can imagine we got taken. Back in North Carolina we got taken by a HVAC installer and we made it a point to really check references from that day on. But in this case of our former contractor, we “felt” good about the situation after talking with him and one of his past clients (felt being the operative word), and failed to use solid reason. In the end we were able to get on our present contractors schedule, but that came at a cost ($!).

This is going to be an important issue for anyone trying to renovate an old house. But it becomes even more difficult in rural areas because the number of folks that do this type of work is limited, and to examine their prior work is difficult because carpenters and construction folks have to travel a fairly large area to bring in business. So be prepared to do some traveling, but also be prepared that it may take longer than you expect. That is of course if you are planning to do all of the work yourself. In my case, sill work and framing is not something I have ever done, so I have to contract this portion out, as I will some of the major systems to be installed.

Another lesson to consider is the fact that with an old house renovation a contractor is not going to make the house perfect. In our case our foundation is still Ohio sand stone and will not become square. Our contractor does his best and actually wanted us to tear down the house and start over. But we continue to press on for two reasons: first we have a good amount of our savings in the house and farm already and trying to start over would have forced us to go into debt; something we said we would not do with this house. Second was simply for plain utilitarian purposes; we do not see the need to have a HGTV house. This is a place were we cook our meals and go to sleep, but it is outside where we really want to be. Of course we have given a lot of consideration to getting old and this something that we have planned for in our construction. But that does not mean we should be sinking loads of money into things that have no value or purpose. I guess the big thing we learned along the way is that function must outweigh style or form.

One other point to consider for anyone that reads this weblog and is considering the same lifestyle change, ask yourself first, "should I renovate the house in the first place?" Well if you are going to homestead or even farm commercially, I would say no. When you consider the cost of farming equipment, out building construction, fencing, plants or trees, and livestock, just to name a few categories, it makes no sense to renovate an old farm house. I would seriously consider tearing down at some point and putting up a prefabricated modular home.

So why are we doing this, well because we came at this from another direction. We had planned to work longer at our jobs and move to the farm for an early retirement. Yet we had always wanted to homestead, but at the time we were searching for the property we thought that it was beyond a point that we could do it. It wasn’t until we read Joe Salatin’s book, You Can Farm, and crunched the numbers did we realize we could. But at that point we had already purchased this farm and had started on the renovation. So we had committed ourselves. Nevertheless I would say to anyone, before failing in love with the farm house ask yourself, “is spending upwards of $150K to $250K on a house renovation worth it in the end?” Or is tearing down and refinancing your mortgage with a simple $60K prefabricated house better; and then busting your behind to get rid of that debt.

We do consider ourselves to be in a good position and will really limit the amount of money that we put into the house. There are a number of factors that go into this; first, our expectations are focused on the outdoors not the indoors, so again the inside is going to be solid, but not HGTV. Second, we can do much of the work ourselves. Since this is our forth house we have done many of the tasks head of us before, and we are very confident. But remember not to be too concerned about your ability level. I think I underestimated myself in the past but found buying a book at the home store that explains the processes really helps and before I knew it I had the job done. Third, we are luckily to have our family to help and we have some good neighbors that have already been there (this is key out in the country). Forth, we have no problem using recycled, used, auctioned, or dented materials. The bottom-line is it comes down to costing. There are a few more factors but I think you get the point. If you are going to move out to the country be prepared to do it yourself, unless of course you have deep pockets.

The most important aspect for anyone wanting to homestead is making sure that you first have the money to become self-sufficient and to get your center piece effort under way on your farm. While you may have income coming in from an off farm job, you have to get the farm to a point that it is generating some income; and this takes time and money. If you are like us, working off the farm is not why you moved there in the first place; being there is. So again, before jumping into a major renovation, crunch the numbers and ensure perceptions are properly focused, because you do not want to end up having to sell the farm to get out of the debt incurred through a costly renovation. Farming and homesteading should be the bottom-line not home construction, so plan well before going into this.