The Termite Terrace Renovation

[OzarkMan]

Due to popular requests, I decided to catalogue the renovation of our house we bought in 2014. My wife and I wanted some space and no HOA. We found an older fixer upper that an investor already did some work on. (Lipstick on a pig) for $280k. It had an underground concrete pool that was dated and some modifications done by the previous original owner who had passed away. (This lead to the investor coming in and doing a ******** paint and fake cabinet installation)


We started with a good solid block constructed house of 1962 square feet and no garage. The original owner turned the garage into a small bedroom, food storage area (Must have been a Mormon thing?) and a computer desk area.




I will have to post pics later as photobucket isn't working

 

[OzarkMan]

Here is the house as we bought it.










The first thing to do is remove the overhead power lines/ phone lines/cable and install them underground. I also put in a 400 amp service. Getting them proof of load was impossible on a 1962 sq ft house however their stipulation on approval was that they can't deny me due to future expansion. While I had my utility excavation sub out here, I had them knock down some (all) trees!






























Then the interior fun began. We wanted to raise (Coffer) the ceilings to 9' since we came out of a house with 10' ceilings. The 8' felt really low.







These two generators provided power for 5 months until we got permanent power.









There were layers of concrete poured along with two layers of Tile. At this point I wondered what I got myself into. After this shot, We later had most of the interior slab removed and repoured. As I opened up walls, the previous investor had some hack electricians cut wire and leave them live in the walls. This prompted a rewire of the house which is why the 5 month timeline came in. I didn't pull permits for the rewire, just the panel. I had to get all the walls closed up in that timeframe while it was 100º+ out during July and August. With no ceilings, it was even hotter.






Gluelam beam going in just under ridge to support removal of rafters.










Two of ten 40 yard dumpsters and eventually one 12 yard concrete dumpster.










Removal of tile at hall bath to provide room for new wiring to outside panel.








Neighbors chickens wondering what the **** was going on over there?!








living room ceiling raised.







View looking into kitchen.






I did hire an architect to make this thing look right.








Office was first to be completed. This was the original master bedroom to the house with a small bathroom attached.







We took out the closet and turned it into a file room.





"Office" bathroom






Miles and miles of wiring to get to this stage. This included surveillance cameras, internet, TV's, Data, etc.








Garage construction comes next! Stay tuned!

 

[Deezler]

Nice start on the renovation! big project.

You're in Arizona... and you got RID of your trees? That seems insane to me. But I'm more a northern forest type of guy, I guess. haha.

 

[OzarkMan]

The trees we removed were of the dirty messy type. I wanted the land clear to provide a perfect backdrop for new landscape. Yes, we will put several trees down the road!

 

[OzarkMan]

So the garage addition was going to coincide with the expansion of the back of the house and the new front entry. I spent the next few days with my jackhammer getting all of the old exterior concrete patio and walkways removed.











We put up temporary supports as I removed the dated arches from the original front entry.



Back of house patio slab to be removed.








We gained another 3' in the kitchen by moving the wall out. It was still under roof so no roof line work was needed.










At this point, I sold my wife on needing a tractor







Ready for concrete guys.

















The not so friendly inspector checking every last detail in the dig. Spent a good 1/2 hour there without even acknowledging I was there.






















So the garage build portion is on my other thread, I am going to keep this thread dedicated to the house portion of the build.



While the garage was going up, the windows for the new master bedroom were being cut out of the block wall.






The interior wood floor was being undone.






New window openings in Bedroom







Kitchen wall going up:








Center section of house was completely gutted open as it required multiple gluelam beams to get the ceiling raised. This was during the coldest months. We had no heat aside from a propane space heater. We stayed in the small bedrooms next to the office.








New front entry expanded. The doorway straight ahead is the master bedroom where the windows were cut open.








My framer partitioned off the half part of the house to keep some control of the freezing weather we had.








Holes were cut for the gluelam beam posts.







Looking into the new garage. The brickwork is from the original entry way porch. I left it exposed in the garage.






Overall front transformation







Since my wife didn't like the brown roof color, We tore it all off. While in there, we replaced several termite damaged rafters. I put on my back pack blower and blew out all the old insulation. It was downright nasty and dirt laden if not termite eaten. There wasn't much paper left on the old R14 batt insulation.






















Entire house was stripped of old plywood and shingles, rafters straightened and replaced where necessary and completely wrapped in new OSB.













Front facade taking shape















My employee Alex showing his pride wiring up the sub panel in garage







My wife inspecting the renovation causing major atrocities to our bank account...






I did mention earlier about the kitchen floor having to come out. It was off by 1-1/2" from one side to another and full of cracks. The crew removed it in two hours and poured it the next morning. This gave me the overnight hours to dig up and replace the sewer lines to the kitchen and laundry. We had a visit by a coyote due to no walls... Timid creatures they are.




















I treated the dirt with a *Termidor* clone like product obtained legally from Amazon.







concrete poured. You can see the left side of dried concrete which is the extended part of the kitchen.








New entry which used to be outside. The hallway is widened too leading to the master bedroom and laundry on upper left.








New master bedroom partition wall from garage. The old wall was part block, part frame with the openings for two garage doors. It was completely out of square and uneven. Rather than keeping it, I removed it and we framed in this 2x6 wall. Gained another 6" in the bedroom too.








We used tongue and groove soffit boards to dress up the eaves.







Stucco preparation








Drywall begins. I hate drywall. Did I mention I really really hate drywall?






I made a pocket in the wall for the refrigerator to sit further back in. This will make it look like a counter depth without the cost of loss of refrigerator space.








More to come!

 

[Jon In Tucson]

Man, that is a lot of work! Nice to see another desert dweller build. Your wife is a trooper to endure all the construction. Subscribed! God bless.
Jon In Tucson.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[Kevin54]

Holy ****!!!! I don't know whether to call you brave or dumb. LOL!!!! That is a remarkable amount of work you are undertaking. Would you have bought the place if you had known that it needed even a portion of what you are having to do?

 

[TomcoPDR]

Amazing Reno. Tons of hard work

 

[OzarkMan]

Kevin, I can't answer that question. My wife was anti property. She hated the house initially and didn't want to give up her 10 year old luxury house in a pain in the *** HOA. I had to convince her this was a better option. Had she been more supportive, I don't think I would have gone so far into this build knowing she would be ok with finding another acre property. In other words, I would have passed on it knowing I can renovate another one with less headache. We also didn't know how badly damaged the framework was nor how bad the electric was. We did know going in that we had to build a garage. I sold my TR6 for 35k to add funds to this garage. In the end, I have about 100k into this whole thing but there was alot of sweat equity. My framer charged me $20 an hour which is really unheard of for skilled labor. He did the work of three men in one day.

Keep reading along, it gets even more complex! LOL This was done over a two and a half year period.

In the end, my wife Marie loves this house. It is more than she could have asked for in terms of comfort, security and luxury. We went from a tuscan themed house with tons of stonework to a clean modern Park Avenue style motif.

 

[OzarkMan]

So the garage was taking shape as the interior was still in a sad state of gutted mess.






Garage to house entry. (Used to be the front porch)








Borrowed a truck from one of my accounts (Dodge dealer)
Did I mention I hate drywall???








Kitchen taking shape








Living room taking shape












So the Master bedroom had been carpeted over by the investor we bought the house from. I pulled up the carpet to replace with wood tile. What I found was brick patterned vinyl flooring. I rented a scraper from home depot. A few blisters later and a bad back, I had it all out.
















My attention went back to the living room as my wife hated the huge ugly 70's fireplace box. I welded up some steel to enclose the opening to a more modern look and added mesh for the tile guy to do his thing. It used to be one of those 36" opening fireboxes. Keep watching along for the finishing touches on it.












Master bedroom wall was off by 2". Had my framer fur out the wall so the tile guy can proceed with the pattern.











Interior 24x24 tile almost done







Fireplace looks different!





Wall art tile:










Brought my utility excavator sub back to dig up some paths for drain lines.













Yay! Stucco is finally done...







House gets painted. Had a contractor not pay me on a job due to them losing out on work. Traded my invoice for them to paint the house. I would have preferred to get paid and use my own painter for much less....











Night lighting so far








Marie testing one of the cameras








Finally one room done! The laundry room is where I started and is the first to be finished.
No longer does my wife have to display her undergarments on a line out in the backyard!












House address by day:








House address by night:








Over the water heater is the door bell chime transformer, the LED address light transformer, and the LED light timer.








Garage mostly done except for storage
I used Sherwin Williams Armor Seal 1000 HS which has held up extremely well over the past two years. (Done a few brake jobs and other things in there)







Did I mention I hated drywall??


I smoothed out all the texture in the house except for the office. I like smooth walls and out here, you pay thousands to have that done by a builder or if you pay a private drywall company to do. I went as well as a level 4/5 finish. Here is the hall bathroom.








I didn't take too many shots of the kitchen cabinets going in. I paid Lowe's for that part of the job and they did a fantastic job over the 6 month period of missing pieces and wrongly ordered thingamabobs. You gotta have patience when undertaking this size of a project.








Living room completed:








Master bedroom completed:
I didn't include pics of the master bath as we have yet to renovate it. it is basically white cheap cabinets, white cheap tile in the shower, beige tile and beige granite. Nothing goes in there. Its whatever the investor had to make it look pretty. Granted, its a huge space at least.







Added privacy glass to the entry ponywall with LED edge lighting. The top lighting wasn't wired in when I took this photo. The iPad on the wall controls almost everything in the house but most importantly, the stereo!












Here it is set to the cameras:







Whats playing on the radio:








Control wiring in master closet:








Garage on camera in current state!








We aren't done yet!

 

[sawduststeve]

Fantastic work Simon
Thats a lovely garage you have, especially now that the sheds nearly finished and you can clear out all the stuff.
We have just come to the end of a two year reno in which we went down the same route as you, every wall, ceiling and floor redone plus building extras.

Well done mate it looks beautiful.
Regards
Steve

 

[lieutenant]

Thanks for the detailed update! I like the clean modernist look.

 

[BASFStewardship]

As the manufacturer of Termidor® products, we have committed to the EPA to carefully monitor, and instruct upon, the correct use of our products. As part of our commitment to EPA, we have monitored this site.

Your recent participation in a conversation around the BASF product Termidor® termiticide/insecticide gave us concern about your possible use of the product. While we do not have all the facts surrounding your use, it is important that you understand the following:
• Non-labeled use of federally registered pesticides is a violation of federal and state law.
• Uses not included on the Label have not been evaluated for human and environmental safety and can result in human and environmental hazard.
Please carefully review the label to confirm the legal permitted uses of Termidor. You may also visit our website, pestcontrol.basf.us/properuse, which also contains information on the proper use of Termidor. For any questions you may have, you may call us at 800-777-8570, or email questions to [email protected] . We also encourage you to share these resources with anyone you suspect may be involved in the non-labeled use of Termidor®.

Thank You
The BASF Product Stewardship Team

 

[BASFStewardship]

As the manufacturer of Termidor® products, we have committed to the EPA to carefully monitor, and instruct upon, the correct use of our products. As part of our commitment to EPA, we have monitored this site.

Your recent participation in a conversation around the BASF product Termidor® termiticide/insecticide gave us concern about your possible use of the product. While we do not have all the facts surrounding your use, it is important that you understand the following:
• Non-labeled use of federally registered pesticides is a violation of federal and state law.
• Uses not included on the Label have not been evaluated for human and environmental safety and can result in human and environmental hazard.
Please carefully review the label to confirm the legal permitted uses of Termidor. You may also visit our website, pestcontrol.basf.us/properuse, which also contains information on the proper use of Termidor. For any questions you may have, you may call us at 800-777-8570, or email questions to [email protected] . We also encourage you to share these resources with anyone you suspect may be involved in the non-labeled use of Termidor®.

Thank You
The BASF Product Stewardship Team

 

[OzarkMan]

Termidor wasn't the product used. It was a clone from Amazon. I used the term "Termidor" as people would relate to termiticide. Kind of like calling a land rover a Jeep. If there is an issue, I would rather you send me a private message rather than post publicly on my thread.

 

[Jon In Tucson]

Wow. Looks like a large case of corporate CYA going on here... Complete with double posting for emphasis.
Enjoy your renovation, but I'm sure glad you're doing it and not me. God bless.
Jon In Tucson

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[THEIKM]

is it just me or can anyone else see the photos? they are showing up as a broken link on my end.....

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Not showing for me either... but they were on PB so maybe Simon is moving them to a new hosting service...

 

[Sunbimmer]

I think this is interesting, but nope for me no pictures also