Pimping my guesthouse renovations
polycounter lvl 19
Agust and I bought a 3 floor duplex 6 months ago. It has a fireplace, a greenhouse room, it's own driveway, a backyard (a rarity in downtown Reykjavik) and best of all, A GUEST HOUSE! It was originally a garage, the old owners destroyed the internal wall and turned it into an office with a half bathroom (toilet and sink, no shower). I went in, destroyed a wall, jackhammered through the floor, installed a drain, ran plumbing through a new wall, tiled the entire floor and 2 walls of the shower, ran a hot water pipe 2 feet below ground from the main house and up through the foundation, then totally ripped out everything inside the house, painted, installed furniture, and now we're open for business. We rent to tourists and with even 50% occupancy it pays our mortgage. We've been paying our portion anyway, so it ends up we will have the house paid off in 4 years instead of 15. It was cost comparable to a house this size in a non major US city but still downtown.
So, on to the pimping.
Kitchen
Bedroom
Living room.
Anyone else into DIY or renovations on houses? Post it up in this thread.
So, on to the pimping.
Kitchen
Bedroom
Living room.
Anyone else into DIY or renovations on houses? Post it up in this thread.
Replies
It's cheap Ikea click laminate. The durability is directly related to how dry you keep it and how tightly you install it, but it's cheap cheap cheap. About 10 dollars per square yard.
Edit: Poop taught me how to read. This is his guesthouse like the thread title says.
Here's our guest house...
@Eric Chadwick
I'm jealous of your tree house, always wanted to do one since I was a kid....never got a place with a tree where I lived u.u
Kidding, looks awesome! If the guest house looks this great I wonder what your actual house looks like.
Where the hell is all that light coming from?
very nice reno, and a great investment!
And holy crap that's awesome tree house!! Now I want one... I gotta get a house again first...
I gotta dig up pictures of my condo before I sold it. I re-did the cabinets, the kitchen with new appliances, repaired the glass tile and the carpet. Kitchen was the hardest, and then wired the whole place for CAT5, replaced the outlets with ones that have CAT5 and installed an outlet under the cabinet for kitchen/wall PC's. Installed an extra shelf in the hall closet, had an electrician install an outlet with power, cable and a phone jack. Installed a 30 port gigabit switch. I had neighbors coming in and checking it out for weeks. And it sold in 12 days. But it's been like two years.. so I doubt I'll have anything.
By far the hardest thing I've done, because of the time it takes for one-man (I had help with the kitchen with a custom above stove shelf). Sanding down the walls and scraping ceilings... re-doing drywall in damaged areas. I hate it. But I loved it at the same time. I just wish I got a chance to enjoy it for a few years.
One thing that REALLY sucked was getting the new fridge and it didn't fit because the condo was made in 1974. So instead of getting a new fridge I left it in the living room and pulled the off the wall. Then moved it in.
If anyone lives in Houston/Sugarland area and would like a BIG ass box of networking stuff (a 48 port switch, about 90 feet of network cable, a TON of 1, 2, 4 and 6 port networking wall plates with supporting hardware), I'll be more than happy to give it to you. I just hope it's where I left it.
u really got a hand for this stuff, looks nice!
Nice place
rly: has a nice, relaxed "home" feel to it. nice
The "sunlight" is a flash outside the house aiming in. As for the rest, it's just ISO 100, on a tripod with a long shutter duration to let the room light properly expose.
We would still be eating on the floor if we didn't have Ikea prices to stretch our Kroner.
It's 50 euro a night single, 65 double, which is cheaper than any of the downtown hotels and the other guesthouses. Plus a 15 euro end of stay cleaning fee, and we have weekly/monthly rates also.