Home Improvement Questions

You might have remembered a few weeks back I had listed my home for sale and was receiving luke warm showing feedback. Lots of negative feedback about the things I couldn't change - stairs (2 long sets of them and no way to avoid them), neighborhood traffic, and general surroundings/location. 

Well, after canceling the deal on the new home, waiting 4 weeks, getting a suitable offer (making money yea!), and resubmitting a new, more aggressive offer on the future new home, we're back in the game again. 

The new (to me) place was built in 1998. It has in-floor hydronic radiant heat and a gas fireplace. Two gas water heaters on separate loops. That's it for heat. The system is in good working order (although the fireplace needs a service.) The floor is mostly covered with outdated tile and horribly trashed pink carpet. 

Easy things we'd like to do: 

New flooring throughout - limited only by short term budgets. We're thinking of replacing the worst carpet in the living area with LVP - Luxury Vinyl Plank, and slowly replacing flooring in the rest of the house - this will mean removing the tile.

Paint the honey maple wooden cabinets from the 90's a different color.

Trim the windows and add modern blinds. 

New ceilings fans and fixtures. 

Stuff I want to do but is somewhat new to me: 

Expanding the back deck by adding a new substantially larger ledger board, but the current deck is bolted to the foundation - not lagged to the joist ends. How can I determine if the block foundation wall is hollow or filled solid? 

Smoothing out textured walls - still not quite sure about this. I don't like the texture, but its not so bad that it needs done immediately. I don't want to add drywall on top, but skimcoating may be more labor than I can handle. Anyone ever remove texturing without a full drywall replacement? 

Bathroom remodel - replacing tub with separate shower stall with one large glassed-in shower stall. Anyone retile their bathroom themselves? 

IR camera. Density gauge. Drill and test holes. 

Yes. Not fun at all. 

Yes. Time consuming. 

I recently converted my tub to a large shower- it went really well. 

I am assuming you are on a slab. If you have to move the drain, be careful of that hydronic heating. 

Congratulations on the new house!

I have attempted to remove texture without skim coating or replacing drywall, and all I can tell you is that a flap wheel on an angle grinder is not the right tool for it. 

The technique is definitely skim coating, not sanding

Inspector says it's a slab with floor joists, then subfloor, then concrete with tubing, then carpet/tile. His thought is that plumbing for example, is ran under the subfloor between the joists, not encased in concrete. 

Trouble is, I've got no way to verify that. Maybe an old building permit? 

In reply to pheller :

That would be a very odd way to build, and probably inefficient. 

Building permit would probably not tell. Should be able to tell with a careful inspection. 

So you're thinking it's concrete the way whole way down? 

My daughter and son-in-law bought a house where the ceiling texture was coming loose. No sign of water damage, just poor adhesion of the texture material to the underlying drywall. (dryceiling?) We scraped the loose texture off the ceiling (oh my aching arms), but it adhered to the joint compound like crazy, and wouldn't come off without taking the joint compound with it. Fortunately, my SIL had a friend whose father had been a drywaller for decades, and he owed us a favour. This guy remudded the ceilings in no time flat, resprayed the texture and blended it into the existing texture so you really couldn't tell where the new stuff ended and the old stuff began.

My point is that you'll spent ages re-doing the texture yourself, while a pro can do it quickly (i.e. not too expensively). IMO, it would be worth getting a quote - you may be surprised. Any time I've tried redoing texture, it came out looking horrible, while for the pros, it's a piece of cake.

I just found out that I've already spoken directly to the seller of the house without knowing it - they're the back neighbors! 

I should've negotiated harder because I think we hit it off and they probably would've caved because we're awesome. 

They also have two yappy dogs. Hmmm...

The dogs were there when you bought the house. I have no other opinions.