a short rant on the hedonic treadmill of bathroom and kitchen renovations

[CleverNickname 1321]

Some old houses are falling apart. Others have bizarre layouts that are not helpful. Some people prefer a galley kitchen, and others must take down the bar to have an open kitchen/living. I get it, there are great reasons to upgrade and change things up. 

But am I the only one who really doesn't care? If there isn't some awful drywall gap behind the cabinets that is responsible for a roach infestation, or leaky pipes making mold, I don't get why people bother. Aint nothing wrong with a kitchen has that 80s faux wood laminate counters. And at some point it becomes so old, like 70s avocado green tile, that it becomes rad vintage. Same with bathrooms. Sometimes the grout is not salvageable and the toilet is beyond hope and its just time to rip everything out. But sometimes its just sort of dated, but the water is hot and the shitter uses 2.4 imperial gallons of fuck you per flush. 

Don't get me wrong, I like new stuff okay. I just see the remodeling bills that some folks seem happy to eat, and think I'd much rather have another $25k cash sitting around for something else. 

[millhouse 2615]

I blame joanna gaines and all of hgtv

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

14 minutes ago, CleverNickname said:

Some old houses are falling apart. Others have bizarre layouts that are not helpful. Some people prefer a galley kitchen, and others must take down the bar to have an open kitchen/living. I get it, there are great reasons to upgrade and change things up. 

But am I the only one who really doesn't care? If there isn't some awful drywall gap behind the cabinets that is responsible for a roach infestation, or leaky pipes making mold, I don't get why people bother. Aint nothing wrong with a kitchen has that 80s faux wood laminate counters. And at some point it becomes so old, like 70s avocado green tile, that it becomes rad vintage. Same with bathrooms. Sometimes the grout is not salvageable and the toilet is beyond hope and its just time to rip everything out. But sometimes its just sort of dated, but the water is hot and the shitter uses 2.4 imperial gallons of fuck you per flush. 

Don't get me wrong, I like new stuff okay. I just see the remodeling bills that some folks seem happy to eat, and think I'd much rather have another $25k cash sitting around for something else. 

$25k ?  Try $75-$200K for many renovations/additions. I like a good kitchen, and I especially like people paying me to design them, and the spaces they're housed in.  

I do think some people go overboard with what they spend on them though.  I like quality over quantity, but having to have Wolf, Sub Zero, and Walker Zanger isn't that important to me.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

3 minutes ago, millhouse said:

I blame joanna gaines and all of hgtv

I thank HGTV every day.....

[ROFL BOX 6649]

The amusing part to me is where Company Executive Family moves into a house & the wife says "yeah, I just have to change _____ & _____ because I didn't design this & I want ____ to look like ____ & ___________________ ", etc. & after a solid year of spending $$$ (planning, searching, designing, then finally executing), then maybe 1 or 2 years in the house, Company Executive gets moved to __________ & the house is sold...

...& Then New Company Executive Family # 2 moves in & wife says "Yeah, I just have to change _______ & ______ because I didn't design this & I want ____ to look like..."

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, ROFL BOX said:

The amusing part to me is where Company Executive Family moves into a house & the wife says "yeah, I just have to change _____ & _____ because I didn't design this & I want ____ to look like ____ & ___________________ ", etc. & after a solid year of spending $$$ (planning, searching, designing, then finally executing), then maybe 1 or 2 years in the house, Company Executive gets moved to __________ & the house is sold...

...& Then New Company Executive Family # 2 moves in & wife says "Yeah, I just have to change _______ & ______ because I didn't design this & I want ____ to look like..."

You say that like it's a bad thing......

[Incredulity 11678]

People have to fill the black emptiness of their souls with something.  Some choose alcohol others exercise others religion.  Wives of high earners seem to choose remodeling.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

8 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

People have to fill the black emptiness of their souls with something.  Some choose alcohol others exercise others religion.  Wives of high earners seem to choose remodeling.

or fucking the pool boy, Fedex man, next door neighbor.....

[Okie State 3821]

I don't have money for the mega renovations, but I do like to make tweaks and customize a house to make it my own. I don't know how people can live in a house for years or decades and change nothing.

[deadshank 24653]

1 hour ago, CleverNickname said:

Some old houses are falling apart. Others have bizarre layouts that are not helpful. Some people prefer a galley kitchen, and others must take down the bar to have an open kitchen/living. I get it, there are great reasons to upgrade and change things up. 

But am I the only one who really doesn't care? If there isn't some awful drywall gap behind the cabinets that is responsible for a roach infestation, or leaky pipes making mold, I don't get why people bother. Aint nothing wrong with a kitchen has that 80s faux wood laminate counters. And at some point it becomes so old, like 70s avocado green tile, that it becomes rad vintage. Same with bathrooms. Sometimes the grout is not salvageable and the toilet is beyond hope and its just time to rip everything out. But sometimes its just sort of dated, but the water is hot and the shitter uses 2.4 imperial gallons of fuck you per flush. 

Don't get me wrong, I like new stuff okay. I just see the remodeling bills that some folks seem happy to eat, and think I'd much rather have another $25k cash sitting around for something else. 

Sorry your remodel turned out bad

[CleverNickname 1321]

7 minutes ago, deadshank said:

Sorry your remodel turned out bad

More like I'm sitting here in a outdated craphole that is falling apart around me because I'm too cheap to do anything but kick-the-can repairs. 

But seriously, we had a teardown of a pretty normal house down the street (78759) and I'm now I'm thinking why bother do the aesthetic stuff? Zero payback in resale when I sell in another dozen years and its time to downsize. Plus the cigarette burn on the kids bathroom counter reminds me of my mom. 

[deadshank 24653]

23 minutes ago, CleverNickname said:

More like I'm sitting here in a outdated craphole that is falling apart around me because I'm too cheap to do anything but kick-the-can repairs. 

But seriously, we had a teardown of a pretty normal house down the street (78759) and I'm now I'm thinking why bother do the aesthetic stuff? Zero payback in resale when I sell in another dozen years and its time to downsize. Plus the cigarette burn on the kids bathroom counter reminds me of my mom. 

If you're living in another tear-down then I agree with you.  If it's not a tear down then fix your place up and enjoy it.

Or just be a cheap skate and live in a dump.

[deadshank 24653]

2 hours ago, Incredulity said:

People have to fill the black emptiness of their souls with something.  Some choose alcohol others exercise others religion.  Wives of high earners seem to choose remodeling.

Others choose  the CR

[Js1 85442]

2 hours ago, Incredulity said:

People have to fill the black emptiness of their souls with something.  Some choose alcohol others exercise others religion.  Wives of high earners seem to choose remodeling.

Your mom doesn’t care what fills her black emptiness. 

[RDCanecutter 26454]

What matters about a kitchen is the food that comes out of that kitchen.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

14 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

What matters about a kitchen is the food that comes out of that kitchen.

It's completely unpossible to over rate the truth in this ^^^^^^^ post.

 

A slogan for eternity.

[dirtonia 269]

You sound poor.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 hours ago, dirtonia said:

You sound poor.

Could be... but damn well fed thru the years.

[Bernard 879]

OP sounds like my 78 year old aunt who passed away this year. Never married. Had money, but rarely spent any. She wasn’t about to change anything about the kitchen or baths in this 1940’s house she grew up in:

https://b1iw.app.link/7FslNdguj0

 

Bernard

[Paco 1934]

or fucking the pool boy, Fedex man, next door neighbor.....

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Okie State 3821]

7 hours ago, Bernard said:

OP sounds like my 78 year old aunt who passed away this year. Never married. Had money, but rarely spent any. She wasn’t about to change anything about the kitchen or baths in this 1940’s house she grew up in:

https://b1iw.app.link/7FslNdguj0

 

Bernard

That could be a really cool house. I had one that was built in 1939 that had been remodeled some. Loved that house.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 hours ago, Paco said:

19 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

or fucking the pool boy, Fedex man, next door neighbor.....

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Oh it's not if you're one of those guys.

[Prepuce of Doom 21091]

The colorless and soulless ambiguous greige and white color schemes that are all the current rage are fucking terrible. We looked at 70-80 houses before finding the right one a little less than a year ago, and a depressing majority of the various remodelings we saw was inevitably that same "least common denominator" of taste, like everyone suddenly decided to play it so safe that no prospective buyers would be able to distinguish it from the last house they looked at, lest they decide that the house has too much character. 

If I see this type of "Pottery Barn Deliberate Neutral" in a friend's house, I am thinking less of them as a person. 

Visual garbage. 

[horn4life 3768]

21 hours ago, CleverNickname said:

Some old houses are falling apart. Others have bizarre layouts that are not helpful. Some people prefer a galley kitchen, and others must take down the bar to have an open kitchen/living. I get it, there are great reasons to upgrade and change things up. 

But am I the only one who really doesn't care? If there isn't some awful drywall gap behind the cabinets that is responsible for a roach infestation, or leaky pipes making mold, I don't get why people bother. Aint nothing wrong with a kitchen has that 80s faux wood laminate counters. And at some point it becomes so old, like 70s avocado green tile, that it becomes rad vintage. Same with bathrooms. Sometimes the grout is not salvageable and the toilet is beyond hope and its just time to rip everything out. But sometimes its just sort of dated, but the water is hot and the shitter uses 2.4 imperial gallons of fuck you per flush. 

Don't get me wrong, I like new stuff okay. I just see the remodeling bills that some folks seem happy to eat, and think I'd much rather have another $25k cash sitting around for something else. 

Ask your husband to take down the cabinet and spend $15 fixing the roach entry point. I don't mind old, but I like sanitary, especailly if I am cooking for others. And let's be fucking honest, no way the old narrow butcher block wood plank look laminate counter top coming back into style.  And you need to be smoking a shit ton of weed to fall in love with avocado green anything again...

Now that I got that off my chest, if you want to you, and you have half a brain you can a shit ton of remodeling yourself, for maybe 20-30% of what it costs to pay somebody else to do it for you. IF you know how to source the more expensive parts of the purchases through builder supply houses or online for stuff like hardware. I did a flip house in Corpus and it cost me about $400 to replace the counters in the kitchen and both bathrooms. It took some measuring and fitting to the imperfections that ANY interior wall has to make the fit tight, but the things looked like granite and I had a profile edge that I glued on that made the eventual buyer initially wonder if it was granite. Granite would have cost me $2600 using a sub. more like $3500 if I went to a local retailer.  I needed a router to clean off the glued front edges, and some good tin snips to cut the irregular edges , but those were the only tools I needed. 

Some folks do way too much IMHO, far beyond the added value return. And i'm glad Onboard 2.0 is crushing the design end of things as that is really probably the most important if you are going to do some major wall moving and/or major changes.  I also don't think Galley kitchens are ever going to really be a preferred style ever again... 😉