BG Homeowner and DIY Thread - Out of the Basement Edition

[Boyiee]

Hey worked out for me. Put a contract in on current home in like June or July of 21, feel like it was the week before shit skyrocketed. Full list offer, no other bids. Closed in October 21 479k.

Had it reappraised by our mortgage company to prove equity 3 months ago. 1 year in and it appraised for 630k lol. PMI gone, trying to drop escrow. No major upgrades just paint, appliances and garage doors.

[Jaybar]

Land use changes in the area will definitely affect the worth of the property. I used to live on a side street in an edgy neighborhood with rents and home prices lower than surrounding neighborhoods with similar housing stock. As soon as a new multi-modal recreation path (like NYs Highline) and new zoning laws were approved homes were bought up and torn down left and right to put up luxury SFHs, townhomes and condos on previously cheap land.

So are we buying the house or the land it sits on.

[Tyche]

New appraisal went fine. Cleared to close on Monday, a (business) day later than expected, but it's still in my rate lock window. Now I have to contact the alcoholic realtor mom to see if she will graciously still allow us to take possession next Friday, as I had movers scheduled and a vacation scheduled, even though the contract states the owners get 7 days to get out after close.

[Julian]

Siding with Tyche here. Yeah, your appraisal will be high thanks to *other* already closed bidding wars, but it's not just going to magically appraise at whatever someone is willing to pay. (Although frustratingly enough, as soon as you close, you're validating the house appraising for what you purchased, if you were to sell right away...)

I bought near the start-middle of the market going absolute bonkers. Prices hadn't gone stupid ridiculous yet and market values hadn't climbed to reflect the new reality, but things were already going 15-25k over asking in a day. We ended up going like 24k over asking, and our house appraised at 7k under what we offered. (Luckily we got the sellers to drop the price $4k in lieu of doing some repairs, so the damage wasn't brutal.)

The appraisers will push and do what they can within reason to get houses to appraise, but they can't just completely make shit up out of thin air.

BTW Tyche the new place looks sweet! Grats!

[Roranora]

Colorado real estate anecdote: asking price was like 390k, we bid 405k and then later 411k before going under contract. appraisal came back right at 411k wouldn't ya know it

so now we've got this 30-year rent-to-own thing going on and it seems a dicey proposition

[Tyche]

New appraisal went fine. Cleared to close on Monday, a (business) day later than expected, but it's still in my rate lock window. Now I have to contact the alcoholic realtor mom to see if she will graciously still allow us to take possession next Friday, as I had movers scheduled and a vacation scheduled, even though the contract states the owners get 7 days to get out after close.

So, update, fuck the sellers and the bitch of a selling agent. I was told on Monday that they had movers scheduled the next day and would be out on Friday. Thursday rolls around and my realtor calls them to get an update. They have now said they will turn the keys over on Sunday. My mover doesn't work Sundays, he's booked Monday, and it's supposed to rain the rest of the week. Well, he gets his guys together and they offer to come in on Sunday and complete the move since the weather wasn't going to cooperate. So, yesterday my realtor calls and gets an update. They're keeping the house until Monday at noon. This is the last possible minute they can have the house, contractually.

I tell my realtor that if I don't have keys by noon Monday, I will have a locksmith meet me at the house and I'm taking possession at noon on Monday regardless. My movers have bumped their previous Monday appointment to fit me in. So, hopefully I'm in my new house tomorrow.

In other news, I think I found an Onkyo RZ50 that will ship out in around a month, so I pre-ordered that. My sister-in-law has offered to buy my audio equipment with her best buy employee discount, which is a HUGE win. Cut my expenditure from about $6,000 in speakers to under $3,000. My last decision is which projector to use. Epson just released a $5,000 laser projector this week, the LS12000. JVC is releasing a D-ILA bulb projector for $7,000 in March that's supposed to be very good as well, the NP5. I'm probably going to wait for more reviews of these new units to trickle in. The Epson laser seems like a great deal for a laser projector, but it's a pixel-shift 4k, no VRR, no dynamic tone mapping.

[Jaybar]

Fuck that experience. I had a minor experience like that when renting early in my life. We were moving out and told the landlord we'd be out on Thursday. LL told new renters that we were gonna leave on Wednesday. Cue me packing boxes and moving stuff to a van when I see a moving truck pull up with the new renters Wednesday afternoon.

After some complaints to the LL the new renters and I helped each other move (at least it wasn't a whole lot).


Tyche, I can't remember but were you going to make any acoustical treatments to your theater room? What is the plan down there? Was it just furnish and paint?

[Tyche]

Fuck that experience. I had a minor experience like that when renting early in my life. We were moving out and told the landlord we'd be out on Thursday. LL told new renters that we were gonna leave on Wednesday. Cue me packing boxes and moving stuff to a van when I see a moving truck pull up with the new renters Wednesday afternoon.

After some complaints to the LL the new renters and I helped each other move (at least it wasn't a whole lot).


Tyche, I can't remember but were you going to make any acoustical treatments to your theater room? What is the plan down there? Was it just furnish and paint?

I’ll probably do acoustic panels. I don’t want to tear down walls and redo it from the inside. I am trying to decide if I want to put up an additional wall and completely enclose the room. Right now the stairs lead down to the room. Other than the stairs, it is closed off to other spaces, and there’s no windows. I’ve also thought about just getting a curtain rail and automating it close some black velvet curtains. That would be the cheapest option. I’ll grab some measurements when I get in and decide how I want to tackle it. Here’s a rough layout of the basement and my plan for speakers (7.1.4 for now). The red ink is what I’m trying to decide.




I think it’s best to add a wall and close it off, it’ll make it easier to paint it all black without mixing in the stair well. I’ll get measurements and make a decision. If I add a wall, I could get an acoustically transparent screen and build the speakers into that wall and behind the screen. But that can also be done later as well, I’m sure this is going to be a months long project and I want to do it right. I think I’m going to use the storage space under the stairs to build a server/AV rack. It’s dry and there will be a hybrid heat pump water heater adjacent to that storage space, which should help keep it cool as well.

[Tyche]

Accidental double post

[Jaybar]

Oh that's nice. If you build the wall you can line the new hallway with movie posters or something. Get some track lighting in there and put the door in the back. That's assuming you can get a decent width for the hallway without compromising the theater room.

[Melena]

When we were moving stuff out of my dad's house, my brother refused to split the cost of a moving truck, saying he could do it all and he would make multiple trips in his truck.

I only have a sedan so I crammed as many bags and boxes as I could in it.

We were supposed to have everything out by 5pm on a Wednesday. Realtor calls me at 8 saying he's still packing and I abandoned him (I didn't, he flat out said he didn't need me)

Dumbass winds up dumping half the furniture in the neighbors back yard at midnight and picked it up the following day. I was fucking pissed.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Boyiee]

We got so fucked by our sellers.

We closed on our sale and the house we were buying same day. We had to be out at noon and had everything in the truck and swept clean. The buyers were waiting to do their walkthrough when I get a phone call saying there was a problem. The sellers of the house we were about to drive to "were never told it didn't receive the email that today was closing, and did not get movers and won't have any for a week."

Panic set in and my realtor was like do you want to hold off on the sale of our current home so we went homeless. We said fuck that we don't wanna lose our buyer and I rented a storage unit and moved in with the in laws for 10 days. It sucked.

[Tyche]

So I got moved in on Monday as expected. Been off all week, it's been fun to see what I'm dealing with. First off, these fucking monsters have different temperature lighting all throughout the house. Fuck, some lighting fixtures have different lighting temps.



We also thought their energy costs were a bit high when we had their utility records pulled. They had original 1989 hot water heaters and crappy thermostats, so we figured that was part of it. The house is also heated by electric, not gas.
We bought some nest learning thermostats and 2 Rheem platinum hybrid heat pump water heaters. Well, the house also has nearly 60 can lights. And every fucking one had 65-80 watt old ass filament bulbs.



Luckily, Costco had these 6 packs of dimmable lights for $3. Problem is I can only buy 4 6-packs at a time



In a win, I was browsing local online auctions for random shit and came across a non-descript "computer accessories listing" with a picture of what looked like a server rack. I bid $25 and ended up winning. It turned out to be a V7 9U server rack and included a 2U shelf. About $250 with of shit.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NPG9TN9...EYY7F88A15J64R

[Cantih]

Jesus, I've been seeing those yellow and black containers EVERYWHERE the past 6 months.
And I don't get out much.

[Cyn]

Jesus, I've been seeing those yellow and black containers EVERYWHERE the past 6 months.
And I don't get out much.

My workplace has like 5 of them lol.

[Tyche]

27 gallon totes. Costco had them on sale for $7 a few weeks ago. But Walmart, home Depot, Lowe's, Costco all sell some variation of this tote in this same color scheme. Usually, only difference is the design carved into the lid.

[Outlaw]

We also thought their energy costs were a bit high when we had their utility records pulled. They had original 1989 hot water heaters and crappy thermostats, so we figured that was part of it. The house is also heated by electric, not gas.
We bought some nest learning thermostats and 2 Rheem platinum hybrid heat pump water heaters. Well, the house also has nearly 60 can lights. And every fucking one had 65-80 watt old ass filament bulbs.

My Mom, who is a DIY person, replaced every single light in their whole house with low wattage LED's. She said it took a big chuck off their electric bill.

Luckily, Costco had these 6 packs of dimmable lights for $3. Problem is I can only buy 4 6-packs at a time

IDK if you have it in your area but there is a store called, "Batteries Plus" that gives a discount if you buy in bulk. I have some of the Duracell 60W led replacements they sell and it's been like 4 years and their still going strong.

[Tyche]

Well, I called an electrician to get me an estimate on installing four recessed light in the office (there's no lights there at all), 3 in the living room (there's only 2 above the mantle), and place some in the master bedroom (there's only a ceiling fan light in a very large master BR).

He told me that most houses are moving toward wafer lights. They also have adjustable temperatures. So, he's going to install those and I'm going to replace, I guess, around 55 current can lights with wafer lights. It seems like an easy swap, they have wafer lights to use the existing E26 plug and then snap into the current recessed fixture. Probably be around $300 to convert all 50ish lights at $5 each.

Amico 5/6 inch 3CCT LED Recessed Lighting 12 Pack, Dimmable, IC Damp Rated, 12.5W=100W, 950LM Can Lights with Baffle Trim, 3000K/4000K/5000K Selectable, Simple Retrofit Installation https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CDF8MJP...ing=UTF8&psc=1

[Jaybar]

Most of the stuff we try installing are wall sconces because ceiling lights suck ass and take up a lot of space that is usually needed for HVAC or other concealed equipment.

Plus sconces spread light better than down lighting.

[Byrthnoth]

wafers are also perfectly air sealed if installed correctly. Also, when one LED burns out you're not going to notice.