Hi!I'm new here.Hoping to be a first time buyer in Eastern Massachusetts soon.My partner and I found a house we really like.BUT the septic is broken.With a broken septic we can only get a really crappy low rehab loan.Wondering if we can pay out of pocket to repair the septic,then still qualify for fha/soft 2nd?Prices seem pretty varied for septic repair.

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up on the launch of Wildest Houses II at thisoldhouse.com! Please give us your feedback and tell us of other wild houses you may know about...it could even be YOUR wild house!

I just joined this community - it seems small and I'm not sure if people check here often or not, but thought I'd give it a shot.

My husband and I have been doing renovations on the house since we bought it in June 2007. The next one we're looking at is the bathroom (right now it has lavender fixtures, blue & purple walls, and the ugliest light I've seen in my entire life). Since the tub surround isn't bad, we had thought of either re-glazing the tub or getting a tubfitter. However, these options don't really seem like the best - just convenient. The re-glazing will cost us just over $300 (the sales person said we might get 5 years out of it), and the tubfitter will be about $1,000.  Seeing as you can get a brand new tub at the store for as little as $200, we're thinking that a better investment would be to rip it all out and start from scratch.  We don't have tons of money for the reno, so the $1,000 for the tub could probably go a really long way.

Does anybody have experience with bathroom renovations?  Any suggestions?  I'm also looking for ideas for the shower area - does anyone know of any online galleries for showers, tub surrounds, tiles etc?

Thanks so much in advance!

Hello! I found this community through mutual interests, and I'm excited to read through it. I also started a new community recently - ourlovelyhomes - and would like to invite everyone to post pics of your homes, design projects, and landscaping ideas! I cannot wait to get some ideas for my home. I've already done some remodeling, but have a lot of work left to do!

Hello everyone. I just found this community. It doesn't look very active, but I have some questions and hopefully some of you are still around!

My husband and I are in the process of buying our first house. The house we are buying has a vent free gas fireplace. It is freestanding- not built into the wall. The house is small and the fireplace is in a really bad location. We are also having a baby and are concerned about the safety of having the stove seeing as how it gets hot (I'm concerned about the baby's safety and my own as I am a complete klutz!). Because of this, we want to have it removed. This is where my question comes in. I don't want to do it ourselves because it involves a gas hook-up that I don't want to mess with. We have no idea who to call to help us have it removed. I did a google search and didn't find any information about removing a gas fireplace and the manufacturers website doesn't address this issue either. The owners gave us the manual, and it has instructions for installing the fireplace (it says to have a professional install it) but nothing about having it removed. Does anyone here have one or have any idea who we could call to have it removed? Also, we'd love to sell it. It's very pretty and in great shape. We just don't think it fits this house. Any idea on where we could sell it? We were thinking craigslist, maybe?

Greetings, all.

My husband and I purchased our very first home about 2 weeks ago.  It's a 3 story urban Victorian with a whole lot of fixing up to do.  We've already ripped the carpet out of one room and we're starting to get into some painting.  Of course, being an old home, it has a lot of blistery paint and cracked plaster.  

Any good plastering tips?  We're trying to figure out at what point you just paint over what's there or when do you have to strip the whole thing and re-plaster. The parts we've been stripping of paint are coming out awful, no matter how careful we are.  Sometimes, more plaster comes off with the paint and so everything is un-even.  It feels like we're just creating more work!

Anyway, I look forward to reading and posting in the community.  Here are a few pictures behind a cut..

How much does your foundation shift in the winter?

We moved into our first house in June 2006 so this is our first round of the seasons. The snow is finally melting a little bit up here in North dakota and I can see a noticable gap formed along the backside [west facing] of the house. The rock bed has a distinct drop, the step from outside the garage door has the rebar showing so it's a good few inches moved, and the gap continues along most of the length of the house. I know the foundations do this some with the changes in the weather and some is to be expected but how much?

I might get out later to take some pictures. It's crazy.

{Hope that is ok--I am trying to navigate as unobtrusively as possible..}
12:48 am - Kitchen Reno update& New furnace
I keep checking to see if anyone has posted to this site-guess everyone is BuSy~
Thought I would break the ice & give an update on some of what we are up to(hope that is ok with everyone~)
I'm a Canadian(don't know if I mentined that before)..so at this time Direct Energy company is offereing a 1year No money down /No Interest -No payments for 1 year-& No penalty should you choose to pay it out before the time period..(On approved Credit)
& they are the Installers of the Trane Furnace we had been originally eyeing for our home...
A situation the fates have put before us -just as I thought we would have to forego our furnace install for another year-
Well not even 1 1/2 weeks after origingal calls -we have our furnace IN!~Operational
& new duct lines added to the basement to bring it into a useable comfort zone...

Its high effecientcy & energy saveing capabilities puts it "In" for our R.E.E.P Program
that we need to get finished up by Feb.25/06


*Note*
The R.E.E.P program is the "Rebates for Energy Effientcy Program"
When we signed on for this in March we thought we had 18 months to complete
as many of our energy effiency improvements as we could to receive a Rebate from all items listed once the final analysis was given..
~ Now we had to speed things along -to nmake the most of the Rebate
I just need to get the final analysis booked for 2nd or 3rd week in February...

I don't have pics uploaded yet of the Trane Furnace...
But please check out a few of these other reno pics of kitchen -I will soon be adding more as the kitchen is coming nearly to completion
p.s. (I hope this gallery posts well)

http://pics.livejournal.com/ladydragonflyii/
Current Mood: bouncy

Hi~I just signed up recently to your little community & thought I should introduce myself-
Hubby & I are sort of 1st time homeowners (its our 1st keeper)-we are in are
mid years...So this will probably be our empty nest place {we are half way there : ]}
We have a small '40's style house that we are renovating.
Presently we are reno-ing the kitchen a tiny little space of 6.5 ft X13.5ft
originally the kitchen cabinettes covered one wall (the 6.5ft)with a stove snuggled near it & an old partial cupbard opposite so I could have a prep space...plus open shelves banking the opposite wall to the sink with the refrigerator..
*We are changing the footprint of the room thus needed to change wiring & plumbing..& since we had Cinder brick outter construction we needed to
add 2X4 framing../insulating& gyprock paint after-adding new wiring for
the work areas...(after upgrading our Power service box)
finally we have the gyprock& painting completed & we will be putting in Krono flooring this week..Cabinetry is from Ikea(a great sale price)& new appliances are ready to go...
it has taken longer than we had expected but it was mostly unexpected things in life pulling us away from our reno project..
We hope to finish the kitchen soon..I have more plans to talk about but think I will let you know more as we go along as it can sound a bit like rambling.,on & on.
I am looking forward to hearing about others reno projects& meeting other DIY'rs..don't know why I didn't search this interest before on LJ-lol

And I could cry. It has been SO HOT here and everything is suffering. Everyone's grass, plants, and trees. [not to mention the people!] We're into a drought I'm sure. I have been watering my outdoor plants every other day either early in the morning or later in the evening. I don't have a sprinkler so I just stand with the hose spray for a few minutes on each one. The past 2 days I have been using the water from the pool [not chemically treated, kids were gone, it was dirty and needed to drain and be refilled anyway]. I dumped a good 4-5 gallons on each plant and just let it soak in. They aren't recovering. Only one is in direct sunlight and it shows the most. They all just look wilty and crispy around the edges and generally unhappy. We don't have any rain in sight. I don't want to abandon them all together but I don't know what else I can do for them. I don't want to OVER water them though that seems impossible right now. They would be so pretty if they were healthy again. One small one is almost all the way dead. I keep watering it but I hope I'm not losing it. I need to prune some dead leaves off again today. [hosta]  Even my trees are suffering. Their leaves are splotchy, wrinkled and wilty. I'd love to hose them down all day [not to mention my grass which is so brittle to walk on] but my water bill would be outrageous. I fear nothing will make it through the summer unless we get plenty of rain, and soon. sigh.

If you are looking for AWSOME housing in NE Ohio

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This is my space:


It faces south, is in direct sun most of the day and is the first thing I see when I walk out my front door. It's ugly. I'm not sure if the previous homeowners had anything planted there onceapon a time ago but there is nothing there but woodchips now. And the kids like to play in that space and get those darn woodchips all over the place. [I hate those woodchips] The whole space is uncomfortable, the paver bricks are uneven as the driveway slopes and I think it just looks odd. It's wasted space. It's ugly.

My thought is to remove all those woodchips, take the paver bricks out, level the ground if needbe and put in something more like this - hopefully I can find a brick that is similar to what is in the curved wall which extends across the front of the house as well. Then I'd like to add a bench seat or two [not that exact one though] along with some potted plants that I can move from the direct, hot sun when needed. This will give us a bit more space to get in and out of the front door as well. [and that door is hung backwards and needs to be replaced. It's annoying to have to cram into a small space to get in the door.]

This is going to be my one big project to do before the end of summer. The rest of the woodchips in the front of the house will be replaced with rock. I'm not sure if it's going to be a big project or not but I think it will ultimately look better and be more functional in the end.

I'm Heidi, mom to 3 kiddos and 3 cats and a new homeowner since June 1st! We ae loving a own, big space and finding all of the fun [or not so fun] things that come along with owning a home. We live in North Dakota, where the elements can be a bit harsh at times but also is great for being a nice place to live. I'm looking forward to sharing my adventures!