Need some Home advice

[Bromono]

I am moving to san antonio and thinking about buying a house or condo.

I love working with my hands and want to buy a cheaper place that needs some work.

I dont have a big budget though. I would only have about 10k to renovate the entire place.

I know I will not be able to do everything my self but I want to do as much as possible.

I have been looking around at resources to use and found some stuff. I really like Ikea's kitchens and they are pretty cheap.

Just curious what you guys may have done to your places and may have any advice.

[Jokrik]

Just finished renovating the house, my advice is that to spend more on the thing you will be using most

It would be worth it, and spend something for the long run, get highest quailty stuff that suits your budget. Especially on deals (Ikea is ok, but when you have families and especially kids you would be looking for something more durable)

For example I prioritize getting the living room and storage/wardrobe first since I know my wife has a lot of girl stuff when she moved in

And she love watching series, so I get a good 4k tv and made her a walked in wardrobe so that she get comfy as soon as she moved in

Than I get everyhing sorted in the kitchen and lastly my work room

Put prioritization on stuff and do it  long run minded

[Bromono]

Just finished renovating the house, my advice is that to spend more on the thing you will be using most

It would be worth it, and spend something for the long run, get highest quailty stuff that suits your budget. Especially on deals (Ikea is ok, but when you have families and especially kids you would be looking for something more durable)

For example I prioritize getting the living room and storage/wardrobe first since I know my wife has a lot of girl stuff when she moved in

And she love watching series, so I get a good 4k tv and made her a walked in wardrobe so that she get comfy as soon as she moved in

Than I get everyhing sorted in the kitchen and lastly my work room

Put prioritization on stuff and do it  long run minded

I have no kids as of the moment and dont plan on them for atleast a couple years.

My fiance doesnt have much. I am the one with all the stuf lol.

I feel like a kitcehn is kind of the focal point in the house, so i kind of want to spend a big chunk updating that. Furniture and TVs are all good adn I dont need to buy anyhting at the moment. I just want to focus floors, kitchecn, bathroom, etc.

I would love a walk in shower with no doors o.o

[inanis]

I have an older home that we have worked long and hard to fix up. When we were looking for a house we told our agent to find us the worst house in the best neighborhood that fit in our budget. That is pretty much what we ended up with, and years later I'm still happy with our choice. The whole house needed to be renovated. It was totally livable, but it was ugly as sin and everything looked kinda dirty. We did have a few things that we wanted to not be in bad shape - good roof, good heating system, good windows. That stuff was over our ability at the time (not to mention, it costs enormous amounts of $$ to fix that stuff).

Thus far, we have redone all the floors, replaced all the ceilings and most of walls (and I mean replaced, not repainted). We have rewired part of the house that needed it, refaced our cabinets, replaced the counter tops, tiled the bathroom, moved the laundry to the main floor (only do this if you have proper drainage), repainted the house, insulated the house, and replaced the porch. There is way more I'm forgetting, but the point is we have touched every surface. It is exhausting! And there is still more to do.

If you really want to go the fixer-upper route I would recommend the following:


• Know when to ask for help. Don't cheap out and try to do it yourself if you really shouldn't. Things like electrical and plumbing can have disastrous side effects if you screw up.
  
• Do one project at a time. The second you start one project before finishing the next one you are starting a spiral into crazytown. It is real easy to get tired of doing something and move on to something new, and next thing you know, you have 12 unfinished projects, and an entire room of your house that is boarded off for 5 months because you just can't deal with that right now.
  
• Staying on budget is hard. And if you are doing work that requires permits that **** can get even harder. Once something is opened up, it needs to be inspected, and if you get an older home you can bet that something behind those walls isn't up to code. Make sure you put some padding in your budget to account for unexpected costs.
  
• Do kitchens and bathrooms before you have kids. Not having an bathroom for a few days is fine if you are all adults, we can deal with the inconvenience. Dealing with that and having a small child though, is torture.

[Jokrik]

You might also wanna look at flooring materials which are easy to get cleaned

I use parquet for most of my flooring , they are affordable and dark accent parquest creates warmness into the house

I have a walk in shower with glass , its spacious but man I cant stand the stain of shampoos and soap on them. Need to clean them often

How about lighting? Oh I think its good to decide which interior style you would go for to begin with

I cant get my head out of American Classic, theyre fun and not limited to monotone color

[jbondeson]

The most important thing to look out for when buying a fixer-upper is to know what you're getting yourself into, you don't want to get yourself into a situation where you have blow all your reno money on shoring up a foundation or replacing a roof.

I'll also echo inanis and tell you to do one project at a time.

Something that helped my wife and I was to make a list of every project we knew we wanted to tackle and do some research on each of them to figure out approximately what they cost. This allowed us to make some good sequencing decisions and it helped is know how much we needed to save up before we could start one.

[Bromono]

I have an older home that we have worked long and hard to fix up. When we were looking for a house we told our agent to find us the worst house in the best neighborhood that fit in our budget. That is pretty much what we ended up with, and years later I'm still happy with our choice. The whole house needed to be renovated. It was totally livable, but it was ugly as sin and everything looked kinda dirty. We did have a few things that we wanted to not be in bad shape - good roof, good heating system, good windows. That stuff was over our ability at the time (not to mention, it costs enormous amounts of $$ to fix that stuff).

Thus far, we have redone all the floors, replaced all the ceilings and most of walls (and I mean replaced, not repainted). We have rewired part of the house that needed it, refaced our cabinets, replaced the counter tops, tiled the bathroom, moved the laundry to the main floor (only do this if you have proper drainage), repainted the house, insulated the house, and replaced the porch. There is way more I'm forgetting, but the point is we have touched every surface. It is exhausting! And there is still more to do.

If you really want to go the fixer-upper route I would recommend the following:


• Know when to ask for help. Don't cheap out and try to do it yourself if you really shouldn't. Things like electrical and plumbing can have disastrous side effects if you screw up.
  
• Do one project at a time. The second you start one project before finishing the next one you are starting a spiral into crazytown. It is real easy to get tired of doing something and move on to something new, and next thing you know, you have 12 unfinished projects, and an entire room of your house that is boarded off for 5 months because you just can't deal with that right now.
  
• Staying on budget is hard. And if you are doing work that requires permits that **** can get even harder. Once something is opened up, it needs to be inspected, and if you get an older home you can bet that something behind those walls isn't up to code. Make sure you put some padding in your budget to account for unexpected costs.
  
• Do kitchens and bathrooms before you have kids. Not having an bathroom for a few days is fine if you are all adults, we can deal with the inconvenience. Dealing with that and having a small child though, is torture.

This is why I was kind of considering a condo o.o I don't plan on living in San antonio rest of my life and would potentially want to turn it into rental property. If I buy a condo the outside, roof and such would be taken care of and I would t have to really worry about the city codes. The HOA would. I k ow I would have to pay a fee but it may be worth it

[greath]

Avoid mold!

Not sure it's a problem in that area, but mold damage is often a LOT more expensive to take care of than it first appears. Plus it can be dangerous if not treated properly.