Mini Floridian Remodel

[The Moose]

1. Windows and doors

This was the largest single expense of the whole project at $50k, will make the largest difference to the house (hurricane-resistant, increased efficiency, decreased noise etc etc etc). At the same time, it also was the biggest disappointment to date. I'll get there.

I planned to do this thread from before the work started but of course with a new baby arriving as well as trying to work full time + and project manage the remodel the thought of the thread fell by the wayside. For that reason, I've had to pull together photos from various different stages.

So - windows and doors. This is what the house started off looking like:


Side note - my papaya has thrived recently!






Emma was pleased with the news that those dang bands were coming off!


Where did I get to? Ah yes - the windows had arrived and been delivered into the garage.

The first day of work, there was a crew of a load of people arriving. It seemed like it was going to be rather interesting when this rolled into the drive:

Slammin on 22s. To be honest, I thought it needed larger rims.

I guess he hadn't made the final payment yet?

To be fair, he got a puncture and still arrived on time along with all the other lads.

I know I keep going on about these stupid bands, however we really didn't like them plus some woodpeckers do like them so this was probably the happiest day of the project (other than the birth of my son, of course... ).
Ahh - looking better already.


After removing all the bands, out came the plastic sheeting to turn my place into something that looked like the set of Dexter. The first evening, I was rather tempted to throw around some ketchup for the boys when they turned up in the morning...

The first thing they started to do was swap out some of the smaller windows - specifically the bay window by the front door. As they got started, I left to go and grab a quick breakfast to receive a phone call from the contractor. less than 60 mins into the project and there was already a problem. Bugger. This is going to get expensive.

I don't seem to have any photos, but the very first window they started to cut out, they found some rotted wood. The majority of the house is concrete block work, but for some angular sections they do a bit of wood framing. Should they fix the wood or just bodge it back together. Big sigh...and tell them to do it properly while muttering away to myself under my breath at my bad fortune. Luckily enough, this was the only unexpected issue with this part of the project.

I didn't have any photos of the big sliders before starting the replacement. The best photos I can find on my phone are these:


Each of the 3 panels is 10ft tall and 4ft wide.

The new sliders:

The front door is directly opposite the sliders so as you walk into the house you are greeted with a more open view over the canal. An unexpected side effect is that they don't like like 10ft tall sliders in photos. You don't see 2 panel sliders of this size very often so in photos they look like smaller 8ft sliders. Not the end of the world. I'm super pleased with how these turned out - they make quite an impact and everyone notices or comments on them.

New smaller set of sliders (8x8):

Bay with new windows installed:


These 2 are the closest like for like photos of before vs after window replacement (current situation - obviously not finished):



I started this post by saying that the windows were the biggest disappointment to date. The reason being that the windows is where we spent the most money yet it didn't really change the appearance of the house from the outside that much. If we'd gone for a different color frame then it would have done. Anyway, once the stucco work and paint outside is all done, it will look like a totally different home.

What I don't have a photo of right now, but I will get...if I can remember...is the internal finish around the windows. This particular crew did a cracking job and it looks great. I'm a picky bugger and only found a couple of spots where they needed to come back. They impressed me!!

[The Moose]

Stigproducts said:

was that a sub zero in there that you replaced? I have got an ancient fitted subzero but couldn't find anything to fit in the same size hole that didn't cost 20 grand. Did you?

It was a Thermador. Same deal. Was your sub zero a 42" or a 48"? We bought KitchenAid as they were the only brand that made a downdraft extractor that actually fitted (it wasn't working properly when we bought the place so need to be replaced). The fridge was about $7k delivered to the garage and the $500 to have it brought into the house and installed. Around 750lbs!

This is a more close up of the old fridge before pulling it out:

Took 8 guys lifting, 2 guiding and the boss directing to get the thing to the street. Those guys were made to look like pussies with the council came along the next day and took it away with 2 guys

Edited by The Moose on Wednesday 26th August 04:06

[The Moose]

Stigproducts said:

I am away so can't measure but it sure looks the same size as yours there. Mine is older though, a '92 or '93 I still have mine, it was many thousands to replace as you saw (but I was pricing up subzeros at min 15k) or about $1.5k to repair. So repair it was. 27 years service isn't bad.

One day I'll refurbish the whole kitchen and it will probably get replaced but for now it's doing a fine job and I have a local repair firm on speed dial for the next disaster!

Nice! They’re great fridges. For an appliance, they and wolf appliances are things of beauty.

[The Moose]

h0b0 said:

Matt Harper said:

I'm not sure if this is aimed at me - but I can say that my daughter, who lives in Oviedo FL has just been quoted to build a 25000 gallon salt filtered marcite in-ground pool with stone deck paving and a shotgun enclosure for $58k.

That’s really useful, thank you. Up here they are talking between $50 and $125k more than that.

This is going off topic, however do you know what underlying construction they have to do? In some areas here they have to drive piles for a pool.

[The Moose]

h0b0 said:

The Moose said:

This is going off topic, however do you know what underlying construction they have to do? In some areas here they have to drive piles for a pool.

No such complications. Dig hole, put liner in and then drain customers bank account.

What are they lining it with? Gold leaf?!

[The Moose]

bristolbaron said:

The Moose said:

PushedDover said:

Looks Good OP.
Any Mozzies / Flying critters being next to the canal ?

We get a few bugs, but it's not too bad. Our island is surrounded by salt water plus they spray for mosquitos (from light aircraft/helicopters). I haven't been bitten here on the island for quite a long time. If you venture into the everglades at all, however, you'll get eaten alive in the summer. The dog park is next to a brackish lake which can get bad with big 'noseeums' or 'seeums' as I call them. They don't really hurt - just annoying.

I started reading through the thread earlier, then saw this and thought I’d check back in again:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90541839/florida-is-go...

Should help out a bit, just mutant bugs to contend with!

Great thread, keep it coming.

Fascinating! They supposedly released a butt-load of dragonflies in our area to eat the skeeters. There's some debate as to whether it actually happened or not however there are more dragonflies here at the moment than I remember from 10-ish years back.

[The Moose]

Matt Harper said:

The Moose said:

Do y'all have a big HOA bill as well as the property tax? Or is it reasonable in your community?

To be honest with you, I admire your ability to tear crap out and put it all back together again. I'm not very good at all that...and even worse with a paint brush. I probably could do it if my life depended on it, but it'd take me many times longer than it should and I'd probably end up electrocuting myself while changing a faucet.

You can try to do stuff around here without permits but you get done in about 20 minutes so it's just not worth it. I'll talk more about the permitting process in a couple of posts time, probably.

No HOA - that would have been a dealbreaker for me. When I was first relocated here, I rented a house in Bay Hill, Orlando right on the golf course and backing on to Lake Tibet. Very swanky, but the HOA was akin to the Gestapo and the fees were outrageous.

Where I live now, (Belle Isle) is a tiny, incorporated city, just south of Orlando and west of Orlando International Airport and is situated on Lake Conway chain - 5 spring-fed, inter-connected lakes covering about 1800 acres. Property taxes are a bit stiff, but worth it to live in a very safe, well policed, pretty, heavily wooded neighborhood, with beautiful, clean lakes. There's a very popular charter school in the neighborhood, which also drives up costs.

Most of my neighbors work for Lockheed Martin or NASA, so when they say, "It ain't rocket science", they mostly speak from experience. My next-door-neighbor was the engineering lead on Apache Longbow and Arrowhead weapons targeting systems - I plague him with questions - most of which he is not permitted to answer, during our communal backyard cook-outs.

In terms of house-hitting, it's just so much easier to do it here. I can order pretty much ANYTHING I need for a project and because US house-building code and practices are so consistent and uniform everything tends to slot into place a lot easier than it did in my 100+ year old house in Yorkshire.

I also have lots of friends who are either tradesmen or seasoned bodgers, so plenty of expertise to fall back on when things start to go piss-shaped.

Keep going with this thread!

I guess some people are HOA people and some people aren't!! I'm also not one, however on our island here it's like a half-way house.

Maybe one of these days we'll get to actually meet in person instead of just swapping virtual messages!

[The Moose]

I'll be taking a break from updating for a couple of days. I have to do and pick my dog up. A quick, short trip to the middle of Alabama. Fortunately I have something reasonably comfortable and competent to do the journey in. Hopefully he doesn't mind slumming it...

[The Moose]

Polite M135 driver said:

if that is yours you really have gone native.

Lol. Unfortunately it’s a rental.

This is mine:

[The Moose]

irocfan said:

The Moose said:

I guess some people are HOA people and some people aren't!! I'm also not one, however on our island here it's like a half-way house.

I must admit whilst I can see some positive about the whole HOA thing, I think on balance it would drive me totally nucking futs

As with everything in life, the people either make it or break it.

[The Moose]

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I last posted on this thread. A lot has happened, but also not much has!

Finally, today, our master bathroom has finally been finished.

It's been a total nightmare in more ways than one with a possible lawsuit to follow as well at a later date. This was then (when we bought the house):



And this is now:






I absolutely love the travertine tile. It looks even better in real life than in the photos (well, I like it anyway!). I also like the tub with the edge and the shelf as it'll allow us to put the kids toys (or wine for my wife) somewhere while relaxing! I screwed up by the lights above the tub not lining up exactly - maybe I'll change that, however right now I just want to enjoy the bath!! (tomorrow!!). I also think I should have built a TV into that large tiled wall.

[The Moose]

We've also done a bunch of work outside (nearly ready for paint). We're also 90% of the way there with the garden too. I'd post some photos but it's dark right now.

[The Moose]

Saleen836 said:

wisbech said:

How much is hurricane insurance?

Not as expensive as you would think!

Wanna have some guesses before I dig out my policy?!

[The Moose]

paulguitar said:

I'm going to guess.....


$1000?


Or does it form part of a buildings/contents policy?

From memory, we have 2 policies. What is essentially buildings and contents (with a few other bits added like mold, animal attack (if our dog bits someone) etc. and then a policy for flood from FEMA. The wind part (which is optional) is covered by the first policy.

[The Moose]

Matt Harper said:

The Moose said:

Welcome to the Toto Washlet sparkling sphincter club well done, man!

I still can't get used to it. Lol.

I've never been a bidet guy - I keep trying the thing out. On low pressure it feels super weird. High - OMG no!!

[The Moose]

wisbech said:

Same as property taxes?

I wish!!

Ok - just found the policy.

We are not just coastal, but also on a barrier island. Our home is directly on the (tidal) water. The elevation of our garage is 6.7 feet and 8.7 feet of the house.

It's $4,020 per year for the buildings, contents at replacement cost, personal liability, dog thing and some other crap. That also includes the wind (named storm) coverage. It does also give me $20k of coverage for the screen enclosure for wind damage unlike Matt's property. Honestly, our personal property is far too high - we don't have much expensive stuff other than jewelry/watches/electronics which are all covered elsewhere anyway. However at 0.1% of the covered value we prefer to have too much than too little. New roof.

As per the thread above, I have just installed new windows which will reduce the premium next year.

The wind deductible is $11,500. I chose $2,500 for everything else.

The wind portion of the policy is $2,188 and everything else is $1,832.

On top of that, we also pay approx $500 a year to FEMA for a flood policy.

I feel we have a pretty reasonable range of cover - if we had a complete total loss, then we'd be out of pocket however even taking a direct hit with Irma, I don't know of any total losses that were the around the same age as our house and built to the same codes of our house.

[The Moose]

After all those numbers nearly a year ago, we now have the house under contract to sell and for us to move on. Bitter sweet really as I love the house very much and, quite honestly, having seller's remorse.

If anyone's interested, I'll share some more photos of the changes we made. A lot of the money we spent is not stuff you'd see in the photos (e.g. new hurricane rated windows and doors).

[The Moose]

surveyor said:

Yes please.

Incidentally I love US bathrooms. I think you could fit a whole house in that amount of space in the UK...

Lol - yes. My room at uni was about the size of my closet in this house and my first apartment was smaller than my bathroom.

A lot has happened in the last 10 months, however this is where we started:

and this is where we are at now:


Sadly, my papaya tree that was thriving:

Grew to be 10+ feet tall and I think out grew itself and died. It is no more unfortunately.

A lot of money was spent on stuff you can see. However, an awful lot of money was also spent on parts of the house you just don’t see (for example, my lawn cost me about $10k). While the house is not my absolute idea of perfection, it is pretty close to it for the price point. Since signing the contract to sell it, I’ve been having extreme pangs of seller’s remorse. Some days are better than others, however when I wake up and see this view:

I really regret putting my x on that contract.

Here are some of the before photos I posted earlier in the thread (from the listing when I bought the place):













And here are the photos of the house I took for our listing:















We have had all the wildlife you can think of up to our dock including dolphins, manatees, sting rays, alligators (even though it’s salt water), every fish you can imagine here and more.

It was quite a remodeling process to get from where we were at to where we are today. I’m sure I now know this house better than anyone else on the planet and will be sad walking away from it…especially the 4 car garage and driveway big enough for 10-15 cars!

My next project would have been the dock to change it up, fit a boat lift and then get a boat. What drove us to sell was the need for a different configuration of space (especially obvious with COVID) and the buoyant property market here is easing the pain a little too.

We have a lot of memories here - both my kids were born and came back to this house but I guess it’s time for us now to move on!

I think if there are any specific questions, I’d be happy to address them. There’s too much to write retrospectively of the last year or so!

Incidentally, we’re moving into a rental in community to give that a try for a while. It’ll be nice not to be responsible when crap breaks!!! I’m eyeing up another remodel project or possibly even a new construction next!

[The Moose]

CharlesElliott said:

It is just the draw of a community that is driving the move? You don't seem to be someone that is afraid of being hands on??

Honestly, no. Not at all. I'm not sure I'm really a "community" type of person!

We came to the realization (with the assistance of COIVD!!) that we needed to sell the home. The size (3,000 sqft) is nice however the configuration of rooms etc no longer worked for us with our increased family size, enforced working from home, live-in help for the kids etc etc etc. We either needed a larger home or a smaller home and an office.

The house sale market in the last 6 months or so has been bonkers. We have less than 15% of the listings we usually have on the market here. That has meant that financially, we have done reasonably well out of our house, however on the flip side, finding the next place to live has been super tough.

I have my eye on another home. It is a much more extensive remodel than this one and would not be suitable for 2 toddlers to move into. The seller is also flakey and hard to pin down and get the home under contract. While if it was just my wife and I, we could live in an RV for a couple of months...with 2 little ones...nope!

The rental market has also hotted up as well which makes finding a rental tough as a stop-gap until we can either buy this remodel and get it done or buy some land and get something built. I found a small rental in a community. It's obscenely expensive but it works out cheaper than me buying something overpriced in 30 days to put a roof over my kids' heads. Fortunately, down here the rents typically include property taxes and HOA fees.

I'm also trying to be a positive person - hence the comment like "Yay! We get to experience a HOA community"

[The Moose]

Right now, we haven't closed - it's still "pending". Once it closes, everything becomes public record so until then I'd rather not disclose amounts of money.