Your home: plans for 2018!

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year to those of you who I haven't spoken to so far. 🙂

One of my favourite discussions here in the Community Center is a topic created by @Huma0 which is all about past renovation projects and sharing Before and After photos. I know many of you have commented in this, so I am sure it is a favourite among many of us. 

With this in mind and because it is the start of a new year, I wanted to ask you if you have any plans for your home in 2018?

For me, I want to add more life to my walls, by creating and searching for nice photos and art works to hang. I plan to make some nice photo collages of times with my family and friends, but also print some photos of places I have visited (usually photos of the sea, I have a surprising amount of seascapes). Plus, I have a couple of old maps showing local landmarks, shipwreckss etc. which I want to frame. 

What about you? Perhaps you just want to give a room or two a lick of paint, perhaps you plan to add some new furniture to your living room or perhaps you are planning on knocking some walls down! It would be great to hear what you are planning to do this year.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Sally4]

You will find this to be a good investment! We had a bathroom between our two guestrooms, and each room had a door directly into the bathroom.  Guests were afraid that the other guest might walk in on them.  We redesigned the bathroom into two smaller private bathrooms, and now our bussiness has increased by 30%! We have already recovered the cost of the remodel.  I don't know about your market, but we were sure to install power for heated towel racks, and bidet seats for the toilets.  (Waiting for some more profit to install the bidet seats) We also built the walls in such a way as to reduce the noise from the bathrooms.  There is a special insulation that deadens sound, which we installed. We extended ductwork to reduce the travel of sound as well.

If you can, I might suggest you put a drain in the floor. There are some cultures that just assumed that you do have a drain in the floor. In the last 6 months I have had three incidences where water has run down and pooled on the next floor down.

[Robin129]

We have two major projects I hope to tackle this year. The non-functional chimney and base needs removed. The chimney was capped by a previous owner, and a new roof put on. We hope to get the base and chimney out, reroute the HVAC through the space, and properly close off the two fireplaces, maybe installing ventless gas. The other project, the one I am more focused on, is landscaping and fence replacement. 

The yard is very bland, with most plants too close to the house foundation. A couple trees need removed, they are rotten, and some large stumps remain in the back yard making replacing the fence impossible. 

Some lofty and expensive projects for 2018, but if we can pull them off they will add value to the property.

[Lizzie]

These sound great projects @Robin129, both of which I am sure will have a great impact on your home. Aw I feel you and @Jeff158 should share your stories about chimneys, as he has just knocked one of his down. 🙂

Are you planning to do quite a lot of the work yourself?

[J-Renato0]

I wish I had some great idea or something concrete to say!

Now, just reading this interesting topic! 🙂

[Kelly-And-Larry0]

Our house was built in 1858. Sometimes it seems the "to do" list is never ending.

This year we would like to update the basement. There is a pool table, heaps of dust and spider webs down there. We feel this would make an excellent addition to the amenities available to our guests. I think it would be fun to have our musician and artist friends paint the walls mural style. String up some lights. Get the missing balls for the pool table.  Add some board games. Viola! A basement game room!

[Robin129]

I feel your basement pain. Our home is 1920's. The basement floor is so thin and lumpy it drives me insane. I won't go down without shoes. If we fix it up I'd only let longer term guests down just to do laundry. I need my own space and that is about all guests can't get to right now. 

[Ashley232]

For 2018 I will renovate my washroom and renew all my bed sheet sets. This will help a fresh start also with some more decorations on the walls.

[Andrew157]

Hi Lizzie 

In 2017 we had to replace the water supply to our apartment so we now have a borehole rather than abstractions of water from a stream. The water is now clear. Still Londoners complain it tastes odd - no chlorine or the other London additives.

The other place is fine and popular. I think they installed the fridge and then built the Kitchen so now it is impossible to extract. At some point we will need to dismantle the kitchen to remove it. 

Hopefully we will have a quieter year. 

[Karen-and-Brian0]

@Lizzie et al, this year we've replaced the master bedroom vanity, taps, mirror and wall tiles. The old vanity was really "ticky-tacky" and although it did it's job well enough, when we had to do a sink drain repair & dicovered the plumbing was only attached with chauking (!!), we decided to do a full replacement. We now have a beautiful new vanity, matching mirror and the tiles are awaiting installation when hubby gets around to it.

This week-end, after not being out to our place since before Christmas (we're not doing winter rentals this year), we found the furnace to have quit & the interior temp was -1C! We *thought* we had a low temperature sensor as part of our monitoring system, but it turns out the alarm company had installed a "heat sensor" instead of a "low temperature sensor" by some mistake in communication between the salesperson & the installer. Our fault for not being aware of the difference as the alarm company is taking no responsibility for it. ARRGH. Live & learn.

This seemed to be a disaster of monumental proportions, but we had shut the water shut off when last there and although all the standing water in the place was frozen solid (toilets, water cooler, coffee maker, dog water container) miraculously, nothing had cracked, and aftre they were unthawed, the pipes are fine too. We were extremely lucky.

We now have the monitoring company booked to install the correct sensor and for double security are getting a Nest thermostat that we can monitor remotely - should have had one long ago in hindsight but just got (more or less) reliable satelite internet out there this past year.

This experience pretty much sums up our entire Airbnb rental learning curve to date: Total obliviousness to potential problems/smugly thinking we have it covered, disaster almost strikes, problem averted by lucky chance and preventative steps finally taken. Now trying to think of all the other things I may not have considered .... 😄

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@Karen-and-Brian0 I have an Ecobee thermostat and it will send an alert if the temp is higher or lower than your settings. You wouldn’t need a separate alarm sensor.

It really is much better than a Nest. 

The other day I was just curious so I opened the ecobee app and saw the temp was very low inside the house. I knew there was some kind of problem so I sent my SO over to have a peak. Well come to find out, the French doors were left open to the patio and cold air filled the house. You can also control the furnace and AC remotely. They give you graphs and other tools to manage the system too and of course all WiFi remote. 

‘You know it’s hard out here for a Host!’

[Karen-and-Brian0]

Darn it @Rene-and-Zac0 - wish I'd posted here sooner! Hubby asked the plumber who came out for our emergency furnace repair what he'd recommend & he said Nest, so he booked him to come & install one on Weds. I'll do some research, and then I can contact him & ask if he can get an Ecobee for us instead. The Nest type we're looking at does have the remote temperature alert  - its the Version 3, apparently the 2 doesn't have that feature. Thanks so much for the tip!

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@Karen-and-Brian0 I bought the ecobee3 light version with no sensors.

The Ecbee lets you place a sensor upstairs and the main ecobee pad downstairs. Then the system will balance out the heat in the whole house. It will also tell you real time when someone is in that room. You can use it as a silent alarm.

I love the free graphs they have and it lets me compare my house to other neighborhoods that have ecobee. It also has the air humidity gauge and the ability to lock out guest with a password. If there is excessive moisture in the air or abnormal to regular, I’ll know. It is so sensitive, I can tell when they mop the floors.

It has preprogrammed options like “guest stay” where you just set it and forget it. It won’t go above X temp and won’t go below Z temp. 

My electric bill went from $678 to like $160 after I took control of the AC and heat through the ecobee.

I had ONE guest complain that 73 was too cold in December and wanted it at 74. 

Generally My guest would just come in and flip the AC to the lowest setting. Well it wore out my AC compressor this past Labor Day To the tune of $3600.

That’s  why I got the ecobee. 

There is is no loss for you going with the Nest. It is a proven winner too.

I just think the ecobee is so much better. They have the version 4 now with built in Alexa. 

Both are winners. 

‘You know it’s hard out here for a Host’

[Karen-and-Brian0]

@Rene-and-Zac0 WOW! I can definitely see the benefits of keeping guests off the controls!! We don't have AC but I can just imagine the nightmares. We  just need something to monitor the temperature in winter should the furnace ever quit again - we rent May-Oct & haven't had problems with guests running up huge heating bills to date but did have a guest who shut the furnace off when he left, so this is going to be a great thing to have. I looked at the Ecobee & if you also have Alexa, it just doesn't get any better than that. 🙂

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@Karen-and-Brian0 And check with your utility company. Mine gave me a $135 bill rebate for installing Ecobee and Nest was on the list too. So check into it. 

Ecobee4 has built in Alexa, no need to buy a separate unit. “Alexa? Make the house 72 please”

‘You know it’s hard out here for a Host’

[Karen-and-Brian0]

@Rene-and-Zac0 Another great tip! Utility company is a no-go, but Efficiency Alberta is giving a $100 rebate on the purchase of one. 🙂