BTW, all of you with "on trend" decorating, that white-on-white crap will age as badly as m y house's Brady Bunch decor has.

White cabinets will never really go out of style, but white tops and white cabinets I am not a fan of.

Mazel. Looks like alot of fun. Any plans for the basement?

Ended up going dark cabinets and tile with white quartz countertops.

I’ll post pics in 500 years (6 mths) when it’s all built and installed.

We had white cabinets in 1997. They went out of style. Then they came back a few years ago. They seem to going out again. Such is the circle of life.

Dark colored stuff is often more attractive, but I find the brightness of house when most surfaces are white or very light colors to be more important.

If you expect to be selling sometime in the foreseeable future you should do the cheapest version possible of whatever is going to help you sell.

If you're not going to be selling in the foreseeable future you should do wtf ever you want and tell everybody to shove their opinions up their buttholes.

agree with that with the caveat of architecture- i will never buy a home that is not some respected style of classic architecture knowing what i know now and seeing the incredible amount of mcmansions consistently on the market. interior you can do whatever the **** you want but i will never buy a house that does not have classic aesthetic quality. some things are timeless.

Basement is semi-finished and separated into two sides by the stairs going down. Aside from removing some old tile that I'm totally not going to have tested for asbestos, I'm going to mostly leave it as is. The side with the mechanicals and laundry will also get my shop. The little room under the stairs will contain my polishing rig, so the compound doesn't get on everything in the basement. The other side will become my wife's dance studio. I'll put down a frame of 2x4s with plywood over them to give her a lightly sprung floor, and hang a ton of mirrors. That is the fate of the mirrored closet doors in the master bedroom.
Totally agree. If this were going to be a long term house, I'd do the whole kitchen in solid cherry cabinets and a dark granite (gneiss, actually) with lots of movement in it, such as Orinoco. That would cost about $40K and require a specific taste from a potential buyer, though. So instead I'll just redoor, likely in white, and put a neutral stone counter in.

I have a modest sized 1.5 story house. About 1260 sq. ft. and a basement. Had to have some mold removed not long after moving in. They recommended cleaning the ducts, but said that some asbestos abatement would need to be done first. What can I expect in way of costs for taking care of the asbestos and the ducts for a house this size? Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Congrats Garick. Looks like a nice place.

Is Indianapolis housing really so much of a buyer's market that a 330k listed house can be had for 170k ?

Can a plaster ceiling crack right down the middle? How common is it to find plaster over drywall?

this post makes my architect pants get tight.

all joking aside, i completely agree. most classic styles are classic because they stand the test of time...and the test of all white kitchens, and accent color walls, and the current resurgence of brass (blech) and whatever other trend will pop up in the next few years and the house can adapt.

the most common theme among 'classic styles' that most people like? natural light, openness and views to the outside. pretty much any short term style can be accommodated in a house that has these qualities.

I didn't get it for 170 below asking, but 170 less than the comparable homes (similar but not so dated) in the neighborhood. In other words, once I'm done remodeling, it should be worth about 170 more than I paid for it.

Probably a lot of money. Get more quotes. I dont know where the asbestos is. If it’s just in the duct sealant then that shouldn’t be expensive. If it’s an interior lined duct and the interior insulation contains asbestos which I’ve never seen, then i dont know how expensive it could get. It’s likely just the sealant in which case they wouldn’t need to disturb it, and it’s likely not friable (dangerous). Therefore you wouldn’t need an abatement contractor. And I assume they sent a sample off to confirm it as asbestos.

I’ve never been a fan of cleaning ductwork, you’ll likely disturb who knows how many years of crap that was never going to get airborne in the first place. Mold remediation (depending on the scope) can be quite the racket. It’s a good business to be in.

I just hired Oscar from Construction Services of Indianapolis (csi) and he did about a 1800 sq foot remodel incl kitchen. He crushed it. He had very competitive quote and super good Angie’s list reviews. I think he would cover the near north west side of Indy. I’m at NE side just inside the loop.

My only thoughts are:

I don't think there are any "laws" about what is or isn't a bedroom, but I was an appraiser, an FHA apprasier (lots of regulations), for a while and no closet meant it wasn't a bedroom for those purposes anyway.

And, I know you can do anything with the right amount of heat and A/C (and I'm a fan of neither - living where you don't really need them), but an attic master BD seems like it will be somewhat hard to be consistently comfortable.

Moving everything on the first floor would suck, but the dining room is huge, the bedrooms are small and too in between common areas. I'd lose BD2, make that a combo kitchen/dining area, make the dining room a master BD and add a bath in there. Put a door from new MBD to old MBD because that's where your kids will be when they're little. Move them into a BD in the basement or attic when they are a little older. BD3 is a good guest bedroom. Right off the living room - and it'll be the bedroom that's usually clean. There's a bath right next door for the guests, and they don't have to go through the bowels of the house and see what's lived in if you don't want them to. Also not as far to go or as many stairs for when they are your old parents.

And congrats. Very nice looking house and yard.

Tks, PLAYOFFS. Will check him out.

You in the Allisonville road area? Second place in the home search was out there.

Hope to see you at the tables in the future, assuming this house and my studies leave me any poker time

In Devonshire off of Binford/71st. Yep I try to get to some games periodically. Crossing fingers for a casino downtown at some point.

Thanks for the reply. The mold remediation was definitely necessary. I had terrible headaches and allergy symptoms prior to removal. They just disappeared after removal. Took out some cabinets in the basement that were just covered with it. Kinda mad my home inspector missed it. Don't see how it could crop up so suddenly.

The asbestos is just the tape, so I guess it's not the expensive type of abatement. I know there is debate about duct cleaning. But I think this was recommended because of the potential for mold remaining on the dust in the ducts. They don't do any of that work, if that makes a difference in their recommendation. Moreover, we have a 6 month old daughter, so we want to be safe.

citanul, love that weeping cherry tree in the back by the fence. We have a few of those and in the spring they are something special to behold.

That aside, you may want to look into getting a stand alone HEPA unit like the Honeywell 50250/S. It is pretty affordable and can scrub a whole lot of air in a little amount of time.

One thing to understand is that mold is all around us. What's outside the house will find its way inside the house. And if you're allergic to a certain type, then one spore can cause a reaction. I could bathe in millions of those spores and not have a reaction. Individual susceptibility is a very expensive thing to try to beat, and you can throw a lot of money at it and get no where.

Keeping water out of the house, and humidity levels in check will be your best bet as preventing mold "growth".

I use one of these in my basement and it works great.

Also recommend using higher end furnace filters - they really did make a difference. You can get 3M Filtrete 2200s right now from Costco for $12 each which is about half the price of Amazon or Walmart

Man, I love this thread, and sometimes that takes the form of being happy about all the $$ I will save because my wife and I have horrible taste. What I am driving at is I actually like the knotty pine and she did too when I showed her the pic.

Red tile, not so much, but all in all that property seems like a really great place to live! Jealous.

It's amazing. So secluded yet still in the city. I actually like the knotty pine den, but the kitchen is a bit much. IMO. You can have the pine cabinet doors when I replace them, if you want.

The next door neighbors have some contractors working on their house, and the senior guy came over to look at the bathroom. He confirmed that the wall between it and the hot tub room is not load bearing, so my notion of making a giant master bath seems very much on the table. He also said he'll with stripping tile off the walls. Just cut out the tiled drywall and replace with plain drywall. Can't believe I didn't think of that.