Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How big is the house? Are the schools decent? Don't beat yourself up so much about where you bought. My husband does this frequently, and it gets frustrating.

2500 sq. ft. Dutch colonial which isn't my favorite look. Very small lot - 1/4 acre. Decent schools so at least that is a relief.

Funny, I love my battered 1920's Dutch colonial with about 1400 sq. ft.!!! Tiny closets! Humble look!
But darn cute.

I fell in love with my house in its neglected state.
We bought it 4 years ago as a fixer-upper (no one wanted it except a builder who planned to tear it down) in downtown Bethesda.
Sunk 150K into gutting the first floor, creating an open floor plan, new kitchen and powder room, and decorating exactly to our liking.
I know that it would all have been instantly worth it financially had we chosen relatively cheap fixtures and construction material, but no, everything is high-end and Greenguard certified (no off-gassing of toxins, etc). That's okay, I can wait a few more years for return on my investment.

Every day, I feel so HAPPY in my house. It's surprising to me how I seem to live very peacefully with the smallish space (we have 2 kids), the minuscule storage and various ailments of a nearly 100 year old house.

OP here. Thanks for this post! This makes me feel a little better.

I think my problem is that I just don't like the way the exterior of the house looks (god do I sound bratty enough for you yet? Lol). But to do the other stuff we need to do will use up all of our Reno budget with nothing left to tear down the parts that make it a "Dutch" colonial. Oh well, you can't have everything right?

And yes the house is inside the beltway.

Keep an eye on the bottom line. If you had to sell the house in the next few years, would the sale price cover what you paid plus your renovations?

If not, you are over renovating, which isn't terrible -- if you know the renovations will make you happy with the house and you will be there for a while. Sounds like you're not sure about that, though. So I would say, watch that bottom line and don't over renovate.

Anonymous wrote:OP, there are several calculations that you should do before you make a decision:

-value of your current home
-value of the homes around you
-number of years you would stay in the home (if renovated)
-cost to move (in closing fees and taxes)
-features of a home that you don't have, but would like
-price of a house that had the features you wanted
-cost to renovate (architect fees, permitting, contract price, extras like cabinetry, lighting, appliances, cushion for overages)
-how much you could sell the house for, post-renovation

There is such a thing as "overbuilding" so you're asking a valid question.

I'd also consider whether the house has "good bones." We spent 10 years improving something that was always going to be falling apart faster than we could renovate.

Around here, inside the beltway, 2,500 SF is a pretty decent sized house, and 1/4 acre is a pretty decent sized lot. If renovating it still won't make you happy, yes, you may need to think about moving farther out. That said, I personally would never live farther out again. I lived in FFX (about a mile outside the beltway) and hated it for 12 years, so I'll never do that again. And that was close-in, and metro-accessible. (And we do just fine with a 1,500 SF + basement house on 1/8th acre, because for us, a cozier house with character and a good layout is just fine.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a dead give-away to the location: the very small lot is 1/4 of an acre. So, outside the beltway is overwhelmingly likely.

Huh? We live inside the beltway with a 1/4 acre lot.

Yeah, but do you consider that lot "very small"? If you do, you are lacking perspective.

Overwhelmingly likely. That remains accurate.

An 11,000 square foot lot is huge in DC. HUGE. There are houses, perhaps hundreds of them, that are on lots greater than 1/4. But they are rare, and no one in such a situation would refer to their 1/4 acre lot as "very small." Sure, it's very small compared to many locals, but not in DC.

Anonymous wrote:There's a dead give-away to the location: the very small lot is 1/4 of an acre. So, outside the beltway is overwhelmingly likely.

Huh? We live inside the beltway with a 1/4 acre lot.

There's a dead give-away to the location: the very small lot is 1/4 of an acre. So, outside the beltway is overwhelmingly likely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How big is the house? Are the schools decent? Don't beat yourself up so much about where you bought. My husband does this frequently, and it gets frustrating.

2500 sq. ft. Dutch colonial which isn't my favorite look. Very small lot - 1/4 acre. Decent schools so at least that is a relief.

As others have said, 2500 sq. ft. is not small! Not inside the Beltway. Where is this? What do you expect living in a metropolitan area? If you want more square footage, you either need to move out to an exurb, or back to the Midwest, or get rich.

Before you mentioned the size of your house, I thought I could relate because we have been renovating a <1400 sq. ft. bungalow in Upper NW for the past three years. But knowing the size of your house... I really don't think you need to worry that your house will still be "small and old" once you put 150K into it. Plenty of people in this area consider 2500 sq. ft. a good size house, and appreciate if it is nicely updated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How big is the house? Are the schools decent? Don't beat yourself up so much about where you bought. My husband does this frequently, and it gets frustrating.

2500 sq. ft. Dutch colonial which isn't my favorite look. Very small lot - 1/4 acre. Decent schools so at least that is a relief.

Funny, I love my battered 1920's Dutch colonial with about 1400 sq. ft.!!! Tiny closets! Humble look!
But darn cute.

I fell in love with my house in its neglected state.
We bought it 4 years ago as a fixer-upper (no one wanted it except a builder who planned to tear it down) in downtown Bethesda.
Sunk 150K into gutting the first floor, creating an open floor plan, new kitchen and powder room, and decorating exactly to our liking.
I know that it would all have been instantly worth it financially had we chosen relatively cheap fixtures and construction material, but no, everything is high-end and Greenguard certified (no off-gassing of toxins, etc). That's okay, I can wait a few more years for return on my investment.

Every day, I feel so HAPPY in my house. It's surprising to me how I seem to live very peacefully with the smallish space (we have 2 kids), the minuscule storage and various ailments of a nearly 100 year old house.

OP, keep in mind that if the house is in poor condition just about anything you want to do will cost more than anticipated. I'd stick with a budget of $100K with the remaining $50k to cover all the unexpected expenses. We are in a similar situation and even the smallest of things (replacing toilet paper holders for example) were never as straightforward as we had hoped. There was always something else that needed to be done in order to correct the intended project. Thankfully we are able to do many of the extras ourselves but if I had to pay for everything it would have totally blown our budget. This has also resulted in having to cut back on the scope. If you do not feel this is your forever home than I would spend the money working with the layout of the house and making it really nice. A smaller kitchen that is higher end is more important to me than a larger cheep kitchen. Spen money on nice furnishings and accents, make it beautiful inside and out and you will be so much happier .

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: There are plenty of people who can't even afford a "shithouse."

OP here. No, I know that. I don't *really* think it's a shithouse. I'm just using that term because I know people on this board use it to refer to a small old house.

I think people replying here are getting hung up on the money and sq. ft. But my original point was just: here we are, spending all this money trying to make this old house look nice. I'm just worried that I still won't be happy with it at the end of the project. It's the best we can do with limited resources but it's not what I would choose if things were different, kwim? Like, we will we regret not moving to a further out suburb for a bigger, newer house? I'm just wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation and what you think of it?

If you feel that way now, probably not going to change. we are in the same situation. It is an old house in an HOA neighborhood. It has been a money pit. But now it is updated -- new kitchen basement deck ect and will sell the minute we put it on the market. we want a new home -- tired of renovating!

I think two stories are always much nicer than one stories. I don't refer to them as shit shacks. They're one story homes around 1100 sq ft...

Anonymous wrote: There are plenty of people who can't even afford a "shithouse."

OP here. No, I know that. I don't *really* think it's a shithouse. I'm just using that term because I know people on this board use it to refer to a small old house.

I think people replying here are getting hung up on the money and sq. ft. But my original point was just: here we are, spending all this money trying to make this old house look nice. I'm just worried that I still won't be happy with it at the end of the project. It's the best we can do with limited resources but it's not what I would choose if things were different, kwim? Like, we will we regret not moving to a further out suburb for a bigger, newer house? I'm just wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation and what you think of it?

Anonymous wrote:

2500 sq. ft. Dutch colonial which isn't my favorite look. Very small lot - 1/4 acre. Decent schools so at least that is a relief.

Use some of the 150K to change the look on the outside. Really not that expensive to make it look craftsman. Look on Houzz for examples.