Gah, Home Ownership!

Well, DH & I are finally being dragged kicking and screaming being proactive and engaging in the remodel of our Storage Space, aka the Guest Cottage, neé the Detached Garage. Fortunately for us (aka the Non-Handy People), the previous owners accomplished the drywalling and flooring and painting of the ground floor space to make it somewhat habitable, including putting in a woodstove and an inside stairway. It matters not that they did neither of the latter two items up to code; we will give them their due for having achieved that much and move on with our own plans for the space.

The former owners also left us with the crude genesis of a bathroom in a corner, complete with floor joists to accommodate p-traps and a framed in doorway and tiny bathroom window. What they did NOT do, much to our dismay, is to rough in the plumbing for said bathroom. Which brings DH & I to a bit of an impasse in our work. We know they did some trenching out front and to the side of the house, which indicates the likelihood of connecting into the septic system. In our extreme naivéte when we bought the house, we did not mark these fresh trenches in the lawn, and now the lawn has grown over them and we haven't a clue where they are. Additionally, we have tried and failed to contact the former owners, who still live in the vicinity on one of the local military bases. I am seriously contemplating writing them a letter addressed to this address, and begging the post office to forward it. Can you look up expired forwarding addresses? That, or I might call their church for the express purpose of obtaining their current mailing address. Such is the depths to which I will sink to avoid digging 18" down in random perpendicular lines, hoping to strike whatever the heck they've already (presumably) laid.

The big question is what they have done with the plumbing. Have they already connected in to the septic system? If so, where? There was digging in the front, and there was digging at the side. My money is on the side, but who knows? And if they did connect in, did they go ahead and lay some section of pipe? Where does it end? We don't know. What we do know is that with the location they chose for the bathroom, we will have to put in one of those macerating toilet/pump systems to get the sewage/gray water up the tiny slope and into the rest of the system. I have been pricing these types of units and know that this alone will cost us about $800-900, not including installation. And you start talking about adding a sink, and a corner shower unit, and all the plumbing rough-in for that, plus fixtures...and, well, I think it's not unrealistic to say we will be spending at least $2000, and maybe more like $3000 if we pay a plumber to do it all for us and don't attempt to DIY parts of it. Oh wait, I forgot the hot water heater--that's another $200-400. *gulp*

Now, we don't have $2000 saved for this. I'm thinking we could maybe eat the cost for some of the fixtures and possibly the toilet, but it would be a stretch to pay for all of this out of pocket. Maybe if the car is paid off, and we divert the former car payment, we could swing it, but I'm skeptical. Added to the problem here is that we really need to do some of the work this summer, like bringing the plumbing rough-in actually INTO the building; and it adds to the budget crunch, because the car might not be paid off by mid-summer. I hope it will be, but there's a lot of finger crossing going on here.

I'm not even talking about the reorientation of the bottom section of the stairway, or framing in a wall and closet under the stairs to create a pseudo-bedroom behind it. I don't know how much that is going to cost us, but we will hopefully be DIY-ing that bit with the help of Handy Neighbors, and so I think we can get away with spending a few hundred dollars and call it good. Plus the $500 it will cost us to have the woodstove installed properly and be up to code, because, well, it strikes me that depending on it for the sole heat source in the Cottage, whilst asking the In-Laws to live there for their multi-week visit...yeah, I am thinking that the woodstove is definitely one thing that ought to be up to code.

So we are looking at a ballpark of $4000 to get the Guest Cottage habitable. If I could do some dressing up and fixing of ugly bits, like recovering the torn vinyl with snazzy vinyl floor tiles in an appealing color/pattern, that would be a very good thing. Torn vinyl with missing bits right at the doorstep doesn't particularly appeal as a living condition. The fake Pergo flooring on the other 2/3 of the main floor, while not what I would have picked, is in good shape and it can serve its purpose for years as far as I'm concerned. And the industrial carpeting upstairs is just fine, even if the florescent box light fixtures are past twee and into just Plain Ugly. But hey, you work with what you've got, right? But I'm afraid that the fixes discussed above are really the bare minimum to get that space workable for guests, and we have 9 months and counting until the In-Laws and Sister-in-Law arrive for their Christmas visit.

Did I mention that we still have to finish unpacking and getting stuff OUT of there? Gah! Home ownership!