Getting ready to remodel.

[freespirit]

Hello all - I am new to this board.

We are getting ready to give our older double wide a complete face lift.

Little background on our home.

Year 1972 Leisure Manor
20 X 54
3 bed - 2 bath upstairs and - downstairs is a large workshop, 1/2 bath, family room with rock fireplace, and I guess bedroom downstairs (we currently use for an office)
Mobile home sits on top full walkout basement
Has complete metal peaked snow roof cover and wrap around deck on 3 sides of house. Deck is under cover and is out about 8 foot on two sides - third side of deck is prob about 16 wide. Deck has log railing all the way around.

This is what we are wanting to do:

Remove Oak paneling (this stuff is so strong you can hardly pound a nail into it.) anyrate remove the paneling then sheetrock most walls will put up tongue & goove cedar on some walls to offset the plain sheetrock/painted wallls. Also at the time we remove paneling we will add insulation and upgrade recepticales etc.

All new trim and baseboards.

Laminate flooring (whole house) except bathroom and kitchen. May lay tile or Linoleum in these areas.

Have already replaced the kitchen sink with a full sized model and it fits nicely.

Removing one wall in the masterbed room (its not a support wall) this will give us a fairly big master suit about 20 X12. with bathroom and outside door that leads to deck. So then up stairs will a 2 bedroom instead of 3.

My qestions I guess are general:

What type of problems should we expect to run into?
We are aware about the joor james matching up etc.
Will we still get cracking in the walls or less because we are on permanate basement? (we are not going to sheetrock the ceilings)

Is is best to replace the windows also - I am having a HECK of a time finding windows that match plus our living room is like all windows from floor to amost ceiling and they run the full 20 feet of the house. I don't think I will find any place that has those. So maybe it is best to just keep the windows..so they all match.

How much should we expect cost wise for an overhaul such as this? Would $15,000 be sufficient you think? We will be doing most of the work ourselves.

Our mobile has the old aluminum wiring - should we replace this? It looks like it would be hard to replace and it runs somewhere up through the roof. What suggestion does anyone have?

We also have an oil burner stove - if we switch to electric would we need to replace all the duck work or can we use the exhisting. If we stayed with oil and just updated anyone know of a place that sells them at a reasonable price without the high price of shipping? so place want like $400-$500 just to have something shipped. We live in Idaho.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Laurie

[Greg]

Laurie, Hi & welcome.

Since you are on a full foundation cracking of the sheetrock should be minimal if any. Cracks, if any could be a result of wall flex from high winds.

Windows, I am a firm believer in window upgrades. as long as you are going to do that much work to your home I would upgrade as you go. I know of no law that says all windows must match. Change as you go, they WILL pay for themselves. As long as you are redoing the walls you can easily change window size.

$15k , Depending on prices in your area with you doing most of the work should be plenty, shop around and get prices on supplies first then you can get an idea of what it will actually cost.

Electrical, that is one area that we DO NOT give advice in. Since you are dealing with Aluminum contact a qualified electrician and get his advice, Don't be afraid to contact more than one.

Forced air furnaces should use same ducts, but you may want to contact a heating professional for their opinion.

Mark, the site owner has written a book that covers most any repair & upgrade you want to do, It's in the "books & Parts" section of the site. Greg

[freespirit]

Thanks Greg:

Well on the windows - since the outside is tin/siding and if you make a smaller window won't it look funky on the outside.. I would think it would look tacky. Not the problem if you go bigger but the windows in our living room are so large I really don't hink I can find any to replace without being special ordered they are like 7 ft high X 3 feet wide.. and we have 6 of them lining the front windows. I would think those would cost a small fortune alone to special order. I guess other smaller windows we can get by maybe making a little bigger so they do not look funky on outside.

Laurie

[Greg]

OK, now if all of the windows are the same size, you could shorten them up to say 4', that would leave a 3x3 space to fill. You could use a section of vertical vinyl siding to fill. as long as all 3 are setup the same I think it look fine.

Aluminum siding can hard to work with when tyring to match up paterns & color. I think if you break the wall up a little it would look good. Greg