Repair in the old fund: we estimate the scale. Features of repair in an old apartment Guarantees of our company
We note right away: it is almost impossible to name the cost of modernizing an antique property in which several generations of residents have changed. Each landlord has his own tastes, appetites and opportunities.
Disastrous "Quick Repair"
Costs for quality repair with redevelopment and restoration of historical interiors may be comparable to the price of an apartment. At the same time, the result of a plasterboard-plastic “quick repair” in houses with a solid history and a rich past looks defiantly ridiculous. So, doors of standard sizes and window frames with double-glazed windows in a metal-plastic profile completely kill the details and proportions characteristic of historical interiors. At the same time, a modern approach to repair, when the entire contour of the room (floors and walls) is completely sealed, can only accelerate the wear of structures.
In an apartment with a communal past, in which several generations of residents have changed, it will be necessary to change the electrical wiring, pipes and plumbing, windows and floors, restore or replace doors.
But when modernizing an apartment in an atypical building, a high-quality working project is always needed. These are additional costs that will ultimately allow you to manage costs and result in significant savings.
To turn an old apartment into a more or less comfortable home, you need to at least rid it of odors that give rise to unpleasant associations
The main source of discomfort in any old apartment, hastily refreshed or has not seen repairs for a long time, is musty smells. It is because of them that the one who enters such a dwelling has associations with dilapidation and the feeling that everything is about to fall apart.
At the same time, houses of pre-revolutionary construction and the Stalin period almost always have high ceilings, and living quarters have decent areas and volumes. Brick walls are usually quite strong, but lime plaster, layers of newspapers and wallpaper have absorbed all the fumes of communal life for many years. Another source of odors that always betrays the advanced age of a building is rotten subfloor boards and moldy contents of the floors.
The hardest part is the floors and ceilings
Floors and ceilings are the most costly components of repairs in houses of the old fund, residential buildings of the constructivist period and some types of post-war stalinok (for example, in the so-called German cottages) with ceilings having wooden or metal beams.
Degree of preservation load-bearing structures everywhere is different. To assess whether their reinforcement is required, it will be necessary to do a selective opening and control inspection of the beams. Particular attention in this regard will require wet areas of kitchens and bathrooms, as well as corners in which cracks in floors and ceilings converge.
Parquet floors in ordinary apartments laid in a herringbone pattern, as a rule, have no artistic value. If the oak or beech parquet in the rooms has dried up and gone in waves, it will not be possible to save it. Therefore, the floors will need to be dismantled. It will be necessary to dismantle not only the coating, but also the plank subfloor.
After removing the boards, you will be able to assess the state of the inter-beam space. As a rule, during construction, all the garbage turned out to be under the subfloor - broken bricks, chips, sawdust, trimmings of boards. And in rooms with high humidity (for example, on the lower floors), all this content sometimes resembles a rotted peat bog and must be eliminated during repairs.
What about ceilings? This is also a difficult question. Removing layers of whitewash, restoring gypsum stucco rosettes, as well as a full range of plastering and puttying works today will cost a lot, and qualified craftsmen cannot be found in the daytime. If the stucco decor is not of artistic value, but is a set of standard plaster elements, it makes no sense to restore it. In addition, in the city, in conditions of increased vibration loads, it is not easy to keep the updated ceiling without cracks.
By donating 10-12 cm of the height of the room, you can minimal cost create the effect of a perfectly preserved ancient ceiling
The most common solution for the old fund today is suspended ceiling from drywall on a reinforced frame. It can be carefully puttied, decorated with fillets and rosettes imitating stucco.
Walls must breathe
Let's go to the walls. Layers of wallpaper and newspapers will have to be removed layer by layer. This is laborious work, but the result will not be slow to affect - the atmosphere in the room will become noticeably better. It is necessary to knock down the plaster first of all in the places of leaks (but there it usually does not hold so well). It may turn out that, having reached brickwork, you decide to make it part of the interior. Brick coated with a colorless primer can be left in the finish in the form of fragments - for example, in corners or arched openings.
Remember that walls need to "breathe". Therefore, washable vinyl wallpapers and glossy paints are not suitable for them. More suitable option- lime plasters on a natural basis, as well as wallpaper in classic colors (including paper-based ones - in retro style, from collections of previous years).
What about windows? For houses with massive walls, windows of the so-called Finnish design are best suited: inside - a double-glazed window in a wooden frame, outside - a single windshield in a thin aluminum frame, corresponding in color and deglazing to the facade solution of this house.
Irregular massive doors are also likely to require restoration or replacement. But in spacious rooms, change the configuration of the openings in order to fit modern standard doors, is not the best solution. The preservation of antique doors can be different; as a rule, there are potholes in the places of locks and handles, which will have to be sealed with inserts. If the doors are not made of solid oak with carved decorations, but ordinary, pine, it is more profitable to order the same ones, only new ones.
Repair without a project - money down the drain
So, the scale is estimated. But start repair work without a plan and with a vague idea of what the end result should be - always money down the drain. If we are talking about a typical home, in the vastness of virtual networks you can find many finished projects design solutions, "home-made" with pictures, calculations of materials and even estimates.
If you think you have impeccable taste and spatial imagination, you can try to visualize yourself with the help of special computer programs. But you should not get involved in computer modeling. Still, it will take more than one month to master the art of visualizing your interior fantasies, and the repair will be delayed.
To see how harmonious the interiors will turn out, how the furnishings will fit into them, and also where you will place electrical sockets and switches (and this is also important), you should contact the designers. The fees of recognized masters are estimated at five- and sometimes even six-figure numbers. But among practicing interior designers, there are students or advanced amateurs who work remotely and offer their services through acquaintances or social networks.
If we are talking about repairs with redevelopment, a dismantling plan and a plan for the installation of new partitions will be added to the composition of the project documentation. But this is the case when not students will have to be involved in the creation of a working project, but representatives of local construction organizations, who will take care of coordinating the project in supervisory authorities and obtaining permission from the regional interdepartmental commission (we covered the issues of coordinating redevelopment in detail in other publications) .
Having made a plan for arranging furniture and household appliances, you can complete the plan for wiring and installing electrical equipment (switches, sockets, outlets for wall and ceiling lights).
Foresee everything
Ultimately, the renovation project, even in small apartment should take the form of an album with several dozen sheets. When a construction company performs the entire range of works from a sketch to a turnkey repair, a detailed specification should become an annex to the project, in which the construction volumes of all materials are calculated - from primers and dry mixes for plastering to tiles. If you are your own designer and foreman, you will have to make lists and do calculations yourself, using estimated calculators and recommendations on the websites of manufacturers and suppliers of materials.
What else needs to be taken care of before starting to repair an apartment in a house that has floors with wooden or metal beams? If you are planning to rebuild the floor or demolish partitions with subsequent restoration, you will have to ask for a visit to the neighbors below. The specialists of the service organization must draw up an act of inspecting the premises of the lower floor with photographic fixation of their condition (this is necessary so that the neighbors from below do not oblige you to repair the long-cracked ceiling at their own expense).
Text: Philip Urban Photo: Alexey Alexandronok
Last year, a strong-willed decision was made to move to the old fund.
Made a family move so to speak.
There was not enough money to renovate the whole apartment and only the kitchen with a toilet was made.
Our kitchen has two main problems.
The first is that it is elongated and narrow. 6 meters in length and in width in a wide place at the window 1 m 94 cm. in a narrow 1m 80 it seems.
And the second and main problem is the legacy of Soviet times - a bath in the kitchen.
These are the questions that had to be solved somehow and beat
Photo 2.
Pay attention to the right in the corner to the pipe.
This is a gas pipe that goes from below to the ceiling and then under the ceiling along the entire length goes to the gas stove 
Photo 3.
The photo shows gray plastic pipe fanins on the right and a gas pipe descending from the ceiling on the left ..
Where fanina is, water pipes fit there
At the end there is a niche for a wall cabinet with shelves. Ventilation outlet in the upper right corner 
Photo 4.
Entrance to the kitchen from the hallway.
The door had to be sacrificed later.
To the left of the place where the picture is taken is the entrance to the toilet 
Photo 5.
I don’t know who preoccupied these houses, but we often remembered him.
Due to the very limited space, the banal purchase of a new toilet turned into a whole quest.
Photo 6.
The decision was made, the entrances to the room were covered with polyethylene, and the performance began.
Since we delayed the decision a little, we had about a month for the whole repair.
It was necessary to be in time by September 1 so as not to affect the school year and so that everyone could leave the dacha for the city.
Let me tell you in advance that everything worked out. True, with a team of craftsmen who did the repair for me, I began to negotiate in advance back in February. 
Photo 7.
On the evening of the first day of work, when we came home, instead of the usual kitchen, we saw this.
Water pipes were exposed and the scale of the disaster on the walls became clear 
Photo 8. 
Photo 9. 
Photo 10.
They opened the floors, found nothing of interest.
Initially, they rejected the option of pouring the screed, because they were not sure about the ceilings.
Fortunately, the beams turned out to be metal and not wooden, but they did not rethink anything.
The window was replaced immediately. 
Photo 11. 
Photo 12. 
Photo 13. 
Photo 14.
They put new logs and new boards for the subfloor on top 
Photo 15.
In the wall of the toilet, instead of a row of bricks, a gap was found filled with a board.
But why Carl?? 
Photo 16.
View from the window by the way 
Photo 17.
Sewed the floor with tiles 
Photo 18.
How did we solve the problem with the bathroom.
It was decided to fence off part of the kitchen. Make a separate room with a shower and sink and leave a small passage.
The work required precision to get into our sizes.
This was especially true for the shower.
The standard ready-made cabin did not suit us because they all have access from the corner.
We had to build ourselves. A pallet was put in and glass curtains were bought. We found all this in the Czech yard.
This photo shows that they decided not to touch the gas pipe. They were afraid of a long agreement with Lengaz. 
Photo 19.
Ready to supply water inside the shower 
Photo 20.
Sheathed with drywall.
From the side of the corridor there was a double drywall on the inside and a single one on the outside. 
Photo 21.
They stripped everything in the toilet and filled the screed.
The subtlety of buying and installing a new pot was that there was a very small distance and release to the floor.
That is, a toilet bowl with a cistern did not fit corny with us.
A beautiful option is toilet bowls with hanging tanks. But I won’t even write the price here, google it yourself)) 
Photo 22.
Which time he swore to take out the tiles from the store on his own, but again stepped on the same rake 
Photo 23.
Processing the shower from the inside with all sorts of septic tanks and waterproofing 
Photo 24.
Water and drain inlets and outlets from the kitchen 
Photo 25.
The window has slopes 
Photo 26. 
Photo 27.
Electrical outlets ready 
Photo 28.
Tiles in the toilet 
Photo 29.
And in the shower too 
Photo 30.
The walls are getting smoother and prettier 
Photo 31.
Considering that we have the last floor and nothing is pouring down the fanine from above, one technological hatch is left at the bottom 
Photo 32.
Walls ready for wallpapering 
Photo 33.
Taking pictures inside the shower room is really very narrow.
But you can understand how the issue with the partition is resolved
Photo 35.
Wallpaper bought for painting. Chose the very first shade of light green 
Photo 36.
Along the way, it turned out that it would be better to change the battery.
And so they did. It is hot in our kitchen and now even in winter we periodically turn off the taps 
Photo 37.
The toilet bowl was purchased from warehouses in Kushelevka.
The aunts said that the whole old fund was coming because no one sells these anymore.
It was decided to save money on the Italian hanging tank. 
Photo 38.
Remember what the water supply looked like and how it is now.
A lot of pipe goes because of the input cold water there is a branch to the boiler that hangs where the closet was and returns from there hot water back. 
Photo 39.
After everything was done, the thought came to mind and not whether to put a gas meter.
Maybe in vain, of course, but when the masterper from Lengaz came, it turned out that moving the pipe was not so dreary.
They did everything very carefully, nothing was damaged. But now there are no pipes under the ceiling 
Photo 40.
The kitchen has arrived. 
Photo 41.
Installed new doors 
Photo 42.
Fridge and new washer arrived.
The washing machine went into the niche of the wall cabinet.
In general, initially the stiralka should have remained the same. But when they put up the walls, they realized that it was possible to put it in there, only the door would not open.
I had to buy from vertical loading. Satisfied with the choice. 
Photo 43.
Well, this is how the kitchen looks like.
The hood goes through the pipe into the same vent in the corner. There is also a forced exhaust in the shower room.
Enough space for everything.
The table is by the window as it was.
Four people at the table fit freely, but you can sit down cramped and six of them)) 
After buying an apartment in an old building or a Stalinist building, repairs are almost always an inevitability. The matter, most likely, will not be limited to new wallpaper and whitewashing of ceilings. How to assess the scope of the task?
We note right away: it is almost impossible to name the cost of modernizing an antique property in which several generations of residents have changed. Each landlord has his own tastes, appetites and opportunities.
Disastrous "Quick Repair"
The cost of high-quality repairs with redevelopment and restoration of historical interiors can be comparable to the price of an apartment. At the same time, the result of a plasterboard-plastic “quick repair” in houses with a solid history and a rich past looks defiantly ridiculous. So, doors of standard sizes and window frames with double-glazed windows in a metal-plastic profile completely kill the details and proportions characteristic of historical interiors. At the same time, a modern approach to repair, when the entire contour of the room (floors and walls) is completely sealed, can only accelerate the wear of structures.
In an apartment with a communal past, in which several generations of residents have changed, it will be necessary to change the electrical wiring, pipes and plumbing, windows and floors, restore or replace doors.
But when modernizing an apartment in an atypical building, a high-quality working project is always needed. These are additional costs that will ultimately allow you to manage costs and result in significant savings.
To turn an old apartment into a more or less comfortable home, you need to at least rid it of odors that give rise to unpleasant associations
The main source of discomfort in any old apartment, hastily refreshed or has not been renovated for a long time, is musty smells. It is because of them that the one who enters such a dwelling has associations with dilapidation and the feeling that everything is about to fall apart.
At the same time, houses of pre-revolutionary construction and the Stalin period almost always have high ceilings, and living quarters have decent areas and volumes. Brick walls are usually quite strong, but lime plaster, layers of newspapers and wallpaper have absorbed all the fumes of communal life for many years. Another source of odors that always betrays the advanced age of a building is rotten subfloor boards and moldy contents of the floors.
The hardest part is floors and ceilings.
Floors and ceilings are the most costly components of repairs in houses of the old stock, residential buildings of the constructivist period and some types of post-war stalinok (for example, in the so-called German cottages) with ceilings having wooden or metal beams.
The degree of safety of load-bearing structures is different everywhere. To assess whether their reinforcement is required, it will be necessary to do a selective opening and control inspection of the beams. Particular attention in this regard will require wet areas of kitchens and bathrooms, as well as corners in which cracks in floors and ceilings converge.
Parquet floors in ordinary apartments laid in a herringbone pattern, as a rule, have no artistic value. If the oak or beech parquet in the rooms has dried up and gone in waves, it will not be possible to save it. Therefore, the floors will need to be dismantled. It will be necessary to dismantle not only the coating, but also the plank subfloor.
After removing the boards, you will be able to assess the state of the inter-beam space. As a rule, during construction, all the garbage turned out to be under the subfloor - broken bricks, chips, sawdust, trimmings of boards. And in rooms with high humidity (for example, on the lower floors), all this content sometimes resembles a rotted peat bog and must be eliminated during repairs.
What about ceilings? This is also a difficult question. Removing layers of whitewash, restoring gypsum stucco rosettes, as well as a full range of plastering and puttying works today will cost a lot, and qualified craftsmen cannot be found in the daytime. If the stucco decor is not of artistic value, but is a set of standard plaster elements, it makes no sense to restore it. In addition, in the city, in conditions of increased vibration loads, it is not easy to keep the updated ceiling without cracks.
By sacrificing 10-12 cm of the height of the room, you can create the effect of an impeccably preserved ancient ceiling at minimal cost.
The most common solution for the old foundation today is a plasterboard suspended ceiling on a reinforced frame. It can be carefully puttied, decorated with fillets and rosettes imitating stucco molding.
Walls must breathe
Let's go to the walls. Layers of wallpaper and newspapers will have to be removed layer by layer. This is laborious work, but the result will not be slow to affect - the atmosphere in the room will become noticeably better. It is necessary to knock down the plaster first of all in the places of leaks (but there it usually does not hold so well). It may turn out that, having reached the brickwork, you decide to make it part of the interior. Brick coated with a colorless primer can be left in the finish in the form of fragments - for example, in corners or arched openings.
Remember that walls need to "breathe". Therefore, washable vinyl wallpapers and glossy paints are not suitable for them. A more suitable option is lime-based plasters on a natural basis, as well as wallpaper in classic colors (including paper-based ones - in retro style, from collections of previous years).
What about windows? For houses with massive walls, windows of the so-called Finnish design are best suited: inside - a double-glazed window in a wooden frame, outside - a single windshield in a thin aluminum frame, corresponding in color and deglazing to the facade solution of this house.
Irregular massive doors are also likely to require restoration or replacement. But in spacious rooms, changing the configuration of openings to fit modern standard doors into them is not the best solution. The preservation of antique doors can be different; as a rule, there are potholes in the places of locks and handles, which will have to be repaired with inserts. If the doors are not made of solid oak with carved decorations, but ordinary, pine, it is more profitable to order the same ones, only new ones.
Repair without a project - money down the drain
So, the scale is estimated. But starting repairs without a plan and with a vague idea of what the end result should be is always a waste of money. If we are talking about a typical home, in the vastness of virtual networks you can find many ready-made projects of design solutions, “home-made” with pictures, material calculations and even estimates. If you think you have impeccable taste and spatial imagination, you can try to make the visualization yourself with the help of special computer programs. But you should not get involved in computer modeling. Still, it will take more than one month to master the art of visualizing your interior fantasies, and the repair will be delayed.
To see how harmonious the interiors will turn out, how the furnishings will fit into them, and also where you will place electrical sockets and switches (and this is also important), you should contact the designers. The fees of recognized masters are estimated at five- and sometimes even six-figure numbers. But among practicing interior designers, there are students or advanced amateurs who work remotely and offer their services through acquaintances or social networks.
If we are talking about repairs with redevelopment, a dismantling plan and a plan for installing new partitions will be added to the composition of the project documentation. But this is the case when not students will have to be involved in the creation of a working project, but representatives of local construction organizations, who will take care of coordinating the project in supervisory authorities and obtaining permission from the regional interdepartmental commission (we covered the issues of coordinating redevelopment in detail in other publications) .
Having made a plan for arranging furniture and household appliances, you can complete a plan for wiring and installing electrical equipment (switches, sockets, outlets for wall and ceiling lights).
Foresee everything
Ultimately, a renovation project, even in a small apartment, should take on the form of an album with several dozen sheets. When the entire range of works from a sketch to a turnkey repair is performed by a construction company, a detailed specification should become an annex to the project, in which the construction volumes of all materials are calculated - from primers and dry mixes for plastering to tiles. If you are your own designer and foreman, you will have to make lists and do calculations yourself, using estimated calculators and recommendations on the websites of manufacturers and suppliers of materials.
What else needs to be taken care of before starting to repair an apartment in a house that has floors with wooden or metal beams? If you are planning to rebuild the floor or demolish partitions with subsequent restoration, you will have to ask for a visit to the neighbors below. The specialists of the service organization must draw up an act of inspecting the premises of the lower floor with photographic fixation of their condition (this is necessary so that the neighbors from below do not oblige you to repair the long-cracked ceiling at their own expense).
“My story from a girl’s lips is that the most ordinary person living in Khrushchev, receiving an average salary, can do a lot. You just have to want…”- Daria from Minsk wrote to the Onliner.by editorial office. For 9.5 months, a young couple transformed an old apartment beyond recognition, spending less than $ 4,000 in equivalent. We publish Daria's story with a description of all stages of repair and detailed costing.
The history of our repair began on December 1, 2015. It was then that relatives arrived to help demolish the ill-fated built-in closet. It was small, ugly, crooked... And how many instances were visited, how many pieces of paper had to be signed in order to obtain permission for its demolition - this is a completely different story. Dirt, noise, washing the entrance, bruised my shoulder from the fall of the mezzanine on my back, swearing with neighbors ... "And this is just the beginning"- I was horrified, but still jumped towards change. After demolishing the closet, everything seemed to go like clockwork. The plan was in my head for a long time, the money was set aside, the ability to save money and ingenuity were built-in options for both me and my husband from birth.
I am an accountant, my husband is a driver. We have nothing to do with the construction industry, renovations, etc., but why not do it yourself? We knew full well that there would be mistakes. Somewhere it’s not very even, somewhere after “ah, it’ll do”, but we weren’t going to grab stars from the sky, the main thing is that we ourselves like it. Of course, it was very difficult to get started. What to take? In what order? We searched for some answers on the Internet, listened to some advice from colleagues at work, relatives. It was very insulting to tell something to a person, share thoughts and understand that they are looking at you with a smirk and probably say inside themselves: "Well, well, come on... Let's see where you break." Especially when you have a pretty face and White color hair. Therefore, at one point I became isolated and stopped listening to people, sharing our plans with them. I knew for sure: if you really want to, you can fly into space. My husband, thank God, understood with whom he had contacted, and did not doubt either me or our idea.
After the closet, they began to choose furniture (so that while everything was being made or moving, we were slowly making repairs). For the dismantling of the old front door and the installation of a new one, they paid about $ 250 in equivalent. At first they wanted to leave old door for better soundproofing. The apartment is small, so wherever sleeping area, Entrance door will still be close. But aesthetics took precedence over practicality, and the old faithful door was carried away into the sunset into the trash.
That's when the worst moment came. Husband decided to replace the wiring. Little was spent on sockets and wires, somewhere around $100 equivalent. But it took much more nerves and strength. The trouble was that where they repaired, they lived there. It used to be that in the evening you clean everything, wash it, take out the pieces of the walls in the trash, sleep at night in a more or less clean room, go to work in the morning ... You come back, open the door, and from there a cloud of construction dust, the husband is all dirty, heaps of construction debris on the floor ... I am in tears from powerlessness, fatigue and an endless horizon of work. Urine bast, start over.
The wallpaper was shot along with pieces of the walls. The next step was to install interior doors, but we waited a very long time for the doors to arrive, and therefore, in order not to waste time, it was decided to level those walls that did not come into contact with doorways. A husband and a friend who knows how to deal with this had to deal with the walls, they did part of the work, but still could not find the time to putty. Here I freaked out, watched a couple of video tutorials and puttied everything myself. I was nervous a lot, not knowing how to hold a spatula in my hands, more than once I turned everything on myself. I was upset like a child, redid it, started over. But my husband and friend came and showered me with praise. It turned out that it was not necessary to bring everything to such evenness. But I'm a girl: "tyap-blunder" is not for us. The cost of mixtures (putty, plaster, cement) is about $ 100 at the rate.
Later they took up the floor. By and large, it was necessary first in the old way wooden floor walk with a grinder, but decided to omit this item. Laminate bought in a hypermarket. I really liked the color and the price (about 7 USD per sq. m). With a substrate, plinth, etc., they gave about $ 250 in equivalent.
After the floor became possible to walk without shoes, it was already easier to survive. Time was approaching the New Year, and the repair did not end. Interior doors, like the entrance ones, they did not dare to install themselves, they hired people.
For doors with fittings (to the bathroom and kitchen) and their installation, they paid about $450 in equivalent. People, do not spare money for the installation of doors by professionals! Trying to save money, we hired "craftsmen" and in the end we regretted it very much.
Two walls decided to finish artificial stone. It is fashionable, beautiful and quite simple. We decided that "my" wall would be white, and my husband's - gray. Stone + fugue + glue - approximately $180. A mirror was hung on a wall with gray bricks - $20.
At least some picture has already become visible here, all our efforts have begun to emerge and a second wind has opened. We assembled a section (“Pinskdrev”, $175 equivalent), a sofa and an armchair (“Laguna”, a sofa - $520, bar stool gray - $115 equivalent).
Wallpaper was looking for a long time - did not like anything. In the end, I bought expensive German non-woven vinyl. Luckily they only needed a few. Husband did not immediately confess how much they cost. Wallpaper + glue - $115. Glued with beloved mother-in-law. Fun with music too.
They sold an old wardrobe with a chest of drawers, replenishing their budget. It turns out that there is a very high demand for such "used" things.
Due to the size of the sofa, the planned layout had to be changed. We thought that the main (long) part of it would stand opposite the section, that is, opposite the TV. But already after the sofa was ordered, they began to place chips on the floor, indicating its corners ... and were horrified. He ate everything free space... Yes, the sofa was 3 by 2 meters, but I could not even think that our room was not able to fully accept it. We decided to put it in a corner and go around the cabinet. Closet, computer desk and a shoe cabinet are my projects. I came up with it myself, drew it myself (the university drawing experience helped), and our witness helped to correctly calculate the size of each plank. We ordered a cut, assembled everything, ordered doors to the cabinets - and voila ... Minus $ 600, but plus the original, functional and, in the end, beautiful furniture own production. (The bulk of the amount - $400 - is the cost of glass doors. I was shocked. Very expensive, in my opinion.)
We bought a transforming table ($100). Perfect solution for a small apartment. The only thing is that when folded, it takes up a lot of space and it is very difficult to drag it. But even here ingenuity helped - they put him on a small rug. And now, even if my husband is at work, I calmly push him myself.
It turned out that one of the acquaintances is the owner of a company engaged in stretch ceilings. With his help, for $ 270, they made a ceiling with five lamps and one chandelier (the chandelier was not changed, I really liked the old one, although many recommended getting rid of it).
We bought a banquette for $40 in the corridor, well, very beautiful.
The renovation of the hallway room was completed around July 2016. As a result, eight months of life were spent on everything. Based on the plots of jokes in which a wife and husband make repairs or just glue wallpaper together and swear more than once before a divorce, it should have been the same with us. But this is not about us. We rallied, accumulated a number of funny stories.
One night I woke up from the fact that my husband swears in a dream: “To the left, to the left, I tell you where you are drilling ?!” Laughed for a long time.
Our renovated room has three zones: a sofa-sleeping area, a computer area, and a coffee table(at a disassembled table I sew or receive guests). All zones are independent of each other. If I sew, it does not prevent my husband from sleeping or working at the computer. And for "odnushki" this is the height of convenience. In addition, according to the new documents, the living area has become larger due to the demolished built-in wardrobe and a piece of the corridor.
How much money we saved, I can’t even calculate approximately, because I was not interested in the prices of finishers. But I think they saved a lot of money.
And now about our expenses. For convenience, prices are given in dollars:
- front door - $250;
- sockets, switches, wires - $100;
- dry mixes - $100;
- floor - $250;
- interior doors - $450;
- artificial stone - $180;
- mirror - $20;
- section - $175;
- sofa - $520;
- bar stool - $115;
- wallpaper + glue - $115;
- wardrobe, computer desk, chest of drawers - $600;
- transforming table - $100;
- ceiling and lamps - $270;
- banquette - $40.
Total for the room and hallway - $3285 . But our plans also included a kitchen.
The kitchen was done very well on a budget: a clean, neat renovation plus a couple of my creative ideas. Bought the cheapest but nicest linoleum paper wallpaper, cassettes for the ceiling, paint for the wall behind the radiator (in the end I freaked out and painted an old refrigerator with it), paint for the radiator itself, new sockets, switches. For this they gave $ 70 in equivalent.
The gas stove is the cheapest - $130. At first they thought to leave the old one, only to move it. We called ZhES to call a gasman. But it turned out that ZhES strongly recommends changing such old stoves and refuses to service them.
I was looking for a table and chairs at a flea market. Found a guy who makes glass tables. Cheaply bought a beautiful glass dining table - $25. It was not easy to transport it in a two-door "box", but we managed, thereby saving on delivery.
SERIES №1 BEGINNING Good day to all readers of this wonderful site! I recently discovered it for myself and now I can not tear myself away. I read projects of professionals, ideas and personal experience. P...
SERIES #1 BEGINNING
Good day to all readers of this wonderful site!
I recently discovered it for myself and now I can not tear myself away. I read projects of professionals, ideas and personal experience. I'm trying to learn something, I draw information, I adopt experience... I'm happy for those who have already gone through this long and difficult repair process, and enjoy an excellent result. I understand those who have just started ... and whose head is spinning ... and a bunch of ideas that cannot be put together and will fall apart. I hope for the experience of professionals and just good, practical advice from those who will not pass by my blog.
Ten months ago, my husband and I became the happy owners of a wonderful four-room apartment in the old fund, with an area of 91.3 m2. (After the "Khrushchev" with an area of 44.3 m2, this one seemed to us just a stadium :)) The house was built in 1958 (this fact scared me very much), brick walls, huge windows, high ceilings, the third floor of four, a bedroom, an office and a nursery to the south .... In short, a lot of advantages for us, except for the upcoming grandiose, expensive and very long repair!! But this did not frighten us, since the desire to live in a bright, spacious and comfortable apartment was stronger than fears about the upcoming renovation.
Here is the original layout:
initial layoutAnd then the hour X came, and the work began to boil ... To begin with, we had to get rid of all old finish. Namely, disassemble all wooden floors, demolish all non-bearing interior partitions. By the way, they were also made of wood. Recapture all old plaster from walls to brick, to dismantle the bathrooms. There was so much work to do that I was already scared. But dreams of candy brought me back to my place. In addition to all this, my husband and I had to do the whole dismantling process together !!
Tons of rubbish were taken out, dozens of pairs of gloves were torn, more than one wound received from sharp and treacherous nails in the walls was sealed and smeared with brilliant green ...
And now the apartment is bare to the ground. And what we got as a result of dismantling: curved walls with a difference of 4-5 cm, or even more in some places. Terrible floor slabs on the floor with sagging from the old mortar, with 5 cm gaps between them, with holes and potholes. The ceiling was in the same condition. No geometry. Pipes and wiring are also in poor condition, everything needs to be replaced.
We gathered strength, patience and, if possible, funds ... and proceeded to repair. Now our Candy was waiting for a new wrapper and delicious filling.
Even at the stage of choosing our future housing, and this search continued for more than 4 years, my husband and I had certain requirements for our future apartment. These are the windows to the south, high ceilings, the possibility of combining the kitchen with the living room, the middle floor in a low house. And this option suited us right away, as soon as I entered there, I immediately understood where and what I would break, and what I wanted to get in the end. And this is what happened after the redevelopment, and the construction of new walls from Sibit:
