sw8689

Hi, I just found this site while looking for some information on paint for my ceiling. Perfect find as we are doing some reno's in our house and my husband doesn't lift a hammer let alone a garden rake. He would rather hire someone to do the job, that's all fine but...when the bill comes in, well, what more can I say.

Our home is a split level 60's standard two level 3 bedroom two bathroom that was renovated into a large house with an addition 1000 square feet added to the back of the house on each floor. So it is a lot of house when it comes to reno's. The back family room and master bedroom where the addition is have a slight slope on the floor, as if the reno was done to avoid a small 2" step or so.

We had an insurance claim this year as our semi flat roof had 4 feet of snow on it in Vancouer BC. Some cracks in the ceiling and other stuff, including damage to a three year old membrane on the roof itself. The insurance claim keeps going sideways, as they blame the roofing company etc... so it is taking a long time to get things done and our house is pulled apart.

However we did start to move forward with our own scheduled reno's on the outside siding upgrade, painting (missed the weather window and are not finished... etc. The cost was triple what we expected. So now I am looking at doing what I can do myself on the inside as part of the reno's to spiff up any small detail to add to the new paint and newer looking ceilings, such as painting the fireplace, putting on a new fireplace mantel and a few things like that. I am limited with my physical ability because of MS, my arms get weak, but otherwise I am finding I am pretty handy in short bursts.

My thoughts are is that I should move up on our reno list any reno's that we will actually save $$ on if we do them during the insurane claim work, such as skylights, carpet changes, extra painting etc. and anything that will entail drywall such as taking an old curtain valance down, given that furniture is out of the house, and drywall work will be done by insurance so I may be able to add on some small bits, (we will pay of course) etc.

So my questions will be based on that type of thing, mostly the small things I will be doing or double checking on what others have been hired to do.

Some of the questions are:
Can I paint the inside of a wood buring fireplace (bbq paint?) to make it look cleaner?
How hard is it to cut the ball off of stair posts to put caps on?
We plan on having the floor's levelled on the addittion to matche the rest of the house, we think it will make the ceiling look about 2" lower but there will be no slope and therefore seem more normal, so I would to just check in on what to expect when talking to contractors about options for this.

So that is about it in terms of what's up with my house.

This looks like a great site, I'm glad I found it.