Hello all,

Let’s start with an introduction.

My name is Nick and I have been in constant project status for the last few year of my life as I have been working on my renovation on my first house. It has taken quite a while to get things done around here as I am currently doing this around my 45 hour/week job. I work as a Production Planner for a local factory here in my place of residence and I enjoy most parts of it. I mean, not every job can be perfect, right? It has been almost 10 years since I started working there as a summer student and after college it was the most logical place to work as it payed great and was close to home. I slowly moved up and became an operator on machine and after about 4 years I took a job posting into the office. For my career I believed this was the right thing to do and I have not yet regretted that decision.

In 2014, I made a big decision to purchase my own house as I thought it would be a great way to get my life started and get myself focused on paying off a mortgage at an early age. At first I was looking primarily at homes close to work, preferably within walking distance. However, plans soon changed after speaking with my main adviser, my dad. I was looking for houses that I could move into with a simple paint job or a new floor here and there, but he thought it would be more beneficial to buy a property that had more potential with a bit of elbow grease.

On February 7th of 2014 I signed the papers to the house I am currently living in. It needed a little bit of work on the main floor and the basement needed to be redone. I got this house for a really good price and it sat on a nice size lot, about 100’x100′. However, the house came with some problems. The reason the house was so cheap was due to the fact that it was a foreclosure and had been sitting empty for almost a full year. the basement had flooded once so the bank cleaned it up a bit by ripping the basement floors out and cutting the wet drywall out.

I had a lot of different plans for this house and how I wanted to go about fixing the problems. Originally I was only going to tackle the basement so that it was cleaned up and maybe remove some of the plaster board on the main floor to get it looking nice and smooth with some new drywall and a new coat of paint. The kitchen was one thing that was always part of the plan to remove and install a new one as the kitchen that was there was not something I would want to ever have in any house. That being said, I would have put up with it and given it a good cleaning if I were to use it.

About midway through February the demolition started in the basement. I had a lot of help from my parents and some friends stopped by to help on occasion, which was extremely helpful. I won’t go into too much detail on what all was done as I will most likely cover that in future blogs as I do not want this to be too long. After the Basement was “gutted”, we started doing a bit of work on the main level by removing some of the plaster board sheets in the living room, dining room and kitchen. the cabinets had to go and I was not too worried about saving them as they were almost falling apart just from moving them.

Things turned south, so to say, very quickly as I kept on going a little bit further every time and was never happy about how everything would end up if I stopped removing the old. In the end, I went from 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen and 3 piece bathroom, to just being left with 3 walls that enclosed the bathroom at the time. At this point, my schooling came into effect as I had taken a lot of courses on AutoCAD and Revit while at school. I tried and tried to make things work with the bathroom where it was but in the end the final decision was to remove the bathroom entirely and redo all the plumbing.

Since I had everything open and the ceiling boards were all off I decided to invest in making a great house. not just for me but for anyone that would live there after me. This was an investment I thought would be very wise and I have definitely benefited from it. Spray-foam insulation was what I went with in all the walls and even in the attic right down against the drywall with a layer of blown-in insulation on top.

As for the kitchen, well lets just say that it was a massive change when I was done. The stairs to the basement were right off the kitchen. this wouldn’t have been such a big deal, however, it was really limiting the potential size of the kitchen. On top of that, it was enclosed with walls and was located directly in front of the patio doors which opened up to a large deck. The stairs needed a new location and with the bathroom out of the way I had lots of room to play around with.

After the kitchen was installed I had a large smile on my face. by this time, the flooring was all in and the walls were painted. All the new electrical was done and so was the plumbing. I left the basement empty as it would be the project for me to work on while living in the newly renovated main floor. It quickly became a spot for hanging out with friends and watching TV.

Spring of 2016 would be the start of the construction in the basement. Again, I had lots of plan in my mind and none of them were wrong, just some were better or more convenient than others. In total, the house now has 3 large bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms (one is not complete yet), a large kitchen with an open concept style that opens to the dining area and the living room.  I installed a door from the kitchen to the single-garage as there was none before.

The yard needed a bit of work as well as I was not satisfied with a chain-link fence. I installed a 7′ fence on either side of my property to gain some privacy within the backyard. An old garden shed was also removed and a new one took its place in a different location.

This brings us to today, me writing this blog and noticing how long this introduction would be if I went into detail on every little thing that I did to the house to date. However, those will be explained in future posts as I will be continually referencing what I did on the main floor before I eventually sell this house.

Yes, you heard me correct. I am planning on selling this house when I am all done with the renovations and doing some yard cleanup. This house was a great starting house and i have learned a lot from it. However, I want to take that knowledge to the next step and begin “flipping houses” for a few year. This is not what i want to do for a long time, but I believe with my skill set I can make a decent profit from it.

By now I should explain the Title of the Blog, Life without Boundaries. My goal is to get away from cities, towns and everything and purchase a property that is secluded yet still manageable to get at with limited resources. I have been eyeing up places such as the mountains in British Columbia, Northern Ontario, and even Manitoulin Island. I just love the outdoors and am in love with the idea of Off-grid living. This however is not cheap hence the plan to not start this for at least a few years.

For today this is where I will leave you, i know this was a lengthy post but I feel it was a good start and introduction to the overall plans currently going on in my life and the ones that are planned for the future. I plan to get an update out on a weekly basis with possible posts within that time frame as well.

Thank you and I hope that this will be an interesting journey for myself and that you can learn from what i did, both in success and ion the failures that are always inevitable but can also be very helpful lessons for future projects.

Till next time…

• Intorduction and Explanation