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This is the best upgrade picture :slight_smile:

Catfish are the best…

What is that?! Looks kind of prehistoric. Haha.

I also like catfish. Saltwater fish are my favorite ones to eat though.

The best fish you might never heard from:
“peixe porco”

Where do you live? Catfish are a southern thing. I always eat the catfish from the pond :grin:

your’s are different, I deeply :joy: apologize!

Looks like a trigger fish. I’ve had those before and they are good!

I’m in the midwest now, but grew on in FL and on the east coast, which is why I prefer fish from an ocean rather than a pond.

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The “east coast” generally refers to New England… is that where you lived?

Kind of. Grew up in FL, lived in NY for awhile, and visited my parents in ME for years before they moved back to FL.

Painted the fronts after removing with Benjamin Moore Advance paint because it hardens a lot more than other brands.

Mid painting

Wall that separated the two rooms before

The floor was done professionally as I do not have that skill set and I wanted it done right, but the demo of the floor and installation of the new subfloor (the old one was 2x6" boards that I only fell through twice when demoing the living room floor and kitchen due to water rotting out the boards) was done by me and then helped with by my father in law

EDIT* Forgot the floating shelf install as well

Same is true with the half bathroom and the front entry

EDIT* Forgot the finished product

Every light was replaced in the home and re-wired (which thankfully I did not shock myself during, remember to always switch the breaker and STILL CHECK THE OUTLET FOR POWER)

Backyard was another project by itself. Tore out the old garden, planted new grass seed, 3 trees and repainted the deck

Deck before/after

Post lighting install

And about 100 more things lol

Biggest shoutout to my helper in the entire thing. He grew up into this all from the first day we moved in to when I finished the backyard

Oh Hell, I forgot the first of 2 nurseries

Also forgot the stair finishing/painting done with porch and patio paint surprisingly. It has a super hard shell to it and has an anti-slip property already included instead of having to add a flake to it

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Thats it!
No fish bones.
need some force to take off the skin.
The rest , filetting, is easy.

This is my second one:
“Garoupa”

You did a complete renovation of your house :joy:

Chapeau!!! :wink:

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The skin on those things are really hard to take off. It’s a lot work, but the fish is flavorful.

I love Garoupa/Grouper! Especially blackened and on a sandwich.

@Fuu_bar, your renovations look really great! Nicely done!

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I must confess I don’t catch these, I buy these at the market.
Please…shhhhhttt!
BUT!!! I know these to prepare perfectly! :yum:

haha. Your secret is safe with all of us!

I caught so many one day. We were trying to catch grouper, but couldn’t get the line down to the reef without the trigger fish getting caught on them. So we made lemonade out of lemons and decided to start keeping the trigger fish to eat. I’m glad we did! :smiley:

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I will try it with a fishing rod in the little harbor we used to stay for 2 or three weeks in July/August.
I don’t know if there will be any success.
But at the market there is always one! :grin:

Honestly, yeah that’s how it ended up turning out. When we first bought the house, we had already looked at 52 houses, bid on one that ended up having foundation issues so we backed out and then finally saw this one at 11pm one night. I texted my real estate agent (friend of ours) and asked her if we could see it the next day. The wife was working and couldn’t go, so I went and took pictures and sent it to the wife. Low and behold by the time I showed up at 12pm the next day there was already 4 bids (total ended up being 6 including ours) in a matter of 12 hours. Told the wife it was worth it but we have to go above the asking price on it. She agreed, we put in our bid and increased earnest money and waited and waited. When it was finally accepted, I celebrated with a nice bottle of bourbon I had been saving. When we finally closed, they originally wanted 30 days of occupancy which was great because were still in an apartment at the time. They ended up taking 1 day in the end, which worked out in our favor because we could get the floor and some other things done before we moved in. The flooring on the main floor was original hardwood, but it had so many gaps that it was not worth re-finishing and saving, so we spent the day tearing it out. the upstairs was a lot better condition, so we were going to have it sealed and stained. The night before the installation was going to be done, I was up until 4 am putting in a new sub-floor. The installers ended up being 4 hours late, so they went ahead and stained the landings of the stairs for free (as each step was around $100 to refinish). We opted against doing it with them for the stairs because I figured I would get to it at some point, but that never happened. That is why the painting pictures of the stairs above show it half stained. It was easier to paint than to pay for it or do it myself. We are getting a runner for the stairs this month, so it will be a nice addition to it all. In total, I replaced 16 light fixtures with new ones, painted every single room in the house, new bathroom vanities for both bathrooms (the half bath picture has the old one because I could not find a picture in my Google photos of the new one) new entryway tile, new fireplace mantel and tile, kitchen, basement stairs, sealed and dry locked the basement as we do not have a sump pump, painted all 3 exterior doors, all the yard re-seeded after taking the trees/garden down (only hitting my neighbors garage one time which he was okay with and laughed at my willingness to do it all), stained the deck with the lighting, wall organizer for my wife’s extended closest/office (which ended up turning into the bedroom for my oldest when my 2nd daughter was born), wall in betwen the kitchen and dining, kitchen remodel, flooring, and so much more. It was our first home, so I wanted to make it into something we would enjoy and get a good return on when we decide to sell (my wife wants 3 kids total, so our 3 bedrooms will not work). This summer I am painting the outside of the home to a gray/blue color and replacing the shutters on the outside, putting in a separate area in the backyard for a fire pit (will end up being a 12x12 paver area) and then gutting and re-tiling the master bathroom. There is a 2nd walk in closet in our bedroom that I am considering taking out and extending the bathroom, as it eats into about 4 ft of the bathroom, but I do not know if it will even be worth it in the end because it only adds so much value to the home, so the cost/time of it all may not be worth it. (see below) But the tiling needs to be done and then I will be completed with the house, hopefully by the 3 year anniversary of us moving in.

We had an appraisal done 3 weeks ago to be able to drop our PMI (need to have 75% loan to value ratio if the home is under 5 years since purchase) to which we ended up with a LTV of 62.3%, so we were able to reduce our mortgage by $185 a month. The appraisal amount came back at a lot higher than we expected, so I want to be able to get a little bit more than what we were told if we decide to sell by doing the bathroom. Currently if we sold it for the appraisal amount, we would be up around $98,000 to which we could put towards a new home, but the issue is that the area we are in is selling 1000sq ft homes for $220k on average, so the size that we would want (2000 sq ft/ 4 bedroom/2.5 bathrooms) would run us upwards of $450k+ at this point in time. I love our city/area so it would be worth the investment for sure, I just want it to be turn key at this point because I am beyond spent with projects. Having 2 little ones around gives me a lot less time for things like that, so I want to be able to move in and not have to do a single thing. The contractors in my city have been purchasing smaller homes just for the lot and then tearing them down. They then put up a brand new home and charge anywhere from $425k all the way up to around $675k. Worth it in my opinion, but still a stretch to do it. It has been a journey for sure, with lots of mistakes made. I had minimal (and I mean minimal amounts as I work in I.T. and never considered myself handy in any way) exposure to anything beforehand, so I call this my project home and will be able to look back at it and smile when we do sell it and know that I did everything and it helped my family out in the end.

BONUS Nothing gets your heart racing more than hitting something 4 ft down after digging out tree roots and thinking you found something awesome. My city had clay pipes for the sewers and someone thought it would be cute to put bricks over the top of it and bury it instead of throwing it away…

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I really like that mirror/speaker enclosure! Neat idea!

My father always told me:

“Three times moved house is one time totally burned”

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