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grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







old cars go arooga posted:

My mom would freak out if she saw that, it looks like what she'd do to ours if we had more space between our cabinets and counters. I live in a nice, new suburban house, but I'm really impressed with how much better your home-built design looks! One or both of you have a real eye for aesthetics.
Combination, I think! We had a kitchen designer at lowes help with the kitchen design, and he made some really great suggestions- we had already come out with a general layout we liked at that point, and he just worked with it. I put the whole thing in CAD in 3D and made some changes I thought would look nice, too- I can't remember if the puck lights above and below were my idea or hers, but that turned out awesome. My wife and I picked out the cabinet color and style, and I was pretty insistant on the floor. As to the counter, that was a group effort- my wife and I had quite the disagreement on color; I wanted the black and she wanted this beigish color that I thought would look horrible. SO, we asked her interior decorator friend to help, and she immediately threw out my wife's choice (yes!) and picked the ones that I liked. She liked the same tiles my wife had picked out. (I guess I technically had some sort of veto power on the tiles, but I didn't get much say in the selection...) Her decorator friend picked out the lights over the island. We have a giant-ass chandalier her decorator friend picked out, too, that I might post some pictures of, I don't think I have yet. Cost us fucking $1000 but I have to admit, it's an awesome chandalier! Hard to tell in this photo, but it's 46" tall and 42" across, so it's very large. Puts off a disappointingly small amount of light for having that many light bulbs, too. Oh well...



As to the other lights, my wife wanted recessed lights in the kitchen (I wanted flourescent, heh) but I picked the placement. Same thing in the living room and her sewing room. She complains and complains about the terrible color of flourescents, despite my insistance that the new flourescents have excellent color temperature, but I DID secretly replace the bulbs upstairs with 15W compact flourescent flood-light bulbs that put out 60W of light (I stealthily only ever referred to them as "high-efficiency bulbs") and she didn't notice and thinks they're nice! Small victory! Only problem is they can't be dimmed without really expensive dimmers.

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 15, 2007 around 09:39

TheChaplain
Apr 22, 2002

God is just the start of your problems, neh?

This is damn impressive. My specialty lies in demolition, so I've seen the opposite side of all you've done.

Do me a favor, however... I don't want to sound like a kill-joy bastard, but in the event there is ever a fire in your addition, please PLEASE tell the fire officer who arrives first the following words:

Balloon Frame
Truss Construction
Pre-Engineered Lumber
Gusset Plates

I hope to hell that you never have one, and you probably won't, but all the miracles of engineering you've thrown in there are what wake me up in a cold sweat at night. I'm sorry to have even mentioned it, but it was stewing in me since I saw the word "truss" on the first page.

FizFashizzle
Mar 30, 2005



Grimey Drawer

Congratulations man!

I've helped build a couple of houses here in Atlanta through charity organizations (I'm incredibly good working with wood, for some bizarre reason. Stage construction, huzzah!) and it feels great to be finished. Plus, it's good exercise! My hat's off to you, good sir!

phosdex
Dec 15, 2005



Awesome man. My dad is a housing contractor so I've seen a lot of empty land get turned into houses. It's always a cool sight to see. You should replace the door cover on that dishwasher with a wood panel to match the cabinets.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 1, 2003





That...that's epic

I've never been involved in any project of that scale. The biggest home-improvement project I've ever been involved in (I have yet to buy my own house, though my wife and I are looking to buy this summer) was when we put in our pool. My dad drew up the plans in Canvas (3.0, I think?) on our old Macintosh, and basically played the part of general contractor. We didn't do a whole lot of the actual labor ourselves because so much of it on a pool requires particularly specialized equipment and/or skills, but just doing that slashed costs enormously. My own level of involvement mostly was helping measure stuff out (we discovered our yard was not square, which was annoying) and digging post holes for the fence. Arizona has fucking hard, hard, hard dirt (the fact that our yard kept breaking the trenchers we rented to re-route our sprinklers should've been a clue that my 10-year-old ass with a manual post-hole digger was going to take a while).

The next one behind that would be putting in the third (three-quarter) bathroom, which had actually already been plumbed when the house was built 20 years ago, but had been walled off (and used) as a storage closet in the garage. It basically consisted of punching out a new doorway, putting a new wall in to split the bathroom from the garage closet, and finishing it all off.

My non-hat is off to you.

drchipotle
Sep 11, 2001



It seems as though most of your inspectors have gone over all your work with a fine tooth comb, something you can almost be grateful for, as this is your first time with a lot of this stuff.

Question: Do new builds have to go thru this same inspection process? Do contractors get away with more because inspectors assume they know what they are doing?

It seems like a lot of homes have shoddy construction that should have been failed by the kinds of inspection you have had to endure.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







drchipotle posted:

It seems as though most of your inspectors have gone over all your work with a fine tooth comb, something you can almost be grateful for, as this is your first time with a lot of this stuff.

Question: Do new builds have to go thru this same inspection process? Do contractors get away with more because inspectors assume they know what they are doing?

It seems like a lot of homes have shoddy construction that should have been failed by the kinds of inspection you have had to endure.
Every house gets the same inspection, regardless of who builds it. In talking to the inspectors, the "pros" don't necessarily know what they're doing either! The inspectors know the contractors, though- they know who does good work and who doesn't, and can inspect accordingly. I occassionally check the city inspections website to see the progress of the new houses around here, and the "pro" ones fail a lot, too.

The electricians are the only ones I know that even bother to buy a copy of the code book, the rest just sorta wing it. Of course, the inspectors around here don't really use published codes, they use the "me" code- EG, whatever they say is the code*. If you're up on the codes you can sometimes fight it, but it's generally easier just to humor them. You can get around some of it by using engineers; I'm told most of the foundations here are signed off by licensed engineers as opposed to inspectors, just like mine was. But that's only because it's hard to build on a swamp and still meet minimum code requirements!

* - Case in point here was the foundation footer. I had calculated all the loads and pressures of my house and walls and designed the footers so that they would all have roughly even ground pressure, and strictly to the code. But I met resistance from the inspector and my contractor and eventually just caved in and did it the "wrong" way to make them happy. Standard footer design for 8" concrete block construction is 24" wide and 8" thick under every load-bearing wall. Code does not mandate a minimum width, but in fact mandates a maximum width to prevent the footers from cracking- footers can be no wider than they are thick, as measured out from the edge of the block. With 8" block, a 24" wide footer has 8" of footer sticking out both sides. I was using 6" blocks, which meant my footers could only be 22" wide. And on top of that, I had two walls with very little vertical load that I wanted to be just 18" and 12" wide, respectively. Oh, the arguments THAT caused! Nevermind that code allows you to put concrete blocks directly on soil if the ground pressure is suitable, they had only ever put in 24" wide footers and would happily have made them wider, but did NOT want to listen engineering reason.

In the end, I calculated out that my ground pressure and forces in my footers were so low that there was no risk of breakage, even in the poor design they forced me into.

Edit: here's a page from one of my references detailing some of the forces involved:

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 15, 2007 around 14:51

Thrifting Day!
Nov 25, 2006



The is quite possibly my all time favourite SA thread. Good work dude, it looks friggin' amazing.

PainterofCrap
Oct 16, 2002

Hey bebe



grover posted:

Of course, the inspectors around here don't really use published codes, they use the "me" code- EG, whatever they say is the code*. If you're up on the codes you can sometimes fight it, but it's generally easier just to humor them. You can get around some of it by using engineers; I'm told most of the foundations here are signed off by licensed engineers as opposed to inspectors, just like mine was.

Here in NJ, I have seen a lot of contractor crap get by the code inspectors (don't even start me on the city of Philadelphia. L&I is a bribe-a-thon).

I have to second the comment on engineers. I designed my own roof trusses, because the loft area of my garage had 4' kneewalls with no ties to keep them from kicking out under a heavy load. I have a friend who is a structural engineer look at my design & tweak it for a 100-year snow load, which involved purlins and a shitload of 5/8" bolts. On the final inspection, the inspector took one look at the engineer's drawing & passed it.

Methuselah
May 23, 2001

Get your own box.

Great thread, but I hate the term "footers". It's a footing. I also can't stand anyone who misuses the word Masonry. I can't count the number of times that I heard masonary, as if it were a new sexual position.

Carry on, sir!

(former structural engineer who quit because server administration makes way more money)

LloydDobler
Oct 14, 2005

You shared it with a dick.



Cybernetic Crumb

Methuselah posted:

I can't count the number of times that I heard masonary, as if it were a new sexual position.
I'm trying to imagine what kind of position would that be. Or maybe it's any position with a girl built like a brick shithouse?

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







PainterofCrap posted:

Here in NJ, I have seen a lot of contractor crap get by the code inspectors (don't even start me on the city of Philadelphia. L&I is a bribe-a-thon).

I have to second the comment on engineers. I designed my own roof trusses, because the loft area of my garage had 4' kneewalls with no ties to keep them from kicking out under a heavy load. I have a friend who is a structural engineer look at my design & tweak it for a 100-year snow load, which involved purlins and a shitload of 5/8" bolts. On the final inspection, the inspector took one look at the engineer's drawing & passed it.
Right about the time we broke ground, I started studying for my PE license- I took the FE exam last April and passed (yay!), which made me eligible to take the PE exam in October. Throughout this whole process, I had this faint hope of a "plan B" in the back of my head that no matter what happened or what technicality the inspectors fail us on, I can always just wait until I got my PE license and just stamp the bitch myself! I didn't want to count on that, though, since the failure rate is so high for the PE exam, and it was by no means a foregone conclusion that I'd pass. Finally, last week, I got the results back from the PE exam and found out I passed! woohoo!!!

I am now a licensed professional engineer in the state of Virginia I passed the Electrical Engineering test exam the Power Engineering afternoon module, but in VA, we're not restricted to the module we pass, and can practice engineering in any area we feel to the area we feel competant in. Either way, if anyone needs power engineering, I'm available for consulting.

Methuselah posted:

Great thread, but I hate the term "footers". It's a footing.
Yeah, yeah. "Footers" just sounds so right though- I mean, we have "headers", not "heading", why is it a "footing" vice a "footer"?

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 15, 2007 around 21:15

Durk Hendrunkqs
Dec 11, 2006

It's useless.


That's way awesome. The previous owner of our house did the add ons with himself and his friends. They added a living room on the older side, the dinning room extended, a completely new section with a sun room, bathroom, master bedroom, living room, and a basement, turned the old garage that was attached to the house into a finished room (which is now my music room), and made a two car garage separate from it. He did an awesome job and wish I was as handy as that. Congratulations for a job well done.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Another pretty lazy day today, I just couldn't get motivated to do much. I cleaned up the garage a bit more so that I can both get to the corner with the air handler and park my car! Given I finally had enough room to set up a ladder, I put up the last 2 flourescent lights in the garage and then all the receptacles in the workshop area. Also put on the receptacle for the other garage door opener and installed the other 3-way switch for the lights in the garage; I hadn't bought enough switches when I first wired up the lights and had just wire-nutted past that switch until now.


The air handler for the heating/air conditioning system will be installed in the corner, tucked up against the cieling. (The return vent comes through the wall, and the supply goes up the 2 round ducts in the cieling, and another that will go along the ceiling in the garage. The new air handler is the smallish gray box sitting in the far corner. The new outside unit is the large box on the pallet dominating the middle of the garage bay, and weighs about 300lbs IIRC. I don't know how we're going to work that motherfucker around the side of the house and get it onto the 2' platform I intend to build...


My workbench will be along the far wall, under the two windows. That stove is for sale, btw, still works fine! Gonna put it up on craigs list for $70, but I'll sell it for $25 to anyone who's read this thread so far- any takers?

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 15, 2007 around 21:26

shorty round
May 22, 2005

by elpintogrande


your new addition looks amazing, and what is more amazing is that you and your wife had the gusto and determination to do this by yourself. I'm sure you will feel very proud when it is all done and finished.

and by doing most of this by yourself, I wonder how much money you are saving? do you have any estimates of what it would have cost (sorry if your already mentioned this)

PainterofCrap
Oct 16, 2002

Hey bebe



grover posted:

I am now a licensed professional engineer in the state of Virginia


Congratulations - that is a hell of an exam and says much about your talents.

Which leads to a slight derail: I don't know what you intend to do with your PE, but you might consider (at least on the side) doing cause-and-origin inspections for the homeowner's insurance industry; we're starved for competent PEs.

The upside? You don't have to do any drawings, your findings are rarely challenged by anyone, and you get paid $500-$2000 to write a narrative report and take a lot of photos (which you can bill for). Your conclusions are accepted like the tablets from the Mount.

The downside: you will be expected to testify in court as to your conclusions. It's a small downside, since judges and lawyers are totally clueless. You're essentially doing forensics, so you don't have to worry about being sued if something falls apart. (IOW, if you're unsure about the structural integrity of a building you've been sent to inspect, tell the occupants to clear out ASAP).

I really loved my PE, and was sorry to see him retire to a cushy state (NJ) job.

PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at Jan 16, 2007 around 19:27

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







PainterofCrap posted:

Congratulations - that is a hell of an exam and says much about your talents.

Which leads to a slight derail: I don't know what you intend to do with your PE, but you might consider (at least on the side) doing cause-and-origin inspections for the homeowner's insurance industry; we're starved for competent PEs.

The upside? You don't have to do any drawings, your findings are rarely challenged by anyone, and you get paid $500-$2000 to write a narrative report and take a lot of photos (which you can bill for). Your conclusions are accepted like the tablets from the Mount.
Damn, that sounds like a kick-ass side job! Not a conflict of interest to my day job, either. I've taken multiple courses in failure analysis and do that for fun all the time (hmm... wonder why this dohicky broke? Lets grab a magnifying class and examine the broken bits to find out!) I'm more of an electrical engineer by experience though; I've got the coursework and obviously dabble a bit in structural, but I don't consider myself qualified to practice structural engineering as a PE. Well, yet!

I was planning on doing some side consulting, but really had no idea where to start. Any suggestions on POCs in the hampton roads area to hit up? Feel free to PM me- and thanks for the suggestion!

Hell, for $2k, I might even drive up to Jersey, lol...

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 16, 2007 around 20:31

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Great progress in our new bathroom! Got the floor in, shower cleaned up (was a mess of plaster dust and dirt), got the lights and receptacles and exhaust fan on, the toilet installed, the vanity installed and all the plumbing hooked up! So now, we have a fully functioning bathroom Still need to put in the mirror, medicine cabinet, towel bars and toilet paper holder, but those can come later.

Before:





After:


The main thing I'm unhappy with is the placement of the toilet, I wish it was 1' further from the shower and closer to the vanity. I'd designed this for a 36" vanity but ended up getting a great deal on a 24" vanity instead*, which leaves this big gap by the vanity and no room by the shower... I guess we can crap a garbage can in there, or maybe the wicker shelf, we won't waste it, that's for sure And honestly, the shower will only be used by guests.




We have a really nice mirror we'll put up. There's a cavity on the wall to the left of the vanity where there will be a built-in medicine cabinet flush with the wall.



* We wanted to get a shallow cabinet with an overhanging sink since the bathroom was so small. 13 months ago when we were laying out the bathroom and 6 months ago when I put in the plumbing, we talked about it, but didn't go as far as physically picking out the vanity (which, in retrospect, was a mistake). Found out that a buddy of mine had bout a vanity for $40 for his new house, but his wife decided she didn't like it. Turns out it's almost exactly what my wife wanted, but not what I had planned for... So, it doesn't fit perfectly, but we'll eventually fix it. Or maybe not, it's not a high priority

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 19:21

mr. sexy
Mar 15, 2006
Her?

Goddammit grover, you make me feel so lazy.

Nice job.

blearghhh
Oct 19, 2004


LloydDobler posted:

I just this minute pulled all my house paint out of my freezing garage to thaw it out and hope it's still good.

I know this is probably too late here, but paint can typically take one freeze-thaw cycle without a problem. More than that, and it's garbage. The problem is that knowing this, some shippers don't heat it when it's being shipped, so you may already have garbage.

To Grover: What program did you use to do your drawings in? Autocad?

I just bought a 100 year old house, and I'm going to be doing a lot of work to it, so I need to invest in some sort of drafting software, but I can't justify the 10k for something from Autodesk. Any suggestions for something that someone experienced (but rusty) with CAD software could use and wasn't horrendously expensive?

blearghhh fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 19:26

PeaceFrog
Jul 27, 2004
you'll shoot your eye out.

Nice work man. Now go pull the grill out of the shed and cook up a nice meal for your wife. I have to redo one of my bathrooms this year, the floor squeak drives me bonkers.

Snot Rocketeer
Nov 2, 2004

by Lowtax


awesome awesome thread, and a way cool house

I'm just learning how to fix things, and my new house is FULL of things to fix (new to me - built in 1927)

This is inspiring - nice job!

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







blearghhh posted:

To Grover: What program did you use to do your drawings in? Autocad?

I just bought a 100 year old house, and I'm going to be doing a lot of work to it, so I need to invest in some sort of drafting software, but I can't justify the 10k for something from Autodesk. Any suggestions for something that someone experienced (but rusty) with CAD software could use and wasn't horrendously expensive?
I used AutoCAD Architectural. If you don't want to spend $10k, they have AutoCAD LT which is only a couple hundred bucks. You can probably get a pretty good deal on older versions- there is very little difference between AutoCAD 2000 through 2005, any would work great for you- Or, just do what everyone else does and use p2p!

There are a number of free CAD programs out there, but I don't have any experience with them.

PeaceFrog posted:

Nice work man. Now go pull the grill out of the shed and cook up a nice meal for your wife. I have to redo one of my bathrooms this year, the floor squeak drives me bonkers.
Don't let the toilet dissuade you from replacing the floor- moving/replacing toilets is surprisingly easy and not at all messy like you'd think. The toilet is attached to the floor with 2 bolts, and there is a $1 wax ring that seals it to the floor that you'll have to replace- the hardest part is sopping up all the water in the tank so you don't drip it everywhere when you take it off the bolw; toilets really are trivial to move/replace!

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 19:49

Mr. Bill
Jan 17, 2007
Bourgeoisie Pig

tigro posted:


I am not sure if residential houses would need a return system, As i've only worked with commerical HVAC systems.


Just to reassure you, yes, they do need return systems. I work pretty much exclusively in residential, albeit in Canada. Ideally, you'd want a return air in every room that isn't a bathroom or a kitchen (because of smell). Just helps with air circulation, really.

Up here we get really intense about central heating.

Irish Revenge
May 21, 2004

I AM A GIANT FAGGOT THAT LIKES TO PRETEND I AM AN ADMIN. I LITERALLY SUCK COCK! GLUCK GLUCK I AM SUCKING COCK NOW BECAUSE I AM SUCH A FAGGOT!!!! IF I AM POSTING PLEASE TELL ME TO SUCK SO MUCH COCK I DIE BECAUSE I AM WORTHLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is rot stabilizer? I was replacing a rotted shower floor today and saw some of this stuff at lowe's but couldn't figure out what it did.

Also, I may have missed it, but what did you do with your original kitchen? Do you have two kitchens now? And do you think the addition will add 80k in value to your house? I can't tell real well from the pictures but the neighborhood appears to contain mostly lower-value houses than what your finished house will be.

Lastly, I might have designed the garage on the side or rear of the house. Most people don't build garages that face the street anymore because it's unsightly and decreases the value of your house.

Irish Revenge fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 20:59

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Irish Revenge posted:

What is rot stabilizer? I was replacing a rotter shower floor today and saw some of this stuff at lowe's but couldn't figure out what it did.

Also, I may have missed it, but what did you do with your original kitchen? Do you have two kitchens now? And do you think the addition will add 80k in value to your house? I can't tell real well from the pictures but the neighborhood appears to contain mostly lower-value houses than what your finished house will be.

Lastly, I might have designed the garage on the side or rear of the house. Most people don't build garagses that face the street anymore because it's unsightly and decreases the value of your house.
hahaha, what? Everyone here has garages that face the street, I can't think of a single house that doesn't! In suburbia, there is no room for house-wrapping driveways, and we're all used to seeing it so it doesn't look bad, and certainly doesn't detract from the home's value.

Rot Stabilizer is remarkably like elmer's glue. You scrape off all the rot and squirt this stuff on, and it prevents further rot.

We plan on walling off our old kitchen and making it a butler's pantry. We will have to move the sink which means replumbing the drain line, but we don't want to put much effort or money into it.

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 20:54

Fire Storm
Aug 8, 2004

what's the point of life
if there are no sexborgs?


Epic thread, and I just saw it.

We plan on doing an addition to our house and are trying to figure out the best way to do it while not completely destroying our ability to relax and live.

I just have this major fear that when I take off some of my siding I find that all my studs are rotted and my house turns into the money pit.

Irish Revenge
May 21, 2004

I AM A GIANT FAGGOT THAT LIKES TO PRETEND I AM AN ADMIN. I LITERALLY SUCK COCK! GLUCK GLUCK I AM SUCKING COCK NOW BECAUSE I AM SUCH A FAGGOT!!!! IF I AM POSTING PLEASE TELL ME TO SUCK SO MUCH COCK I DIE BECAUSE I AM WORTHLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!

blearghhh posted:

I know this is probably too late here, but paint can typically take one freeze-thaw cycle without a problem. More than that, and it's garbage.

That can't be stressed enough. The quality of the paint you use can make a huge difference in how your walls look (and how easy it is to apply). I never skimp on the cost of paint.

grover posted:

hahaha, what? Everyone here has garages that face the street, I can't think of a single house that doesn't! In suburbia, there is no room for house-wrapping driveways, and we're all used to seeing it so it doesn't look bad, and certainly doesn't detract from the home's value.

Must be just a cultural thing then. In my neighborhood they will not let you build a garage facing the street. People tend to leave the doors open on them, park their cars in front of them, etc. It just adds more curb appeal to the neighborhood if you can see more of the actual house than the garage doors, and makes the house look better. Basically, with your design they wouldn't change the location of the garage, they would just make you put the doors on the left side, so that you can see more of the house.

Irish Revenge fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 21:03

BulletRiddled
May 31, 2004

I survived Disaster Movie and all I got was this poorly cropped avatar



grover posted:

The electricians are the only ones I know that even bother to buy a copy of the code book, the rest just sorta wing it.

I'm about to get my Electrician ticket up here in Canada, and it makes sense after you have a look over the code book just why everyone has to have one. When you're building from the ground up, and you start miscalculating a few minor things, parts of your house tend to melt/explode/not work at all.

Kid Antrim
Sep 11, 2001

Regulators... Mount up!

TheChaplain posted:

Balloon Frame


I don't see this balloon frame you speak of?

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Irish Revenge posted:

Must be just a cultural thing then. In my neighborhood they will not let you build a garage facing the street. People tend to leave the doors open on them, park their cars in front of them, etc. It just adds more curb appeal to the neighborhood if you can see more of the actual house than the garage doors, and makes the house look better. Basically, with your design they wouldn't change the location of the garage, they would just make you put the doors on the left side, so that you can see more of the house.
The side of my addition is 15' from the property line, there's no room to drive in the side.

Kid Antrim posted:

I don't see this balloon frame you speak of?
I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but I'm sure there are others reading this that don't know the difference. In standard construction, you build 8' tall walls, set joists on those walls to create a new floor, and built another 8' tall wall on top of that. In balloon frame construction, you'd built 17' walls, and nail (or notch) the floor into the wall. In my house, I balloon-framed the cathedral ceiling portion, and framed the rest up conventionally.

Here's an example:

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 21:13

fuckingtest
Mar 31, 2001

GODDAMN YELLOW CAR!
FUCK YOU!

Amazing Job Grover.

Hot Chicks Room
Aug 5, 2005



grover posted:


More work delays- I had to take a week off from the addition for a grueling business trip to Hawaii.

I have that exact same body glove wetsuit, high five.

ReverendHeywood
Feb 1, 2003

I SUPPORT THE KILLING OF CAGED FAMILY PETS BY MY FELLOW COPS


Agreed, bravo sir bravo. As a future hopeful home owner you've inspired me to do it myself!

Swap_File
Nov 23, 2004
WIN386.SWP

I posed this elsewhere a while back, but I figure it would go along well with the theme of this thread..

Building our house:

Removing the old house with our backhoe:


We had to hire a big truck and the excavator to haul the old house to a pit in our back field for burning:

It was one of the only things we hired done for the whole project. Putting in our AC was hired out too.

Foundation:


Basement Walls:



Floor:


Framing:


Shell is up:

Time to work inside

Fireplace:


Kitchen:


Living Room:


5 Years from starting, it is done (pretty much):




We had never built a house before, but had built sheds and other farm buildings. We just sat down with some paper and Chief Architect and designed the house, and went to Mendards and got some Do It Yourself books and started buying lumber. It worked out pretty good.

2000 square feet upstairs, 2000 squarefoot basement (unfinished, used as my electronics workshop), 2 car garage, 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, $120,000 finished with furniture and appliances. Everything was purchased either on sale or on closeout (yes, even the lumber).

This project was done by our whole family, and our neighbors helped alot too. My father did most of the work, but I helped over summer break, and came home on the weekends and helped.

Nothing had to be inspected except the septic system. Thank god we live in the sticks and didn't have to deal with anything more than a cheap building permit.

Our biggest fuck up: We were planning on pouring the basement floor the summer after we got the shell up. This would have been fine, but we did not have any plastic down on the floor at the time. This sat over winter, and the water vapor came up out of the ground and made it very humid. This let mold start to grow on the underside of the floor. It took about a week of wearing a respirator and spraying it with bleach mixed with water from our pressure washer to clean it all up. Luckily our basement is not finished, so we can keep an eye on it. It has been 4 years now and everything still looks fine.

Question for the OP, if you could do the project over again, what would you like to change the most?

Edit: For us, on our house we have one main corridor were we run most of the the wire pipes and ductwork. It got very tight to work on towards the end. We probably should have spread it out alot more. Edit2: And make the living room a bit wider to better fit in furniture better. My dad assumed he would just make the rooms a decent size, and figure it out furniture placement later...

Swap_File fucked around with this message at Jan 21, 2007 around 23:38

PeaceFrog
Jul 27, 2004
you'll shoot your eye out.

grover posted:

Toilets!

I'm not afraid of the toilet. I am afraid of the pregnant woman who will be forced to use the basement bathroom.

MrBlandAverage
Jul 2, 2003

GNNAAAARRRR

Soiled Meat

grover posted:

I'm an electrical engineer for the navy (civilian!).
What school did you go to? How did you get your job? Is there any way you could hook me up with an EE internship?

phillipyang04
Nov 12, 2004
Whatever I say is fake

unbelievable. Great job on the house and I will continue to read this as it progresses. I am planning on entering the real estate development field and want to get experience in this so I won't get ripped off by contractors and engineers. I love your style.

max4me
Jun 15, 2003

by FactsAreUseless


Very impressive. But after all the loving work would you ever move?

BABY COME BACK!
May 30, 2005

"It's also silly to try and predict something that hasn't even happened yet."

Grover, do you plan on making some kind of "this is how much I saved doing all this back breaking work myself" comparison chart?

I'm sure you saved thousands upon thousands of dollars. Hell, back when I was living in Florida a flooring guy wanted $600.00 to do some floor tiling that I ended up doing myself for about $75.00 in materials and a days work.

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