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# ? Jun 23, 2007 20:45 |
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i adore this thread and i'm amazed at the effort and everything, but i
have to say i think your wife was right when she said it would look bad
as a two-story addition. it's the combination of being a fairly boring
exterior design (understandable considering your budget) and the siding,
which honestly i think is hideous.
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# ? Jun 23, 2007 20:52 |
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My dad's awesome and offered to pay for the stairs, which, as proud as I
am, we couldn't refuse his generosity! First things, first, though, I
needed to build a new workbench that we can use to build the stair
pieces. A new useful workshop has been in the plans since the
very beginning of this project- in fact, it's why the house is 4' wider
than it really otherwise needs to be. We hit Home Depot last night and
picked up some 3/4" MDF and some straight 2x4s. I've got plenty of scrap
2x4s for the legs and shelf and stringers and all, but wanted the table
to be flat and I knew I'd already used up all but the shittiest 2x4s of
the hundreds I started with... The 12x12 Toolshed/Garden Shed/Workshop my wife and I built when we first moved in. As you can see, there's not a lot of room to work! We have to back the lawnmower out, unbury the tool we want to use, and drag it out into the middle to use it. Garage, after about 2 hours of cleaning and moving. (My son helped, too.) You can see my old folding workbench there- one of my first ever woodworking projects; we built that when we lived in an apartment, so we could set up shop outside on nice days and work. Ah, the memories... Got most of it framed out here. Finished workbench! You can see the new radial arm saw table, too. And my first "project". (Not to mention well-deserved beer!) I put a shelf beneath for storage of "large" tools, like the router table, joiner, sander, grinder and tilesaw. Left the other side open to store the generator. I build a new table for the radial arm saw, too, as the old one was destroyed last year and the half-ass jerry-rigged fence I threw together wasn't worth a damn. By sheer coincidence, the height ended up within 1/16" the new workbench height, which I should be able to adjust the feet for. I still haven't sold the old stove; I really need to clean it up and put it on craig's list; if I can't get anyone to bite, it's going out on the curb so I can fit a toolbox there. I still need to move my band saw, lathe and scroll saw in, but I have no idea where I'm going to fit them all. Letalone the drill press I intend to buy soon and the new table saw to replace the POS delta I've been using. Next project in the garage is shelving! Going to put up lots of shelving, pegboards, and some tool racks. grover fucked around with this message at Jul 7, 2007 around 22:14 |
# ? Jul 7, 2007 22:08 |
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Holy shit I remember when this thread was created. This thread really IS
epic, I can't believe how far it's come, yknow? Keep at it, dude ![]() grover posted:worth the money. This looks gorgeous! AdamAntz posted:Wow amazing work. I plan to DIY my future house when I marry and settle down. This is very educational. Wow, I feel extremely ignorant in asking this but, uh... what do you use, since you're obviously not American? ![]()
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# ? Jul 7, 2007 22:30 |
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NilsenNagel posted:i adore this thread and i'm amazed at the effort and everything, but i have to say i think your wife was right when she said it would look bad as a two-story addition. it's the combination of being a fairly boring exterior design (understandable considering your budget) and the siding, which honestly i think is hideous. ![]() ![]() The back looks pretty bad, but that's because we're still not done- we're going to put in a patio and arbor over the door, which will completely change the look. This is why we put the circle-top window where we did. The side looked AWFUL in the CAD renderings, but in real life, it's hidden by trees... leaving just the front of the house. We put the architectural jut-out to break it up, which helps a lot, but it still lacks something. Maybe I should post a photoshop thread asking for suggestions? lol...
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# ? Jul 8, 2007 10:09 |
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Oh you know, whenever I get bored on a Sunday afternoon I always decide to just build an addition THE SIZE OF ANOTHER HOUSE. In all seriousness though I am thoroughly impressed and now wish to take up a DIY project of my own. Next paycheck, next paycheck....
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# ? Jul 8, 2007 10:16 |
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I passed the electrical, plumbing and mechanical final inspections today, woohoo!! All that's left now is the final building inspection ![]() ![]() Condensate drain lines with 2" drop from the pan to pipe, and 2" deep P-trap. Overlaid with 3"/3" like the instructions say. I took today off because my wife had to drive to north carolina to fight a speeding ticket (got knocked down to 9 over with no points, hooray! Still cost $125 though, boo.) So, yesterday I scheduled the inspections and bought some shelving and pegboard supplies. And actually got something accomplished for a change. I had a lot of difficulty working around the stud locations, though- as in every house, they're in a great position structurally, but invariably a dumb spot when you're trying to put up a shelf. I had the forethought to take photos of everything while it was under construction, though, and was easy to tell precisely where the studs were. Also important were the location of electrical wires in the walls- screws long enough to secure a shelf are unfortunately also long enough to go right through wiring and burn your house down. 12" deep shelves to store my car stuff, with bike parking below. Another shelf will eventually go over the window and along the length of the wall. "Before" for reference - same wall, last sept. I got the pegboard free from a local Hancock Fabric when they renovated, and yesterday picked up some furring strips to stand them off the wall and about $15 worth of assorted hooks until we can figure out what we want to do. Unfortunately, it's only got 1/8" holes, but all the hooks I bought are heavy duty 1/4", except the special drill hook. And what I thought were 2 furring strips in the corner were actually good oak 1x2" for one of my wife's projects, so I ran out before I could get the last pegboard up. Oh well! Pegboard! My portable workbench I pointed out in my last post is folded up in this picture, btw.
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# ? Jul 12, 2007 15:27 |
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Grover, I think you are doing an excellent job and it looks great! I do have a suggestion for you to add some interest to the front of the house over the garage and the windows: add a fake louver (Fypon brand, etc.) at the top in the middle of the peak. Oh, yeah, and also add some shutters on the windows. They have cheapy ones that are made from vinyl and again, they just add some character. Like this: Or this: It's pretty inexpensive (usually around $125), easy to install and adds a nice architectural feature. I just put a Fypon pediment over my front door and it really added to the way the house looks. There's tons of different styles to choose from. Before: ![]() After: ![]() I would seriously look into it. We have one over the garage (you can kind of see it in the "after" pic. Ours is set under the brick but we used to have one on our old house that wasn't. Let me see if I can find a pic. Fypon makes a bunch of different styles and you don't have to get a louver. Keep up the good work ![]() edit: here's a pic of the louver on our old house on siding. ![]() my2k posted:
Since the US has such large amounts of trees, we can use wood for framing. In other parts of the world they use a lot of brick and concrete block because wood is really pricey. Wood is also not as sturdy (obviously) as building with other materials, but since it's so reasonable here, that's what we tend to use. Heifzilla fucked around with this message at Jul 24, 2007 around 19:59 |
# ? Jul 12, 2007 21:31 |
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We were busy this weekend! Unfortunately, with small stuff, though. One
item that's been nagging us are the gutters- we had more or less mauled
the end off two gutters when we cut the roof back 12" to eliminate the
gable overhang, and water was just running right of against the siding
and making a mess. As these seemed to be a good spot to practice putting
up gutters before we tackle the tall roof, thought we'd give it a shot!
Unfortunately, even this little stinking piece cost about $60 in parts,
so the roof gutters may just wait a bit longer as they're not as much
of an issue in this area (we already have a high water table and there's
no basement to damage) Also, I'm not infallible- we forgot to buy the
angle for the bottom, whoops! Will pick that up some other time, I guess
![]() ![]() Old gutter- note disconnected downspout and lack of a cap on the left end. It's hard to see, but there's a rust/dirt stain on the vinyl siding, too. ![]() Brand new vinyl gutter! Doesn't really look $60 better from afar, but it sure does up close. Went up very easy, at least. Oh, note also, we finally took that monstrosity off the roof! Which we were keeping up until we were completely done with all roof work- and with our decision to not bother with gutters on the addition, I put about 4' of sheet-metal rain diverters above the condensor to keep rain from falling two stories and damaging the fan & motor, thus completing the last of our high roof work. Maybe we'll put in gutters at some point down the road, but for now, there's really no reason to. My dad and I did a bunch of excavation work along the side of the house, too, where the condensate drain from the air handler was making quite a muddy mess- we dug a ditch from the condensor and laid leftover 2" and 4" PVC pipe/conduit, and some drainage rock. this area was previously all overgrown, so the roots were a bitch. We spent a few hours cleaning out old metal fencing, bits of concrete, old fense posts, and dirt piled up over everything- and use the dirt to raise the swampy ground up to above the level of the ditch, so it won't flood every time it rains heavy. We cleaned out a whole bunch of crap, too, so we can start mowing back there. The edge of my wife's raised flower bed is in the foreground. (Stakes are part structural, part to keep the dogs out.) The AC unit still needs to be faced in brick, but that's one of many items on an ever growing list... ![]() Drain line shown in dashed yellow. You can see the last bit still uncovered, awaiting another bag of drainage stone. grover fucked around with this message at Jul 29, 2007 around 12:35 |
# ? Jul 29, 2007 12:31 |
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I remember seeing this thread a few months ago and loved it. You deserve major props for this. Good stuff!
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# ? Jul 29, 2007 13:15 |
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Thanks ![]() I'd like copy this to a public blog somewhere, before it slips into the archives and I lose the convenience of being able to hit edit and copy/paste the vbcode. Anyone know of any good free blog sites that don't require a subscription and are reliable and of an appropriate format for something like this? grover fucked around with this message at Jul 29, 2007 around 14:44 |
# ? Jul 29, 2007 14:18 |
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Heifzilla posted:Grover, I think you are doing an excellent job and it looks great! I'll echo that you've done and continue to do a great job. I don't know how you and your wife can do this. My fiancée and I fight when we try to put together Ikea stuff. I'm not in agreement with adding a bunch of fake crap though. Fake shutters on windows look pretty stupid and I have no idea why anyone puts them on.
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# ? Jul 29, 2007 16:00 |
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Today, I felt like I'd done some serious work just by mowing the
overgrown back yard at my new place (the previous owners didn't keep up
on it, and I haven't had a mower to go after it with until today) and
then I come and see your thread again ![]()
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# ? Jul 29, 2007 16:28 |
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For blog stuff, Google's free Blogger.com will publish directly to any
FTP space you have - you don't need to install anything, and it
pretty-much publishes straight HTML, with Blogger themselves handling
the backend of comments etc. It requires a free subscription, but I
think it's the most hassle-free blog system i've seen. I don't know what the Hendrik blog uses behind the scenes, but it looks nifty. Ask Squirrellypoo?
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# ? Jul 29, 2007 16:42 |
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Well, the mix-to-color stain we got didn't even come close to matching our cabinets. Will have to try again, I suppose... In the meantime, I found out a coworker has a hobby of making rainbarrels and was eager to make one for me! It's really nice- has a hose bibb at the bottom, an overflow tube, and a fairly tight top to keep mosquitos at bay. I think it's going to save us a butt-ton of water for irrigating the gardens ![]() ![]() New rain barrel
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# ? Aug 7, 2007 04:08 |
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my2k posted:Wow, I feel extremely ignorant in asking this but, uh... what do you use, since you're obviously not American? At a guess, probably brick. All houses and most buildings in the UK are made from brick, for example.
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# ? Aug 7, 2007 05:37 |
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how much was the labor on the concrete work? i wonder because i can get
concrete work done for free, my uncle owns all the equipment and him my
brother my cousin and I can do all the work. we are thinking of doing Nudura system its a pretty sweet ICF
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# ? Aug 12, 2007 20:23 |
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An inspiring read, and thanks for sharing (plus all the pictures)! Ever since I moved out on my own after college into apartment after apartment, I miss something you seem to have captured nicely in your renovation, having built not just an improved house but a home. Great work, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it!
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# ? Aug 12, 2007 20:47 |
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TheSiege posted:how much was the labor on the concrete work? i wonder because i can get concrete work done for free, my uncle owns all the equipment and him my brother my cousin and I can do all the work. we are thinking of doing Nudura Concrete will run you around $120 a yard, delivered on-site, and at the scale you're talking, it will take you a LOT of trucks. For 6" ICF, 1 yard will cover about 6 linear feet of 1 story wall. Maybe 7 on average with doors and windows. It would have run me about $8k in concrete cost alone to do my walls with ICF, and that's not counting ICF forms or rebar. Or the additional cost of running plumbing and electric through the foam. Specialized tools are needed to get the air bubbles out of the wall cavities, too.
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# ? Aug 12, 2007 21:07 |
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My dad has built two houses so far... and when I say "built" I mean he
hired the contractor and basically told him every little detail of what
he wanted. Just having to make millions of decisions was tiring, I
cannot imagine having to physically do the work, too. You are fucking insane. Great job, amazing thread.
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# ? Aug 12, 2007 21:25 |
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Just wanting to join in on the agreement of how awesome this is. It
looks pretty fucking good, though that 4' extension of the left garage
looks funky in the front. But all in all it's amazing.
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# ? Aug 12, 2007 21:35 |
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oh yeah i forgot to mention, it looks awesome, you did an awesome job, its an inspiration to us all and do you have any books to recommend? besides code books? TheSiege fucked around with this message at Aug 12, 2007 around 22:08 |
# ? Aug 12, 2007 22:06 |
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grover posted:In the meantime, I found out a coworker has a hobby of making rainbarrels and was eager to make one for me! It's really nice- has a hose bibb at the bottom, an overflow tube, and a fairly tight top to keep mosquitos at bay. I think it's going to save us a butt-ton of water for irrigating the gardens House is coming along and looking good. You're buttoned up for winter, which should be a relief. I'm in the process of installing a paver patio between my garage & house, and one of the things I decided to do that would be 'unique' to solve a gutter draining prolem was...a rain barrel, complete with petcocks for watering my wife's hydrangias due to their dry location...I'm looking for a smaller barrel just like what you have there, which I was going to mount on a small brick pedestal and cover with an old oak whiskey barrel (if necessary, made from two planter halves from Lowe's). Great minds think alike! ![]()
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# ? Aug 12, 2007 22:38 |
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grover 2 questions, do you have a break down of cost for just the kitchen and do you have any book recommendations?
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# ? Aug 16, 2007 17:33 |
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Kitchen breakdown: Cabinets $13,314.10 (including trim) Counters $4,968.00 Laminate Wood Floor $582.80 ($0.88/ft) Sink $316.50 Faucet $83.35 The tools and other misc expenses added to it, too, as did shims, plumbing, backsplash tiles, appliances, etc. We re-used the garbage disposal from our old kitchen, which is another $50 or so. As for books, aside from the code book, the manufacturer's instructions were actually pretty much all we needed to install the cabinets. With the engineered counter we bought, we had to have it professionally installed- we didn't have the tools to do it, like a homeowner can with laminate. The prep is all the same though- flat and level as humanly possible. We didn't use any actual books on kitchen design. A professional kitchen designer can help you figure out what you want and what fits into your budget- and it's generally a free service from whomever you buy your cabinets from; I know it's free at Lowes and Home Depot.
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# ? Aug 16, 2007 20:18 |
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sorry, i meant, what books for the entire process, not just the kitchen
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# ? Aug 16, 2007 21:08 |
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TheSiege posted:sorry, i meant, what books for the entire process, not just the kitchen ![]()
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# ? Sep 1, 2007 16:02 |
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Ah, construction delays... But at least we're movin' on the paint,
finally! The 5 gallon buckets had been sitting around long enough to
grow mold ![]() ![]()
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# ? Sep 21, 2007 12:46 |
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Did you use paint rollers and trays for the bulk of painting? I bought a
Wagner Power Roller a while back, and it makes big jobs like that so
much easier. I have an electric sprayer that says it was ok with latex paints, but that is a huge fucking lie, as it clogged if you stopped to take a sip of beer. They work great for oil based paints, or stain though!
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# ? Sep 21, 2007 13:05 |
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Grover, I am assuming that invites to the housewarming party will be distributed over PM any day now... ( ![]()
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# ? Sep 21, 2007 13:09 |
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BullProofMonk posted:Did you use paint rollers and trays for the bulk of painting? I bought a Wagner Power Roller a while back, and it makes big jobs like that so much easier. Slippery posted:Grover, I am assuming that invites to the housewarming party will be distributed over PM any day now... ![]() grover fucked around with this message at Sep 21, 2007 around 15:52 |
# ? Sep 21, 2007 13:48 |
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You are a god. and that's not nearly enough to compliment you.
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# ? Sep 21, 2007 15:13 |
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grover posted:You're welcomed to swing by anytime! Let me know next time you're in town. Shoot, if you can get my a ride in a Raptor, I might even let you move in If I ever get back there, I'll certainly call (I would anyway so we could go drink beer) but anyway, yeah, I hope you really like the pilot ![]()
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# ? Sep 21, 2007 15:29 |
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We went to Homearama
today, which is a local building showcase. We went before we started
building this addition and got some great ideas, and wanted to go this
year to look at stairs, and to look at bathrooms, as we may potentially
be remodelling the old kitchen into a new master bathroom... but for
now, priority is the staircase and trim! I stiched a crappy panorama together showing the whole staircase, now visible in all its glory for the first time EVER on the intrawebber! With photoprocessing distortion as an added bonus!! ![]() Dining room stairs And here's an almost identical staircase to what we intend. We want to use a slightly different iron ballistrade pattern, though; [1 twist, 2-twist, 1-twist, 1-basket :] ![]() Staircase almost exactly how we want to do ours. To give you all a little insight into our design/how-to process, the railing represents probably THE most difficult and intricate construction of this entire project, and I'm a little apprehensive about it, because the tolerances are so tight. So, I've done enough research on the web that I THINK I know how to do it, but have had trouble finding real-world examples, because over-the-post railings like we want to do are supposedly the hardest and most expensive to do, so few stair builders do them, and certainly DIYs like me don't attempt, lol... This photo really shows a lot of the fine work involved; notice the round plug in the bottom of the railing where it turns up? The hardware the holds the railing together is hidden in there. We'll order the parts next friday; I'm going to see if the local stair store here will price-match, otherwise I'll buy the treads from them and order the other parts online. ![]() Detail shot of another staircase practically identical to ours. On another note, we looked at a lot of kitchens of multi-$million homes today, and, frankly, they all sucked. Most were absolutely beautiful kitchens to look at, but the useability was just terrible. Like, ranges with no counter space, refrigerators, sink and range on opposite sites of gigantic islands, tight corners by the fridge, with the fridge door opening the wrong direction, thus ensuring traffic jams at every meal, etc. Long story short, my wife did not see a single kitchen she liked better than ours. Which made us feel good ![]() grover fucked around with this message at Sep 30, 2007 around 16:31 |
# ? Sep 30, 2007 16:28 |
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I was hoping the local stair supplier here would price-match, but, alas,
they don't. So I ordered all the railing fittings online, hit home
depot for a bunch, lowes for a couple more things and dave's cabinets
for the newels, straight pieces of railing, and trim. Ordered carpet,
too! We've got everything in-hand now except the online order (shipped
thursday) and 45 single-twist iron balisturs, as home depot can never
keep their iron balisters in stock- they had probably 200
double-baskets, but we damned-near cleaned them out of single baskets
and double twists, heh.![]() $930 worth of 16' trim & stair parts is a stressful half-hour drive... We selected 7.25" base molding and 3.5" Florence molding for the doors and windows, and a light beige low-pile carpet for the living room, hall and guest bedroom. grover fucked around with this message at Oct 6, 2007 around 09:47 |
# ? Oct 6, 2007 09:35 |
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grover posted:
Great job on everything... but damn that trim is almost dragging on the ground.
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# ? Oct 6, 2007 09:47 |
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easedrop posted:Great job on everything... but damn that trim is almost dragging on the ground.
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# ? Oct 6, 2007 09:49 |
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Just to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread and I hope you keep
updating when you get the chance - can't wait to see the finished
product! (That and add me to the list of Britons finding your wooden houses strange. They just seem so fragile! When I lived in Mexico I used to watch Extreme Home Makeover and couldn't believe them wacking together a house in 7 days. Definitely not something you could do with brick! Hopefully this isn't a stupid question - how long do American houses last? A lot of the houses in Britain are hundreds of years old and I imagine they survive so long because of the brick. That said, when restructuring our holiday house we found wattle and daub in the walls that was still going strong!) Amazing work!
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# ? Oct 6, 2007 11:30 |
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Already having setbacks- had to take a sawzall to the one riser to be
able to fit the skirt board (the board along the wall-side of the stairs
that protects the drywall from kick-damage), but couldn't get it far
enough so just notched the skirt... and miscut the bitch! Ruined the
whole thing ![]() We also discovered the power sprayer my father-in-law gave us is missing a spring and won't work, ARGH! My wife is going to see if we can borrow another power sprayer from a neighbor... Pusscat posted:Just to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread and I hope you keep updating when you get the chance - can't wait to see the finished product! ![]() Honestly, it always surprises me that europe doesn't use more wood frame construction and actively choose to live in structures that would never pass modern building codes. Doesn't anyone else farm trees in order to have an endless supply of cheap lumber? grover fucked around with this message at Oct 6, 2007 around 13:31 |
# ? Oct 6, 2007 13:28 |
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Haha, I looked at that pic and the first thing I thought was "you have
kids". Seriously, though, your wife is awesome for how much she's helped
you with this. Most wouldn't do much more than fetching the tools or
providing an extra set of hands, if that.
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# ? Oct 6, 2007 19:47 |