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Introduction tl;dr- just scroll down for more photos. Edit: Latest update is on Page 9. My wife and I are building an  Our house before the addition.  The 12x12 shed that represented the whole of our carpentry experience.  The gargage disposal that represented the whole of my plumbing experience and most of my practical electrical experience. Our goals for the eventual addition were 3-fold: garage, storage and new kitchen. Unfortunately, with the state of our septic system and zoning setback restrictions, any addition was a pipe dream. But, then, in March 2005, we found out that a developer had bought up all the vacant lots in our neighborhood that wouldn’t perk and was going to be installing city sewer! This was quite a godsend- first off, the land back here is swampland, flooded half the year, and should never have been built on- we were very much looking forward to being able to reliably flush toilets a full 12 months out of the year, and even when it’s raining! Also, being able to close the septic field meant we could finally build the addition! So, we started planning in earnest. -------------------------------------------------------------- I’ve got about a year’s worth of house blog written up that I’ll post as soon as I proofread them. And then, if there’s interest, intermittent posts in the coming weeks as we get more work done. Feel free to ask questions, I don’t mind trying to help other DIYs or anyone else who's curious  Edit2: Oops, blew a year's worth of bandwidth in less than a day! Switched most of the images to waffleimages now. The archives should be happier, too! grover fucked around with this message at Jul 8, 2007 around 09:42 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:23 |
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Planning I’m an electrical engineer by day, and pretty skilled at AutoCAD. But certainly not skilled in construction, and I’ve never done anything remotely like this before… I bought a copy of IRC 2003 (International Residential Code- the code book in use here) and read it cover-to-cover. I did a detailed sketch of our existing house and input it into CAD, and we started playing with all sorts of ideas on how to get our garage, storage and kitchen. I decided the only way we were going to be able to do this was to stick it on the gable end of the house- this would minimize impact on the existing house, give us room to build the addition and let us basically just turn the kitchen sink and stove around into the new kitchen, eliminating nearly all the plumbing work and making our life much easier. We could also extend our heating duct into the new kitchen. I found a loophole in the code that let us infringe further into the front setback than we thought, which let us make a decent kitchen. So, I took all this into account and drafted up some floorplans in CAD. My wife was having a hard time picturing it, so I used my m4d photoshop skillz to whip up some half-assed artists renditions of the planned addition. We decided what we’d like was a 2-car garage with a kitchen in the back, and a large finished attic above for storage, with short knee-walls. The peak of the center would be about 8’, and the walls would be short. This was a compromise because my wife did NOT want a 2-story house because she thought it would look terrible, but I really wanted usable 2nd story space…   Photoshops of the early addition concept My wife spent countless hours at Lowes, Home Depot, the tile store, the local custom cabinet places and everywhere else she could drag the kids to, to look at kitchens. We finally decided on Kraftmaid cabinets from Lowes, and had a design worked up- to the tune of $13k in materials alone! We also decided we wanted quartz composite counters- another $5k. I had originally estimated $20k for the entire project based on a similar-sized (finished & heated) garage a buddy of mine had built 2 years prior, but the kitchen alone was going to be $18k! We had some arguments on this, but finally reworked the budget to $40k- $20k for the kitchen and carpets and stuff and another $20k for the structure.  3D rendering of our new kitchen, from LowesWe redid the design and I FINALLY got my wife to agree to a full 2nd story, which would now include a new living room, bathroom, 3 bedrooms and a fantastic balcony and staircase. This necessitated new plumbing, and a new heat pump. As I continued to line-item all our expenses and detail the estimate, my initial $20k estimate quickly turned out to be comically low, and it was soon clear the addition would cost $60-80k, which was more than we could afford. So, March 2005 was the start and end of our addition dreams…  CAD drafting the new addition- having 2 giant monitors is especially awesome for something like this! As luck would have it, though, I stumbled into a promotion and new job at work in October, and we could actually afford the addition! So, planning was back on! I got hot and heavy into the foundation planning- and oh boy, I went overboard, with full 3D renderings and every piece of rebar planned in 3D! I took my design to the city engineer with some concerns I had about the garage shear-wall, and he helped me tailor the foundation to suit that, and gave some feedback on other aspects of the design.  3D model of the footer and concrete block walls  Isometric model of the drain and vent lines we’d need. The other problem was financing- we didn’t have $80k for the addition, nor did we have $80k equity in the house nor could we find anyone who would loan us $80k for a reasonable mortgage rate. What we ended up doing was taking out a $27k home equity loan- nearly all the equity the housing boom had given us for “free”, which would be enough to frame, roof and seal the addition. Then, we’d get the house reappraised in the hopes that our $27k had given us another $53k in equity so we could finish! Early Dec, we got the loan, pulled the permits, decided on a foundation guy and Dec 17, 2005, we broke ground! grover fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2006 around 20:28 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:24 |
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Foundation We removed the beautiful brick patio we had worked our asses off to install last year, removed the fence, and measured off for the backhoe to trench.  Before starting to dig.. So, mid-dec, we’re digging, trying to work it before it rains- problem is, the water table back here is 6” below the surface, and even with sump pumps running, the water is just percolating up through the soft clay and turning the whole thing into a messy muddy mess. Video: Digging Footer  Good god, what a mudhole!. My concrete guy told me it would be OK if we put down some pea gravel, so I go and buy a $400 truckload of pea gravel and we put it down on all the mud, stake off all the heights for concrete and lay down rebar… and the city comes out and fails it! Tells me the ground is far too weak and the pea gravel is illegal and has to be removed. Also, because of the problems, I would have to hire an engineer! So, I hire an engineer and he comes out and tells me we have to dig 18” deeper, widen the trenches to 36” wide and pour in #57 stone and build up wood molds the whole way around for the concrete- I’m about in tears at the point, but we work out an alternate plan where instead of dumping $1500 worth of stone in, I’d add $500 worth of stone, step the foundation and an extra layer of block at the deep parts instead instead- I pay the engineer to come out the the whole day and watch us dig so he can probe the ground and approve it and we can immediately dump in wheelbarrows full of rocks before the ground seepage turns it into muck that wouldn’t support the house. Because of the weather and having to work around predicted rainstorms we ended up working Christmas eve and the day after Christmas! FINALLY we get the foundation done, 2 weeks of hell later and $8000 over-budget. What a way to start! I got the under-house pluming laid and approved by the plumbing inspector, though, which made us at least feel a little better.  Fixing the footers and filling with stone.  #57 stone over the muck and rebar and forms ready for to pour the footers. Video: Masons laying block  Footers are poured, block laid, anchor bolts placed and grouted in the cavities and foundation insulation (pink foam) in place. After this, we put down clay fill, tamped it, and put down a thick layer of rocks, which was also tamped. Then, put thick plastic and welded-wire-steel-mesh reinforcement. Video: pouring concrete slabs  The completed concrete slabs and foundation. Woohoo!! grover fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2006 around 20:30 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:25 |
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Houseporn! I like this stuff.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:25 |
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Framing We were absolutely elated to have the foundation clusterfuck done with, so we could start with the actual construction. We had built the shed when we first moved in, but hadn’t considered that 2x6s 16” OC with headers and jack-studs and all were going to be so much heavier… Despite that, we set up lights and every day after work and every weekend, we’d hit it hard- I’d print out diagrams from my drawing and we’d cut the boards to length, pre-drill the sole plate so it would mate exactly with the concrete anchor bolts on the first try, and assembled the 8’ sections lying on the slab. Then we’d lift it into place, get it level and clamp the sections and nail them together. My wife easily did as much work as I did! Those LVL headers over the garage doors were ridiculously heavy, but we managed to get them into place.  Got the garage doors framed up! But, after a week I was sent off to Italy for 3 weeks on business. Oh, it was terrible, I know. But we lost 3 weeks off our timeline- our goal was to cook Christmas (2006) dinner in the addition, but we were really hoping to at least be able to eat Christmas dinner in our new dining room.  Construction delays cost us 3 weeks… We slowly worked away, getting 1 or 2 of these 8’ sections done each day, through most of January- finally finished framing the first floor in mid-February.  First floor framing, almost completed. I’d run the numbers over and over again and worried myself to death about the flooring. I ran numbers for a steel beam and tweaked the design and ultimately ended up choosing 14” plywood I-joists 16” OC as the floor. Some of these joists were 44’ long and were a real pain to manhandle into place! Also at this stage, we discovered that the 100’ fiberglass tape measure that I used to square off the foundation stretched about ¾” over 50’ and had f’ed up our foundation pins, making the one wall of our house 1.5” shorter than the other, and overall screwing up my perfect plans. Shit happens, though, I bought a sawzall, and we worked around it.  I-joists in place, starting 2nd floor decking.! The worst part of framing was framing the walls of the cathedral ceiling. These walls are 17’ tall, peaking at 21’ tall, and had to be made in a single piece in order to withstand the 110mph hurricane winds we get. I came up with the rig in this photo, where we literally nailed the pieces together leaning at an angle against the balcony, and then used long push-boards to raise it into place. Once upright, we’d tack the push-board down to keep the wall from falling, nail a temporary brace mid-way up, and finagle the sole plate over the anchor bolts, using crowbars and hammers to knock out the supporting blocks until they fell into place. Was a real pain-in-the-ass! We continued framing the 2nd floor all through march.  Raising the walls of the cathedral ceiling. At this point, we could finally build the stairs! I’d cut out the stringers weeks before we had even broken ground- people looked at me like I was nuts, but it was something I could easily do in advance, but they fit absolutely perfectly.  Stairs in place. We had begun to sheath the first floor to stiffen it up enough to safely build the 2nd floor, but by mid-march, we had finished all the framing and switched completely to sheathing. I borrowed a nailgun and compressor from a buddy, and went to town- my wife didn’t have the strength to use the nail-gun 1-handed which was dangerous (she’d shoot double-nails all the time, sometimes missing the stud), so I did all the sheathing work mostly myself. My wife would help me get the larger sheets into place and hold them while I nailed from a wobbly extension latter, though.  Framing pretty much done! You can see our 8’ 2x4 scaffolding in this picture, too- what a handy rig, well worth the effort.  I don’t like heights, letalone heights coupled with wobbly ladders, heavy boards, a heavy nail-gun, and having to use both hands to work. Sheathing the 2nd floor really sucked. I opted to use scissor trusses for the roof, which let us dispense with both posts and ceiling joists, while giving a nice lofted ceiling. The trusses were about 120lbs apiece and very awkward- my wife and I built a block & tackle to lift them from the driveway to the 2nd floor, but it still took us a week worth of effort to get those bastards just to the 2nd floor! Once up, they were surprisingly easy to raise. I had built a spacing jig that hung on the previous joist, and we pre-nailed hurricane straps to the walls. We’d position the joists upside-down (they were easy to move and carry this way) and once in place, would get under it with a 2x4 and push it past vertical, where it would lean on the last joist. Then I could climb the 10’ stepladder, nail the spacers to the top, and we’d work the bottoms into place on the hurricane straps. At first, we enlisted the help of a friend, but realized the two of us could do it easily by ourselves. I was even able to do a couple joists by myself once we got past the cathedral ceiling.  Making progress on the scissor trusses Once the trusses were up, we began sheathing the roof- after I got 2 sheets nailed up to stand on, my wife would hand them up to me from below and I’d pull them onto the roof. We nailed up some safety boards at the bottom, but it really wasn’t bad to work on the roof. I’d pull the sheets into place, nail them down and repeat. The eave and gable boards were the worst, though- having to hang out over space dangling this heavy board, trying to precisely nail it into place... Once that was done, we put vinyl flashing up, but it ended up looking like ass and we later re-did most of it. We had shingles and tarpaper delivered- they had a conveyor put them right on the roof- and roofed it. I did pretty much all the roofing myself. We sheathed through April, and roofed until mid-may.  Framing completed, almost done with the sheathing.  Finished with the roof and sheathing! Well, except for a small bit on the small gable… You can see the plastic over the leaky porch roof we had procrastinated fixing for the past 2 years, but got significantly worse this spring. More on that, later.  The developer finally got the city sewer lines run to our house! This was but a small portion of a huge project, though- they figured we might be allowed to hook up the line in 6 months… Doors, Windows and interior framing At this point, we were almost out of money, but had just enough to buy the windows. They arrived in early May and we slowly started putting them in. First step was to install house-wrap, which we did ourselves (over a week that was WAY too windy to have been doing housewrap)- we also decided for sure at this point that it wasn’t worth risking our lives trying to painstakingly install siding with our single extension ladder, and that we would just bite the bullet and pay someone to do it.  Windows and doors, waiting for installation…  We couldn’t wait, and started putting some of the windows in before we had even finished the house-wrap.  April had been a busy time for doing the interior wall framing- you can see the interior framing and several installed windows in this photo. The two large windows on the 2nd floor proved very difficult. I came up with a plan to build a 2-tier scaffold; we would hoist the window from the ground to the first step, climp up, hoist it to the 2nd, climb up, and lift it into place. Worked great on the picture-window, which was the heavier of the two. But the springline, being 1’ taller, was just SO unwieldy, and would just NOT go into place- we tried twice to get it in and failed; the 2nd time, the lever action of the window damned near pushed my wife off the scaffold, which would have lead directly to the window falling on top of her and probably me quickly following. Arms and legs weak with strain and stress, we tied it down in defeat and pondered what to do when I heard hammering- it was near dark, but the Mexican crew down the road was hard at work! I drove down and offered $50 for two guys to help; the foreman came with me and the two of us lifted it into place in about 30 seconds with almost no effort. He refused payment but ended up finally accepting the $15 in cash I had on me.  Wrestling the two big windows in nearly killed us- literally! grover fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2006 around 20:36 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:28 |
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Plumbing & Electrical Rough-In I’d planned for plumbing and HVAC from the beginning, and had pre-drilled holes in the studs as we built, and even laid pipe and electrical conduit before we even poured concrete. This paid off, as we didn’t hit any major structural snags with the rough-in, despite my inexperience. No sooner did I get the plumbing roughed in for the bathroom, then I discovered a table in IRC I’d missed and realized I was violating 3 codes. Crap! Tried again, following ALL the codes this time, but hosed up a PVC weld because I was trying to avoid having to cut up what I’d done correctly the first time, despite not having enough slack to work with. 3rd time’s a charm, though! Finally got it done right.  How to screw up plumbing like the pros do- this looked great and would have worked fine, but never would have passed inspection as it would have been prone to clog.  The bathroom drain-waste-vent plumbing done the RIGHT way. With the porch roof leaking worse and worse, we finally decided to take a break from the addition to fix it. Once we got the old roll-roofing off, it was depressing how much had rotted- we ended up having to replace half the sheathing and dumped an entire bottle of rot-stabilizer on the studs. We still couldn’t find roll-roof to match the shingles and couldn’t afford to put a rubber roof on, so just half-assed it with 10 year white roll roofing that will look less than perfect from the air, but hopefully keep the water off the roof for another decade. My wife and I worked out a nice deal here- I did all the demo and sheathing, and she did all the roofing installation.  Replacing the porch roof. I started roughing on the electrical- ran conduit through the attic from the new box in the garage to the existing box in the house, and started putting in lights and boxes and about $1000 worth of cable- cable that had literally tripled in price from the same time the year before. I don’t have many pictures of me wiring, but it was extremely time consuming and ate up over a month of evenings and weekends. I jerry-rigged power as soon as the lights were up, though, which was very convenient  Roughing in the electrical.  Starting roughing in the electrical panel. With the windows, flashing and exterior outlets, we were able to call the siding guys, who knocked the whole house out in 2 days. They had a special jack that clamped to the roof and just let them fly along; I’m glad we decided to contract it out.  Siding crew doing their magic.  Now all the neighbors think we’re finished, lol.  More work delays- I had to take a week off from the addition for a grueling business trip to Hawaii. We used PEX plastic tubing for all the water piping, which is cheap, flexible and easy- I borrowed a crimp-tool from my buddy and this just flew, I couldn’t believe how easy it was! I tapped off the existing hose bibs which were tapped off the existing kitchen sink, as they were readily accessible and perfect for what we needed. I plumbed up the bathroom (toilet, vanity and shower), the kitchen sink and two hose bibs, front and back, with a single cut-off valve for both in the garage. Didn’t have a single leak in the whole thing- a tiny bit of weeping at one of the shower fittings I hadn’t tightened enough and one of the hose bibs where the Teflon tape got pushed out, and that was it- the PEX was all perfect.  Roughed in hot and cold water piping for the bathroom, too.  Shower is installed, and all the rough piping for the rest of the bathroom. The city came out and failed me, though! Said I had too many things on a single half-inch pipe! I protested, saying that the chance of us doing more than 2 things simultaneously is low, and the impact of turning on 3 or 4 things even lower (what, the toilet will fill up slower?) and that I’d much rather have 1/2” pipe through an insulated space than 3/4” freezing in my attic, but they wouldn’t budge- apparently I’m required to be able to water my garden and wash my car the same time I’m running my dishwasher, taking a shower and flushing the toilet. Ended up having to run 3/4” pipe through the uninsulated attic (the plumping inspector supervisor taught me a good trick to insulate it) and soldering a whole mess of copper tubing overtop the hot water heater- the only other accessible point in the house. My wife sweated all the fitting together and we put it into place, only to discover that our efforts had cracked every single solder joint on the heater, which started weeping. You can’t just resolder them, though, it all has to be taken back apart and redone from scratch! She worked until 2am two nights in a row so I could take a hot shower in the morning before work, and finally got them done. City passed us this time- sept was gone, and it was the middle of October.  New water tap at the hot water heater. grover fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2006 around 20:39 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:30 |
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Wow. The house I live in almost has the same exact kitchen.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:30 |
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grover you son of a bitch I wish I knew that I would have come helped out and had a part in the great undertaking when I up there... edit: thats good shit man...I plan on doing roughly the same thing but with an entire house when I retire (at 41...remember!). don't worry about going over budget...it was your first time and even experianced hands like my dad and his partner who've done hundreds of builds run into snags. If you build part of a house...even a minor addition or a deck or a bathroom or whatever and don't hit at least one snag you're lying to yourself :P Hell...I fired a nail through my fucking hand with a nailgun once...that was fun! Elendil004 fucked around with this message at Dec 30, 2006 around 17:40 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:31 |
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HVAC Rough-In All that was left at this point was to rough the HVAC. First step was to get more money- this ended up being easier than I expected, as the bank happily bumped the value of my house up a great deal based on my word alone and gave me another $50k home equity loan. The interest rate wasn’t as good as the one before, since the rates were rising, but was still pretty good. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone who would sell HVAC supplies to me, and tried to contract it out, but the bids were too high so I went back to plan A and did it myself. I had originally done estimates on BTU and CFM via the square-foot method, and talked to two HVAC guys who said my estimates were right on. When I finally realized I was going to be doing all the work myself, I did some more detailed calculations- I don’t have manual J or manual S, but I do have all the mil-spec guides for military facilities, and I used those calculations… which ended up almost exactly what the square-foot estimates had been. I stuck with my original plan, but changed the upstairs distribution from a trunk to a radial distribution, which would be easier for me to install. Lowes and Home Depot had some of the flex duct and fittings, but not enough to do any real work. I don’t understand it- any idiot idiot off the street can walk into any electrical or plumbing supply house, but the HVAC people only want to sell to licensed HVAC contractors? WTF? After calling a dozen places, I found a sheet metal supplier who would sell me the sheet metal fittings and a supplier in florida who had cheap heat pumps. I ordered the ductboard tools from ebay, and got some of the flex duct from Lowes, and some online. I later bought the duct board from the sheet metal place.  Duct and registers in the kitchen.  Duct in the scissor trusses upstairs- looks haphazard, but it all makes perfect sense. Funny story on the garage doors- we shopped around and got bids, and they all wanted about $700+ a door. So we went to Lowes. Lowes doesn’t stock the windows my wife wanted, so we special-ordered them for about $500 apiece. Now, a few days later, I find out Lowes has this awesome sale and is clearing out their old doors! I go down there, discovered the doors I liked (but my wife didn’t like the windows) were $180! Hot damn! Cancel the special order, pick up 2 doors, and we’ve got garage doors for less than half of what they normally were at Lowes, and about half of what one of the garage door places wanted for each door!  Garage doors up.  My wife did all the insulation; was not fun to insulate 20’ off the ground. R19 in the walls, R30 in the ceiling and R13 in the garage, if anyone’s curious. grover fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2006 around 20:40 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:31 |
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Board & Plaster By the end of October, all the rough-in duct was in place and I passed inspection with no problems, woohoo! Time to get the drywall! I wanted to hang the board myself and have my wife mud, tape and sand, but she wanted none of that. We ended up contracting the boardhanging and plaster all out- cost me a little over $3k in labor, but it would have taken us FOREVER to do ourselves, and that’s terribly boring work. These guys knocked it out in a week, and did a pretty good job.  With boarding a day away, we closed up the old kitchen door and demod a new permanent passage into the addition.  With boards and plaster up, it’s looking like a house! ------------------------ We're still installing the kitchen and flooring, so it will likely be a bit before the next update. I tell you what, though, the kitchen is looking great so far! Edit: Next update snyped to the top of page 3 grover fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2006 around 20:41 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:32 |
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Awesome, reminds me of my youth. (My Dad built homes, and I was always around. I usually had to haul around lumber or clear the snow out of the area where the foundations would be in winter.)
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:33 |
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Elendil004 posted:grover you son of a bitch I wish I knew that I would have come helped out and had a part in the great undertaking when I up there... 
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:33 |
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I love reading threads like this, very impressive.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:35 |
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ScottABoy posted:I love reading threads like this, very impressive. Me too. I'm hoping there's more  
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:41 |
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This is insane. Very impressive, but insane. I couldn't imagine trying to double the size of my house in my spare time!
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:46 |
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Wow, quite the build. My Father was always a big fan of writing a check and getting someone else to do large projects like this, so I'm rather impressed that you and your wife pulled this off. Congrats!
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:50 |
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While you're no Ty Pennington, I'm impressed with your DIY attitude. Also, what is it with you yanks and wood?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:56 |
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Stealth Ninja posted:Awesome, reminds me of my youth. Same here, except for the whole snow thing. flunk XVI posted:While you're no Ty Pennington, I'm impressed with your DIY attitude. No Ty Pennington? You mean, this guy actually works instead of running around like a frosted-hair faggot with a microphone yelling at people to do work?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:57 |
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Oh my god I'm so glad you're posting so fast because this shit is too fucking awesome to have to wait long for updates. When I see other people do stuff like this I feel worse about myself and inability to construct the simplest of things. More more MORE!
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 17:58 |
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That's brilliant. Did you run any CAT5/create a computer equipment closet? Security pre-wire?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:00 |
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flunk XVI posted:While you're no Ty Pennington, I'm impressed with your DIY attitude. God yeah those looked like 2x12's as headers over the garage doors but they might have been bigger...Grover?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:04 |
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Crackpipe posted:That's brilliant. I did, however, use all the cat5 I'd dumster-dove for to hook up the phones So there IS some cat5 in the walls, but it's pretty useless as far as networks go. Ironically, we don't even have a house phone anymore. I have no idea if the phones I hooked up work or not.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:07 |
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So is it completed yet or what?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:08 |
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Elendil004 posted:God yeah those looked like 2x12's as headers over the garage doors but they might have been bigger...Grover? Here's a PDF with more detailed information: http://www.bc.com/wood/ewp/document...P_Guide_CDN.pdf There are other vendors, too, but my lumberyard carries Boise products. My truss supplier carries Trusjoist (which was what I did most of my engineering calcs for), but their quote was a bit higher.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:15 |
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Eagerly awaiting more, this is awesome. I wish I could do stuff like this.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:16 |
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Transgendered Squirrel posted:So is it completed yet or what? Still to do: * Regrade the side and yard, allowing me to install the outside half of the heat pump. * Install the air handler and duct in the garage * Stairs and railings * floor covering * kitchen molding * interior doors * bathroom sink & toilet * pretty much all the floor coverings We've run out of money again, though, so most of this will have to wait until I get my tax refund, heh. I have everything I need to get the HVAC, kitchen and bathroom finished, though, and I figure that will take us about until the tax check comes in. grover fucked around with this message at Dec 30, 2006 around 18:21 |
| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:18 |
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Looks awesome, but what made you decide to undergo such a big and risky project instead of moving? It looks like the addition is larger than the original structure.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:20 |
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 how does d;ogs operate machine?d! (I am very jealous of your DIY motivation - it is difficult for me to even take the garbage out today when sweet, sweet videogames beckon endlessly.)
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:21 |
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I love threads like these. Very interesting - any ideas how long it's going to take for you to complete it? I also find it bizarre that most American houses are mostly made of wood, while most houses here in the UK are brick throughout, especially since you tend to get way, way worse weather than us.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:23 |
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Sir, you are a much braver man than I. This is very impressive.Dache posted:I also find it bizarre that most American houses are mostly made of wood, while most houses here in the UK are brick throughout, especially since you tend to get way, way worse weather than us. So the inside walls are made of brick as well? That is interesting. How are wires and plumbing run?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:27 |
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I think wood's just way easier to build with and you can do more. Plus look at his scissor trusses...he bought those prefab and put them up with (relative) ease...bricking stuff like that's nuts. Not of course that you'd brick a truss, but you see what I'm saying about wood?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:28 |
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How on earth did you not kill yourself having to do all the sheathign by yourself, and having it done all in plywood rather than celotex, and not sheathing the second floor walls before standing them up. I understand that this is a DIY project, a massive one at that, but my god man, your back must hate you so much now.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:31 |
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Transgendered Squirrel posted:So is it completed yet or what? Way to read the thread  This is an amazing thread, I'm really impressed that you had the balls to start something like this, and dump that much money into a project that relies on your own skill. I'm ing until the next update.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:31 |
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 This kicks every other DIY thread straight in its balls.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:34 |
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Three Olives posted:Looks awesome, but what made you decide to undergo such a big and risky project instead of moving? It looks like the addition is larger than the original structure. Quite simply, there is no way we could have afforded a house like this if we were to try to buy one!
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:36 |
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As a framer myself a lot of the framing you did amuses me as you could have done a lot less, or the same a lot easier, but I'm unsure what kind of codes you have to follow there. Everything looks really nice though and you did a good job for never really having done it before.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:36 |
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FaceEater posted:how does d;ogs operate machine?d!
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:37 |
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SoylentGreen posted:So the inside walls are made of brick as well? That is interesting. How are wires and plumbing run? Er, good point, "throughout" was definitely the wrong word there. The foundations and main walls are brick though (or, I guess, more accurately they're breeze-blocks), and are covered on the outside with red brick. The floors, though, are wood. Pipes are usually laid under the floorboards, and come up into the house itself through the floor. As for the inner walls, I think it varies from house to house. For example, my parents house was built around the 1960s, and I think they're mostly wood covered with plaster. However, the type of house I live in at university is much older (like, mid to late 1800s) and the inner walls are mostly brick. I don't really know how the wiring works in those ones - I don't know much about this sort of thing at all.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:40 |
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Dache posted:I love threads like these. Very interesting - any ideas how long it's going to take for you to complete it? We build from wood because it's cheap. Cheaper than masonry, and cheaper than steel. Florida builds mostly concrete block because of the hurricane resistance, but elsewhere, wood is predominant. New technologies (insulating concrete foam) and prefab techniques may change that in the future, though. Also, wood is WAY easier to work with from an electrical/plubming standpoint
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:40 |
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i assume this is going to increase the property value more than the cost of the extension?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2006 18:41 |
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