biggerboat's building boondoggle blog
I started this in H&F but this seems a better place for it. These are my H&F posts. A bit long-winded but hopefully entertaining. I'm sure more hilarity will ensue.
I've been debating about doing this, and I sort of thought it might qualify as health and/or fitness so I'm gonna do it.
A little background. I have a very old house that I started to remodel about 10 years ago, then ran out of money and WIM to finish it. I gutted it completely and moved walls and did a lot of interior work. But I never did anything with the exterior.
It is sort of falling apart now. The roof leaks and a lot of the wood siding is so rotten I can stick my finger through it. It needs to be completely replaced.
I just paid the house off so I can sort of afford to completely re-side and re-roof it..............if I do it myself. Another factor is I just got out of a serious relationship and now I have way too much time on my hands. I'm going a little stir crazy.
Now to the health tie-in. The last few years I just haven't been able to do things like this. I used to be able to work sunrise to sundown. But lately I'd be good for about 2 or 3 hours and my back would just tell me to stop. However, due to this forum, my back is really feeling strong again. I think I'm up for the challenge. The other health aspect is mental. I don't feel good unless I have some sort of challenge like this. It gives me something to look forward to. I'm really needing something like this about now.
So, I think I'll sort of log this activity as well as lifting. I'll have to cut back on lifting/running some. Mostly due to time considerations. I'll be working on the house on Saturday/Sunday so no lifting/running on those days.
I haven't committed to this quite yet, but I think I'm close.
On the house front. I went to the city website to see what permits I'll need. It was so confusing that I called, got an answering machine, and never got a call back. So, I went down to city hall to ask some very basic questions. Apparently the appropriate question answerers are only there MWF but a substitute question answerer was available. So, after waiting 1/2 hour the substitute question answerer informed me that he couldn't really answer my question so he told me to come back when the real question answerer was there.
I suspect this will not be healthy in any way.
I tweaked my back Wednesday doing deadlifts.
The back pain has nothing on the pain the city is inflicting on me, though.
Went back to talk to someone again. I at least got the right day. The girl was really friendly and helpful. However, she seemed to not really know what all I was supposed to do. Which, as you will see, nobody could.
The first thing she did was pull up my address.
Apparently, there were 3 expired permits associated with my house. About 10 (or more) years ago, I did a big remodel. I did it mostly myself. The first permit was for an interior remodel. I had to get electrical, plumbing, framing and probably more permits. I remember having each one signed off on. However, apparently there was a final inspection that I never got. This is just conjecture based on what she said and my hazy memory. The second was for a garage. I hired a contractor to pour the slab and I framed and finished it. Apparently the slab inspection failed but the framing inspection passed. I'm not sure how this happens. I really don't recall any of this. The third one was for a bedroom addition. I never did this. I do not recall even applying for this. But, it is there. More on this later.
So I asked a lot of questions and the girl was very polite when she had to repeatedly excuse herself to ask someone else that knew the answers. From what I gathered I can do most of the work on something they call an express permit. However, if I want add a small porch roof I will need site drawings, impervious cover documents, elevation drawings, detailed framing plans and flood plain people approval. At minimum.
Back to the old permits. The girl indicated that I could fill out a form to remove the permit for the addition since I never did it. She then sent me to someone named Tony on another floor to figure out what to do with the other ones. Tony, it seems, did not have his coffee this morning. Either that or he was just an *******. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He told me they couldn't do anything about any of them since he had no idea if I even did any work or not. Which is problematic since I can't get any new permits with these on their computer. After much discussion he agreed to go back downstairs and talk to the friendly girl. Tony then came up and informed me that I needed a Life Safety for Expired Permit permit. He informed me that I needed to go back where I started (the line that I waited over an hour in) to start this process.
So, I go back to the window and explain to them what Tony said. They seemed a bit confused on exactly what a Life Safety for Expired Permit permit was. So, they suggested that what I really need to do is re-submit all three permits and get inspections on the work I did over 10 years ago. Even if I didn't do the work. They then put my name in the computer to talk to someone. However, the number of people waiting had swelled considerably and I had already been there 2 1/2 hours so I think I'll tackle this another day.
Cabinets set and ready for countertop people to measure.
That looks nice. Do the drawers/doors/sink/w/e get installed after the countertop is put in?
We have this glass tile on the kitchen walls. When we took out the old countertop it left a gap that I assumed would be filled in with the new ones but the guys said the new stuff was thicker so another row needed to be removed.
Those suckers were on there. I ended up making a big mess. So I thought I would just get the countertop people to make a backsplash out of any leftover stone. Fortunately they had enough. Gonna cost more and take extra time but it should look good.
In other news, it looks like Honda finally came through.
Also, it appears as if FEMA has purchased flood insurance for us for three years. Doesn't seem to be any strings attached.
I've been looking more into raising the house. Pretty pricey but it should increase the value and we wouldn't have to worry about this again. There's quite a few houses in the neighborhood being raised.
The seawall across the canal that collapsed has gotten much worse. Any more erosion and I think they lose their pool. We think they are still waiting on permits. The permit situation is so bad.
I'm getting pretty nervous about our seawall and we've decided we'll replace it sooner rather than later. It ain't cheap.
How high would you raise your house? It's on a slab, right?
I'm interested in the house raising as well. Is it like in the Keys, where the house is up on stilts, or more like a foundation of some type (I'm thinking cinder block?).
In either case, keep in mind going up and down all those stairs as you age. Best of luck.
It is on a slab. They can (and do) do this.
I'm not really sure. I think I have the option of raising it just above the flood elevation but that would leave unusable space under the house. I believe you could build up the driveway and still be able to park in the existing garage. I think one option is to raise it high enough to create garage space underneath. One of the houses down the street has been raised really high, which looks like they are adding parking space AND another floor of living space.
If we did this we would probably go with option 1 or 2 because doubling the living space means doubling property taxes, plus we just don't need a bigger house. If we did lift it, we could convert the existing garage to living space which would be more than enough room for us.
It's all just speculation now anyway. I seriously doubt that this sort of "improvement" ever gets paid back when we sell. Doing it would just mean we intend to live here for a long time, which we haven't decided on.
When I first read this my brain interpreted it as "razing the house". I couldn't figure out why you were doing all the work if you thought you might tear it down. It took a moment to figure out my mistake.
hehe
Kitchen countertops are in!
The guys that installed them were real pros. They had them measured perfectly and they dropped right in. They cut the holes for the outlets and sink on site. I couldn't find even the littlest thing off.
The dishwasher was a little challenging. I ended having to get a longer water line because of the new cabinet configuration.
The drain hose connected to the disposal was not compatible with the one on the dishwasher. I tried a lot of things that I had in the garage to try to get them connected properly but everything I tried leaked. Ended up buying a connection adapter that did the trick. I really need a longer drain hose but this will work.
Super happy with how it all came together.
Buddy says hi.
happy your'e happy with the result bb
you've waded through enough siht recently to deserve a break
I like the Hoosier! We used to have one that looked a lot like yours. Had to get rid of it when we moved because we'd have no room in the new place and didn't want to haul it across the country.
I like the Hoosier! We used to have one that looked a lot like yours. Had to get rid of it when we moved because we'd have no room in the new place and didn't want to haul it across the country.
My wife loves it. It's been in her family for a long time.
It survived the flood with flying colors. You can't even tell it was in water. It's really well built.
It's pretty amazing how much stuff she can put in it.
Gotta laugh at this one.
I ordered some drawers and put them together, but it was missing a part. I called and it was pretty easy to get a replacement. However, it hasn't gotten here so I decided to click on the tracking number to see if it might be on the way.
The tracking number says it was delivered on the 11th. It even has a picture of my house.
I ordered it on the 12th.
Figure that one out.
My doors came in last week and I've been procrastinating. I've never put in doors that weren't pre hung. I struggle with the pre hung ones so I'm really nervous about doing these. Just being off a little causes problems.
The doors are every bit as hard as I expected. I have three hung and it's taken about an hour and a half each. Routing the spaces for the hinges is challenging because i just don't have a steady hand. They are ok i guess as long as nobody looks at them. Every door so far has been at least 1/4 " wider than the opening. I guess that's better than the other way around. I've had to plane each one.
I don't have the right size hole saw so hardware will have to wait.
Making a huge mess that I'd better have clean before my wife gets home.
Are you freehanding mortising the hinges? They make kits for that, I wonder if they rent them at Home Depot?
Are you freehanding mortising the hinges? They make kits for that, I wonder if they rent them at Home Depot?
Yeah, I'm freehanding it. I saw those things but I thought it was for doing by hand/chisel. I wasn't sure how to fasten it if I use a router blade, and what it would do if the blade hit the jig. I really didn't look into it much.
They're easy to use. Then the only chiseling you have to do is the corners.
I did the 2 pocket doors today. I was really dreading it. I wasn't sure if I could just replace the slab. Turned out to be way easier than the regular doors. It helped that I had the old ones to line up the hardware. Much easier than I thought.
Kitchen looks nice. Like the contrast from the countertops to the cabinets.
GL with the doors going forward.
Thanks!
Doors are finished! I sort of messed one up a little but I can live with it. All in all not horrible but it's still not my favorite thing.
We ordered the cabinets for the bar area. Hopefully that's our last big expense for a while.
Put in trim around the doors i just put in. I still need to get 2 bifold doors before I can finish up the trim.
Things are coming along.
My next project is the master bedroom closet. I decided to buy a couple sets of drawers and I'll build shelves around them.
I bought 4 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood that was sanded. I cut them and we put edge bands on the edges that will show. It wasn't too hard. You just iron them on but the pieces were long and it took one of us to guide and one to iron. Came out pretty good.
We'll paint them and put the vertical pieces and top shelves in and I'll come back and put the rest of the shelves in later.
how much of this was covered by insurance?
