D-Type (not a Jag, but a new shop/house/life)

In reply to superchief :

Fantastically generous offer, but I'm on the last little bit, and the texture is one my Special Lady Friend and I can agree on, if you get my drift, and as such, don't think I'll have a use for the texture gun.

Hey, Alcoa, over by the airport. We are indeed close.

In reply to wheelsmithy :  Knowing you were so close I thought I would offer.  I am very close to TYS, I live off of West Hunt Rd. approx. 1.5 miles from the terminal.  We are not in the commercial flight path but I have a fantastic view when the Blue Angels come to town.  I am of an age that I'm thinking about where my tools are going to end up.  Neither of my sons are handy or nearby.  I bought the hopper gun when I had to repair popcorn ceilings after completely replacing the supply DWV plumbing  in a 30 + YO quad level house.  It is a lot of fun when you're running 2" PVC drains across floor joists.  I'm sure I couldn't handle a full hopper today as it was hard enough 15 years ago.  My wife and I really like the knock down plaster treatment of walls so I ended up doing in about half the house.

Superchief

In reply to superchief :

My girlfriend is almost pathologically against popcorn ceilings, and after the nastiness that was cigarette smoke embedded in the ceilings of this house, I'm not so far behind.

I suspect I'll be in the same boat as you when I'm no longer able to use my tools. No kids, nieces and nephews have no interest. They can always go to Habitat for Humanity, and make someone's day. Again, I sincerely appreciate your kind offer. It's always a pleasure to make a nice acquaintance.

Things have slowed on the house, but I'm still adhering to the something every day rule. Lots of days, I might roll a single coat of paint on some trim, or wire a light, but make sure forward progress is achieved.

The master is done, save closet doors, and moving in.

I have to build a bed frame before we move in, and it just sort of sits vacant at the moment.

I've been working on the entry

which looked like this recently,

as well as the hallway.

And finally, we've put cardboard down, and moved into the living room. More ceilings to come.

I haven't been posting much, because I'm pretty stoked on the challenge build, and after a year and a half of working on this house every day, I'm burned out. Still, something every day. One day, it was screw in a door stop, another, a single coat of paint on some trim. Today, I went after this:

First, up in the attic to install some bracing.

Then back down to screw this crap drywall into said bracing. 

It's not much, but it is progress.

My Special Lady Friend has taken over ceiling refinishing, and the lion's share of the living room is done, which meant I could hang some trim, and the ceiling fans I painted a while back.

This is what they looked like before. They are nice Hampton Bay fans, so paint and new globes=good to go.

Of course, some patches I made around the window a year or so are cracking again, so I had to redo some stuff. As my dry walling skills have improved, my pickiness has grown. It's like the two expanded to fill the hole left in my soul by dry walling. Not too much more of this to go.

I had to take a big step back from the house, because as everyone knows, drywall assassinates your soul, but I force myself to do something once a month no matter how much it sucks. Like taping.

Pretty close to a place where we could have furniture in the living room.

Been following along and I can relate. I was reminded how much I hate drywall/ceiling work this past month getting our house ready to sell. To say it's the worst would be an understatement in my mind. 

I didn't read my previous post before that last one. Ok it sucks, but that's the end of drywall vs soul posts.

Here's a minor rant:

I put the drywall up in the hallway, finished it, and painted all of it before I realised the #@%&# electricians didn't center the box in the hallway. 

No way I'm changing it now.

My Special Lady Friend gently asserted that a dehumidifier might be nice for the basement, so, this happened.

It's a 50 pint a day (formerly, 70 pint a day) unit. I put it in the "engineering" section of the basement. Meaning it will eventually be walled out of sight. 

In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) :

The same reason you and 99% of the world hate drywall is why there is so much wood in my house. 
Well that and it's cheaper.  Sheetrock cost  around 50-60 cents a board foot. So I think of sheetrock as very expensive wood. 
 

oak is a premium and costs me 40 cents a bd ft. Black walnut cost me 17 cents a bd ft. 
Odd lots of  wood cost me less than 20 cents a bd ft.  That could be Iron wood, hackberry, elm, ash, Boxelder,  some pines. etc  

Thins worked out to be a few cents a bd feet and could be any wood less than an inch thick  ( Mother Nature doesn't grow tree to come out to exactly the even inch thick that commercial wood requires.  

 And if I took thins. ( boards less than 1 inch thick ) I could buy pickup truck loads for $5-15 dollars. A pickup load was when I said stop. Usually after the chassis was on the bump stops and rear tires were bulging. But before  the front tires were dancing in the air. 
 

I suppose between too thin and shavings at least a 1/3 of wood was waste. But for my $5-15 dollars I probably got 3-400 bd ft of good wood  hmm that 1-3 cents a bd ft. 
 

I'd sort the thins by thickness. Greater than 3/4 inch thick I'd run through the planner until they were 3/4 inch thick. 
same for 1/2 inch but less than 1/2 inch thick I just tossed away. 
3/4 I could use as trim or just cover the wall with. 1/2 inch I treated like plywood   

Over the Holidays, I dug a pit.

For a sump pump.

Note, if you will, the dehumidifier from my last entry gravity drains in to the basin. There is also a lid:

Every February since we've been in this house, the basement has flooded. The hope is that 2020 was the last.

My dehumidifier will occasionally clog the drain. Just keep an eye on yours so you don't end up dumping the water you kust pulled out of the air onto the ground to evaporate for the dehumidifier to pull out of the air. 

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :

Reminds me of an old Stephen Wright Joke.

"I bought a humidifier and a dehumidifier...I lock em in a room and let them fight it out."

So yeah,...now that the act of going to the hardware store doesn't so closely resemble a zombie apocalypse movie, we're trying to grind back to a slow trudge on the house.

I made the fixture I got at Habitat into a real, functional light. It was way more involved than it should have been. Maybe $30 to make a $6 frame light up. Yeah, that's being economical. The wire was the most expensive part.

I've been skinning the kitchen peninsula, as it has come to be called.

It will, of course, get some trim and a new countertop, but I thought an in progress picture was in order.

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) said:

So yeah,...now that the act of going to the hardware store doesn't so closely resemble a zombie apocalypse movie, we're trying to grind back to a slow trudge on the house.

I already miss going to the store, and not having to see but a couple of people. Now that a few people have a shot that may or may not make them invencible, they think all of life can go back to normal, and they don't have to be careful, or anything. Scary stuff.

In reply to 03Panther :

Yeah, we both just got our second Moderna, but are trying to wait the prescribed two weeks before saying berk it. Unlike pretty much everyone around us. WFO is coming weather we like it or not. Gotta look out for #1.

I built a platform above the stairs so I could work on the LAST section of ceiling drywall

and got to work scraping.

Is it lead based paint? I assumed so, and respirated accordingly.

It sucked, but I got there. 

A coat of primer finished it for the day.

While I was doing the above, SLF was painting the laundry nook.

Before-way before:

After:

There's more to happen in there, but that's where we are today.

Here's the laundry nook today.

Those are two of the three cabinets from the bathroom with the naked cartoon people from so long ago, repainted, de-doored, and re-purposed.

And this thing thoroughly whipped my posterior this weekend:

Fan for the stove. Later, I have to duct it to the outdoors, and build a pretty hood, but I wanted to get it mounted and wired this weekend. Well, one outta two is mediocre. 

The electricians left me some live wires in a junction box by the laundry. They turned out to be part of an aborted 3 way situation, so I couldn't get the fan to work. Gonna have to drop back and punt. Luckily, they terminated tons of E36 M3 in junction boxes, so I'll find a way to power it, but it may take some doing.

Mud.

Today it was build another platform,

and more mud.

So yeah, I switched jobs. The "new" job was 50 hours a week in a foundry, until my first day, when they announced it was 60+. 5AM to 5PM in 120 degree temperatures, plus we want volunteers for Saturdays. I was already an hour late my first day, because they failed to let me know the schedule had changed. The guy training me was packing TWO pistols in a freaking foundry! I told them what I thought of all that, and explained that they likely wouldn't be too keen if I announced that I'd be working 10 hours a week less than we agreed. So, I quit. With nowhere to go. However, Covid has made the job market around these parts change drastically, and there was a veritable feeding frenzy when I once again blanketed the area with resumes. 

I ended up at a "hi-rise" a half mile away, with a 25% bump in pay (still low, but any improvement is good), and another weird situation. I'm once again, a maintenance man. The building is owned by rich eccentrics who love to see me run. The first several weeks, I was moving furniture. I am by no means a creampuff, but this last year I hit 50, and I'm starting to feel it. Every day, my SOCKS are drenched in sweat. I have taken the place of two, maybe three maintenance men, and they all have a strong disconnect from the reality of how long things take. In short, they are beating me like a rented mule. Still, a month later, I'm building up my endurance, and they are staunchly against overtime (a plus for me, I've got a house and fleet to improve/maintain). 

   My third week there, I broke a water line at a toilet, flooding the entire first floor. Having received no training, I didn't know where the water shut-off was. Neither did my manager. The Fire Department came. The building was evacuated. Emergency Restoration was called to help squeegee THOUSANDS of gallons of water out the front door. There were insurance claims. There are bare 277V wires up in the ceiling dangerously close to the mystery water shut off valve. Yet somehow, I was not fired. If anything, this made all the powers that be really appreciate my capabilities. Not to the point that they calm down, but at least they seem to think I'm a good guy.

TLDR: I've been busy, and life has been crazy, but that doesn't mean there has been no progress on the house. Proof:

I made shelves. Electricity passes through one of the columns to feed the overhead kitchen fan that will someday get a hood. It will also someday be vented to the outdoors, but it at least works off a wall switch, as intended right now.

Here's a play by play of them going up. Oh yeah, the base also hides the 110V for the fireplace. Even has a junction box.

Also, trim, drywall, blah, blah, blah...

Today, I moved a floor vent.

Yeah, I still gotta hook the ductwork back up, but that will require a hardware store trip.

And right below that, in the basement, I fixed a problem. Since we bought the house, there has been a place under the kitchen door where you could see daylight. Today was the day. Almost 3 years later.

I recycled a nice piece of oak and several pieces of 4X4 to brace the E36 M3 out of this section. Much caulk, very kilz. Then I put plywood over it to double kill the problem. Feels better.

Still trudging along...

I had a month off while switching jobs, and an opportunity to have some help, so I targeted getting the kitchen area tiled. This required a new threshold/ handrail, which marks THE LAST bit of pink drywall in the house. There is still some pink on the base of the chimney in the basement, but that's not really living space, so there you go.

I started with some extremely rusted angle iron.

Then, I added "feet" to adjust (guess) for the thickness of tile. 

Then there was the handrail.

And, finally, here's the whole mess welded in place, and painted with some satin black rustoleum.

Problem: the tile, which took 10 days to come in, was wrong when it arrived (totally my fault #@$!^%&*#$#!), so I had to call my Uncle off. With my window of time off closing, I switched gears, and worked on lining and shelving the hallway closet. 

Yep, all cedar. Kind of hard to get a good photo, so here's another.