Mazdeuce fixes the grosh

Yeesh. Mine are 9 and 7, that photo got me a little emotional.  

mazdeuce said:

I am not hugely motivated today. It's 41 and damp out. I want to snuggle on the couch and watch Initial D. Let's see if I can get another truss together instead.

I just found this comment in here Deuce and it makes me smile. 

"How are you doing with your daughter leaving for college in the fall?" 

"I'm coping....."

These carpentry jokes just write themselves!
Deucekid#1 is fleeing the nest in a couple of months and that pushes forward a juggling of bedrooms. I never did put the floor moulding up in the boys bedroom when I 'finished' it years ago, so it's a good time for that. I'll fill in the dings, try my best to wash the years of dirty boy dirt off the walls and give it a fresh coat of paint. Still haven't finished the hallway and I'm on round two with a bedroom. Time marches on. 

And we're painting, trying to de-accent the accent wall. Mrs. Deuce and I counted and this is the fourth time this room has been painted since we tore off the paneling that was up when we bought it. Funny how life changes. 

This bedroom is the 'original' bedroom in the house. It was functionally a one bedroom one bathroom when be bought it almost 18 years ago. At one point before the second story was functional we had the both of us and Deucekids #1 and #2 in there. It's been painted four times. Large sections of concrete were jackhammered out to put in normal size windows. The closet was removed to make way for the stairs. It came with vinyl tiles stuck to the floor. Before the boys moved in we scraped them up and Mrs. Deuce painted the bare concrete. I thought it looked great and was all for a change of floor color to go with the change in wall color. I was overrulled. After almost 18 years the bedroom has a proper floor. 

I'm getting a lot of pressure to start applying myself around here. 

Looks good..  My family coat of arms is a man reclining in field of procrastination.  Happy Fathers Day. 

In reply to Dirtydog :

Thanks man. Procrastination is one of those things. It works just often enough to keep around as a viable strategy. Case in point, the stump under the overhang that I've been ignoring for.....four years? Nature, ants, termites, mold, all of those things have been working while I've been procrastinating. The stump has turned from a solid chunk of oak to a wood sponge. Even my little chainsaw was able to knock it down. Not sure if I'm going to go through all the work to get it below grade or just give it another couple of years. Having it mostly gone is an improvement. 

Speaking of improvements, as part of the great bedroom move Deucekid#4 has inherited Deucekid#1's old bed. It's tall. He wants it tall, but not that tall. I got this. 

The boys want carpet in their room. They both have fairly nasty allergies. I don't want carpet in their room. Debate is ongoing. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The boys want carpet in their room. They both have fairly nasty allergies. I don't want carpet in their room. Debate is ongoing.

Could put in hardwood with an area rug as a compromise. If allergies flare up, no more area rug.

Weren't we in route to the UP this time last year???   Pssssst ,hey don;t forget the cabinets.....you're on a roll 

In reply to 759NRNG :

Kid#3 has a bit of thing growing in her upper jaw that needs to be taken out with a knife later in the week so we're hanging out. There is a limit to my DIY. 

And don't worry, nobody is letting me forget about the cabinets. 

In which a lovely purple room becomes not purple. No more gender specific colors. White. Boring. Put up posters. I'm sick of painting already. 

These are house updates.  Why u no grosh updates?

Working on the Grosh makes me happy. Working on the house makes five other people happy. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Working on the Grosh makes me happy. Working on the house makes five other people happy. 

Word

I can be a master of rationalizing just about anything.   The house is an extension of the Grosh.   Ergo, you are working on the Grosh.

Brush pile got big so I lit it on fire. Nothing makes a man contemplative like lighting E36 M3 on fire and staring at it for a while. Let's roll with that for a minute...........

If you go back to the very first post in this thread I mention that my youngest had just started school. Starting to fix the Grosh was a way of marking a significant transition in my life and I spent a lot of time thinking about the project over the summer before hand. Well, Deucekid#1 is leaving home in the fall to start college and I'm contemplating my fall. This isn't nearly as disruptive at suddenly getting all those hours to myself while the state of Texas educated my kids, but in the same way that her starting school was the first step toward those hours happening, her leaving home is the first step toward an empty nest. For the entire 16 years of her life the house has been under construction. That's probably not normal. Not sure how I feel about that. 

Next year will (in theory) be 3/4 the time suck as last year. Do I treat this as a soft transition? Do I re-attack some projects? Or do I continue with the step back that I took this year when being busy got completely out of control? Plan then adapt and all that, but I really should plan. As long as the fire's burning I'm being productive by watching it. After that I'll need to actually do something. 

A sobering reminder that the passage of time holds in no regard those with multiple lifetimes of interesting work to be done.

Perhaps now is an opportune time for a deep, existential think. In fact, it appears you've already started.

In 10 years, which achievements will you be most satisfied having completed? Which do you regret? I suspect the answers to these questions already exist. All that is left to do is reveal them and work backwards.

God speed, Sartre.

I did the burn and stare about a month ago. Lots of contemplating and planning. And then 2 weeks ago lightning struck. Literally. It struck the metal fence post 50 feet from the house. Know what's between the post and the house? The 500 gal propane tank. More contemplating and planning, just of a different sort!

I am 4 years into a house remodel/addition. My eldest will graduate in 6. She doesn't remember a time before construction. I need to get it finished NOW, so the kids have time to enjoy it with their friends. I know you are not in the same situation exactly, but it seems like it may be time to knock out the house projects and be done with it. Several recent posts seem to indicate your family appreciate your efforts in the house! 

I understand the emotional aspects concerning a change in life and attitudes.    My wife and I are empty nesters.  Yet at times our children lean a little  on us now, due to their lifestyle morphing.  It's a cycle, I suppose.  

As far as the home/house.   Another giant circle.  Been here for 25 years, and what's new when I did a major redo, at the time, is now old.  Now comes a crossroads.  Start a new fire, or relinquish all, sell and move on.   Ah, decisions, decisions.

Finally finished spreading the last load of rocks. It's been hot. I like having a better surface under the overhang and I think it will make a nicer place to build cabinets in the fall. For now I parked the Mustang back here for the summer. Mrs. Deuce and I thought about it and we think this is the first time I've ever had every car under covered parking. Then she mentioned that Ferdinand is still in the front yard and I said that didn't count. Not a car. 

badwaytolive said:

 

In 10 years, which achievements will you be most satisfied having completed? Which do you regret?

I'm not sure that I'll be proud of any of the physical things I work on. It's not how I'm wired. Stuff is just stuff. I enjoy the work. I enjoy the stories created in the breaking and fixing and creating. I'm not sure I'm ever completely satisfied with anything that I do. 

I'll be satisfied if I get four kids to stable adulthood. I'll be satisfied if Mrs. Deuce has a career that she can be proud of while being my teammate in raising those kids. 

I'd like to get the house "done" before we sell it. I can look around and see that 2/3 of what I do is going to be ripped out and re-done in the next 30 years. I think that's why I'm ambivalent about the kitchen and bathroom. I don't like the house enough to put together really nice spaces either from an effort or a money standpoint. I also know that there's a high likelihood that I'll spend a couple hundred hours making things functional and the next guy will spend a couple grand ripping it all out. This is still a $36k house to me. The next guy is going to be buying a $150k+ house. You can spend $8-10k putting in a kitchen in a $150k house that you'll be in for 20 years and feel ok about it. I can't make myself do that. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I'd like to get the house "done" before we sell it. I can look around and see that 2/3 of what I do is going to be ripped out and re-done in the next 30 years. I think that's why I'm ambivalent about the kitchen and bathroom. I don't like the house enough to put together really nice spaces either from an effort or a money standpoint. I also know that there's a high likelihood that I'll spend a couple hundred hours making things functional and the next guy will spend a couple grand ripping it all out. This is still a $36k house to me. The next guy is going to be buying a $150k+ house. You can spend $8-10k putting in a kitchen in a $150k house that you'll be in for 20 years and feel ok about it. I can't make myself do that. 

I was going through some old datasets recently, and happened across photos of the re-do of our kitchen in our old Townhouse, which cost about what you're talking about above.  We got to enjoy it for about 18months, before everything changed.  My only regret is that we didn't do it sooner.

One difference with your house now, is with some careful attention to detail... utilization of some of the strategies being developed in the... er, "small house" spaces... you might be able to make it much more functional and enjoyable to be in; IMHO, YMMV, etc etc.

Besides, it's like owning the CTS-V wagon, or R63... good practice for figuring out what works for you, so that you can get things right in the house your retire into.  

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I'm not sure that I'll be proud of any of the physical things I work on. It's not how I'm wired. Stuff is just stuff. I enjoy the work. I enjoy the stories created in the breaking and fixing and creating. I'm not sure I'm ever completely satisfied with anything that I do. 

I'll be satisfied if I get four kids to stable adulthood. I'll be satisfied if Mrs. Deuce has a career that she can be proud of while being my teammate in raising those kids. 

I'd like to get the house "done" before we sell it. I can look around and see that 2/3 of what I do is going to be ripped out and re-done in the next 30 years. I think that's why I'm ambivalent about the kitchen and bathroom. I don't like the house enough to put together really nice spaces either from an effort or a money standpoint. I also know that there's a high likelihood that I'll spend a couple hundred hours making things functional and the next guy will spend a couple grand ripping it all out. This is still a $36k house to me. The next guy is going to be buying a $150k+ house. You can spend $8-10k putting in a kitchen in a $150k house that you'll be in for 20 years and feel ok about it. I can't make myself do that. 

This is exactly what I'm trying to convey. Rarely do items make happiness. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say planning and happiness aren't very well correlated either.

Somehow this sort of talk seems wildly over-serious for a "guy fixing garage" thread, but simultaneously, the perfect place to have such talk.

In reply to badwaytolive :

In real life I always suggest that, once in their lives, people build something bigger than they are that will outlast them. Doesn't have to be a house or a Grosh. Can be a chair, a business, a quilt, a car. Something that you pour some effort into that will outlast you. I think it helps with perspective. 

In reply to Sleepyhead :

We've been cleared to travel so we're packing up now and heading to the "good" house. I'm going to sit on the deck and drink my coffee and think about things. Go swimming. Take naps. Figure some stuff out. 

In reply to sleepyhead :

Wife made the comment last night that this house might just be the house we retire in. I'm not sure if that makes me happy or sad. I like our house and we're doing some nice upgrades. But that "new house smell" is nice too. And winters.... I hate winters. 

If you want to take the long way up again this year you're welcome to crash.  Plenty of beds at Opelhause.

I'm sure we can load something up for you to tinker on over the summer....