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PostPosted: June 4, 2018, 7:27 am 
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Location: Summerville, SC
Yesterday was day 2 on the new house. Started with a trip t o Biscuitville followed by a stop at Lowe's to look at exterior doors again, this time for the side entry. A little looking and Wifey Dearest got bored, so off to the house to start more demolition.

I spent a few minutes adjusting the striker on the new front door then shot the gaps with window and door foam.
you know, the "low expansion" kind. I walk to t he kitchen to get a glass of water and hear some wet sounding PLOP on the floor, so I go to the front door.

HOLY CRAP :shock: There's yellow foam growing out of the gaps and after about 6 inches out it can't support it's own weight and plops on the floor. Low expansion my butt. Maybe I used a little too much; I'll know better next time. :oops:

WD asks what she can do so I set her to work tearing out carpet. That woman is a machine when it comes to demo. Attacked carpets with a utility knife and had the whole house stripped of carpet and padding in about an hour.
"What's next?", she asks. Time to take out tack strips or scrape off popcorn ceilings, your choice.

We spent the rest of the day tearing out tack strips and pulling nails. We had to end early yesterday to have a birthday dinner with my Sister in Law, so still 1 room to go for ripping up tack strips.

Only minor casualties were a couple of scrapes knuckles and one or two bites from the tack strips.

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Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: June 26, 2018, 7:26 pm 
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Location: Summerville, SC
It's been a while since I last posted about the house. I'm a little over 3 weeks into this adventure.
So far we've
Hired a contractor for windows and siding. Windows should be in next week and he can get rocking on his part. $9000
Wifey Dearest and I scraped popcorn off ceilings in the entire house
Then hired a contractor to skim coat and paint for a super smooth look $2300
Then hired a contractor for electrical upgrades. Can lights in the living room plus a box for a ceiling fan with light. overhead lights in each bedroom and a can light in the Master shower. 20 amp service for a Microwave / hood over the stove. $1400
Ordered wide plank flooring for the whole house from Cali Bamboo. $4500
Bought new bathroom vanities. Clearance at Lowe's $650 for 2 with new brushed nickel faucets.
Pulled down paneling in living room and laundry room. Nothing behind the paneling, so drywall 18 sheets and a 5lb box of screws $200 10 of 18 sheets of drywall installed
Bought and installed new side entry door and lock set $400
Hired a guy to build a 12x16 storage building / 1 car garage for the race car :) $2500

Priced kitchen cabinets and countertops $9000 Checking alternative prices on the old interwebs...

Still trying to decide if we're going to expand the Master shower before I go any further in the hole on the budget. I can do nothing and it looks fine in existing white ceramic tile. Or we can make the shower we want for $2500-$3000; a little less if I hang the tile.

And we've had 2 contracts on the old house fall apart. Negotiating a 3rd with a young couple that is scared to death and questioning EVERYTHING.

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Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: July 2, 2018, 4:58 am 
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Location: meadview arizona
i think you've got it easy,
i have spent the last two weeks building a bathroom, not remodeling, building it where there was nothing.

next i've got to build a dining room / entryway then stucco the whole house and do sheet rock in the living room all finished with smooth plaster and lots of fancy moldings to match the rest of the house, replace the kitchen counter tops and some sheet rock in the laundry room and lay another 10 yds. of concrete

mean while i have to re build a ford inline 6 and install it for the guy who is doing my ground work with the 25 14yd. truck loads of dirt that i had delivered.

perhaps soon i can get on with the house in Florida which has now been gutted of sheet rock, both walls and ceilings and is getting a new roof as we speak and no that doesn't have a garage yet either, it needs new windows, a complete re wire, air conditioning, two bathrooms and the kitchen fitted then it all has to be sheet rocked, tiled and painted.

and my poor old locost is sitting in the shop with a broken motor and i refuse to even open the hood until the above is all done.

when that's done i have to move all my stuff ( the accumulation of half a century ) to Florida including 5 vehicles and two trailers

remember that i live in the middle of a desert and it's 105 outside with an almost constant 30 mph wind blowing where nipping to Lowe's requires a 120 mile trip each way when i need something, last week i did 1200 miles to get stuff.

man you guys have it easy going for biscuits etc.

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PostPosted: July 2, 2018, 8:23 am 
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John,
I wouldn't want to trade places with you. Moving from the desert to Florida, you're just going to LOVE the humidity.

How the heck did so many of us car guys get derailed with major house projects?

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Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: July 2, 2018, 8:13 pm 
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Location: meadview arizona
90 degrees and humid i can take i used to live in central Florida.

it's the 110 in the shade and dust that i can't stand, you just can't go outside

i moved here from Florida in 2006 and i gave it my best shot, what with the level of lake Mead dropping to all time lows and the economic crash of 08 which only Phoenix has recovered from, the rest of the state is in decline, my local hardware store is closing, my local post office is closing so now i have to drive at least 65 miles to get food, big agriculture has been ripping up the desert to grow almonds and the dust is unbearable and they are sucking the aquifer dry just like California, we have just got our new high speed internet at 4Mb so that's faster than the 1Mb and my taxes are twice what the house in Florida costs.
my local social security office is now a 4 hour drive each way since they closed the one in Kingman and the postal service don't recognize my address, last year we had a 21% increase in electricity.
i can't insure my house as they closed the fire house so we have no fire service other than a guy showing up to asses the damage after the fact, still they haven't lost a slab yet.
the county want permits pulled at $300 a time and another $300 for approval for everything, my buddy had to pull a permit to replace two pieces of siding on his mobile home and they came out to inspect the nail pattern.
this is what happens when the tax base is shrinking and the amount of people on welfare is increasing, why does a teenager need the county to provide him or her with a cell phone on the tax payers dollar.

so humidity i can handle.

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from this day to the end of the world.
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PostPosted: July 3, 2018, 4:07 pm 
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Sounds like in a few years it will be Phoenix and nothing else. You can't support a state on the tax base of one or two major cities.

Today the contractors finally showed up at the house. Siding and trim is going up, or was until one of the guys saw a bat in the gable vent. He's all freaked out and I have to go over tonight after dark, climb a ladder, and staple up some netting to keep the bat out so they can work tomorrow. :roll:

Drywallers are inside prepping to skim coat the ceilings now that the popcorn is all down.

I picked up a load of ready to assemble cabinets, so I'll be putting my new building to work as a cabinet shop for a few days.

And "somewhere" in Greensboro is a truck with 2000 lbs of flooring that can't find my house. where's the facepalm emoji when you need it?

Hopefully end of this week I'll be inside painting my living room, kitchen and laundry. Then hang cabinets and lay floors.

Target date is July 20 to have it all wrapped up.

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Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: July 4, 2018, 3:52 am 
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Location: central Arkansas
TooBusy wrote:
HOLY CRAP :shock: There's yellow foam growing out of the gaps and after about 6 inches out it can't support it's own weight and plops on the floor.


I once worked for a place that made "hollow metal products", which is industry-speak for steel doors and door frames, the kind you find in commercial buildings.

One new product was insulated steel doors. The guys in back were experimenting with gluing the foam cores to the steel panels to make the doors feel more "solid" to the customers. They had made some small test panels and found a glue that seemed to work, so they made up a pallet full of doors near the end of the day.

The next morning the shop area was full of stinky smoke and the pallet of doors was an untidy pile of burnt metal. It seemed that the glue had a modest exothermic reaction with the foam that nobody had noticed on the small test panels. But with door-sized panels in the middle of a stack of insulated doors, there was nowhere for the heat to go... that particular type of foam was supposed to be "self-extinguishing"; that is, it would burn if you held a flame to it, and then was supposed to stop when you removed the flame. But the glue just kept it all going until the foam was gone...

Also, though this was slightly before OSHA, the building code and insurance inspectors had both sort of missed the fact the building didn't have either fire alarms or an extinguisher system, both of which were required at the time.


Quote:
scrape off popcorn ceilings


My Dad bought a brand new house in 1972, that not only had popcorn ceilings, but the contractor had sprayed glitter up onto the wet paint. We all thought it was pretty cool.


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PostPosted: July 4, 2018, 4:02 am 
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TooBusy wrote:
Priced kitchen cabinets and countertops $9000 Checking alternative prices on the old interwebs...


At the price of cabinets, I'm *really* tempted to go with shelves and roller blinds or curtains when I finish the structural remodel. Mrs. TRX says she'd be fine with that.

Marble/granite/synthetic countertops are way trendy. Right now I'm wavering between Formica, which still looks and works just fine and is way cheap and simple to do, or going with concrete. Concrete countertops can be cast in place; after they cure, you can wax them or use epoxy paint.

I considered tile countertops for a while, but cleaning grout is way down on my Favorite Things To Do list. They do have 12" tiles now, which would reduce the grout area quite a bit.


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PostPosted: July 5, 2018, 2:12 pm 
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Location: Summerville, SC
So after a bit of shopping online I bought cabinets in flat pack form. Think tinkertoys for adults with wood glue and a pneumatic finish nailer. I can assemble a wall cabinet in about 20 minutes and it costs less than half of the lowest quote I could get locally.
Best thing, I ordered one day and they were ready to pick up the next from the warehouse 1 hour away. The local "cabinet stores" and the big box stores all needed 6 weeks to get me cabinets.

Then I got online and started searching counter contractors. After a few quotes I found they were all sourcing their stone from the same place. Today on the way to pick up the 2000 lbs of floor tile from Fed Ex Freight depot, I saw the source.
It turns out the source has the stone, the waterjet, and a crew of installers. INSTALLED PRICE $500 less than the lowest quote from the little guys.
It pays to shop around.

KITCHEN IS BACK ON BUDGET!!!!
:D

_________________
Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: July 5, 2018, 2:21 pm 
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Location: Seattle area
Yes indeed, research pays off. Good going Tommy!

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PostPosted: July 5, 2018, 7:11 pm 
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Location: West Chicago,IL
Great job Tommy. I can't imagine doing what you are doing. Been there. Done that. Don't care to do it again!


Care to share your cabinet source? My son will be in the market in a year or three.

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“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766


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PostPosted: July 6, 2018, 8:27 am 
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Location: Summerville, SC
shakercabinetsupply.com

cabinets.com

rtacabinets.com

I ended up using shaker cabinet supply

1/2 inch 7 ply plywood boxes, soft close doors and drawers. So far I'm pretty happy with the choice. The fit ups are all very good and assembly is a breeze.

_________________
Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: July 6, 2018, 9:41 am 
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Thanks Tommy, I'll forward that info on.

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“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766


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PostPosted: August 11, 2018, 8:27 pm 
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Well guys, I haven't updated this in a while.
Today 8/11/18 we moved to the new place in Greensboro. The house is far from finished, but it is livable.
So far ceilings have been smoothed
siding is done
windows are done
I installed the cabinets a week or so ago
finished laying down floors last Sunday or Monday, I don't remember which.
Started doing baseboards. laid down 25 pcs of 12 footers and have a few places yet to do; probably another 30 linear feet
bathrooms redone new potty, vanity, lights and mirrors
appliances arrived last Friday and I learned to hang a microwave / vent hood unit.
Quartz countertops went in yesterday and the plumber finished making all the connections.

Yesterday we loaded all our crap into a 26 foot U Haul and bugged out at 8:15 this morning.

All was well the first 3 hours, then my phone rings. Wifey Dearest was behind me and broke down.
I turn and go back and the Mommy Mobile is dead. It will turn over and start, but has no power and cuts off unless I'm constantly patting the gas. Not enough power to move to a safer spot. We call roadside assistance and wait
and wait
and wait




and wait







and wait


3 hours later we had a tow truck and were back on our way. Just having the tow driver drop it at the new place and deal with it tomorrow.

About an hour later my phone rings. The tow truck blew a tire. that was 2:30 pm. It's 8:30 now and so far he hasn't made it here from an hour away.

I'm so tired it's not even funny.

_________________
Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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PostPosted: September 28, 2018, 9:53 am 
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Location: Summerville, SC
September 28th. The house is "almost" done. Looking at the indoors punch list I have to grout the backsplash, put down those last few feet of baseboard, and put up some shelves in the laundry.

It's been a ton of work over 4 months doing a lot of the jobs myself while still working full time. During the remodel process I've done the following trips.
Michigan 4 days
Michigan 4 days
Texas 4 days
Michigan 4 days
Brazil 3 days
Argentina 3 days
China 10 days
Wisconsin 3 days
Wisconsin 3 days
Iowa 3 days

I did manage to sneak a family vacation for a week in there following the China trip. So you can tell I spent about as much time away from home as at home working on the house.

The end is in sight, then I can get back to a revision on the A Mod to make it more competitive.

:cheers:

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Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216


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