Need help on this farmhouse to get it rental ready without a lot of hoopla and excessive dollar outlay.
First thoughts concern the kitchen.
Sanding floors back to natural and ceramic tile on the kitchen and bath floors is the plan.
New full baths up and downstairs.
There is so much needed that ya can’t get caught up in too big of niceties.
What can be done with those old wood cabs in the kitchen?
Yep, that was the kitchen sink there.heh heh
Apparently the renters decided to jump ship on the sly later saying they couldn’t afford the fuel bills. I discovered all the tripletrack storm windows were still up.
They left a pretty good mess. These pics are the raw first walk thru.
I’m thinking they should get rid of the dead cat something has been eating on in that box on the backporch.
Any takers on giving suggestions without tearing it down and starting over?
Full box of milkbones for each recommendation.
be a contestant please
Replies
SanchoRon the caballero bowed low as he waved his sombrero and said ...goodbye.
What condition is the foundation in?
Foundation is secure.
Some troublesome rot on a a sill beam in a corner. Be a bear to fix.
SanchoRon the caballero bowed low as he waved his sombrero and said ...goodbye.
I would say that you need a small piece of steel and a can of white paint too fix the sink so that the faucet does not disapear .
The milkhouse ,deepsixit.
Move the kitty outside .
Your set for the next batch.
Did they leave food on dirty plates in the cab for you? My buddy had a considerate renter do that after skipping the last 3 months rent. Weeuh!
There were 5 pieces of cake left on the counter in a paperplate covered with foil.
Had been there don't know how long but still looked the same as it would have when cut.
I'm never eating cake again!
greencu invented cake
SanchoRon said 'Remember the Alamo' and was no more.
foil can be some serious protection...
ask Luka...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
I think the cat must have ate some cake.
SanchoRon said 'Remember the Alamo' and was no more.
The stairways still solid but dare I show the upper bath?Hey, that 20pane window's still got wavy glass!
SanchoRon said 'Remember the Alamo' and was no more.
Edited 3/4/2005 1:15 pm ET by the razzman
That bath is a bit of a "fixer upper."
Save the window, for sure.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
no it won't...
let's get on it...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
I'll jump in with some ideas since I think I have some of the same "interiors"that old style metal sink base has one chance at being saved and that's only if it hasn't rusted through. Other than that - it goes - the sink itself is junk and goes - quick replacement: RTA sinkbase with side cabinets to fit with stainless steel drop in sink with standard 6'-8'-10' etc postform laminate countertop.if the other cabinets are decent plywood - wash - sand - paint - new hardware the pine walls I might try a wash/bleach to lighten the color and then poly - otherwise - white pigmented shellac primer and then painton the exterior - I'd go with the chainsaw first on anything overgrown and close to the house (aka pretty much everthing), then it's scraping and paintingthe porch needs some serious help - first with the cleaning, then get rid of the shutters and get the gutters fixedI'd leave the milkhouse(?) till springclosing - the place looks like it has some pretty good potential good luck
howz the well and septic?...
clean up the cabinet doors, paint, then frame with wood for panel effect -
cut down the overgrown yew in front of the house
get rid of the outbuilding
like the paneling, it'll clean up nice - is that your woofer on the floor?
might consider a whole new set of base cab in the kitchen, move the 3 door unit to a utility area -
it's big...
good luck
"there's enough for everyone"
'n just think of all the stuff you're gonna find when the snow melts!...
"there's enough for everyone"
Thawed today.
HooEEE! What are the scrap prices at this month? :o)
be a mess
time to sell and buy a new tool....
"there's enough for everyone"
Just wanted to stop in here again to express a thank you to all the fellow BTers that helped me regain my sobriety by reminding me that sometimes with rentals the shortest distance between two points can be a straight line.
be painting white and vinyl
The original structure of the farmhouse was built somewhere in the late 1840s so who knows what all has occurred with the house since then.
The old timers in the area say it was stories passed down to them that the clapboard siding on the original structure was applied by a carpenter who lived on the grounds in a tent, averaging one row of siding around the perimeter, which was all produced on site.
Rear entry of the back porch takes you into the dining room? with the only coat of light brown paint well worn on it's floorboards.
Someone stuck an add-on little closet sticking out by the rear entry door against what was at one time the outside wall of the house but now abuts the kitchen wall.
Removing the added on 3/4 inch buildup closet floor reveal a layer of old linoleum in the closet. Underneath that was 1949 newspapers and beneath the 1949 newspaper was the same lightbrown painted floor as in the rest of the dining room.
Today's contest is: how many layers of old wallpaper are found covering the wall of the old original plaster lath in the closet?
Go.
be going
new roof on the milk house...
paint the place...
be criminal to cover that with vynal...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Previous tennants musta had the law or the mob after them, to leave without taking the grille . . .
Little bit of touch up painting on the outside, looks to be all that's needed. After y' git all that there ground up styrofoamy-lookin stuff outta there <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
You could probably fix that ford in the milkhouse picture up pretty good.....
GB
Is this your place or?
First, get something a little more substantial than that Swiffer mop to clean with.
Second, park a dumpster in the yard.
Third, fill it with the milk house, kitchen cabs and the skeleton. Depending on the area you might pick up a couple of bucks if you sell the steel sink top to someone who really needs a neat fish cleaning station.
Fourth, you could lose a lot of tools in that white stuff. Looks too cold to be working on the outside.
How's the basic structure under the sad looking siding? Work in those repairs before the rainy season.
New base cabs, top and sink are a must. Make the kitchen look a little more open by reducing the number of uppers. Saves bucks, too. Build in a shallow wall pantry between the studs somewhere or double up a wall thickness to make the space.
What's that flexible pipe for in the kitchen? Did they have the clothes dryer in there, too? It's not quite right for a range exhaust.<G>
What's that flexible pipe for in the kitchen? Did they have the clothes dryer in there, too?
Man, don't know.
Could be they just shot the exhaust to the pantry room on the other side of the wall for all I know.
SanchoRon said 'Remember the Alamo' and was no more.
why didn't we handle this when I was there...
you can keep the cat...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
kitchen...
refinish the wall...
new doors from Birch ply.. natural finsh..
reface the cab frames...
12" glue down vynal suares in pattern...
cover the cat box with one of the old cab doors...
what's wuth the flex???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
new counter tops...
deep six the dish washer...
plumbing probably can't handle it anyways...
bondo the sink...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Rule #1:
Always
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom I can see why your living in the shop now. I thought that place of mine in Richmond was bad. Of course it could get that bad before I get finished with it.
Razz.... all that milk house needs is a Razz fiest to fix it up
DaneI will always be a beginner as I am always learning.
I'm pretty sure that's Sphere's place...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Yup. That's Sphere's dream, of one kind or another. 37278.1 Trying to make Rez feel better....
We bought "unimproved" land. LOL Not that I ever saw the asset vs liability that Sphere did. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom - Whereabouts in VA are you from? I have a house in Buffalo Junction, near Clarksville, north of Raleigh.
Don
Just S. of Charlottesville, otherwise known as Hooville. DW travels in NC, but I have no knowledge of Buffalo Junction. Uh, you did understand that photo was Sphere's dream home? Not anything I'd be interested in. Was just trying to make Razz feel better.
Sphere does have virile tomato seeds. Now waiting to see if the flavor measures up to his claims.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom he is just a bit east of South Boston on US 58. He is about as far from you as he is from me.
DaneI will always be a beginner as I am always learning.
Love the sink! We get involved in renovations just like this one, so here's some ideas. First, do not waste your time & money on ceramic tile if you're planning on re-renting. Clean the floors, strip if you must, and use vinyl flooring. The cabinet doors can be removed, take off the old hardware, sand & paint with gloss paint. Repair the boxes, if necessary, and reattach doors with new hardware & handles. Get a plain formica countertop, add a stainless or acrylic composite sink and a mid-grade faucet. Take off the wall paper, or paint over. Always go with high-quality gloss and semi-gloss in neutral colors. Don't go with cheap replacement cabinets! It looks like you have nice old knotty pine wainscoating on some walls; that's worth stripping and new polyurethane. Good luck. And get rid of that dead animal on the porch! Nothing turns off good prospective tenants like dead animals.
Freewheel,
Welcome to Breaktime, for the first time.
Good advice you got there.
I think the razzman needs to get one of those dogs to sniff the yard for dead bodies.
Talk of the Mob, left the grill, etc..... Maybe they haven't left at all, the're in the milk house cooling off. The big chill.
Sure looks like a great project, very interesting.
Hope he keeps us BT hounds updated as it goes on.
TGIF
Reminds me of a movie where the bro & sis got stranded motorists to "come on in" and then turned them into award-winning sausage.
We're interested to see what Razz does w/ this, as we are currently working on something very similar in PA, but without the deadly porch baggage.
It's going to be pretty basic as it is a rental.
Would like to spruce it up a bit to make it desirous for the Mrs. of whoever rents it.
Want to see a better class of renter get in there but I'm not the one holding the keys.
Today I yanked the Kit sink and cabinet and painted the Kit ceiling. They were hauling the junk out and made a dent in the piles.
What makes the whole deal hard is it being a rental and everything is more a sweeten it up a tad and get out routine.
Hard to fool yourself into getting into it like with a pride in the craft.
be a sad hireling
The final splash of SanchoRon receded from shore and returned to sea.Now but a passing memory to some, the fallen comrade to friends, and an unknown for those to come.The death merchants united dealt the blow to what aim?
Sorry, but it seems to me like this is a stupid manuever. They got next to nothing in a house and the land. Minimal face lift and renting these houses out is a losing propostion in the long run....in most instances I'm familiar with. Renters don't pay, skip out leaving another mess to contend with, another face lift, etc.I'd fix it right, sell it and hold onto the land. Agricultural, I presume. ?? I feel for ya as I'd dearly loathe being a participant in sending this house to it's slow, but sure, inevitable neglected renter doom. You sure that flex doesn't exhaust a dryer right into that chimney in the "pantry"? (If you can call that a pantry) If so, hope the chimney doesn't serve a furnace. I can see the mounds of lint in there...... from here.Edit: We got a beautiful Vic not more than a mile from here as the crow flies. Gorgeous big house that needs some repair/care and updating. Guy buys the farm 20 years back and then demands a truly unreasonable price for the house. Nobody bites. So he leaves it sit empty. Storm fells a tree which puts a 3' dia. hole in the roof ten years ago. He does nothing to patch it. The guy's a jerk. If he got $4,000 for the house, he'd have the same money that he could get for the land it sits on with no house at all. It'll cost him to remove the house and fill the hole, too. He wants $40,000 and leaves the rainwater run thru ruining the walnut floors and the whole deal. What an arse. Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.Edited 3/5/2005 9:43 pm ET by GOLDHILLER
Edited 3/5/2005 9:56 pm ET by GOLDHILLER
Ya, looked at that dryer duct deal today and it emptied into the not in use chimney. Some time in the past the fireplace there had been removed.
Land is loaded with timber.
On the wonderful subject of old victorians... I use to always pass this old farm out in the middle of nowhere, loaded with barns, outbuildings and silos. Not in use for many a decade.
Old Vic as the house. Someone mows the lawn.
Use is slow way down on my weekly jaunt by there till I started pulling over to the side of the road to stop and stare at it.
Must have been something in it's day. Now greyed clapboard with a decorative shingle design up top the second floor sides and gables. Steep roofs and a turret.
Chimney gone and a gaping hole. Old ripped curtains whipping outside the tall broken windows during storms.(What a lasting impression)
Finally couldn't contain myself once and had a friend take a roadtrip and we parked and got out.
Half dollar diameter poison ivy vines all over the thing. Weather worn to the max.
A decorative feature somewhere on the southern exposed back porch of a yard long miniature rail with these identical little 6 inch high baluster looking spindle things. Must have been a dozen of them.
You could see the southernmost baluster that got the most weather having the greatest sun/wind deterioration on the exposed side and the remaining balusters gradually working their way back to fullness in equal progressive increments. And I didn't have the camera.
If I'm ever by it again and someone's there I'll have to stop and ask for a peek inside. I'd pay for that glimpse into an undisturbed interior from the past.
be saying dryer duct deal today ten times real fast
The final splash of SanchoRon receded from shore and returned to sea.Now but a passing memory to some, the fallen comrade to friends, and an unknown for those to come.The death merchants united dealt the blow to what aim?
Sad, ain't it?We've seen a lot of this abandoned farmstead stuff going on around here for the last 20+ years. As the profit margins on farming continually decline and the cost of machinery escalating, the smaller acreage farms are no longer viable. As that declining income takes it's toll on those still trying to hold on, the houses get neglected and fall into an ever increasing need of maintenance and updating. Without the money to do it, the owners are eventually forced to sell everything. Sometimes all it takes to push 'em over the edge is a health related problem in the family and most have no health insurance whatsoever. Again….simply can't afford it.And so, many of these beautiful, once vital and enviably gorgeous old homes, meet their demise. A larger farmer comes along, buys the entire property at auction, but doesn't want to deal with updating the home or the rental scene and all that involves………..and for some reason doesn't want to sell off the house and buildings, either. He wants the outbuildings for machinery storage and just turns his back on the house, cause it ain't in his own backyard where he and his family have to look at it out the window. Or…he can't find anyone to buy the house where it sits. For many years in the recent past, these homes outside the city on farmsteads were not in favor. Folks wanted to be closer to town, "where the action is". LOL So there they sat, slowly goin' to hell in a handbasket, day after day. And the only way to make a renovation and update of these financially viable, is to buy 'em dirt-cheap. Unfortunately, many of the owners of these abandoned farmsteads wouldn't sell for what they were truly worth. They perceived them as being worth far more and refused to sell for less. "Nobody's gonna screw me!" Stubbornness and nearsightedness ruled the day. But now the worm has turned. Folks have been pouring into this area from Chicago for the last 6-7 years to buy up these little farmsteads as either a retirement residence…..or as a summer getaway. They're seeking the quiet "old country charm" lifestyle as it's presented to them on shows like Martha Stewart. Well, guess what. A lot of those sorely neglected houses are no longer a viable financial investment, even for those coming in with big Chicago money rolls. And so they buy a piece of ground instead and build new. And there sit those same beautiful old houses continuing to slowly disintegrate into the ground, leaving us all with a melancholy reminder of what once was and could have been again….if only. If the owners had only kept an intact roof, windows and siding on 'em, they could've sold 'em for a huge profit to those folks. (And….I'd have work out the whazoo renovating them for the new owners, too <G>) We (DW & I) shoulda bought a few of these.Hindsight is 20-20, eh? Edit: Love the positioning of the toilet in that house you're workin' on. Whaddya sit side-saddle?
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 3/6/2005 10:29 am ET by GOLDHILLER
Makes me recall a story from a few years back about an old Vic in the sticks south of Cleveland a ways.
Folks had passed on and the youngins' decided they wanted a greenhousewhere the old homestead had sat.
Called in the local fireman in so they could practice and burnt the place to the ground.
Even the three floor black walnut curved staircase.
be cryin' in your beer
The final splash of SanchoRon receded from shore and returned to sea.Now but a passing memory to some, the fallen comrade to friends, and an unknown for those to come.The death merchants united dealt the blow to what aim?
I understand what you are saying about wanting to spruce up for better class of renters. As they say 'been there/done that', I'm a rental property owner as well as electrician/handyman/renovator. A victim of job lost to failing economy & corporate greed, I turned to helping those overworked folks who need work done fast at reasonable prices & with decent quality.
But take it from me, don't waste too much time on the place. Even those "better" class of renters sometimes turn out to be nightmares. I have a renter now who does not have a lot of money, but her apartment is show-room clean. Paint, repair, replace only what is seriously busted. You really can't go wrong with decent, neutral vinyl flooring in kitchens & baths; average appliances, counters, faucets. Just as long as its clean, everything works, no bizarre colors. Don't worry about your pride of workmanship; it'll be fully intact by providing "good" quality instead of worrying about "top". I've changed broken ceramic & ripped vinyl - vinyl is much easier.
Interesting discussion on old farms; we have a huge influx of people from NY/NJ here in eastern PA, and some old farm houses have been lovingly restored. Others get the developers axe, and the acreage is transformed into a suburban sprawl, complete with look-alike McMansions. It's enought to make ya want to run away.
Any takers on giving suggestions
Sure. Paint the kitchen white. All of it. You can paint the cabinets a different color of white--if you want. Get that sink out of there--it's nasty. While it's empty, take some measurements of the kitchen. Stick those measurments up on the shop wall (and near the tv). Whenever there's a slow time, build a replacement cabinet for the kitchen. By the time the next renters are gone, you'll have another kitchen built (or not <G>).
Oh, and either install the DW or get som melamine-faced and build an enclosure for the poor thing (unless it's a boat anchor, in which case, but it in the front yard where it belongs <g>).
As to what's in the box, I'm thinking it's what ever was on Jeff's roof that time, come to its just deserts.
Curious what you paid for the place. Out here in the west, we don't have much built before 1950. I could easily get $200,000 for it, as is, on a standard size lot.
To me, it looks like a cool project.
Not mine.
Was bought in the early 70s before the RE rise. House, barn and 120acres was $35,000.
SanchoRon said 'Remember the Alamo' and was no more.
Edited 3/4/2005 7:55 pm ET by the razzman
"House, barn and 120acres was $35,000."Ok, now I'm reeeealy pissed.
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow It is easy to be friends with someone you always agree with.
That would go for about 1.2 'round here.
hey Razz...where is this house?? From the snow I'd guess the northeast...have seen many similar houses in upstate NY...not sure about the interiors though......
Northeast Ohio. Can still find them sitting in the backwoods.Even some old victorians covered with aluminum siding.
Used to have relatives in Wheelersburg, and knew some people a long time ago in Piqua....might still have relatives there, my mom's from there originally....Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
Used to have relatives in Wheelersburg, and knew some people a long time ago in Piqua....might still have relatives there, my mom's from there originally....
Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
gotta look into how you did that...thats great...and just what I'm looking for...
Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
With the cursor at the beginning of
XHit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
just hit the 'Enter' tab for a line skip down.
To just drop a line, hit 'shift' and 'enter' simultaneously.
Draw the cursor across
Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
to highlite those words in a box, then you can access the tool bar 'font, size, color.'
trying it now....Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
good lord, man!
Gutted the downstairs bath today.
Took the medicine cabinet out of the wall only to discover someone had spliced into a feedline with a 2ft length of orange ext. cord to power the light bar over the cabinet. Didn't check but bet it was 18ga. ERROAR!
They'd taped the splice with electrical tape, put it in the back of the opening and pushed the cabinet back in over it.
All is suspect now.
be concerned
be suspicious..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
no bazillion old razor blades???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Ahhh I hate that- pull an old medicine cabinet and get your feet showered with 30 years of razor blades. Wonder who thought of that...
No, did find two utility knife blades tho'. Exciting stuff.
Someone had done work in there sometime in the past.
The outside wall of the bathroom had a sheet of drywall on it instead of the plaster lathe.
'Course the bottom of the drywall fell apart when peeling off the wallpaper. Gollygeewillykers, it was damp in there.
'Course there are no functional gutters on the house and the rain pours down the sides. Think that might have anything to do with it?
be hating when that happens
Edited 3/30/2005 11:49 am ET by the razzman
Found an interesting time capsule of sorts the other day.
Got to talking with an elderly lady walking down the road in front of the house and discovered she use to live in the house as a child and her hobby was genealogy. She had researched the house thoroughly.
She got a charge out of touring thru the house and was she loaded with the stories of the place.
I had to show her the writing on the wall upstairs I had found after removing three layers of wallpaper down to the original 1830's plaster.
No charge for this. Just a story. Cheers
be a memory
View Image
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
I love old houses like yours, and from time to time stop to investigate.
I've a some great kodachromes of classic old farmhouses that are still standing - barely at times - but totally in sync with their site. Families long gone, but the house still has stories to tell. Some of the best were in S. Dakota and West Va. The nearby cemetaries with markers from the 1800s are just as fascinating.
You guys seen the postcard of an old broken-backed Victorian farmhouse, colour shot, luxuriant vegetation all around? I've seen this card for sale in Canada and the USA. Anyhow, that very house used to - and maybe still does - stand alongside I79 in West Va. I've a good visual memory, so I'm pretty darn sure it's the same one.
I've a some great kodachromes of classic old farmhouses that are still standing - barely at times
Any chance on you posting some of those?
...all I need is the air that I breathe...
First, I'll ask a local businessman if I can use his scanner.... Then I'll have to learn how to post a pic. I couldn't figure it out the last time...I think it was my damn Olympus Camedia software. New software on its way, so there might be hope.
You like old buidings too, the ones that are partly collapsed? Beautiful curves and lines in those old places.
OK, you've had two months... are you done yet? :)
I've got a stupid gene when it comes to old houses. "it can be saved", comes bursting out of me before I'm able to stop and consider the MASSIVE amounts of time, work, and money that it would take to save it. Typically with the final property value no where near reimbursing you for your headaches.
So... it can be saved! oops... Well assuming the foundation is good and its structurally sound, I don't see why you couldn't save it. From your pics, it doesn't look much worse than the renovations that DanT and TimM go through when they find a new rental property (and I think most of their houses are 50yo or less).
Looks like a bathroom sink faucet on that kitchen sink. You probably took care of that issue already. Upstairs BA is nice and roomy. If you're just renovating the house back to rental condition it would be a lot less work than if you were fixing it up to live in it yourself. Just slap gutter and vinyl siding on the exterior, vinyl floors in BA, kitchen, pantry. Paint on the walls. New countertops, paint cabinets (maybe do something with the cabinet doors)...
Lordy, did you say a piece of extension cord?! How long did the extension cord people live in the house? Wiring could be an issue. :)
Where are our updated pics?
jt8
It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. --Chinese proverb
Beautiful lines... heh heh I could post a pic but I won't. (I'm talking about of a building, gunner roar)
If you can get those pics on your computer then we can get them up here on the monitors that glow across the states and world.
Thing about this old farmhouse is I'm wanting out but can't go so it's a big learning experience on practicality.
In a truth the closer I got to looking the worse the job got. What started as a paint, spruce and go routine turned towards more of a salvage job with structural concerns winning the renovation contest.
Paint and flooring? In my dreams.
That rotted beam was a nice surprise as is the shape of many of the clapboards when prepping for paint. Managed to find a slew of 16ft preprimed cedar clapboards at 50cents a foot so at least the foot is in the door.
Those floor recp are crappy things. Interior walls could get recps but it's so time consuming when they are sitting on 10inch deep hewn beams.
Dare I say live knob and tube in a couple areas with taped splices running to 12-2/14-2 cloth insulation to newer 12-2, switch legs spliced in further down under floorboards. Live and dead wires hanging.
A glowing red light on the juice checker when 10" away from the rafters and sheathing when holding it in the air beneath the roof at one end of a walk in attic that has no wiring above or beneath the roof. Ungrounded to say the least.
Let's see what else besides probably getting a rep with the local Amish as the madman with the camera at the white farmhouse with the tree limbs down in the frontyard.
Oh, damp basement that had no ventilation down there for who knows how long, so some of the log joists are rather soft in the outer 1/2 inch under the bark so they won't hold shorter staples very well.
Still gotta deal with the rotted corner sillbeam in the basement. Of course it has to be in back of the electrical box.
Can we say rotted window sills? At least the cast iron drain system is ok.
I think.
Bought a 1000pc box of plaster washers. Somewhere along the line I quit laughing.
The other night in the walkin attic I had the floods set up to study the wiring web when batman started flying at my head. Guess he figured I was intruding too much into his space so I closed up shop for a visit to see JD on ice.
Funny how even in a house flying squirrels seem less fearful of humans than the common squirrels and chipmunks.
damn, has it been two months already?
Edited 5/17/2005 12:29 pm ET by the razzman
So I take it you're not done with it yet? Tut, tut, IMERC would have been done with it by now :)
jt8
It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. --Chinese proverb
Ya, but IMERC is a working machine and gets paid for what he's worth.
I mean who else use to carry a 400 ft extension cord made out of 6/3?
First time he swung that up on his shoulder to carry to the truck Babe the blue ox was ready to say goodbye to Paul saying she'd found one greater.Mr. and Mrs. Greencu invented Greencu
I must now leave... to work on the dreaded tomb of dread.
Edited 5/17/2005 2:18 pm ET by the razzman
I would have been done with it also. But my primary tool would've been a Caterpillar.
Razzman and Sphere, what entertainment.
Actually, around here folks, usually the uninitiated ones, pay huge bucks for that type of opportunity. That house with minimal acreage down the road would be at least $250k as was.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Good lord man, a ceiling fan/light fixture was held up by two screws thru the plaster into the lath and I think one screw missed the lath.
be in woe
"I can't say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."
Good lord man, a ceiling fan/light fixture was held up by two screws thru the plaster into the lath and I think one screw missed the lath.
I pulled down a ceiling fan that had been mounted in a mobile home. They had simply screwed an outlet box into that cardboard-like ceiling tile. Big surprise that the ceiling tile sagged right there... and the fan tended to wobble.
I made the mistake of thinking I could use an old house fix on a mh. Cut a hole in the tile and inserted one of those ceiling fan outlet boxes that screw in between the joists. Well the 'joists' in the mh were at MOST 2x2's. Not big enough to screw anything in to.
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Shoot, you probably had a couple beefy 2x8's (or better) that you could use to attach that box to. Just no pleasing some people : )
jt8
It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. --Chinese proverb
Edited 5/24/2005 2:08 pm ET by JohnT8
A cieling fan in a mobile home ?Did it double as a barber ??
A person with no sense of humor about themselves, has no sense at all.
No extra charge.
jt8
It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. --Chinese proverb