Kind of a big project for an old guy.
Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 1:13 am
I've been putting this project off for a couple of years now trying to get some other things out of the way. We have a 17 acre mini-farm in another county with a rental house and an about 43' x 30' concrete block shop building/garage. The acreage is all woods, rocks and river. A long covered bridge crosses it at one end. It is necessary that I now do a major rehab on that house and building. We did a basic rehab on the house almost 30 years ago. I don't recall now but I think it took us about 3 months. Lots of wiring, total re-plumbing, lots of floor/wall/ceiling work. We have done several basic rehabs between renters. Now it is time for a serious rehab.
I don't expect to get too much done in January, I keep a very small amount of heat in it but don't want to near fully heat it if we get a lot of zero weather. I'll mostly start by setting up a bit of a shop in one corner of the current 20' x 20' living room. A Shopsmith, compound miter saw, work bench etc. If temps don't get silly I may get a good start on demolition. I can do a lot of that in fairly cold weather as long as I am out of the wind.
For some reason renters don't do a good job of communicating. I often ask them how things are and they just say everything is fine. Then they move and I find that there has been quite a bit of damage and stuff is no longer working.
I guess a dozen years ago the buildings survived unscathed a huge tornado that took down a lot of houses and barns etc. the local school building that was converted to a house, the covered bridge (dropped the whole thing upside down in the river in parts) now rebuilt and killed one woman about 800' south east of our house. Then maybe 6 or 7 years ago a severe hail storm destroyed one side of the roof. We replaced that side, re-insulated the attic, repaired a lot of drywall damage and carpet etc. This time in addition to normal wear and tear and even excess damages they failed to tell me that surface water was entering the 1/2 basement and in addition they had blocked all ventilation of the basement. I had not been in that basement for almost 5 years. It seems that in addition to replacing the other half of the roof and a lot of other repairs and updates I also need to completely replace at least half of the first floor joist and at least the same amount of sub-floor and floor. Maybe a good bit more but a minimum of around 700 sq. ft. Everything gets new drywall. That will also give me a chance to re-insulate the walls and to carefully check all of the wiring. I updated the breaker box a couple of years ago when the old oddball breaker box started some arcing where some of the breakers plugged in. All of the outside walls will get a vapor barrier which none of them have now (this building was put up about 1835).
While I have it apart I'm going to flip the floor plan. The house sits right on the primary street of the village but the back over looks the river and woods. I'm going to put the kitchen in the front and move the living room to the back so folks can sit there and see the woods and river which is a nice view. The back door will be replaced with a patio door. I won't have to build or move any walls to do it. Neither will I be changing the footprint of the house.
This is likely to consume most of 2018...
.
I don't expect to get too much done in January, I keep a very small amount of heat in it but don't want to near fully heat it if we get a lot of zero weather. I'll mostly start by setting up a bit of a shop in one corner of the current 20' x 20' living room. A Shopsmith, compound miter saw, work bench etc. If temps don't get silly I may get a good start on demolition. I can do a lot of that in fairly cold weather as long as I am out of the wind.
For some reason renters don't do a good job of communicating. I often ask them how things are and they just say everything is fine. Then they move and I find that there has been quite a bit of damage and stuff is no longer working.
I guess a dozen years ago the buildings survived unscathed a huge tornado that took down a lot of houses and barns etc. the local school building that was converted to a house, the covered bridge (dropped the whole thing upside down in the river in parts) now rebuilt and killed one woman about 800' south east of our house. Then maybe 6 or 7 years ago a severe hail storm destroyed one side of the roof. We replaced that side, re-insulated the attic, repaired a lot of drywall damage and carpet etc. This time in addition to normal wear and tear and even excess damages they failed to tell me that surface water was entering the 1/2 basement and in addition they had blocked all ventilation of the basement. I had not been in that basement for almost 5 years. It seems that in addition to replacing the other half of the roof and a lot of other repairs and updates I also need to completely replace at least half of the first floor joist and at least the same amount of sub-floor and floor. Maybe a good bit more but a minimum of around 700 sq. ft. Everything gets new drywall. That will also give me a chance to re-insulate the walls and to carefully check all of the wiring. I updated the breaker box a couple of years ago when the old oddball breaker box started some arcing where some of the breakers plugged in. All of the outside walls will get a vapor barrier which none of them have now (this building was put up about 1835).
While I have it apart I'm going to flip the floor plan. The house sits right on the primary street of the village but the back over looks the river and woods. I'm going to put the kitchen in the front and move the living room to the back so folks can sit there and see the woods and river which is a nice view. The back door will be replaced with a patio door. I won't have to build or move any walls to do it. Neither will I be changing the footprint of the house.
This is likely to consume most of 2018...
.
