Repairs ongoing.......

[ffuries]

Our house was built by idiots, closet door openings and rooms not plumb/square, modified doors for linen closets and HVAC closet (Meaning non standard size, meaning custom order to get one that fits now). In one room there is over to 2 inches in height difference between the left and right side, and over to 2 inches difference in width between the top and bottom of the opening

Another room had custom sized doors for the closet, when we tore the trim down from around it, there was a gap between the casing and the wall, you could literally hang a hammer from its handle from the gaps. Once the gaps were done away with, standard doors could fit.

Bedroom 2 upstairs, the wall would flex when you closed the door, turned out the nearest stud on the door handle side of the door was 16 inches away, the casing was just nailed to the drywall. No support behind it. Plus the bottom part of the wall frame there wasn't attached to the floor for close to 16 inches either. This shabby work allowed the wall by the door to flex and sway.

Well someone gave the wife 4 free six panel 22 inch doors, the 2 linen closets are 20 inch openings and we can't make the opening wider. The HVAC closet door is also a 20 inch opening, but the door is a half door. Of course being hollow core doors the inch we trim from each side leaves an open area on the sides. So we took the trimmed off piece, cut it down to proper length, put wood glue on it, slid it inside the hollow door edge and clamped. Giving us a solid edge piece again. Once a thin scim coat of wood putty was put over the raw edge and then painted, you can't tell it was modified.

Well we modified one of those doors yesterday for the HVAC closet, seeing to custom order a door to fit would have been around $200.00.

In the picture you'll notice the hinges are on the wrong side of the door. We decided to reverse the opening direction of the door. So now it will open from left to right, versus right to left.

Still need to trim down 2 more doors, width wise only, for the linen closets.

A picture of the original slab door on the HVAC closet.
A picture of the modified door with an unmodified 22 inch door.
Picture of the modified door itself

[ffuries]

After she's done with hanging and trimming out the HVAC and linen closet doors, she'll finish the details and painting in the grandkids playroom (My old gunroom/office), then continue the new flooring into there.

Then it's off to Bedroom 2 upstairs. Bedroom 1 upstairs and the upstairs bathroom are completed. Then we'll move to doing the repairs to the drywall gong down the stairs, followed by dining room drywall repairs. Then the major inside projects, complete MBR bath gut, entire back wall of the living room being gutted, the two sliders coming out and a new one going in dead center of the wall. Followed by the garage conversion to become my new office/gunroom.

Pictures 1 and 2 show the partially stripped bedroom 2 along with supplies and tools being used.
Picture 3 shows a hallway shot showing flooring partially done.
Picture 4 shows bedroom 1, completed.
Picture 5 shows the playroom, old flooring still down, and the decorative details in the work.
Pictures 6 and 7 shows the upstairs bathroom, completed, she hated the look of the plastic/vinyl tub insert, so she made a facing ro hide it.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Did you have the house inspected before you bought it?

[ffuries]

Did you have the house inspected before you bought it?

Yeap, we bought it from the original owner, it was built in 1986 and we bought it in Feb 1993. The original owner was going through a very nasty divorce, the bank was about to foreclose on the house, and he was about to lose his business. We got it for $64,900.00 while everything around us was going for around $80,000.00 or higher. It was either sell the house low amd keep his business, or loose the house and his business. His ex got a very large divorce settlement.

The bank and the VA both required that the house be inspected prior to them approving the loan for it. In fact there where two different inspectors, one for each entity. It's the shit you learn as you become smarter that shocks you. To cut down on costs, the original owner had installed used and/or new old stock appliances in the house. Dishwasher, stove, hot water heater, HVAC unit all predated the house. One item predated the house by almost 10 years.

The house had a 1 1/2 unit in it, which was undersized for the square footage. We are currently running a 3 1/2 ton unit, while oversized it's appropriate based on the environment we live in, plus it allowed me to run HVAC out to the garage without putting a strain on the system.

Cosmetically the house was in great condition, the subdivision was built by J.H. Crews, people came to call him J.H. Crook. It's said that he had some questionable building practices.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Looks like you are finding out about some of Crew's questionable business practices now. Shitty oversite of his contractors work, or maybe they were told to cut corners, rush everything, and use the lowest quality labor. Built by the lowest bidder sort of stuff. Nothing wrong with older appliances, some of the older ones are better anyway, USA made as opposed to cheap shit imports available today.

[steelbuttplate]

That brings up bad memories of my remodel(s). I call my house the 32 year remodel job. People can't believe this two story house started out life as a double wide.

[millman]

That brings up bad memories of my remodel(s). I call my house the 32 year remodel job. People can't believe this two story house started out life as a double wide.

[ffuries]

That brings up bad memories of my remodel(s). I call my house the 32 year remodel job. People can't believe this two story house started out life as a double wide.

Redneck condos..........

[Junk Yard Dog]

Now that is cool, looks like a giant playhouse. Heavy weapons on level one, ammo and reloading on level two, small arms locker on level three, food and sleep on level four.

[ffuries]

Well the modified linen closet door is drying from being painted, the opening has been re-trimmed. The modified HVAC closet door is hung and trimmed out (Need to drill for the door knob still).

The new top cap for the half wall in the upstairs hallway is installed, has had two coats put on. Still needs a satin clear coat put on it. Looks better than the old painted wood that it previously had.

The contractor will be here in the middle of June to do a few of the bigger jobs, which will wrap up the upstairs, the stair way, dinning room and kitchen. Then the wife will paint those areas and retirm.

We'll take a break for a few months before the contractor comes back and does another big ass job. Which will be removing two sets of sliding glass doors on the living room back wall. We'll replace them with one slider in the middle. So we'll be looking at some framing work and some wiring rerouted. You can see how the back wall is almost all glass, and it isn't energy efficient that's for sure. You can feel a cold breeze in the Winter and hot blast in the Summer.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I hate sliding glass doors, walked into one once, and it's just too easy for someone to smash them and come on in.

[steelbuttplate]

Your gonna end up like me, your house worn out from working on it

[ffuries]

Your gonna end up like me, your house worn out from working on it

Actually the wife and I were talking earlier, with the repairs coming along as they are, the house should be done 100% inside and out NLT this time next year.

The housing market is climbing around here, a smaller two story in our subdivision, with a smaller lot just went under contract for $220,000.00 last week. We have more square footage, bigger lot, and a corner lot to boot. We might sell, and move further inland, and even if we sold it for under the market value, say for $200,000.00 we would still be ahead.

We would just flip the money into another house and still have no house payment, and be further away from the hurricane winds.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Sounds like a good plan.

[entropy]

I noticed this is not uncommon down South. Outlets at four different heights in a room, etc. Just don't get Ron going about working on his house........

[SA1911a1]

That brings up bad memories of my remodel(s). I call my house the 32 year remodel job. People can't believe this two story house started out life as a double wide.

I have a vague recollection about that photograph. I believe that it is a single family home and that the designer was a famous architect. I also seem to remember that the trailers used were somewhat collectible. It is not worth researching to confirm that memory. In any case, if I built a house like that, the first thing that would happen to me would be that I broke a leg.

I have worked on some oddball houses in my day. There were two Frank Lloyd Wright houses that I worked on, both were maintenance nightmares. One we nearly had to destroy to fix a plumbing leak under the floor. When they built the hose, with concrete on grade, they put the air conditioning ducts underground, and the water piping, under that. We demolished over half the floor hunting and repairing leaks. (that was the days before the sonic leak detectors) Unlike traditional houses where we would have just abandoned the system and installed new piping, in the attic, there was just no where to put the pipes. There was no attic, no crawl space, no basement and most of the plumbing was on interior walls (the wooden ceiling was also the roof deck.) We must have done $50,000.00 in damage to fix two leaks. I felt very sorry for the poor owner.

I also worked on an architect's private home that he built where none of the rooms were on the same level, move from room to room either by going up or down stairs. The guy was an asshole, so I hope he became an invalid early in life....