Official Show Home Improvements Thread

[ducpainter]

I thought you said a big rock?

[herm]

i need to buy another home before i can rejoin the club......

this should happen 1 week from now if all goes as planned.

[lethe]

I thought you said a big rock?

Well any bigger and it would take something bigger to get it out. Trust me I know what a biiiiig rock is, plenty of them around here too. If I uncovered something the size of my house it would have to stay there.

[ducpainter]

Well any bigger and it would take something bigger to get it out. Trust me I know what a biiiiig rock is, plenty of them around here too. If I uncovered something the size of my house it would have to stay there.

Several years ago I was going to put in a green house where only the glazing would be above ground.

In the process of digging the hole we found two rocks the machine couldn't lift they were both easily 5' square. They were so close they were touching.

One we dug a deeper hole and buried...the other determined the end of the green house.

I never built it and filled in the hole.

[lethe]

Several years ago I was going to put in a green house where only the glazing would be above ground.

In the process of digging the hole we found two rocks the machine couldn't lift they were both easily 5' square. They were so close they were touching.

One we dug a deeper hole and buried...the other determined the end of the green house.

I never built it and filled in the hole.

i'm going to go out and measure it later but a quick guess is 5' x 2' x 3'

[herm]

with those dimensions, you call it a granite ledge, and build on it!

[RAT900]

4th Base Asheville N.C....Before Pictures.  My daughter named it 4th base since we are a stones toss from McCormick Field...home of the world famous Asheville Tourists Farm League Team. An arial view of the stadium has the house on a continued direct line running beyond 3rd base from second base. Built in 1920...bungalow in the traditional Craftsman/Arts and Crafts Movement style...so we had visions of the school of Gustav Stickley carpenters lovingly building this gem.....upon rebuild we were convinced a gaggle of back-hollow shine soaked nail-pounders were turned loose with a pile of lumber....I exaggerate it was actually well made and then spent 90 years being neglected and slap-dashed.

The old White Oak tree was the dilemma...we thought the front porch beam over the rail was sagging (to the left of the left stair pillar)....it was not sagging that turned out to be the fulcrum/pivot point where the entire left side of the house was heaved up by the tree roots...we called it the optical delusion once we got out the string and torpedoes and plumbed the entire front and realized the tree had not only grown into the roof over 90 years it had raised the porch foundation a good 4-6 or so inches IIRC.  So it was either take out the tree or accommodate it....we went for accommodating the tree...after all it was there a few 100 years before the house was..so from the Zen perspective the house was the encroacher...the neighborhood applauded our decision to leave the old growth tree in place....anyway it is as Gustav Stickley would have preferred it...harmony with nature ablah ablah....so we went to work harmonizing

[RAT900]

4th Base Asheville N.C. During  As you can see in the photos the only way for us to re-square the porch, the roof and all was to taper the sill plate sitting on top of the heaved stone foundation and also lower the truss work supporting the porch deck. Pictures include my son-in-law Dave....he and I are pretty much math morons so we had a grand old time getting the geometry sorted out.  We don't like using bottle jacks but we had no choice....if you have ever seen one kick-out under load you would appreciate that.  So we had a friend weld up some plate collars for the beam bottoms and the jack tops so we could pretend they were safer. We ran the pressure treated beams to the foundation and once we re-decked we boxed around them to proper scale...we figure we allowed enough over-slack for the tree to keep going for another for another 60-70 years before it hits the house again...and for certain it won't be my problem by then

[RAT900]

4th Base Asheville N.C. AFTER

Here is how it looks now. We have all the railings back up, re-roofed (there was no underlayment at all when we pulled the old roof, just shingles on the wood...we replaced all the knee-braces that support the eave overhangs with solid pressure beams...the old ones were plank box and rotted out...... the eave facia boards were rotted out so I had a mill in Tennessee cut new planks as they are a length that no one stocks.....we cut the eave overhangs back 3 inches to get rid of the rotted ends so there was something to nail the facia boards to...... went with old-style half-round gutters... I was going to go with copper but the gutter guy guaranteed me that the copper would be stripped off the house for scrap while I slept...so galvanized metal it was....still consistent with the materials of the era and cheaper...still a work in progress but it is a stabilized structure now

[herm]

 

nice work. always happy to see when folks choose to work with nature rather than beat it into submission.

[angler]

Love threads like this, although I could give a shit about SacDuc's stuff 

See this thread for the latest project http://ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=32276.0

Still not finished - this has been a busier winter than expected. Still have to make bar top, tile under bar and install new hardwood floors (either maple, hickory or good bamboo - any suggestions?).

Over the weekend, I picked up two big curved pieces of driftwood to go over the gates to my yard.  Excited about those.  I built the fence (only picture I could find).



I built the shed too.  I bought my house in 2001.  It was built in 1946 and had been a rental for the last 30 years.  I have pretty much gutted the entire thing.  I added a bath in the basement and finished it (after installing a sump pump and drainage) into a laundry/pantry, full bath, storage and guest bedroom. 

I can sympathize with New England rocks.  I replace the water main at my GF's former house in Newmarket, NH.  Rented a bobcat excavator and had that thing "balanced" many times pulling boulders out.  I found it pretty amazing that they would backfill the pipe trench with enormous boulders.  I used them to build a set of steps and some artful rock piles.

[Popeye the Sailor]

Old fireplace



Removed



Cleaned up



Installed



Pre-paint



Post paint





Also redid the garage, bathroom, and am building a shed. Need to actually take pics for once.

[Triple J]

I'll preface this by saying I absolutely hate working on my house. BUT...I'm too poor to pay someone else to do most of it.  

Basement when my wife and I bought it. Finished with 2 small bedrooms and a large, pretty much useless space.


Same basement after we got about 5" rain in 24 hours the day before Thanksgiving 3 years ago. Note the water on the floor.   As a geotechnical engineer I knew this was a possibility when I bought the house, but DAMN...it could've have waited at least a couple years after I moved in.



Installing edge drain system (haven't had a flooding problem since it was installed). Also includes panning on the walls which tie into the edge drain (not installed when pic taken).


We decided to remodel the basement into a modern master bedroom and bath. The house was built in 1946...when large bedrooms/bathrooms were non-existent. Need a window well for emergency egress (and code). Demo...the best part of remodeling!  

Small window before:


Compliments of a large handheld concrete saw:


Finished, and to code:


Pretty early in the process of framing:


It's been done for a couple years now and is MUCH nicer than before. I don't have any pics on this computer though.   Turns out the flood was a good thing. The previous owner didn't have a clue what he was doing, and all of his "remodel" work was pure shit.

[The Architect]

I'll preface this by saying I absolutely hate working on my house. BUT...I'm too poor to pay someone else to do most of it.  

This is a tune I know all to well.    

Rat, we worked on a house that had a tree similar to that but it had to go.  Between that tree and a two smaller oaks we got over 2,000 square feet of flooring out of it.  And at 1/3 the cost of store bought flooring.


My latest battle in the war of home improvements.


100_2969 by anzalone22, on Flickr

[the_Journeyman]

Old Bath:




Destruction:




Work crew on break:






Finished:










We've got another one to do too!

JM