My Big Fat Renovation

[67ChevyRedneck]

And my neighbor asked if I could help trim his tree. It was hanging way over his house and I guess while we were on vacation a huge branch collapsed and barely missed their house. I was glad to do it, it was going to be hanging over when my garage will be. He has a friend that will come to take the rest of it down.

[tune_1]

Jesse the renovation looks great and looks close to the finish. Great find on the 68. Was wondering when you would start the 67 when I saw that you bought the 68.

Dwight

[67ChevyRedneck]

Yea, my dad claims he want's the 67 back, but I'm trying to convince him to let me sell it and send him the $ to work on his other projects. It really needs to go to someone with a ton of skill or deep pockets. It's worth saving, just needs A LOT of time AND money! I am going to swipe the 400 out of it though...

The outside will have to come to an end this weekend! The bucket truck is leaving my house sunday night! I know I can finish the tin and shutters this weekend, but I had a lot of tree work I wanted to do too, so I'll be really busy this weekend! I mostly need to top the 40' leelands where my garage will be so we can safely drop them this fall without hitting anything.

Of course it's been raining non stop since tuesday. I was able to finish the tin across the front monday night.

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

My dream would be to have it finished on Sunday, May 27th and sit my ass on the deck all day Memorial day, but probably not...

Gotta love my own optimism

I can explain what happened though... I broke the mustang like a week before the power tour and had to spend almost the whole weekend fixing the brakes (original Kelsey Hayes disc we sticking from internal dirt and pitted rust ) which required an emergency drive all the way to Charlotte and back to pick up new calipers because I wasn't going to have time to do it during the week. Power tour killed two weekends in June, then I got really behind at work from being out for a week and had to work the weekend I got back. I got one weekend in on the house, then had our Grand Canyon/Hoover Dam/Cali trip took two weekends, and before I knew it, it was mid July and the house was basically where it was in late May

[mongocanfly]

Excuses excuses.....haha...looks good

[69CST4x4SWB]

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

This is what i drug home. A 1968 Pontiac Firebird .

NICE SCORE BRO!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

More. On to the front, and more problems. The left corner was all sorts of effed up. It was somehow pulled in about an inch in both directions. Straightened that out, then the majority of the rest of the face board was twisted to I made a ton of braces and got it back straight.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And of course, the little A-frame thing had NO bracing None.

Added bracing.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Exhausting weekend. Upper part of the house is done. Soffit on, shutters on, AND upper half pressure washed. I also cut down a tree and trimmed 5 more.

The lift truck is gone

I'll get the rest of the tin and shutters up this week/weekend (except under the porch, still planning on doing the new wood ceiling under there... and the porch soffit needs to be redone - its actually easier on ladder than truck when that "low") and I think I'm calling it quits for a few weeks. These 70 hour weeks are exhausting.

*I am excited about the bird, but it's under an $ all weather cover right now. I'm going to try to ignore it. I can't really do anything with it or to it until my new garage is built. I would just be working on it in the driveway. If it wasn't one of the most rust free OEM paneled cars I've ever seen (that's not restored) I wouldn't have bought it.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I can't win with this house. I've always wanted to do a wood slat ceiling with a Haint blue paint. I got started on it this weekend and found an absolute cluster F under there. I'm still in awe. My house was completely open between the 1st and 2nd floor with just some insulation stuffed in the opening. No wonder we got critters every couple of years.

That's not even the worst part... the truss (i use that term loosely) that hold my porch roof up are so half assed... They're sitting on a single 2x4 and are +/-2" away from the face of the house... not tied in at all.

I started to close the walls off, but had other things to get done.

Also notice the area above the door has no upper braces, just nailed to the wall...

[67ChevyRedneck]

The area above the door bump out just had a piece of insulation sitting on it. Like I was literally touching the top of the ceiling sheetrock.

I framed it out, put the insulation back in, and closed it.

Everything i do under here will be ugly, but should significantly help structurally. I plan to brace the trusses better, tie them to the house.

I'll also have to "relevel" the ceiling with new 2x6 joists because it's so cattywhompus, I want the ceiling to look really good.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Finished the back of the house. All of the trim is up, shutters are all up, house pressure washed, deck cleaned up, and the yard around the house was all cleaned up.

I love it. I just wish I could get it to photograph in the same color

[Advanced Design]

Looks really good! You are certainly skilled with this type of work.

Seems like there are a number of build quality issues you are fixing. Wonder why the builder missed those items?

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks! Sometimes I think I like this stuff more than cars, but I do get tired of it after a while and need a 6+ month break from it

I have to force myself to finish now so I can get the plans rolling on the garage/shop!

I actually know who built it... lets just say they went under at the end of 2008 when everything crashed.

I freak my neighbor out all the time when I tell him about all the stuff I find. My neighborhood is old and most houses were built one at a time since the 80's/90's, but mine and my neighbors house were built as a pair by Action Builders at the same time in 1998.

[mongocanfly]

Wow...what a mess...at least you are fixing it...Looks good...

[67ChevyRedneck]

I didn't get a ton done, I'm out of vacation time for the year, so I did want to kinda enjoy the long weekend a bit. I got the C10 out a couple times. My poor Mustang is kinda buried under "house stuff" and it's too much of a PIA to dig out at the moment.

I got a game plan and started bracing everything. It's hard to see, but there were these short 2x4's that were actually strapped/tied REALLY WELL to the floor joists... that were completely unused for some reason. So I cut 2x4's to sit on top of them, then relief cut 2x6's to sister to the existing 2x4 roof truss AND sit on top of the cross braces I just added, and then nailed and added a bracket to the newly braced 2x4's. Why this wasn't done in the first place... it would have been so easy when it was being built.

[67ChevyRedneck]

All of the critter holes are closed up and sealed off.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I finished the bracing above the door, didn't grab a pic though. I used the header and notched 2x6's to support it.

....and I ended the weekend with one of my favorite activities.

[Palf70Step]

[72 tigger]

Looks good, keep up the fine work! I do feel a little sorry for the critters that'll be out in the cold this winter

[67ChevyRedneck]

I don't feel bad for 'em, we've had a couple die in the attic and between the floors. Attic were easy to find/get, luckily the couple that have died in the floors were near the bathroom vents and I could get to them. Stinky.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Work has really gotten in the way of finishing this up, put in 55-60 hour weeks the past couple of weeks. We lost 2 good engineers over the past month, it's crazy out there. I have recruiters bugging me constantly.

I was able to squeeze in finishing up all the bracing and I got my "false" ceiling about 2/3 up.

What's odd, is the floor is pretty level, the roof against the house is pretty level, but the roof at the front of the porch is way the eff off. It was off almost 2 inches. I don't see any settlement cracks or signs of sinking... so it was apparently built like that, so I had to cheat on both sides to fit what would look the best and not look obviously crooked. Once i had the ends figured out, I ran a chalk and string lines on each side.

My pic makes it look weird, it's actually level from front of house to front of deck (pic makes it look slanted down to left), it's side to side where I had to fudge it.

[67ChevyRedneck]

This is why there was a vinyl ceiling up. The joists are all various levels of crooked from each other. Again, it's odd the roof appears to be fairly level and flat.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Progress has been slow... the 60 hour work weeks have continued... :/

I did manage to finish the false ceiling and half the bracing.

And I still keep finding "WTF" things... Like the hip joist that makes up the 45* bend on the roof... had a solid +/-1" gap from actually sitting on the sill... Fixed it the best I could...

[67ChevyRedneck]

More of false ceiling up.

I know nailing the side supports to the truss aren't doing much support, I did it mostly to "stiffen it up", they shouldn't really need support with as short as they are.

I also added bracing between the truss.

I haven't been up there yet, but I imagine the roof will feel immensely more firm.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Only the 2nd time I've shot myself in the finger with the nail gun. It just barely caught the edge right next to my nail, was very lucky.