My Big Fat Renovation

[67ChevyRedneck]

I'm still trying to figure out this night shift bull****, if I was still on days this damn thing would have been done in August. Anyway, more progress. The doors are basically done (yes, they don't match, I ran out of trim boards).

I also installed my 4x4 cedar "foundation wall" It's mostly just to keep critters from trying to dig in from underneath. I'm going to build up a bank around it a few inches from the top of the foundation wall.

I also started on the eaves. I'm going to be able to math each end, but when I do the sides, because of the angle of the roof I'm not going to be able to match up the lines anymore. Oh well, I'll just make sure each side looks consistent.

Oh, and I have a crapload of trim planned for this baby and a cool color picked out...

I've also been working on some "inside" projects... some more on those in a few weeks, probably longer though

[VA72C10]

Looks good!!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks to hail, state farm, and guy roofing we have a new roof. They did architectural for the cost of the 20 year flat ones. I "supervised" (but stayed out of the way because they did a great job) and everything looked great. All the plywood looked good. We love it, it makes the house look a lot newer than it is.

[67ChevyRedneck]

A progress shot. It took them a full two days. They did the main house, part of the porch, and removed/covered the garage roof the first day, then finished up and cleaned up the second day.

Oh... and my NEW TOY!!! I love this thing.

[oldblue1968chevy]

Wow just read all of this, great job you are talanted!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks man. I'm just not afraid to try stuff. I make mistakes, I learn from them and move on.

So I braved the bitter cold (45*) and headed outside for a couple days. I was able to get a lot done.

This is the "left side" of the shed, the side with the concrete floor. I sealed it off as best I could to try and keep critters out. The doors overlap and I put a base plate at the bottom of the doors with a seal to help keep little mice out. It probably won't matter, but I hope to keep them out. This is where I'm going to store "nice stuff." Christmas tree and other assorted decorations will be in here. As well as the interior stuff from the Firebird and whatever else I can fit in here.

1. I went with a double shelf. The heights were set based on the storage bins we have. There should be a couple inches left over with 2 stacked on top of each other. The sides are 20" wide while the back wall shelf is 24". It's pretty stout. I can jump on it and it doesn't budge. I also got a little fancy with the walls. I bought the cheap 1/4" flake board crap just to make the walls look prettier. The stud look is out I am going to leave the ceiling open for ventilation though, I still need to install my vents in the front and back of the shed.

2. Sweet.

3. My new Deere fits with plenty of room to spare.

4. The nose even clears under the front shelf.

5. I also started closing it off. I'd like to be completely done in early spring, paint and all.

[VA72C10]

Nice! Those shelves look like the best way to utilize the space!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Yeah, 2/3's of the right side is already full of Christmas stuff. My wife LOVES to decorate. We love our house, but even thought it's "modern" (built in 99) I feel we got gyped in storage. There's a small pantry under the staircase and a laundry room that leads to the garage, but no other storage downstairs. No area for coats or vacuum, etc.

The upstairs is the same, each room has a small closet and there's a small hall closet, but that's it. For the size of the house (I think 2,400sf) the storage is piss poor.

Forgot to mention that we had the roof replaced and one tiny area of plywood needed to be replaced. About 6" x 2' where a vine grew up the side of the house, under the gutter, and lifted the shingles (damn previous owners). When the bad piece was cut out I saw that the garage roof trusses had a brace that would prohibit my idea of cutting doors into the walls of the bonus room above the garage and using that for storage. Bummer, but glad I saw it before I cut sheetrock.

On the other side, I think I'm only going to do a double 24" shelf along the back wall because I want to be able to stack fenders and hoods along the sides. That will be my car junk side!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Found a couple pics of the roof I took. It was done back in November. Guy Roofing did a great job. It took them 2 days. We got 30 year architectual shingles for the price of the regular flat ones. We also got new gutters and I got about a grand for my shed. We only paid our $1000 deductable. I think all together everything was 11 grand!

Edit: I was really tired last night and didn't realize I had already posted the roof pics... on the same page. I tried to delete them, but I got a message saying I only have 30 minutes to edit them. Oops....

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Sometimes you have to take a step back. The house was built in 1999 so it's time for a thing or two to go wrong. This time it was the upstairs stand up shower. The drain was dripping. It created about a 3" diameter brown spot. Since I hate using the damn thing (too small, I bang my elbows so I use the other bathrooms shower) my wife is the only one that uses it so it's probably been dripping for quite a while. It was about 20-30 seconds between drips. I got it all fixed and it's been about a month. No leak so I'll probably fix this soon

2. Oh hells yes! Almost ready for paint!

3. Nice.

4. Wife bugged the hell out of me for a planter box. This shut her up.

5. The foliage is little trees I cut down that were growin in my fence... anyway, I'm going to put a small (probably 6") retaining wall in the back, and maybe a perforated pipe drain and stone to keep water off the back. I'm also going to have to put gutters up. Roof is too big, the water that comes off of it kills the ground below (see pic of planter box above.)

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and this is nowhere near all I've been working on...

[67ChevyRedneck]

I have to bump this back to the top... it's a few months shy of 2 years since I've added to it

This thread was a big part of my motivation for getting things done. I need that help again. I have a very large accumulation of new parts in the garage with no time to put them on anything... why? Because I promised the wife to have the bonus room done in the next week or two.

So what have I been up to? A lot of work that wasn't "post worthy." Lots and lots and lots of trim work with lots and lots and lots of caulking, re caulking, and sanding, sanding, sanding...

That's not all. Since this thread, I left my auto manufacturing job in April 2012, but not before I got my $3,000 production bonus (that I earned, it's from the previous year!), sold this for $4,000 (only $200 less than I paid for it in 2008):



Combined that with my bonus and some money I had saved up and bought this:



But it had some issues, so I fixed a bunch of leaks and replaced the crappy factory air with Vintage Air:





Gutted the interior for dynamat, modern stereo hidden in the center console and front and rear 3 point seat belts:













...and the biggest visual change to the car:



Click the link in my signature for a detailed thread on the car.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Bored yet?

From there, I took a job as an Engineer (YES! ) with a geotechnical (dirt & construction materials testing) firm. They paid me well, but it was not the job I was promised in my interview. I was supposed to be an office engineer that wrote reports, did some lab work, and short/quick field inspections. It turned into 95% field work (sometimes 14-15 hour days) with 60+ hour weeks and lots of Saturdays. HATED that job. I was either too tired or not home at all to get anything done. It's amazing how much work I actually did get done on the house and Mustang during that time!

I left that job in June of this year. For what? A civil site design/land development job Great pay and hours, hardly any weekends (the Saturdays I have worked have just been a few hours to catch up). For those that don't know, this is the same work I did from 2004-2008 before the economy took a giant poop on everyone. We're crazy busy, have worked lined up for the next couple of years, and I got my first Christmas bonus since 2007.

Which leads me to my current problem. I have a new front suspension for the mustang, a new crate engine, AAW harness, and drop kit (ordering next week) sitting in the garage for the C10... and I can't start to work on them until this last room is done!

[67ChevyRedneck]

I'll catch up everything on the rest of the house later, so for now here's the room I'm working on. It's a 22'x12' above the garage. It's going to be an exercise/lounge/play room. My wife has tons of crap she wants to store for her holiday decorations. Most of it is in the shed or attic, but a good bit of it needs to be in more of climate controlled area. The room already had the closet from an adjacent room cutting into it, so I just built a 4'x4' closet in the room itself. It still leaves an 18'x12' room.

What I started with (carpet was removed and replaced in July 2009, these pics are old!)

[67ChevyRedneck]

Start of the new closet. Scary cutting $$$ new carpet! I used tack strips against the new walls to hold the carpet back down.

1. Needed to move some wires around and create a junction box, the existing light/fan switch were where the new wall needed to go!

2. New stuff.

3. Roughing in walls. If you're curious, yes, the new "side" wall is right where a roof joist is, so it's not glued to the wall or anything like that The wall the door is on is perpendicular so I was able to hit the studs.

4 & 5. Total overkill, but the walls were up!

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. All closed in

2. Every single "room" in this house now has crown molding, closets are no exception!

3 & 4. Wall repairs and texturing to blend with old texture.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1-4. Sanded entire walls and ceilings to knock down some of the texture lumps, poor quality repairs and paint runs from previous owners, fixing all the previous owner's holes, blending everything in, and added the crown and base moldings.

5. New texture and crown on the closet addition.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Everything in primer!

1. Primer

2. Ceiling painted and new ceiling fan installed.

3. Color test. I did not like at first, wife loved it.

4. More primer.

5. More boring primer.

[67ChevyRedneck]

COLOR!!! Believe it or not, the color has been on since mid September... then I lost a week and two weekends to a trip to FL, then another 5 saturdays to Clemson games and tailgating (actually went to 5 games this year), then the holidays, yard work, etc slowed me up a bunch. Back on track now and trying to finish. The crown has been painted, working on sanding all the holes I filled, painting the lower trim, and building another custom closet!

1. Bad pic...

2. This is pretty accurate to how the color looks, I love it now.

3. Start of another custom closet.

Yes, I use A LOT of tape. probably gone through a couple hundred dollars worth since I started (no joke). I have OCD, or ADD, or some crap or combination and I have to have sharp lines for all my paint and trim work. I even go back and touch it up if there was a tiny bleed under spot (even if it was the size of a pencil tip no one would ever see.)

[67ChevyRedneck]

I'll post more before/after pics later. Entire downstairs is done except for the front door and pantry. Can't wait to show y'all what I did with the upstairs hallway!

For now, I'll leave you with a pic of my garage, I've only completed one wall, but you can see the look I'm going for!

New compressor, hot water heater (old one about to die) and new fireplace for bonus room!

...and the crate for the C10

[67ChevyRedneck]

I seem to have lost some pics... going through old folders trying to find/organize everything. I found more garage pics.

1. Stared with a bare Garage. No shelves, nada.

2. Added Cheap cabinets

3. New work bench

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Found these at Hobby Lobby. They have all their car stuff 1/2 off like every other week.

2 & 3. What's awesome is that they're pretty much exact copies of 1st gen camaro/firebird door handles. I don't know what other vehicles GM may have used these on.

4. Mounted on Cabinets.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Start of garage paint and signs.

You may be thinking that's crazy. Meh, I've always wanted a super cool garage. My "would love to happen" plan is this garage becomes a hang out area where I park two of my finished rides and I build a shop in the side/back yard to work on stuff... who knows if and when that will ever happen? Anyone have 30K they don't need?

[67ChevyRedneck]

"Extra" bedroom complete: Before and after pics:

Had to dig for these...

1. How it looked when we bought the house... I really have no explanation for the carpets... if you go back to the begining of this thread I ripped all the carpets out the day I got the keys.

2. It was very blue...

3. Nasty carpet gone.

4 & 5. Some of the wall repair.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Old closet stripped.

2-4. New closet built. These shelves can hold some serious weight!