non-turbo projects
 

Just buy my first condo. it's been consuming me for the past week, infact don't have enough time for the car and i'm already missing out in the first events of the season.

thought I'd share some of the work I've done so far


Cloest re-do:

turning "dressing area" into linen closet:

fixture in bathroom:

are you gonna rent it out or live in it?

replaced stove, dishwasher (got them for free!) and new microwave:

50" plasma (the wall is lonely):

I'll have it on the 12th....

i wouldn't have put a lick of effort into it and rent it out, i'm going to be living there.

Congrats on the new place. I'm part way through building a house, and getting my Condo in shape to sell in about a month. Hectic doesn't even describe it! :)

You didn't post the most important pictures of all ... the garage!

garage?! In Arlington, is there such a thing!?!


that's what the parents are for! I work about 5 mins from their house and do all my work during lunch there ;)

acutally we looked at a place in the same building with a garage, but the lack of living space wasn't worth it. our offer would have been accepted, but we withdrew it and went for a place with the same sq. footage, but lots more living space.

housing here sucks, its so expensive, if i lived 10-15 miles more west then i could afford a 4 bedroom townhouse with a garage for the same price, but that would also mean an extra 1-2hour drive to the district in rush hour.

He doesn't need a garage.. his parents have one close by!

Congrats on the new place.

I was in your shoes just a few months ago. I did the kitchen appliances, closet shelves, etc. We also did new paint all over (but hired a painting crew because I was on crutches still), new flooring everywhere, all new plumbing fixtures (kitchen sink, all faucets, all shower/tub valves, and all toilets), new hot water heater & prv valve, new counter tops in the kitchen (granite ftw), new fancy lookin' blinds, new doorknobs and door hardware, and all new light fixtures and fans inside, and new light fixtures outside.

<edit> I forgot new light switches and electrical outlets

I am now a poor man.

yeah, paint crew in coming on the 21st.

acutally the way we worked out our current rent and mortgage, we dont pay anything for a month and a half, so it worked out good for extra $$$ for the projects. the place didn't need much, but it was stuck in the 80s.

we are planning on redoing the cabinets and doing granite in a few months, but for now i think we got our hands full.

i still gotta finish the wall for the lienen cloest, put the switch on the other side of the wall hang the doors and remove the light bar, then put a new fixture in the new "hallway" ceiling.

then i gotta wire my tv and speakers.

update all the light fixtures.

then it should be ready to move in, should be a pretty sweet little place when we are done.

It's great you got the new place. Now you can spend a couple of years making it perfect, just in time to sell, like I did:D .

Sucks about the cost vs commute calculation, I have the same deal where I live - a 75-min commute just so I can live indoors. Just be careful, cause condo associations have a way of pressing noobs into serving on the board before they learn what a bunch of psychos they'll be dealing with.

Nice! Just don't overwhelm yourself and ignore the poor Miata and forget about us all on the board!

IMO that's best way to enjoy your "investment".

I just finished the lights/electrical, and sheetrocked the ceiling last weekend in the new nursery. This is my 15th year in this house and I don't think a single year has gone by w/o a project of some type.

This weekend will be installing new windows, and crown/picture mould.

Damn Rob, you know you they also make "retro cans" for old construction. Would have been easier than cutting up all that rock for the new construction cans.

damn.

so I'm building a workbench.

I did not see any place for the computer station or the bookshelf for all the books and manuals for the Miata.

The place looks great by the way. When I was single, I had a cool place like that. But now I am building my third home, 3500 sq ft of living space and 4000 sq ft of garage for my toys and shop tools.

I cant wait till Im a home owner and I can build a bad ass work bench. Im going to buy a place to build a table. fuck yeah. just for reference Ive picked garage over living space everytime. every single time. :)

congrats braineack

Gotta cut up the ceiling anyway to run the wiring. I got the deal on those lights- less than half what HD costs and it's better product. Plus it ain't always easy getting the reno cans to work on the lathe and plaster since it can get really thick.

Looks like Braineack will have the perfect theater to review those track event videos.

haha, i wish I were a homeowner. I just spend the ridiculous extra amount on a garage. it's not easy living on capitol hill and having one... but I do like to keep it organized.


...
yeah hey scott, I'll try to get some awesome drift / racing / car vids if you let us all mess up your house.

I have been remodeling an old home for the better part of a year and a half. just moved in this past weekend. I'm slow, but i'm thorough. ;)

We're talking ground up restoration. This house was built in the 60's and had never been remodeled. We tore out all the paneling and put in sheetrock. We reran all the wiring from the fusebox (replaced with breaker box). Installed laminate hardwood floors in most of the living areas and porcelain tile in the kitchen and bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, we knocked down a wall into an adjoining closet and doubled the size of the bathroom. We installed all new doors and new windows.

This past weekend, the Directv was installed and the internet was hooked up (DSL). I had a 42" plasma in my house before I had a working shower. :)

:eek: Scott's living room is missing a kegerator. That might complete the decor for the ultimate bench racing room - eh?

So nobody is living in their cars? ;)

Any sheetrock tips? I've done stuff in my garage and basement that I didn't need to finish really well when I put recessed lights in. Now my wife wants me to put 4 lights in the living room just like you did, along with running friggin wiring through the studs, so I'll have a lot of patching. And it will have to look good. I'll be using old construction cans vs the between the studs cans, but still need to rip up the sheetrock to drill through studs.

Do you use fiberglass mesh tape or flat tape and then sand?

Thanks,
Frank

Heh you should have asked :nono:
I have the tools (drills, bits, fiber cam, glow rods, etc) to pull wires through without having to trench up the ceiling.

This was the first room I used these cans on - the others were reno, put in after the sheet rock went up. I've always "trenched" the ceiling because it's so quick- cut it, rip it down and drill the holes. Slap up the sheet rock and the holes are gone. :D

new place means a party call up the strippers and midgets with nacho hats on!

grats on ze hizzy fo shizzy

Hey, get to my flywheel damnit ;)

Looks like some awesome progress man, we've done that kinda of work at home and it takes up a TON of time.

http://www.hammerzone.com/archives/i...air/large.html

frank- use the mesh tape for sure. Way stronger and easier to work in with the mud. It's like painting- better to do a few thinner layers rather than a thick one. And it's said that a good "mudder" doesn't need to sand. That means a 12" blade to taper out the mud from the center peak over the seam. I usually resort to sanding though, on the count that the more I mess with it the worse it gets. And get a philips driver bit that's made for sheet rock- it'll let you drive the screw in with a perfect countersink w/o popping through the board.

Maybe Ben can let you in on his trick for drilling through the studs without having to rip out the sheetrock?

Usually can be accomplished with a drill, flexbit, gloves, and some glow rods. Acess into the wall is granted at the hole that you cut for the old construction can/workbox/speaker/etc. Insert the flex bit, go slow as the bit penetrates each stud incase there's something on its back side. You'll have to bend and guide the flexbit with the hand that's not on the drill (that's why you wear gloves). Go through each stud until you've reached the next access hole location. If your flex bit isn't long enough, work until it's out of length, then go the next location and drill towards the first location to "meet in the middle" like how they bore for tunnels.

To get the wires through your penetrations, tape them tightly to the tip of the glow rod, and insert the glow rod and wire through your first access hole and then through the holes in the studs. Sometimes you'll need to thread a couple of glow rods together to make a longer rod. Have a helper reach their arm into the second access hole. Eventually, the helper will be able to grab the leading end of the rod and pull it out of the second access hole. This is pretty similar to taping a wire to the end of a coat hanger and shoving it through a firewall grommet and having your wife pull it through as you push it.

Much easier than those large sheetrock patches (yuck!). In rooms with recessed lighting (can lights) I can typically retro a wire across without having to cut any holes across the span of the ceiling. Of course, you have to cut at the top plates to get the wires to "turn the corner" into the wall though.

Here was my non turbo project this fall. My garage. I only have an after pic for now. You can see in one picture that the window trip is taped and the trim is ready for paint.
http://www.msprotege.com/members/melicha8/garage1.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/melicha8/garage2.JPG
I was finished in time to take on another non turbo project
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...earquarter.JPG

The flex bit doesn't like my "real" 2-bys, nor the fact that the floor joists are scab'd and dubl scab's from the second floor addition. Works fine on normal pine studs though.

Got the workbench 99% done.

http://www.y8s.com/albums/projects/DSC00142.jpg

Nice. Potential upgrade: IKEA has some very cool nylon wheeled casters

casters are a possibility. the real problem? all that junk on the left where the bench should be. mmm DIY turbo tub (begi IC on top)

anyone need a microwave or two semi-decent CRT monitors? one 15 and one 17...

we just took 10 17" monitors to the recycler today. ;)

closet's done:

tv gets mounted today and then removed to patch and repaint the entire place

(i would have done it yesterday, but i forgot my 1/2" concrete bit)

that fireplace is bad ass. I'm diggin the brick and trim they used. :bigtu:

Scott you're doing it up right- running all the wires in the walls is the only way to go. I have no cables/wires showing anywhere- everything is thru the walls/ceiling.

yeah I just hope the tv hides the retro boxes once it's mounted.

Does that pic show your 2 bys anchored into the concrete?

it will.


yeah. not much of a gap (1"), so they are primarily just for filler between the concrete and drywall. I'll be using those 1/2" concrete anchors and just drilling through the "studs"


I also had to rip off all that paint around the hole on the left....some sort of water penetration that never dried and the paint sealed it in and was a big bubble.

good job man!

the only other thing is you'll want to get a "nose plate" from Home Depot for the equipment side retro box. And pull the cables through the nose plate before you hook them up to the equipment. I forget to do that about once a month, and get to yank out all the wires and start again. :gay:

and you dont like those pink walls?! (yeah it's really pink, looks taupe in the pics, the stripe is like a maroony tera-cotta :td:)

dude the house I bought had salmon pink, yellow, hemi orange, dark green, light green, and purple walls. Some rooms got special 2 tone treatments. And grass green carpet. :crx:

Let's just say I had to paint the entire house and get new carpet in all carpeted rooms. (the wood and tile floors are OK, though I had to knock out the tile shower in the master bath cuz it looked like shit).

my house had ivey green walls... because the ivey was growing inside of it through the old windows :gtfo:

it's been in the 60's and 70's now for two weeks and I still have 8"+ of snow in the front yard.
Yesterday I cleaned the garage, tok everything out and swept, hosed, scrubbed with degreaser and hosed again.

picked up a new 450lb gunsafe by myself

and cleaned my office.

Hell, no wonder you want that machine gun.

you'd think the dirty fuckers I bought it from would help load it but NOOOO they wheeled it out on a pallet jack and then all dissapeared.

lol, :pitlab: whats a bunch of jackasses

sorry camera phone:

Is that the Panasonic 50"?

yeah.