Just had a big hole dug in my front yard

[gregfender]

Just an observation from a newbie...

I have loved reading the posts and seeing the wealth of knowledge, readily shared by the folks on the forum. It seems if anyone ever has a problem, there are tons of problem solvers available here and I love that.

Also, I loved Iplay's simple title of the OP, "I just had a big hole dug in my front yard..."

That being said, when I title a post this spring, "I am going to build a barn...", I expect to have blueprints, wiring diagrams, construction advice, offers of help, cheap sources for lumber, etc. flooding my post for months until my final project is done!

You guys are awesome!

 

[dcyrilc]

Just an observation from a newbie...

I have loved reading the posts and seeing the wealth of knowledge, readily shared by the folks on the forum. It seems if anyone ever has a problem, there are tons of problem solvers available here and I love that.

Also, I loved Iplay's simple title of the OP, "I just had a big hole dug in my front yard..."

That being said, when I title a post this spring, "I am going to build a barn...", I expect to have blueprints, wiring diagrams, construction advice, offers of help, cheap sources for lumber, etc. flooding my post for months until my final project is done!

You guys are awesome!

:welcome: aboard.:thumbsup:

Careful what you ask for... We love spending other peoples money.:laughing:

I'll be looking forward to seeing your thread, but no sense waiting until spring. Start it now and start getting ideas for it before you actually start the project. You can get lots of great ideas and some of it may affect how you start the project.

There are a lot if options available for footings, types of posts, and types of construction which can have major impacts on how you even begin. If you expect to start construction in the spring, the time to start getting that feed back is now.:thumbsup:


Oh, and post us a link so we can find it easily.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

:welcome: aboard.:thumbsup:

Careful what you ask for... We love spending other peoples money.:laughing:

I'll be looking forward to seeing your thread, but no sense waiting until spring. Start it now and start getting ideas for it before you actually start the project. You can get lots of great ideas and some of it may affect how you start the project.

There are a lot if options available for footings, types of posts, and types of construction which can have major impacts on how you even begin. If you expect to start construction in the spring, the time to start getting that feed back is now.:thumbsup:


Oh, and post us a link so we can find it easily.

Amen.

The help is useful even early on. I love the "I'm thinking about XYZ and need some opinions" threads.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

More progress this weekend. I spent half a day crawling around scrunched in the attic installing doorbells. We have three doors that we wanted doorbells for, so I had to get two different doorbells. I couldn't find any doorbells that would accomodate more than two doors. I was able to do it with a single transformer, though.

I also ran the wire from the attic through the first floor down into the basement for a doorchime extender for each bell. If my sound insulation between the basement and upstairs has the effect I want it to, I'll likely need the door chime extenders downstairs.

Now I have to take some time and fix some floor squeaks while I have the access. I'm planning to jack up the subfloor a bit from underneath and run construction adhesive between the joist and the subfloor. I really wish I had thought further ahead and tackled the floor squeaks before I started running wire. After I married up extra joists under the kitchen floor to make up for the genius that cut through the joists to run pipe, I noticed that floor is much less springy and squeak free. I should have just continued adding extra joists all the way accross under the living room, too. To do that now would require undoing half of the wiring I've done and then running it again after I had the extra joists in. I'm not going there.

 

[dcyrilc]

More progress this weekend. I spent half a day crawling around scrunched in the attic installing doorbells. We have three doors that we wanted doorbells for, so I had to get two different doorbells. I couldn't find any doorbells that would accomodate more than two doors. I was able to do it with a single transformer, though.

I also ran the wire from the attic through the first floor down into the basement for a doorchime extender for each bell. If my sound insulation between the basement and upstairs has the effect I want it to, I'll likely need the door chime extenders downstairs.

Now I have to take some time and fix some floor squeaks while I have the access. I'm planning to jack up the subfloor a bit from underneath and run construction adhesive between the joist and the subfloor. I really wish I had thought further ahead and tackled the floor squeaks before I started running wire. After I married up extra joists under the kitchen floor to make up for the genius that cut through the joists to run pipe, I noticed that floor is much less springy and squeak free. I should have just continued adding extra joists all the way accross under the living room, too. To do that now would require undoing half of the wiring I've done and then running it again after I had the extra joists in. I'm not going there.

Oh come now, where's your sense of adventure... or is that misery.:laughing:

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Oh come now, where's your sense of adventure... or is that misery.:laughing:

:laughing:
:laughing:

It's my sense of "I have to draw the line somewhere or I'll never get this &#*% project done." Believe me, there's an obsessive compulsive part of me that is going to always wonder if it would have been better to pull out all the wire and do it the "right" way, but the other 99% of me figures no matter what I do will be better than it was.

As it sits right now, I'm just praying that my marriage can handle another few months of this. I didn't account for a divorce lawyer when I was figuring the budget for remodeling.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

:laughing:
:laughing:

It's my sense of "I have to draw the line somewhere or I'll never get this &#*% project done." Believe me, there's an obsessive compulsive part of me that is going to always wonder if it would have been better to pull out all the wire and do it the "right" way, but the other 99% of me figures no matter what I do will be better than it was.

As it sits right now, I'm just praying that my marriage can handle another few months of this. I didn't account for a divorce lawyer when I was figuring the budget for remodeling.

Sounds like you have a pretty good wife there to help you with this big project. You had better been good to her on this Valentines day....

 

[dcyrilc]

:laughing:
:laughing:

It's my sense of "I have to draw the line somewhere or I'll never get this &#*% project done." Believe me, there's an obsessive compulsive part of me that is going to always wonder if it would have been better to pull out all the wire and do it the "right" way, but the other 99% of me figures no matter what I do will be better than it was.

As it sits right now, I'm just praying that my marriage can handle another few months of this. I didn't account for a divorce lawyer when I was figuring the budget for remodeling.

Is her salon done? Make sure you give some priority to that. Might buy you some grace.

...Of course, taking her out for a nice dinner might help too.:laughing: I took the kids over to my mom's and then took my wife out for an all she can eat Dungeness Crab dinner tonight. Her's a happy girl.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Is her salon done? Make sure you give some priority to that. Might buy you some grace.

...Of course, taking her out for a nice dinner might help too.:laughing: I took the kids over to my mom's and then took my wife out for an all she can eat Dungeness Crab dinner tonight. Her's a happy girl.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

The salon is the priority.

Instead of taking her out to dinner for Valentine's day I spent an extra 3 hours at work (at her request) printing out charts, graphs, and pictures for my daughter's science fair project. My wife didn't want to print them on our printer at home because it's not as good of quality as what I have at work. I managed to print it all in the wrong font, so I suffered the wrath and then came back in and did it all over again.

This relates to the remodel because I spent Saturday running doorbell wire instead of helping with the science fair project. I'm just throwing this out there for those of you considering similar projects. You don't realize how much of an affect it has on the rest of your family until you're in the middle of it.

I have a co-worker who had a small chimney fire a few years ago. The stress of the fight with the insurance company and the restoration has nearly ended his marriage. To top it off, the same thing happened to him again last week. It was nearly three years to the day from the first fire.

 

[dcyrilc]

The salon is the priority.

Instead of taking her out to dinner for Valentine's day I spent an extra 3 hours at work (at her request) printing out charts, graphs, and pictures for my daughter's science fair project. My wife didn't want to print them on our printer at home because it's not as good of quality as what I have at work. I managed to print it all in the wrong font, so I suffered the wrath and then came back in and did it all over again.

This relates to the remodel because I spent Saturday running doorbell wire instead of helping with the science fair project. I'm just throwing this out there for those of you considering similar projects. You don't realize how much of an affect it has on the rest of your family until you're in the middle of it.

I have a co-worker who had a small chimney fire a few years ago. The stress of the fight with the insurance company and the restoration has nearly ended his marriage. To top it off, the same thing happened to him again last week. It was nearly three years to the day from the first fire.

I can completely relate to this as we don't live on the farm. I get complaints regularly durring the summer when I'm trying to get things done that I'm never home. The reality is that I'm still home by 7-8:00 instead of 5:00, but it must seem later to her. I think what it is is that she want's to serve dinner at 6:00ish and I'm not home. Tough to get anything done if you're not there.