Awesome Ski keep it up! I know the feeling about consuming your time! Although we don't work on our cabin all year long when we do there is not much time for anything else!! I too will be starting our 4th year this March. Not near as big or nice as your place but it sure is great to call it your own!! Good day my friend and keep on keeping on! And as Eric would say stop and enjoy it once in a while!
RC
The only difference between a rut and a Grave is the depth. So get up get out of that rut and get moving!! Time to work!!
Great one.....and you know that I'm not talkin bout yer days in California. Good ta hear from ya again. We all miss your posts but do understand your priorities. Keep goin as long as it is rewarding to you and Donnaski. You are blessed to have her and yer place. In that order. Come this winter, strap on the skates and do the hat trick! Best wishes Bob-O
Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
Thanks B'ski. Your comments touched home. So much to do ,so little time.
RC you are dead on friend !! Before I start any work I take a few minuets to revel in God's glory shared with us - one leaf , tree . fish or creature at a time.
B'ski you write the story one letter , word , sentence and paragraph at a time. Enjoy the journey and all the rest will take care of its self.
We've been drywallin' fools. Both bedrooms (and their respective closets), the guest bath, the stairway vestibule, and the hallway are all rocked (the master bath has been 90% finished for quite awhile now). We are down to the main living space and kitchen.
It's been about 4-1/2 years since we broke ground. Through this entire period, we have not had running water. Any water that we have needed was either our drinking water (which we bring in every weekend in gallon jugs), or dishwashing and hand washing water which comes in inside a 7 gallon jug with a spigot. Any other water comes from the pond. This includes buckets of pond water to flush the toilet. It also includes pond baths and showers about 7 months out of the year. Showers the other 5 colder months is warm water out of a 5 gallon Menards bucket perched on a ladder next to the shower stall. We have been doing these routines for so long that it has become normal for us. This weekend, tho, will usher in a new normal. We shook the piggy bank real hard late spring of this year and got enough jack to poke the well hole into the ground. Since that time, we have been taunted by a 5" PVC pipe sticking outta the ground with a cap on it. We finally got revenge and dropped in the pump and wired and piped it all into the mechanical room of the Gar/Apt.
The initial flush of the well ran clear almost immediately. The next few trips will be hooking up the main to the softener, the Pex mainfolds, and the water heater. We hope to have fully functional indoor plumbing before Thanksgiving.
Wow - nice work ! Time for a warm city shower this winter. The fish will be glad you are no longer stealing their water. Just think of all the plankton you have compromised.
Oh yeah...forgot to mention... We are pretty much finished with hanging drywall. There's still a bit of nip and tuck, but by and large, we are 99.5% done with the screwgun. This vid clip ends by standing right where the kitchen island with the cooktop will be located.
Brettski, I have really enjoyed your project. You are a craftsman and have a really good eye for detail. I hope you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor for many years.
Two ponds, 13 and 15 acres on the Mattaponi River.
Every project you've done has been a testament to your commitment to excellence. You've encouraged me to pay more attention to details in the projects I do. I commend you for your hard work and perseverance on jobs (like drywall) that tend to overwhelm me.
Congratulations to you and your wife on a beautiful place. You obviously want to be good stewards of LNP and God blesses good stewardship. Hope you have many years together to enjoy the fruit of your labors.
Brett what are all the recessed boxes about chest high in the big room. Nice view out those big banked windows !!!! Were those different colors of paint on the big room walls or am I seeing something else?
Brett what are all the recessed boxes about chest high in the big room. Nice view out those big banked windows !!!! Were those different colors of paint on the big room walls or am I seeing something else?
The boxes in the kitchen area are "counter top height". Past that, there is a lot of switch stuff to control all the recessed can lights and ceiling fans and task lighting over the island/cooktop. The different colors is judicious use of drywall cutoff's. We threw in a couple of pcs of the bath DW (mold/moisture resistant) just cuz we had 'em and it was better than butchering a new 12' long sheet. After it's all taped and painted, well...you know. One of Dski's gal pals commented on the fact that we had way too many windows...and why? Dski's reply had to take into consideration that the query came from a city girl...worse, a suburbanite.
Wow great work and dedication. Spectacular view of the pond! Well thought out placement.
Small tip if you would like. See attached picture of your hallway. The drywall screws that are right next to the wall you want to take them out. Keep the screw away from the wall about 6 or 8"s. You will get truss lift every season and these areas will have drywall screw pops if your too close to the interior wall. Let the drywall flex that 6-8"s.
Just a thought we see this in new construction all the time with walls that are at a 90 to the truss layout. The hot and cold of the roof system will lift and drop but your walls will not. It is a new home warranty problem in Ontario Canada.
Small tip if you would like. See attached picture of your hallway. The drywall screws that are right next to the wall you want to take them out. Keep the screw away from the wall about 6 or 8"s. You will get truss lift every season and these areas will have drywall screw pops if your too close to the interior wall. Let the drywall flex that 6-8"s.
Just a thought we see this in new construction all the time with walls that are at a 90 to the truss layout. The hot and cold of the roof system will lift and drop but your walls will not. It is a new home warranty problem in Ontario Canada.
Cheers Don.
Hey Don, Many thanks for the tip. I am all about getting it right, but my real motto is "it ain't right until it's done twice". This is not a motto by design as much as a reactive motto...it's how I roll. Perhaps we have inadvertently mitigated that issue already...? It all goes back to the floor framing. Our 16" I joists supporting the floor span 27'. It is well beyond the L/360 for live load, but when somebody jumps up and down in the middle of the floor, the guy standing next to him can feel it. So...when we constructed those subject walls in the hallway, I custom cut each stud to be a snug, tight fit between the base and top plate. Then, each one is screwed tight at every junction, including the plates into the floor and roof trusses. There are a lot of screws and the entire framing matrix is tied together very well. The result was a super improvement in the hallway...virtually no bounce. I presume that this may now also deliver dividends at the moving junction that you noted. Or not... Either way, perhaps my best plan at this point would be to leave it as is (over-engineered), and use strait-flex at those corners.
Small tip if you would like. See attached picture of your hallway. The drywall screws that are right next to the wall you want to take them out. Keep the screw away from the wall about 6 or 8"s. You will get truss lift every season and these areas will have drywall screw pops if your too close to the interior wall. Let the drywall flex that 6-8"s.
Just a thought we see this in new construction all the time with walls that are at a 90 to the truss layout. The hot and cold of the roof system will lift and drop but your walls will not. It is a new home warranty problem in Ontario Canada.
Cheers Don.
Hey Don, Many thanks for the tip. I am all about getting it right, but my real motto is "it ain't right until it's done twice". This is not a motto by design as much as a reactive motto...it's how I roll. Perhaps we have inadvertently mitigated that issue already...? It all goes back to the floor framing. Our 16" I joists supporting the floor span 27'. It is well beyond the L/360 for live load, but when somebody jumps up and down in the middle of the floor, the guy standing next to him can feel it. So...when we constructed those subject walls in the hallway, I custom cut each stud to be a snug, tight fit between the base and top plate. Then, each one is screwed tight at every junction, including the plates into the floor and roof trusses. There are a lot of screws and the entire framing matrix is tied together very well. The result was a super improvement in the hallway...virtually no bounce. I presume that this may now also deliver dividends at the moving junction that you noted. Or not... Either way, perhaps my best plan at this point would be to leave it as is (over-engineered), and use strait-flex at those corners.
Yes if the truss is screwed to the top plate your good. Here the framers never fasten the truss to the top plate. So the trusses can lift on the hallway walls and the drywall screws will pop and even some times the tape line.
Originally Posted By: bottledgt
Any reason you put plastic over your insulation? The few times ive seenn this done, it has resulted in massive sweating and water dripping.....
Plastic should always be on the hot side. If building a cooler the plastic needs to be on the outside of the cooler with insulation to the cold side. There is some areas in the US when you have high humidity and as many hot days as cool days in the year. Plastic is not needs as a vapor barrier and the walls should be left to breath. South Carolina has one of those climates where you should not use any vapor barrier.
We are making progress, but not without some headaches. I knew way-back-when that I really did not want to do the drywall taping for some 180 sheets, so we socked away some cash to pay a good taper. Well, we hired on a guy, but the relationship has become strained and we cut him loose about 1/2 way into the job. I'm not taking another chance for a subcontractor headache, so I'll just finish it myself.
The master bath has been fully completed for quite awhile. The adjoining master BR was not, so it was the first room (that has just been taped) to be primed and cleaned so we could move in. We carried all out stuff outta the shop area where have been living for the past couple of years and packed most all of it into the small'ish master BR. This then frees up the shop area for taping.
We are always grateful for passing milestones. Moving into the upstairs living area is a notable milestone for us. Yes, it is very cramped (for now), but it's progress.
and furthermore... We have been cabinet shopping; more dreaming out loud. We continue to squeeze the budget, so fancy-dance kitchen cabinets are off the radar. We are going to go with the "nice doors and frames, but cheapo particle board box" products. They are made in a shop in Napanee, IN in Amish country, but marketed as a builders quality. It looks like we are going with Maple flat panel doors and Maple frames in a very light cinnamon stain. This is a couple of our cabinet sales-guy's best efforts at signing me up.
For those of you that don't know, Mr Breski is in reality probably the best hockey player of all time (sorry Gordy). AKA Wayne Gretsky in cognito.
He used to skate around 60 mph and had a wrist shot clocked at 89 mph. With the talent and energy that he used to play with now being focused on building a dream house to rival Cecils and Bill Codys I'm very sure he can manage taping, mudding, sanding and painting. Also knowing the amount of $s he made skating, I'm sure that his continual reference to a tight budget is just a clever ploy for the rest of us to supply him with some excellent stocker fish. Really Wayne you should be very proud of all of your accomplishments. I'm sure if it were I doing all of that babysitting and work, someone would have probably been hurt by now. Best regards, Bob-O
Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
Maybe he's Gretsky and maybe he isn't. To me, he's just a guy who would go broke if he built homes commercially, has a duck nesting box design far better than mine and isn't particularly impressed with old college jokes (pie are round, cornbread are square). Maybe it was just my delivery. Now Dixie Carter - that was a girl who could REALLY tell a joke.