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Full Moon Friday Garage w/ attached house

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Quarantine protocol project

 

since everything is closed in PA and we knew this was coming we stocked up and bought a lot of materials to redo the basement.  I didn't get a starting picture but so be it.  trying to get more while i'm doing it.

 

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to the right of the door is the paneling that was in 1/4 of the basement walls.  The doors to the garage were wood doors (not at all code).  The electrical was questionable....  just all around shoddy work.

So we started by pulling all the paneling off and found another layer of paneling underneath (the stone looking stuff).  

 

stripped down the rest of it

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found out that half the electrical boxes were only mounted to the paneling not studs.  the switches are original and untrustworthy.  and i also found this on the "new" electrical box.

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WHO DOES THAT??

 

The wife is working from home 2 days a week (i work from home every day).  she primed and started painting the "wallpaper" paneling.

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the panel on the right is primed, the gray is the new color.  this only one coat but it definitely is better than before. 

 

We first did this door on saturday before taking out the other garage door to reduce the drafts.  I wanted to get a door with a blind in it but there was none available in the size we need.  Speaking of sizes...these openings are small.  This one was only 35x76.  So custom was originally what we were thinking but i hate to have to pay that and the leadtime sucks.  so after getting it all apart, i decided to just go with a slightly readily available 32x78.  However, i couldn't fit it in the actual concrete frame area.  if we DID do that, it would be a royal pain for the trim and walls.  So the best option was to remove the brickmold from the frame and install it right up against top of the concrete.  Worked out pretty well and aligns the frame with the wall then to make the inside look normal.

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as you can see, it's not ideal but really you don't even notice it.  i'll clean it up with some trim on the garage sides and such later.

 

now that that door was finished we could start the demo of the other one.  this door frame was HUGE. like almost 40" wide, but still only 76" tall.  had to demo stucco which created a hell of a mess

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The new door is similar to the other one but 36x78" so we'll finally have a good size door downstairs.  the top is mounted to the wall like the other one.

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this got a little tricky because i had to frame out farther than previous setup.  on the right of the door by the radiator is just 1x3 installed which originally ran to where the stud with the electrical outlet is.  I had to exend out that frame work to account for the width of the door.  So i built a 16" frame on the right and a 6" portion on the left.  The door also changed direction because of what they had in stock (now a left hand inswing vs right).  Since it was only a 6" portion, i wanted to reinforce it as best i could.  i add the couple cross braces.  it's solid now.  we also realized that they never tied the base into the floor.  so out came the hammerdrill and concrete screws.  So thats now done too.

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No pictures of this, but i did also redo all the electrical outlets and switches.  i moved one outlet that was previously half installed in the whole in the cinderblock 2 pictures up.  it's now mounted to the new studs to the right of the door.  With this electrical i also installed new LED lights in the stupid alcove and by the other door.

 

We also insulated all the walls that were exterior facing.  You can see a couple of the bats installed on the previous pictures.  ended up using 2 bags of rockwool i had found when we bought the house.  Also to note, we pulled out the pellet stove and covered up the chimney hole.  We just hadn't been using it in over 2 years and had no real ambition to keep it.  

 

Now onto the good stuff.  We decided against drywall since it wouldn't match the paneling on the rest of basement walls.  ended up with shiplap since we can stain it and make it a feature wall.  

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you can see the insulation here and used what was left of the rockwool to insulate the small stud space by the garage door.

 

of course this stuff is too wide for my miter saw so i busted out the table saw.  the very first piece i cut kicked back on me really bad and scared the hell out of her and i wasn't too comfortable about it either.  SOOOOOO guess who got a new bitchin miter saw???

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normally $400 on sale for $250.  thankfully lowes is still open but with reduced hours during this pandemic....

 

we stopped last night after finishing this corner 

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you can see the new lights installed in the ceiling as well.  the switch is now a dimmer too

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they're just hanging in there at the moment while the drop ceiling is still under construction.  Ideally we'll also replace the ceiling tiles in this section of the basement but those things are stupid expensive for what they are.

 

We ordered some sample luxury vinyl pieces for the floor in this area too to get rid of the carpet that is stained from the stove and just general use (also puppy housebreaking). 

 

just having the new doors and this corner done and not stained is already a huge change to the space.

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few more pictures from today.

 

this is the wallpaper paneling i was talking about.  its textured but hard to get a picture of that.  behind the entertainment center is the only wall left unprimed.  this will be done last.

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now with 2 coats AND newly painted radiator

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in comparison

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pictures don't do the radiators justice but man does it look way better.  makes the drop ceiling look especially depressing now...

 

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walls and radiators are all painted with 2 coats and ready except for the behind the TV section.  she also painted the drop ceiling grid in redoing section.  hung the surround sound back up.  still have to put the pictures back up on the walls but are going to wait a bit longer as they are all stacked around the pool table as a makeshift protective area.

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took last weekend off cause it was raining the whole time so cutting wood outside wasn't going to happen.  i really don't want to do it in a garage bay and make a horrible dusty mess.  so it basically sat till last night when the sun came back out for long enough to get back into it.  made great progress.

 

First off, the little bump out seen here on the left:

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was way worse than i thought.  wasn't very sturdy to begin with but what i didn't realize until we started getting into the shiplap, how un-level it was.  it was just a mess....so we had to rip that all out and rebuild it.

 

here it is rebuilt.  this thing is solid and sturdy as hell.  it's higher on the hangdown section too.  

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also you can see more shiplap on the walls here.  all the "easy" walls are now done.  the only remaining parts are this bump out and the right side of the other door.  what i have to do is cut them all at 45 degree angles to conceal the joining edges.  i'm still going to put a trim piece to cover the seem because quite frankly i don't think i can get it perfect enough without.  I have to do the 45s because the trim piece won't be big enough to cover if i just butted it up against.  

 

One lesson learned already though is that we didn't setup both of these sections at the same height.  You can see the floor gap on the left section and how drastically it changes.  its a high point in the floor.  I should have done that section first, then measured down from the rafters to setup the section on the right.  the whole purpose being to align the seem across the whole thing.  its only off by a quarter inch so probably won't be noticeable, especially after i put the trim pieces on..,..but i think i'll still realize/know its there.

 

had to rip a piece horizontally to fit around the radiator.  the gap on the left of the rad is huge and that is on purpose.  i'm going to put a piece of floor trim coming up to make it parallel to the top of the rad.  theory being that if i have to service this thing in the future and taking that cover off would be impossible unless i ripped the whole wall down.  so the wall is properly spaced and the gap will be covered with an easily removable piece of trim.

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so yeah made great progress for only working a couple hours last night. 

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we also ordered the flooring for this area and the kitchen.  stupid quarantine means we had to have it shipped....$800 worth plus $200 shipping....i hate shipping.

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finished the bump out last weekend

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was a lot of fun doing this top part.  had to trim it some of the length then angle cut it.  the front board is 45'ed on 3 sides.

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and the new develop on the neighborhood is that the current owners of the field (zoned commercial) now setup a shooting range right behind my property.  according to my neighbor's range finder, it's 152 feet from my shed.  so there is nothing we can do about it.  they were shooting off AR-15s last week for 2 hours....

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also finished up the other bump

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then cut out the holes for the new lights in the bump out

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this picture also shows the decent gap which is planned.  it seems bigger from this angle, but its the closest i can get it for the shower drain pipe that comes down at like a 45 by the hole on the left.  previously, they had just cut out the paneling leaving the pipe exposed a little bit.  this gap will be covered by quarter round.

 

and the lighting controller to change the temp of the light

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and the final product of the lights

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still waiting on the flooring to come in via freight apparently.  this week we've been experimenting with stains.  what a PITA!!  the minwax is splotchy as hell.  got a conditioner and put that down first and it was better but still inconsistent.  then tried Zar. which is fantastic to apply.  but the color samples are bullshit compared to what it actually looks like.  we now have like 7 different pints to test on the scrap pieces.  finally came to a decision.  we put down a coat of Zar champagne then a coat minwax fruitwood then zar satin polyurethane to finish it off.

 

going to start the staining today and hopefully finish it by sunday.  after that, it's putting new edge framing up for the drop ceiling.  i want to buy new drop ceiling tiles but they are just stupid expensive for what they are so i haven't bitten the bullet yet.

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drop ceiling planning turned into getting new lights as well because if we were going that far, then might as well put some new LED bulbs in.  bought some and they didn't work.  then turned into buying new flat panel LED lights to get rid of the old ass neon lights that were in there.  so yeah...more money that i was expecting to spend but at the same time, it will make this basement look less gloomy.

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where there was 2, there is now 3.  plus i added a 2x2 by the bathroom/stairs.  it was always a dark area that no light could cover.

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it's currently just staged there while the walls are getting done.  i need to mount the wall drop ceiling brackets before i can put it place.  the run it's currently resting on will be the end.  it will shift a foot to the right once i finish the ceiling.

 

staining commencing:

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this is zar champagne on the left of the door, bare on the right.  this was step one.

 

and this is with the minwax fruitwood on top of that.

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i have other pictures but they aren't showing the color right.  this is the closest to real life.

 

and then with 2 coats of poly on it all

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you can see the poly sheen in this pic:

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and of course the nasty puppy pee spots that have been carpet shampooed like 5 times now that just keep wicking up...but no worries there because that carpet will be gone this weekend.

 

i was going to start finishing up the last bit of electrical last night by replacing an outlet and ended up spending all night fixing an open neutral....  traced it back to this mess

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i basically took the whole house down in this one junction box.  i touched a wire nut and it just fell off.  what a nightmare.  i had to trace a bunch of crap back and label it because the breakers weren't corresponding properly.  here, they had two feed lines going to this junction and tied in together.  so two breakers were feeding multiple zones.  i was getting so pissed off with it that after 4 hours, i thought i had everything back up...but nope.  she went to go into the fridge upstairs and it was off.  so i still have something wrong.  

 

it's not freakin rocket science but this stuff be messed up.  i pulled the fridge out and its now sitting in the middle of the kitchen to reach another outlet that is working.  i just had to walk away from it before i either started the house on fire or got shocked enough that i had a heart attack.  and at the end of it, i still didn't get that outlet replaced...

 

good thing though is the flooring got delivered today

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so we can work on that this weekend.  

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fixed the electrical issue with the fridge/sunroom.  it had nothing to do with the area i was working in (which made sense since it was on the other side of the house).  ended up being two things.  the sunroom outlet directly on the other side of the wall from the fridge outlet had a feed coming up then two out (one for the fridge, one for the rest of the outlets in the sunroom).  The black wire had broken off the outlet.  fixed that but it still didn't work.  i then was following some other wires around that wall in the basement and looked at a junction box in the garage under the sunroom and found a neutral connection all scored and corroded.  so its been shorting out for a while and just finally failed.  thankfully not failing by causing a fire...  so striped them all back, split it down to less wires in a nut and its all working great now.  phew

 

then it was flooring time!!

carpet go bye-bye

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found a drain

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had to empty out the liquor cabinet so it could be moved.

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i wanted to make sure that the edge against the carpet was going to be full tiles rather than against the wall.  so setting it all up took a good while to make sure it was correct before we could start throwing down tiles.  you can also see the threshold we'll be using.  that's not the exact one, but its the right size.

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where we stopped for saturday night:

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and then finished.

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the dogs love having the understairs area opened up.  it also seems to brighten up the area too so it won't be a black hole of dust and dog hair in the future.  have to cut down a few things to make them fit, like that bit of cabinet wall to the right of the dishwasher.  the flooring is taller than prior so will need to take about an 1/8" off.  same with the pullout cabinet next to the fridge.  the closet door also needs to be trimmed a smidge because it drags and then painted as well.

 

next up is to finish the drop ceiling,  i'm hoping to finish that up in the next couple days, saturday at the latest.  then it will be cutting trim so she can paint it on monday/tuesday.  going to paint first then install.  should cut down on the mess and body strain of sitting on the floor painting.  will only need touch ups for the nail holes.  

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didn't realize i hadn't updated this in a month now.  basement is pretty much done at this point.  

 

trim was cut, then pre painted to make it easier

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only had a few mishaps that needed to be cut down a smidge and two small pieces that needed to be redone.

 

and here it is installed

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this is a little wonky but was the best option.  The 2x3 that this is covering is structural for the sliding glass door, only on this side.  so we back-to-backed trim and put a small piece of leftover behind it to cover.  looks good that it basically vanishes from your eye.

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then this happened...friday the 1st, we had a crazy windy day.  hailed a little tiny bit too.  but the resulting damage is a loss of about 20 shingles and about another 20 that were damaged.

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had a roof guy come out after talking to the insurance company about it.  long story short, insurance is covering the back half of the big garage, house and sunroom minus deductible.  check is in the mail for that at this point.  however, i'm sure as shit not going to only do half the house.  so we're waiting on a quote back from roofing company to switch it over to black architectural shingles.  like everything else we do, might as well upgrade while you're at it.  the saving grace in all this though is that the roof has not sprung a leak.

 

but getting back to the basement.  kitchen ceiling tiles also being replaced and new lights installed.  i never really realized how dark this kitchen was...

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not no more!

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and its super nice with the new tiles installed.

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that was about the last thing to do.  that closet door was also freshly painted white and installed with new hardware.  the last thing to do was pull out the entertainment center and paint that wall and install the last bit of lighting.

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with all the new lighting, its super bright down there.  it no longer feels so dark and basement-y.  now about the only thing we need to do is install transition between the new floor and the carpet.  however, we have decided to replace the carpet in the sitting area as well.  just waiting for the local place to open back up to do that.  no reason to install transition to pull it back up in however many days/weeks.  

 

basement is basically done at this point.  we think we are going to replace the rest of the ceiling tiles as well as they now look super crappy.  you can see what i mean in that last picture.  but with the roof and the other project we have to finish, it will happen when it happens.  

 

the next project of course snowballed before it even began.  We knew when we put in the new doors that we were going to redo the entrance area to the basement garage and turn it into a mudroom of sorts.  yeah that now has grown to now include studding out the shared wall.  Doing this for multiple reasons, 1) going to replace the electrical panel as its the old school fuse type, 2) the stucco is hideous, 3) the plumbing for the basin sink is really far out and in the way, 4) current walls have old ass yellow/almond bubbly paneling.   probably going to start that this weekend.  already bought the lumber and electrical box to rewire all that.  one thing i am going to do first though is run the well pump into the house breaker panel instead of having it on this panel like it is now.  that's the first thing so i can work on the rest more or less unhindered.  only thing we won't have during the panel swap will be lights and power in the garages then.  

 

 

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last wednesday crazy thunderstorms came through the area and just fucked it up royally.  we made out okay but not unscathed.

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this is from the end of my driveway.  this branch came down, destroyed a bit of fencing and ended up snapping a telephone pole in half.  so we were down till friday night.  which actually was faster than i expected since its a dead end road with only a dozen houses on it.  supposedly PECO had 70k customers down from the storms.  the branch blocked the road completely until the landscapers at the end of the road came up late that night and cut it up so cars could get by.

 

hard to tell, but this is the snapped pole.  the top half is hanging horizontally.

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generator got some use for sure.  downside is, it also took out verizon fios fiber line.  verizon couldn't do anything until the pole was replaced.  so we called saturday morning and was told (after waiting 1:45 hour on hold) that someone would be out in 4 hours.  still didn't have service come monday morning...called again.  guy comes out only to pull the wires up off the ground, not actually fix anything.  he ran new fiber from the junction box to my pole and left.  called tuesday...somebody will be out between 1-5pm.  nobody shows.  wednesday call again, get refund for now being down for a full week.  guy finally comes out at 1pm and spends all of 20 min to splice in the line and leave.  i think we spent 5 hours on the phone with verizon trying to get somebody to fix it.  i wouldn't be so pissed if they would have just said from the get go that nobody can come out till wednesday.  its the fact that they kept promising, then a no show!

 

so we worked on the house instead....

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took the doors off above the fridge (the fridge was too tall for the doors to open anyway) and made some X's for wine.  also replaced the piece of sheetmetal next to the stove with aluminum.  i brushed it to make it sorta match the stainless appliances, then clear coated it.  i buffed it out after and it turned out pretty darn good.  

 

stocked up on some wine from a trip to jersey for booze since PA still wasn't open at the time.

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now onto the "mudroom".  this is what was behind the wall.  which wasn't attached in any way, shape or form.  i cut the water lines and installed shutoff valves.  for those that remember, the shutoff valves prior were/are in the basement bump out that is now covered with shiplap.  the drain is just a hole in this pipe with a 45 installed.  it's not sealed at all, nor is the cap on top.

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just shoddy craftsmanship galore.  the lines are from the basin sink and continue to the shower/wheel washing station.  so at least now i have a local shutoff.  we'll be getting a new basin sink to replace.  we bought wood and started on a section of wall.  it's currently propped up for now until i pull the old fuse box out and run the power.  more pics to come from that once we get farther along with it.

 

 

onto the roof.  found out the soffit vents were bullshit.  they are only for show and didn't actually vent.  so that was a lovely surprise.  

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all the plywood on the edge of the roof was bad.  so there went another $700 in plywood on top of the roof cost.  oh and don't forget about the fact that the roof isn't vented so also came along another $900 for smartvents.  so yeah...full of surprises.

 

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out with the old, in with the new:

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they got it all done in less than 8 hours from the time they showed up and left.

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it's hard to see in the picture but there is a more defined edge now on the gutter edge.  it's the vent underneath.

stock photo of the type.  you can see the slit they then cut to allow air to enter the roof.  the baffles i had put in with the insulation now actually are useful.  

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and had them remove the old turtle shell vents and install a full ridge vent instead.  much much better design and function. 

 

here's a before and after photo the wife did.  the before was one of the original shots from before we bought the house.  speaking of which, saturday is 6 years already!

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now we're thinking of painting the siding.  i want to replace it honestly but that's a whole other project....

 

 

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wall is up and mounted to the floor.  it has a lean away from the wall so i'm going to get some brackets and anchor it to the block wall.  but the big thing was getting rid of the old fuse box and replacing it with a breaker box.  went with a 100a panel even though the breaker on the main panel is only a 60amp.  nothing wrong with oversizing especially since its for the most part just running lights and a washer.

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it's a little higher than normal probably but i needed to make sure i could get the feed line in.  there was no slack at all in it.

 

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most of it wired up.  i bought the wrong size breaker for the washer so i still have to get one for the outside lights to wire them in but it's all done otherwise.  first time ever wiring up a panel before and it was easier than i expected.

 

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i have to put a couple pieces of 2x4 to join in with the ceiling piece and the wall brackets then that section is all done.  still have to frame out the corner where the sink will go but i want to buy the sink first and get that setup so we know where the wall needs to cut in at.  little bassackwards, but i think its better this way.

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and the framing is done.  not the best because of how un-square everything is.  the stucco walls are so uneven, the floor is uneven, the wiring is too thick to turn so i had to get a little creative to make sure its sturdy.  

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need to attach some wiring to the studs but otherwise its ready for drywall

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drywall is up.  went with the purple moisture resistant stuff because the cost was negligible and figured its good to be in the garage

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have to get a couple corner piece things and then can start mudding next week.

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Troy putting in work!

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mudded up first coat

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primed and painted.  and floor going in.

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trim all painted up and ready for cutting/isntalling

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the fun part.  measure, draw, cut, test, repeat....

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the flooring is done and the trim edge is glued...not well enough it seems as half of it is pulling away.  still have to redo this

 

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another angle

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and finished as of today

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since we weren't doing the halloween party this year, i spent a sunday making 2 coffins.  turned out really good and was a lot of fun.  was only like $60 worth of fence pickets and some brad nails.  

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as i said, i built two and then cut the one in half at a 30degree angle to make it seem they are coming out of the ground.  we got a poseable skeleton and i put an old shovel out with it as if it was digging up the top of the cut one.  i had moved them around a bit and put a skeleton in the full coffin with my scythe across it.  also got black burlap to cover the propped up one's base to hide the cords and such.  the plan was to put a smoke machine in there as well but it's not external friendly so didn't do it.  might do it next year.  

 

onto the good news.  I think i had said it somewhere on here that i was NOT happy with my job because instead of getting a promotion to the manager of the team back in January, they gave it to an outsider instead.  he was a total joke of a manager.  didn't care about his people, didn't care to learn the job, never put the time in, etc.  to give an idea, we had one of our yearly surveys in which we rate "leadership trust".  which basically translates to how good is your manager.  he got a 9, not out of 10, but out of 100!!  a 9/100!  i've never heard of anyone getting so bad of a rating.

 

fast forward to the end to august. and he tells me he got an offer from another company he couldn't refuse and was leaving.  I was named interim manager until a decision was made.  after 2 months of that, i'm now officially the manager!  official start date is Nov 16th but i'm already doing everything since september so it's just a formality.  so yeah very good news and finally where i want to be in my career after years of working towards it.

 

so now i'm moving my work space from in the office to the library so she can take the office.  she's been working from the basement or the kitchen table this whole time and it's becoming a bit of an issue.  not to mention my current desk is just not cutting it anymore for day-in-day-out 10+ hour days.  i couldn't find what i wanted.  between covid and just not finding what i want, i'm now building my own.

 

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she found a write up of a dudeman who used a solid door as the top and i just took the idea from there.  got a solid core door from home depot, some trim for the edge and two unfinished 18" kitchen cabinets with side panels.  glued and brad nailed the trim to the sides for a nice smooth edge.  cut in dowel pins for alignment of the cabinets onto the top.  the side corners will have an L-bracket to hold the surface down but otherwise this top is heavy enough to just rest on top without moving with the pins in.  i made a T for a center brace to tie the two cabinets together and support the top but really i don't think it's necessary.  i only have to install the brackets and the brace, glue down the side panels and it's built.  then a light sand and stain and poly.  

 

going to wait until next year, but the big project will be to redo the library then to what i ultimately want it.  i'm talking built in bookcases, glass paneled french door entrance, new front door, redo finish the wood floor, put in half wall stained panels and the top half a red velvet style wall paper, big brown leather chairs, new old worldy TV stand....i'm excited!

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desk is finished.  the plan had been to move my current desktop computer but get a new video card and monitor for it.  yeah...turned into building a whole new PC.  I hadn't really realized how old my current one was until i started looking into it.  only had pci-e 2.0 which is definitely not good enough for current standards.  so i started looking at the black friday deals and pricing out just the basics of motherboard/cpu/ram/gpu to get me by.  She had been talking about getting a personal computer as well so she didn't have to have personal on her work laptop.   long story short, she is keeping the existing setup in the office, and i bought/built a new one for myself.

 

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didn't take any build pictures of it but here's a few of the finished product:

20201222_083719

 

if anyone is interested in the specs:

-Lian Li Lancool II case

-Gigabyte Z390 Auros Elite Motherboard

-Intel i7-9700k

-Coolmaster Hyper212 RGB CPU cooler (kinda regretting not getting a water cooled radiator now)

-Corsair Vengeance 32gb RAM

-500gb M2 ssd (operating system) + RGB heatsink

-1tb M2 ssd (onboard storage for applications and such) + RGB heatsink

-3 x 2tb Seagate HDD for RAID5 hotswappable storage (this setup replaced my one NAS that was starting to give me issues)

-Gigabyte Radeon RX580 GPU (skimped a bit on the GPU for now to make sure to economize the rest of the build)

-IPSG 750w Gold modular power supply

-2 extra case fans for the front

-Westinghouse 34" UWQHD monitor

-Logitech Z906 THX 5.1 speaker system (these things are INCREDIBLE, music is better on this than my onkyo setup in the basement)

 

ended up upgrading the old desktop anyway with a expansion card to put in a M2 drive, a cheapy graphics card and a 27" monitor anyway.  but hey its now good enough for what she needs.

 

now, back to the desk pictures.  this is just stained:

20201129_143152

 

20201129_154616

 

 

and now with poly.  only one coat on cabinets, but 6 coats on the desk surface.  still has some orange peel and i wanted to get it installed and not wait the 2 weeks for it to cure.  so brought it up for now and will try and buff it later.  also note the floor outlets.  that was fun cutting holes in my hardwood floor.  was very nervous about messing it up and even doing it in general but it made the most sense.  the one is a power outlet, the other is a network and hdmi outlet which connects to the tv on the other side of the room.  

 

20201206_154450

 

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and the basic setup

20201207_193010

 

problem arose when i brought my desk chair in....having a desk at countertop height doesn't work with a standard desk chair....  did this stool for a while before that got old.  using my current chair now and it's okay...but not ideal.  still not sure what i'm going to do yet.

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close up of the grain and stain

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the dogs like it

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wire management tray installed and wire holes cut in the desk

20201213_194510

 

the center thing is a dual power outlet with 2 usbs as well.  the monitor on at the window is currently plugged into it because the cord wasn't long enough to reach.  have a new one i have to install.  the sub on the floor in this pic is for the TV soundbar.

20201213_194500

 

and also got a new UPS as well.

20201213_194514

 

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That gaming PC is amazing. The rest of the work you’ve completed is amazing. 
 

Read back through the past year and had to giggle at the electrical gremlins. Reminds me of working in my plant sooo much. Two steps forward just to be smacked backwards 10 feet by your forehead. Glad you finally have it sorted.

 

I’ve been given the green light to extend my attached workshop and will be leaning on your experiences here when I start my journey.

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