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Number Tew

Number Tew's First House Build Thread

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Alright, so as many of you know, I closed on my first house on June 19.  @Number Tews Boss Ladyalso paid her car off on the same day, and will be coming to grace me with her presence!!

 

Anyhow, found this house on the other side of town, about 30 mins from where I have lived all my life.  The area is pretty nice, and it had a garage and they were not asking an outrageous price.

 

Major pros:

Brand new roof

New carpet

New paint inside and out

New garage door/opener

 

Cons:

A/C - has to stay on almost all the time to keep the house remotely cool, it runs and runs and the temperature steadily rises.  A/C techs estimated it to be a 6 SEER unit.  By comparison, in my area you cannot buy anything less than a 14 SEER.  On average, every SEER you increase will save approximately $25-$30 per month in energy; with that math this could save $200 monthly.  Several A/C guys gave me that number.

Water heater is old

Water softener system is old and needs to be bypassed/removed or replaced

Trees need to go

Concrete porch needs to be removed and replaced

Front lawn is toast

 

There is an HOA in this neighborhood; however they are very lax from what I can tall.  You will notice a lack of grass in the area.

 

My realtor and I were out looking at houses, the first place I made an offer on went with a higher offer, so we were out looking around again.  This ad happened to pop out while we were already out anyhow.  We went over there and I made an offer that night with a few contingencies and they accepted.  So, all the fun paperwork stuff in between and here we are.

 

Anyhow, I will post up the pics from the ad, and then go into some of what we have done so far:

 

 

 

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Alright, so as you may notice, the previous owners LOVE almond colored power stuff.  I hate it.  Decided that would be something I would do right away.  I found out, this house has a lot of outlets and switches.  We went with white throughout the house and stainless with black insert (switch/receptacle) in the kitchen.

 

I am getting really good at these though and learning quite a bit.  I have made a few mistakes along the way (3-pole switch, switched outlets) but it’s not too bad.  Some of the stuff in the kitchen was more difficult mostly from the PO doing a pretty poor job on the tile work on the counters and then the metal plates are not nearly as forgiving as plastic.  Anyhow:

 

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As far I can tell, the fridge and stove are new, as well as the vent over the stove.  The dishwasher here is recalled by GE, they are offering $150 to get a new GE, so we found a really nice stainless one on sale until the middle of July.   I will probably be jumping on it because the recall is for a fire hazard.  No thanks.

 

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Sorry some of these are so blurry!

 

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Alright, this was mine and my father’s first good day to work on the house.  He was pressure washing while I mowed.  I know it looks like mostly dirt but the weeds got tall while waiting for the closing and such.  He pressure washed the whole driveway, front walk area, garage and the sidewalks.

 

I made that giant pile.  The person who lives behind me has some vines that were taking over the fence and growing over my shed.  I took care of that and got rid of most of the already downed palm leaves.  There is still a lot to be done in the yard.

 

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Since we can see the mail box here, let’s talk about it.  Of course it is an old crusty metal box.  There are a few bottle rockets inside it where kids lit them off at some point.  Hopefully I do not have that issue with the new box you will see later!

 

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As you can see in the garage, they did not want to do the pipes correctly for the water heater, so they put it up on pavers.  It was worse than this but I was able to remove the other 4 pavers.  This will be corrected soon.

 

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The busted up pad I mentioned earlier is here.  I need to get rid of some of the oaks to prevent them from causing this again.

 

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After mowing, there’s my little shed.  I want to add a secondary one to use more for regular storage and use that shed for lawn stuff.

 

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All of this needs to go!

 

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Side of the house; note the damage to the siding.  I want to fix that ASAP.

 

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The garage all cleared out for paint.  I used the Rustoleum Rock Hard (I think) garage floor stuff.  It says 20x stronger than epoxy.  We’ll see.

 

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This is the yard cat, he wants to help.

 

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Right after painting…the product comes with 2 bags of the solution, so you get two goes at it.  Basically, when I did the first bag I was trying to get all of the detail stuff knocked out, all of the sides/etc.  Then my roller handle snapped so I had to do the rest on my hands/knees.

 

I ended up running out of time (about 45 min work time) with a large amount of product still left in the bag.  This meant I was a little thin on the second bag, unfortunately again.  I also spilled some of the first bag by the water heater, so that’s where all that sloppiness happened.

 

The edges came out nice and slick and glossy, the center part is just not thick enough to do the gloss.  I may go back later, hit the middle with a sander and pop a second coat on it.  It’s still better protected than bare concrete as is though.

 

Next few pics are of the lock boxes.  I gave the selling realtor more than a week to come remove his boxes, which I thought was ample time.  My realtor told me to just go ahead and take care of them because he was not making the effort to come get them.  So:

 

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Alright so the following are some more shots of the inside.  I have also taken some close-ups of the current outlets.  Most of them look similar to what I post, so I think you will understand why I need to change all of them.

 

Anyhow:

 

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Too lazy to screw the switches to the box…Just put the plate on, that’ll be nice.

 

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Almond with blue receptacles; I swear Ray Charles bought their first batch of receptacles.

 

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The back room is an addition, so with that comes some of its own issues.  I will say they did an excellent job on it but it probably needs some additional insulation and such.  While doing the outlets in this room, I found all of these little dead baby wasps when I pulled the plate off.  Neat.  Hopefully it’s sealed better now!

 

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Here is how the outlets in the kitchen turned out.  I will get more pics once it’s all back together.

 

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Kristin and I modded this mirror years ago.  We stuffed a metal plate behind it so it can take magnets, we also made it to write on with markers.  Really happy to finally have it hanging back up again!   She helped me a great deal getting it up and mostly centered.  Some of the measurements would have been in the 32nds, not worth getting that sharp for a mirror!

 

Anyhow, that’s it so far.

 

Right now Westbrook is set to come out next Wednesday, July 5 to do the air conditioner.  It is currently a 2 ton unit for about 1400 square feet, they will be going with a 2.5 ton 14 SEER unit like I mentioned earlier.  At the same time they will be doing a hybrid heat pump water heater.  They cost more up front but cost significantly less to run.  They take the ambient air and use it to heat the water, and the best part is they expel cold air!  So it air conditions the garage!

 

I will likely blow in some insulation in the attic because it has slim to none, but it might have to wait a bit.

 

I sleep during the day so a healthy air conditioner is very important.

 

I ordered everything to run low voltage  Cat6 through the walls so I have wired connections for every room in the house.  I will also be running speaker wire for surround through the walls to have a nice clean speaker installation.

 

I am excited to knock that project out!

 

Anyhow, thanks for looking, even though it's no @Prokiller.  There is more to come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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looking good.  i like the kitchen and how the top is open.  don't see too many tile counter tops up this way.  is that common down there?

 

and i pail in comparison to @95riosnake if he ever gets around to posting up all his house projects.  

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I have been moving all my stuff in already (everything here currently is mine). I have been doing all the cleaning and scrubbing around here.

 

The backroom had some nasty looking tile that I spent a couple hours scrubbing. It still needs another round in certain parts.

 

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The blinds were disgusting in here but they were no match for me!

 

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Kitchen Things

 

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It's a little messy right now but will be cleaned up again this weekend after I scrub the floors

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Bedrooms

 

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Bathrooms

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I have such great decorating skills

 

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Garage

 

We both fit until he put the dryer in

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All mine! :P

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Edited by Number Tews Boss Lady
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On 6/30/2017 at 7:40 AM, 95opal said:

Congrats on the house. So are you closer to tampa now or further? Side not I know a guy who can get that concrete work done for you lol

 

If you are down to help I will try to get the trees out of the way that would cause future issues before you come down.  We are about 30-45 minutes closer to Tampa now.  If you take I4 to the 429, and I think it's exit 26 on the 429.

 

On 6/30/2017 at 8:52 AM, Prokiller said:

looking good.  i like the kitchen and how the top is open.  don't see too many tile counter tops up this way.  is that common down there?

 

and i pail in comparison to @95riosnake if he ever gets around to posting up all his house projects.  

 

Well that guy is made of money so we just have to do what we can :)

 

The tile counter tops are fairly common.  For years my dad had ours like that but just recently chipped it all back off.  It's a much cheaper alternative to having granite or something by just tiling over a mica counter.  I imagine that is what they did here instead of building a whole new top.  No big deal, it works!  They just cut some shotty holes in the tile for the outlets, but o well.

 

In the open top area we will probably load it up with model cars.

 

On 6/30/2017 at 9:29 AM, Yeahloh95 said:

nice work so far and congrats on the house

 

Thank you!

 

On 6/30/2017 at 11:25 AM, Evilcw311 said:

I fee like I've seen the same images of this house somewhere before but can't quite put my finger on it........ :-)

 

Hmm I wonder where

 

Like @Number Tews Boss Lady mentioned, she has been working her tail off trying to get things clean!  She's doing a great job :)

 

Hopefully once we get the washer and dryer in place we will have some idea about whether or not we can fit the cars still.  If not, I won't worry so much about an outdoor shed and just make a really nice work area there.  But fingers crossed they both fit.

 

I'll post more about the dryer later.  I got a killer deal on that fancy LG.

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11 hours ago, 95opal said:

I also know a guy who does really nice concrete countertops lol. Side note if your 45 minutes closer to tampa then you must be 15 to minutes from me know. 

 

Haha it's probably a little further than that!  But you should be able to avoid all the heavy traffic in the Disney area on I4 by getting off on the 429.

 

I don't need any counter tops just yet!

 

Was talking with my neighbor today who does insulation, so that should help.  I plan to knock that out soon.  Kristin has a washer but it has been in storage for a while.  If we plug it up and all the seals are toast we will just have to suck it up and get a matching washer for the dryer.  

 

Then a dish washer while they are on a good sale at Lowes.

 

Then appliances should be all set and updated.  Then a healthy 65" tube television and we will be good to go :)

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On 7/2/2017 at 6:35 PM, Number Tew said:

 

Haha it's probably a little further than that!  But you should be able to avoid all the heavy traffic in the Disney area on I4 by getting off on the 429.

 

I don't need any counter tops just yet!

 

Was talking with my neighbor today who does insulation, so that should help.  I plan to knock that out soon.  Kristin has a washer but it has been in storage for a while.  If we plug it up and all the seals are toast we will just have to suck it up and get a matching washer for the dryer.  

 

Then a dish washer while they are on a good sale at Lowes.

 

Then appliances should be all set and updated.  Then a healthy 65" tube television and we will be good to go :)

 

Thats good news cause I cant stand going threw i4 Disney bullshit

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15 hours ago, 95opal said:

 

Thats good news cause I cant stand going threw i4 Disney bullshit

 

All the more reason to see me then!

 

13 hours ago, Evilcw311 said:

 

We love going to Disney every other year but the one part we never look forward to is i4!!!!  That's enough to wear you out!!!

 

See above!  Out of state forum party at my place lol

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Alright, so I have done quite a bit in the past couple weeks but of course there is still plenty left to do.

 

So before getting moved I wanted to get some things set up.  I brought my dryer home and tried to wire it up, but it looks like they just used any old 220 plug, and not a dryer plug, so I had to get that swapped out.

 

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This is the old one that was there.

 

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Here is the dryer I got.  $470 as it sits because of the big scratch on the face.  It would normally have been $1,300 with the pedestal!

 

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Had to swap out the old mail box, kids had blown up bottle rockets in it.  Hopefully this one stays nicer longer.

 

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Got a much stronger lock installed on the shed, the old one was a weak, easily pickable, padlock.

 

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I was at another Lowe’s and decided to check their scratch and dent section.  I happened to find a match to the dryer with a tiny dent by the power cord.  It was marked down to $700 with no pedestal.  Fortunately, they had a big sale going on and that washer without the dent for the same price.  I ended up getting it for $670 with the pedestal!  Again normally a $1300 unit, so I have a little over $1100 into the normally $2600 washer and dryer set with a tiny dent and scratch.  I can deal.

 

Biggest step….MOVING IN:

 

Huge thanks to my buddy Jim for letting me use and abuse his trailer.  We managed to bring all of my stuff over with no issues.  His Excursion’s trailer wiring was down so he had to use the motorhome lol!

 

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Prior to moving in I had the A/C and water heater done, they were both old and on their last legs.  The old system was estimated to be a 6 SEER rating 2 ton unit, so upgrading to this 14 SEER 2.5 ton should see considerable savings along with much better cooling.  The water heater is a hybrid, so it has a normal heating element but it also has a heat pump.  So it takes the hot air from the garage and uses it to heat the water and expels cold air.  Reverse A/C and it cools the garage!  Normal water heaters are estimated at about $500-$600 yearly cost, these are about $150-$250 but their up-front cost is significantly more.

 

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This thing is nearly dead silent when operating.

 

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They apparently had a 2x4 holding up the old fan in here.  This box was entirely rebuilt and reinsulated and sealed.  The drywall needs to be redone from where it was wet in the past, it has molded.  That is a big priority.

 

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The installer loved Apex connections!

 

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Treated myself to a nice DeWalt blower and Husqvarna weed whacker!

 

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I bought a Weber grill based on several opinions in the store about their superior quality over cheaper brands.  The boss lady should enjoy whipping up eats on here!

 

When trying to set up some shelving, the tracks needed to be cut.  I only really knew my immediate next door neighbors thus far, and I asked if I could use a hack-saw.  Neither one had one, however they walked me to a fella down the street.  He has a 2014 Coyote that matches mine but in silver, so he has to be a pretty good guy.  Answers the door, and it’s an OWG (old white guy), no shirt on and a Mustang hat.  Yep, we’re friends now.  Then he had this monster in his garage.  Yes, again, friends.

 

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This guy has already been an awesome neighbor.  It’s going to be great working on stuff with him I can tell!

 

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I got an Arlo camera system for a good deal.  I know Evil wants me to hardwire, and I probably will do an additional hardwired system in the future, but for ease of setup and installation a wireless system is hard to beat.

 

The following is some landscaping so far.

 

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Some stupidly placed palm trees.

 

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One ugly overgrown bush.

 

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Another oddly placed poorly trimmed bush.

 

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See above for caption lol.

 

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These hedges were in rough shape.

 

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This is some sort of crazy vine sort of bush that is covered in razor sharp thorns.  No.

 

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So, this hedge trimmer was given to me many years ago and it sat happily on a shelf totally untouched at my parents’ house.   I put a new primer bulb on it; put gas in it and a new spark plug, it fired right up.  Thank goodness.  It is running a little rough but that is nothing a little adjusting can’t take care of.

 

My dad let me borrow an old Echo chain saw (between 1977-1982) but it was not cutting because the chain was so dull.  I could not find a place to sharpen the chain, and could not find a replacement chain (rare ¼” chain) so I bought an axe.  You can tell it works:

 

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However I ended up finding a blade for the chain saw, so I made a couple of nice clean cuts on the palms for now.

 

The first thing I wanted to do was remove that crazy thorn bush, so the work began:

 

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When I got tired of that for the day,  I decided to clean up the hedges:

 

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The following day the neighbors told me they wanted to help me get some trees taken care of, so we started on the one that was reaching my immediate neighbors house.  Big tall oaks are not the easiest things in the world.  Anyhow, after some creativity we got it cut back fairly well:

 

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Still need a few more good hours to get it totally taken care of.

 

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Got that vine thing out by the roots!

 

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Nice clean side yard now J

 

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Not bad for a few hours work.  This is more than 7 feet tall.

 

Anyhow, that’s it for now.

 

 

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On 7/19/2017 at 9:01 AM, Prokiller said:

holy crap that is a lot of trimmings!  will the city pick that up?  great pickup on the washer/dryer 

 

You're telling me!  And there is still a lot more to do!  The city came and grabbed it.  They normally do it on Mondays but apparently because it was a larger load than expected they did it on Tuesday.  From what I understand there may be a $20 fee.  It would cost more than $20 for me to load my Dad's truck up three times and take it all to the dump and pay to dump it, so I consider that more than fair.

 

On 7/19/2017 at 10:09 AM, Blackmage said:

congrats on the house guys!    also, yes, hardwire in those cameras!!!

 

I am planning to run a bunch of CAT6 all through the house.  I might go ahead and grab a couple extra cameras for the front of the house that I hardwire and run to a hard-drive.  I have noticed that one thing I love about the wireless ones is the updates, however they only record 10-seconds at a time once activated so it doesn't tell the whole story.  If getting to the back of the house is easy in the attic I will probably add a pair back there as well.  Or maybe just pre-wire for them.  I am going broke lol.

 

On 7/19/2017 at 0:56 PM, Shifty said:

Congrats on the house man!

 

You have been busy but making some good progress! Keep it up!

 

Thanks buddy!

 

Today we pulled out two little palms in the front by the driveway.  Planning to do large pavers on either side of the driveway to make it a little wider with more useable room.

 

We also tried out the irrigation system (something we never did before purchasing) and were surprised it actually worked quite well.  There are a few heads that are busted, but I expected that.  I will cap off some of the ones that I don't want anyhow.  Pretty happy about that.

 

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Decided to do a quick update, though not all inclusive, I will snap some pics to add more later:

 

First, the cat tower, because, well, animals:

 

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Next, you may remember the palm trees from the front yard.  I went ahead and cleared off all the crap on the sides of them.  I think it made them look much better, and in time they will dry out a bit and look like the rest of the tree.

 

Before:

 

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I had to cut a great deal of it off with a chain saw, and was able to use a shovel to scrape some of it off.  The saw dust made me look like that lol.

 

I mentioned earlier my dishwasher was recalled for being a fire hazard, and GE was offering $150 towards a new GE model.  I took advantage of this.  Part of getting that renewal was ensuring the old dishwasher was never reused, so, I did that:

 

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A few good hits with an axe did the trick.

 

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The new one looks right at home.  It was a bit of a bear to install, it kept getting stuck because of the tile, and my lack of skill.  But, it's in and works great!  It's apparently the top model in the middle class from last year, as it was described to me.  Has a lot of bells and whistles, but ultimately, it washes dishes and matches my other appliances.

 

Both bathrooms had these ugly toilet paper holders that were pulling out of the wall.  I replaced them with metal units that are now well secured into the wall with some serious drywall anchors.  Pics of the news ones to follow:

 

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I finally got some of my important shelving hung up:

 

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Finally using the hooks on that one as they were intended!

 

ANNNNNND FINALLLLLYYYYY:

 

The biggest part of this update is the whole home network.  Right now is just a teaser pic:

 

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I ran CAT6 into all three bedrooms, outlets in the front room, two in the back room, and one in the master.  I also ran two ports to the living room.  I am now considering maybe hooking one into the garage since I do have a blank space on the wall plate still.

 

I had to compromise a bit because of where I wanted the cables to terminate, so I ended up having to run them through a pipe tied to the side of the house.  I can tell running cable was an issue because the cable company (or whoever ran the coax through the house) punched out of the walls and ran down the side of the house in several places.  I am not a fan of the look but now that I have done it, I can see why it is necessary sometimes.

 

In all it took me about 8 and 9 hours in the attic with some help from a neighbor inside.  I was dying by the end of the day but now I have hard hookups for internet in  all the important places.

 

I am still contemplating how to run a camera system but that can come in time.

 

I currently have a coax from my wall running to the router to feed it and a cat 6 cable from the router to a netgear 8 port cat 6 Ethernet switch.  That switch then feeds to my 8 port wall plate and that runs to all of the rooms.  I will get more pics once I clean it up a bit.  The cables are all 5 ft long and they really only need to be about 6 inches, so it looks a bit like the flying spaghetti monster, and I hate messy cables:

 

Image result for flying spaghetti monster

 

Thanks for reading guys!

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So, Hurricane Irma decided to come destroy Florida. I was home alone since @Number Tew had to work (and pretty much won't have a day off until who knows when) and my idiotic self wanted to go play outside at 3am during one of the worst parts of it and well I went for a walk around the block lol Here are some pics I took at night and some in the day time after her bitch ass left. We only lost power for about 25 1/2 hours and we had no major damage to the house thankfully :)

 

Video (click the image to view) of the moment the power went out at 8:30pm --- don't mind my manic laugh at the end =/

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After storm watch kittes

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Most important, the stangs stayed safe!

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Video from the backyard (click the image to view)

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Video from the front (click the image to view)

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Some pics of the neighbors houses

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I went out and checked on the neighbors Mustang to make sure it was safe. His cover flew off and I didn't bother trying to put it back on since there were no branches on his car.

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Houses across the street from us

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The fence between us and our neighbor (with the red jeeps) looking into their backyard

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We didn't want these palm trees anyway

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We still need to clean this up

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Fence on the other side of our house

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Neighbor on the other side got lucky this tree wasn't bigger and hit their house

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I really really hated this wood fence so I'm glad it got knocked down

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Anyone want to help clean this mess up?

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Neighbors down the street, the lady was lucky she wasn't home otherwise her car would have been demolished

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Perfect excuse to cut down a tree limb

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Edited by Number Tews Boss Lady
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Glad to hear you guys didn't suffer any serious damage. Looks like there will be some nice shiny new fences and a few less trees, but that's not bad at all.

 

And yes, that was definitely a maniacal laugh lol.

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On 9/18/2017 at 4:59 PM, 95riosnake said:

Glad to hear you guys didn't suffer any serious damage. Looks like there will be some nice shiny new fences and a few less trees, but that's not bad at all.

 

And yes, that was definitely a maniacal laugh lol.

 

Sorry I am so late getting back to you. Haven't been able to log in in a while.  We wanted a new fence anyhow so glad that happened!  Also I wanted all of the trees gone.  Craziest thing, they just keep falling down ;p  Hoping to have everything on the side of the road for pickup before they come to take all of it.  A few more oaks and one more palm and I am all set.  Tree free back yard, just how I want.  Then we can get started working on a little pad in the back to park my red car and something else, and then another little shed.

 

Phew!

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Alright so I still haven’t gotten around to taking pics of all the little projects.  We have been dealing with a lot of tree stuff since Irma came through.  But here is something brief:

 

Right after the storm I decided I needed a new chainsaw because the 40 year old Echo I had, while a great saw, was not quite up to some of the larger tasks I would have.

 

I went to Lowe’s hoping for a Husqvarna.  All they had in stock was a Poulan.  I bought it.  The thing would not stay running despite all my tricks.  Once warmed up, you could not get it started.  The following morning I decided there was just no way.  So we went to Ace hardware to look for saws.  They had one Stihl saw left on the wall.  The sign next to the saw said $420.  It was a little steep, but it was all they had.

 

Get to the check out, well, that saw rang up at like $650.  And I said “Well, this is the only saw in town, I am stuck in a pickle.”

 

So:

 

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Once in the parking lot, I have an immediate case of buyer’s remorse.  This Ace hardware has a separate “STIHL” building for maintenance and such.  I decided to check in there for saws, luckily I did.  As I walked in I see a giant sign on the door “No returns on Stihl equipment” but they said they would make an exception for me since I had not even left the parking lot.

 

I brought the saw inside that I just bought and they said “WOO SON!  You just bought yourself a dirtbike with a chain on it!!”  According to them, Stihl has a German line and a US line.  The German line is much higher quality and made to be ran day in, day out.  This was a German saw.  I walked out with a US made saw for about half the cost lol!

 

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Here is the saw I ended up getting.  It is by far worth the extra cost over the Poulan.

 

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I managed to get rid of these without taking out the shed.  I took the shed out with another tree later.  It’s not too bad though.  I have a new one to go up, but will probably leave that for items that can handle a little bit of weather.

 

I replaced the lights in the back yard.  Idk if the difference is substantial, but I love LED lights, so, o well.  You can see the wreck the back yard is for  now in these pics:

 

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Old lights

 

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New lights

 

We also bought an Ikea entertainment center.  Cujo helped put it together.  I haven’t ran the surround sound just yet.  Waiting for it to cool down a bit then I can clear up that project!

 

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We have some more stuff just have not had a chance to post up!  We will get around to it I promise!

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5 hours ago, Prokiller said:

looks like a Besta cabinet.  that's the same ones we have for our entertainment/media storage

 

Lol you're like the guy from fight club.  (Please tell me you get the Ikea reference.  I was telling someone the other day and they did not get it at all)

 

But yes, that's what it is :)  But does yours come with a cuddly Cujo cat??

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16 hours ago, Number Tew said:

 

Lol you're like the guy from fight club.  (Please tell me you get the Ikea reference.  I was telling someone the other day and they did not get it at all)

 

But yes, that's what it is :)  But does yours come with a cuddly Cujo cat??

of course.  love that movie.  it's been on one of the movie channels lately and i've been watching it

no, but i do have a white ball of dog fluff.

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12 hours ago, Yeahloh95 said:

nice score on the saw they are a good brand

 

Absolutely.  There's a reason all the pros use them.

 

10 hours ago, Prokiller said:

of course.  love that movie.  it's been on one of the movie channels lately and i've been watching it

no, but i do have a white ball of dog fluff.

 

I bet he is almost as  helpful as Cujo lol!  And good, finally someone understands!

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Alright so a little update on the house, post storm – we finally got the rest of the Boss’ stuff from her apartment over here, so right now it is like a small bomb went off in the house, but it is helping us sort out and get a bit more organized and look more like a home!

 

With that said, here are some pics!

 

So, first things first, this little one is always very helpful with projects.  Enter:  Gizmo!

 

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But seriously, something that has been taking up a ton of space in the kitchen for months now, has been an over range microwave still in its box sitting on the kitchen floor.  At first, I thought I would need an electrician because I needed to move the range wiring into the cabinet with an outlet, but I gained more confidence in myself.  So, we set forward with the task!

 

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I removed the hood, and luckily there was already a giant hole in the wall.  Not really sure why, but it made it easy to pass wires up to the cabinet.

 

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Here is the box installed in the cabinet.  Woo!

 

The craziest thing is, if you use a drywall saw to cut up your cabinet, and you push with any amount of force, that saw can move forward, quite a bit.  So, then you make idiot inexperienced mistakes, like this one:

 

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I’ll fix that up soon enough, for now, this will have to do:

 

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Anyhow, back to the microwave:

 

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The unboxing...

 

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Here it is all installed.  The tile made it a bit more difficult because drilling through it takes a century.  I have it held onto the little track with 4 bolts, plus the two up top.  The ones in the cabinet really do all of the holding, the wall track is more of a guide than anything.  Found out my cabinet base is ¾” or thicker, so I am very confident in its ability to hold.

 

Next, we finally got her computer desk over here.  She’s been working by laying down on the ground to use her computer, so this was definitely much needed:

 

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Excuse the mess on my side (the single monitor side lol) Hard to tell in this pic, but I moved the network stuff onto the book shelf for now.  That helped to neaten up some of the spaghetti running into my wall.

 

We also brought over her TV and stand, this went into our spare bedroom.  I think we made good use of it!

 

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Also, I’m not sure if I had posted this or not, but here is the TV hanging on the wall.  I am still waiting on some help to get an outlet installed behind the TV.  Once it cools down a bit, I will get up in the attic and finish running speaker wire to the rear speakers, and officially check of the surround sound box.  I will probably be adding some exhaust fans to the entertainment center, just for longevity and in the event we get anymore electronics in there.  Again, sorry about the mess, I have another shelf to match the one on the left, but am waiting to finalize the entertainment center a bit more before putting it together:

 

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Lastly, I don’t remember if I pointed these guys out or not.  Found them in the Keys on our vacation.  Just thought they were really neat hand-made pieces.  Plus, I love Wall-E!

 

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Thanks for looking!!

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On 10/23/2017 at 8:37 AM, Prokiller said:

good job on doing the microwave...other than the drywall sawing.  

 

i see a billy bookcase...

 

Well, you know, as they say...Rookie mistake lol!

 

The boss also wanted me to inform you that all book cases in this thread are not the Billy, they actually are of the Walton variety.  You know, the Sam Walton.  ;)

 

Small update:

 

When I first looked at the house, there was a pair of boards on the floor in the garage that I intended to use for shelving.  I finally got around to it on Monday.  Should help get some more stuff off the ground which means more room for activities!

 

Do not make fun of my excessive use of brackets!

 

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I know, such craftsmanship to go around that panel.  Very woah.  I need to trim the tips off of the brackets, and the tips of the screws that stick through the shelf, I just didn’t feel like moving the banana when I finished up.

 

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The Boss got out there and did a ton of clean up since the brush got picked up finally!  You can see the toll it took on the front half of the yard (not that my yard is pretty or anything, but still.)  One of the next projects we are planning is laying out square timbers around the bases of the trees and mulching them, then extending the driveway over to the left tree, either with pavers or concrete.  One of the neighbors does paver work so that’s possible.

 

Those little hedge plants on the right will go, and probably the hedges by the house as well.  Once all of that is taken care of we will probably re-sod.

 

The back yard is still a wreck, and I have a ton of debris and stumps.  Waiting on someone to come out with a machine to help me take care of all of it, hopefully they will do another large trash pickup for free, if not, big deal.

 

Not pictured in this one, we got some end tables in the living room.  A cold front is supposed to come through this week.  That may give me enough incentive to climb up in the attic and knock out the surround sound stuff!  Once that is taken care of I will add some cooling/lighting to the entertainment center and call it a day!

 

Thanks for looking!

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you must take really explosive massive shits to need all that toilet bowl cleaner :ph34r:

 

but there is no such thing as too many shelf brackets.  

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On 10/30/2017 at 6:45 AM, 95riosnake said:

You should take that shelf to the next level

 

ICLCrz.jpgFor some reason this computer won't load the pic.  I will have to see when I get home!

 

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Alright everyone, small update.

 

First, Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Next, I finally got around to running the surround sound.  It was cool enough the other night that it was actually colder in the attic than in the house so I didn’t sweat too bad.

 

I did a bit of future proofing while I was there.  Some subwoofers run on positive – negative wiring, some run on a coax.  So, I ran both over to where my sub sits.

 

The whole system is done up with 14 gauge wiring.

 

Now the last step will be to add an electrical outlet behind the TV, which I should be able to do pretty easily because there is an outlet I will tap into in the bedroom that is behind the wall.  There is not one located in the same room that would work conveniently.

 

I also ordered a 6 fan system with a thermostat for the entertainment center which should help to suck out some of the heat and hopefully preserve the electronics – should be here tomorrow.

 

The nice thing about doing it all this way, if I want to change speakers to higher quality later on, it’s a matter of unplugging and plugging in, very simple.

 

Tell me what you think!

 

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I initially mounted the speaker upside down. Meh.

 

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The couch is pushed off the wall in this shot.  It’s pretty much dead center between the speakers now that it’s up against the wall.

 

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This is a 7.1 plate, but I only ran 5.1 at this time.  I don’t really have a place for the other two speakers.  Though, the Onkyo receiver I have can transmit to those speakers as “other room” speakers so they play the full range, instead of the surround noises.  But, I doubt I will ever do that at this house.

 

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This is what I mentioned earlier.  The subwoofer RCA cable to Coax, or the option of using it as a +/- sub.

 

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The front left.  Good shot of the Ethernet cables too.

 

Finally, the boss also picked up these awesome bar stools!  Really goes well with the rest of the theme of the house!

 

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Thanks for looking!

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7 hours ago, Prokiller said:

this is something i still want to do in the basement.  the plates are the way to go.  how does it sound?

 

As far as I can tell it sounds great!  The rear speakers seem a little quiet, but I am also not used to surround sound.  When I put them on the test function they get loud, so I doubt there is any sort of connectivity issue.  I probably just haven't listened to anything with loud rear sounds.  But I also haven't sat down and thoroughly enjoyed a movie or anything just yet.  Both runs to the rear are about 30 ft, so I am sure the 14 ga wire is plenty.

 

I managed to get around to doing the fans.  I used the Infinity A/C Airplate fans.  In total there are six fans running on a controller.  I will also be putting a laptop style cooling fan directly over the receiver, and probably cutting holes in the centers of the shelves to add some extra air flow.

 

I did not really take any in progress pics but here:

 

 

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There are two of these.  One at the top acting as an exhaust, one on the bottom bringing in fresh air.

 

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There are also two of these acting as exhaust only in the peripheral cabinets, though right now I do not have anything in those cabinets that gets warm, it is good for future proofing.

 

37821576125_53b95c5951_b.jpg20171127_164642 

 

Here you can see the control module mounted in the back.  The fans are controlled by a thermostat and have a number of different modes.  I am just trying to figure out what temperature is safe for this thing to operate at.

 

37991833034_eff8122867_b.jpg20171127_164713 

 

I can not help it looking a little scraggly.  The fans come pre-wired ready to be daisy-chained, so they have extra wire and it's all knotted looking.  I did what I could to press it up against the unit and keep it tied neatly.

 

From what I have read, people say the receiver should be on top to expel the most heat.  Sigh, I like it where it is, but if I can't get the results I want with a few center cuts in the shelving and the additional lap top fan, that will be the next step I suppose.  But hopefully it gets all squared up.

 

I also bought a "Vorke" android box for Kodi.  I have not had much of a chance to play with it yet, but I will be programming it with a Fire TV remote.  This infrared stuff is too out dated.

 

Thanks for looking :)

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surround sound is not meant to be full volume or full range in most situations.  Its made to act like an effect speaker that plays just enough to give the effect but not draw your attention away from the sound stage up front.  Unless your playing in a 4 channel stereo type configeration they will generally sound like your listening to a speaker that is playing downstairs, upstairs through a vent.  When its done right you should not really notice that they are there and should not be able to tell where its coming from.  How loud are the fans?

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The fans are audible without anything else on - IE nothing playing.through the speakers.  As soon as you have something on, you can no longer hear the fans.  They are designed to be super quiet though.
 

That's sort of what I thought about the rear speakers, so I should be in good shape then!

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