Author Topic: The Benefits of Home Ownership?  (Read 99447 times)

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Offline Orbert

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #700 on: September 14, 2020, 08:41:43 AM »
It looks great.  It makes it look like another room in the house, to the point where I'd feel weird driving my car in and parking on it.

Offline cramx3

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #701 on: September 14, 2020, 08:44:20 AM »
I really like that look and feel.  I remember a few friends growing up had those type of garages and I always liked them.  Felt cleaner too. 

Online lordxizor

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #702 on: September 14, 2020, 07:31:43 PM »
Unless you're planning on hanging out in the garage, which plenty of people do, I don't really see the point. I'd rather spend my money sprucing up the areas I want to spend time in.

Our new flooring, trim and painting virtually every surface in the house is closer to done than just starting at this point. It's looking really nice. Wish we had done it years ago.

Offline Grappler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #703 on: September 14, 2020, 07:40:46 PM »
Yeah, cars leak, or even just drip dry from rain and snow.  Garage floors get dirty.  No sense in having a pretty floor that's going to be constantly dirty.

I just noticed that one of my kids left the garden hose trickling for a few days.  It was raining a bunch and I had no need to go outside, but a few days prior, the rain let up and they played in the sprinkler while I was at the office.  Can't wait for the next water bill.   :censored

On a more positive note, I just put in a new storm door and it feels so good to have something new and not all banged up.  The old one had been on the house for a very, very long time.  I also don't have to swap out the screen and full glass panels anymore.  It's a split door, and the top of the glass pulls down with a hide-a-way screen. 

Offline cramx3

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #704 on: September 14, 2020, 07:41:57 PM »
Unless you're planning on hanging out in the garage, which plenty of people do, I don't really see the point. I'd rather spend my money sprucing up the areas I want to spend time in.

Our new flooring, trim and painting virtually every surface in the house is closer to done than just starting at this point. It's looking really nice. Wish we had done it years ago.

Well yea, prioritize for sure.  I say this as someone who has a car port, not a garage :lol

Offline Stadler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #705 on: September 15, 2020, 06:08:57 AM »
I think it depends on what your needs are.   I've never had that at any of the houses I've owned (I think seven).   Having said that, I've gotten back into working on my cars.   I think all things being equal, I might consider it at this point.   My... uncle-in-law (is that a thing?  It's my father-in-law's brother) had it done, but he uses his garage as a car park but also as a sort of rec area as well.  He's got a dart board in there, one of those bowling games where you sprinkle the saw dust, and a TV.   

Offline Orbert

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #706 on: September 15, 2020, 07:33:33 AM »
My... uncle-in-law (is that a thing?  It's my father-in-law's brother)

I've always figured you can make up whatever relationship is necessary for the situation, as long as you follow the established "rules" for such things.  Years ago, our neighbor Kevin was into model railroading, had a pretty nice layout, and we bonded a bit over that (plus our mutual love of prog music - he's the guy who took me to see Rush Counterparts at the Capital Center).  One time he showed me the latest issue of Model Railroader magazine, and it featured a big writeup on the new layout from one of the foremost guys in the hobby, Bruce Chubb.  I took a look at it, and said "Yeah, I've seen that."  The new magazine?  It just came out.  "No, I've seen the layout.  He invited us over for an operating session a couple of months ago."

Kevin just about lost his shit.  "You ran trains on this layout?  How do you know Bruce Chubb?"  I told him that Bruce is my step-uncle-in-law.  He's the brother of the guy that my wife's mom married.  She's a widow and he's a widower; it was the second marriage for each of them.  I'm pretty sure that "step-uncle-in-law" isn't used very often, but that's who is he is to me.

And since this falls loosely under "Benefits of Home Ownership", let me tell you a little bit about this layout.  Bruce and Janet built their new house specifically for the basement.  Well, they didn't build it themselves, but they had it built from Bruce's design.  He's an engineer (electrical, not the kind who drives trains, although he's done that, too).  The house is a single level, three-car garage at one end, kitchen, living room, dining room, library, Janet's craft room, probably some other rooms I'm forgetting, and bedrooms at the other end.  The house seemed to go on for acres.  And the entire basement below it, including under the garage, was the "train room".  It is mind-blowing.  Through custom circuitry of his own design, each operator is assigned a train, and the box they hold controls that train.  Throttle, brakes, horn.  My son drove a train for half an hour, through mountains and towns, and barely covered a fraction of the layout.  This was 25 years ago; that level of tech hadn't been invented yet.  Well, actually it had; Bruce is the guy who invented it.  He designed the circuit boards that people still use today.

Offline Stadler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #707 on: September 15, 2020, 10:04:42 AM »
I LOVE model trains.   There's an annual exposition in Springfield at "The Big E" that is just model trains.  Four buildings with nothing but train layouts and vendors.  It's amazing.   There's even one built entirely out of Lego trains.

(The train people are an intense sort, though, and there's not a ton of humor; at one point I was watching this fantastic HO scale layout, and the guy even went so far as to spray graffiti on the side of the cars.   I noted that, and the realism generally, and the guy stopped the consist (that's what you call the entire length of the train) to show me some coal cars he had.  I said I liked the graffiti touch, and he said "thanks, but I'm especially proud of my loads".    I said "I bet you are!" and he looked at me like I had just taken a dump on his floor.)

Offline The Walrus

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #708 on: September 15, 2020, 10:33:02 AM »
I plan on buying my first home next year if everything goes well and the only thing that worries me is repairing stuff that goes wrong. And I'm talking like big repairs, what happens if my basement floods? If the roof starts leaking? (even though my friend, whose home I'll be buying, just got a new roof) Hell if the washer breaks I may as well buy a whole new washer because I am not a handyman, I can handle small things but that's it. I'm also naturally paranoid and anxious, so that doesn't help.

Looking forward to joining the homeowner club though eventually. The first thing I'm gonna do is put a piano in it :)
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Offline Chino

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #709 on: September 15, 2020, 11:00:01 AM »
I LOVE model trains.   There's an annual exposition in Springfield at "The Big E" that is just model trains.  Four buildings with nothing but train layouts and vendors.  It's amazing.   There's even one built entirely out of Lego trains.

(The train people are an intense sort, though, and there's not a ton of humor; at one point I was watching this fantastic HO scale layout, and the guy even went so far as to spray graffiti on the side of the cars.   I noted that, and the realism generally, and the guy stopped the consist (that's what you call the entire length of the train) to show me some coal cars he had.  I said I liked the graffiti touch, and he said "thanks, but I'm especially proud of my loads".    I said "I bet you are!" and he looked at me like I had just taken a dump on his floor.)

I'm redoing what was my hydroponics room in my basement and turning it into a proper hobby room. My printers will be down there along with all of my RC gear, and the plan is to have a behemoth of a work table that's 11'x5' (and outlets galore) so I can have multiple projects in flight at the same time without everything being on top of everything else. I've dug out my old n-scale stuff and bought a couple of new (heavily used) locomotives for testing purposes. I never did model railroading when I had my own money. I would do it as a kid and would have to wait for a birthday or Christmas money to buy stuff (or wait until dad needed something done that he didn't want to do). I'd love to build a proper layout now that I'm older. Nothing huge, maybe a 3'x5' if I can get a layout with the track that small. I'm more into the scenery and terrain building, and the trains are more of an afterthought, so I'm not going to get too hardcore with working yards and track changes. Most likely just a single loop with a tunnel and a bridge. I wish the Bachmann locomotives weren't such garbage. Their steam engines are some of the best looking in the business, but I've never had one that worked as intended.

There was a gentleman in one of my RC clubs years ago that was really into HO scale. He had a layout that spanned multiple rooms in his house. Each room basically had its own themed track, and the trains would run from room to room via tunnels through the walls. It was awesome. You'd be in one room and a train would roll in and not show up again for another 4 or 5 minutes. It was really cool.

When I bought my house I wanted to build a new layout, but didn't really have the time or space to commit to one. I had some leftover building kits that I had never put together and snagged a jewelry display case at a flea market for $10. It was a fun project.











Offline Stadler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #710 on: September 15, 2020, 11:05:54 AM »
Normal feelings and fears. It's likely the biggest purchase that you'll ever make.  But having been down that path before, this is the one case that insurance is your friend.   It won't cover you if you don't keep up on your maintenance and repairs, and it won't cover you on things like washers/driers, but if something egregious happens, you have SOME protection. 

Just make sure that the $500 or whatever you spend on a home inspection is a good spend.  Someone reputable, someone with experience.   He/she will likely give you a list of 20 or 30 things, and you're going to think "what piece of shit did I agree to BUY?"  but in reality, that's not the point.  EVERY HOUSE, even new construction, has SOMETHING that can be done better/different.  But whether you get price relief on (or get the seller to fix) the big things, you now have a list of things to just keep an eye on.

I'm going through this now with my stepson and his wife; they are closing in a matter of days on their first home, and the inspection report was 25 pages long.  The wife was all "f--- this noise, we're bailing! This house sucks!"  We walked through, got the seller to take care of the three or four bigger items, and the rest are things to be taken care of piece meal over the next couple years.  Replacing outlets.  Regrading the back yard.   Stuff like that. 

Online hunnus2000

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #711 on: September 15, 2020, 11:12:09 AM »
^^^^^^^^
This

Also, around these parts, you can pick up a piano for free. Homeowners just want it out of their house.

Offline Stadler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #712 on: September 15, 2020, 11:15:00 AM »
I LOVE model trains.   There's an annual exposition in Springfield at "The Big E" that is just model trains.  Four buildings with nothing but train layouts and vendors.  It's amazing.   There's even one built entirely out of Lego trains.

(The train people are an intense sort, though, and there's not a ton of humor; at one point I was watching this fantastic HO scale layout, and the guy even went so far as to spray graffiti on the side of the cars.   I noted that, and the realism generally, and the guy stopped the consist (that's what you call the entire length of the train) to show me some coal cars he had.  I said I liked the graffiti touch, and he said "thanks, but I'm especially proud of my loads".    I said "I bet you are!" and he looked at me like I had just taken a dump on his floor.)

I'm redoing what was my hydroponics room in my basement and turning it into a proper hobby room. My printers will be down there along with all of my RC gear, and the plan is to have a behemoth of a work table that's 11'x5' (and outlets galore) so I can have multiple projects in flight at the same time without everything being on top of everything else. I've dug out my old n-scale stuff and bought a couple of new (heavily used) locomotives for testing purposes. I never did model railroading when I had my own money. I would do it as a kid and would have to wait for a birthday or Christmas money to buy stuff (or wait until dad needed something done that he didn't want to do). I'd love to build a proper layout now that I'm older. Nothing huge, maybe a 3'x5' if I can get a layout with the track that small. I'm more into the scenery and terrain building, and the trains are more of an afterthought, so I'm not going to get too hardcore with working yards and track changes. Most likely just a single loop with a tunnel and a bridge. I wish the Bachmann locomotives weren't such garbage. Their steam engines are some of the best looking in the business, but I've never had one that worked as intended.

There was a gentleman in one of my RC clubs years ago that was really into HO scale. He had a layout that spanned multiple rooms in his house. Each room basically had its own themed track, and the trains would run from room to room via tunnels through the walls. It was awesome. You'd be in one room and a train would roll in and not show up again for another 4 or 5 minutes. It was really cool.

When I bought my house I wanted to build a new layout, but didn't really have the time or space to commit to one. I had some leftover building kits that I had never put together and snagged a jewelry display case at a flea market for $10. It was a fun project.












Apparently that case is in the same league as Croc heelies.   ;)

On the Bachmann trains; my kid loves them (but he doesn't have a layout, he just likes the trains themselves, the detail and such) are the workings something that can easily be tuned?   Meaning, is it always the same thing, or is it a matter of shoddy materials/workmanship all around?

Offline Chino

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #713 on: September 15, 2020, 11:16:24 AM »
Normal feelings and fears. It's likely the biggest purchase that you'll ever make.  But having been down that path before, this is the one case that insurance is your friend.   It won't cover you if you don't keep up on your maintenance and repairs, and it won't cover you on things like washers/driers, but if something egregious happens, you have SOME protection. 

Just make sure that the $500 or whatever you spend on a home inspection is a good spend.  Someone reputable, someone with experience.   He/she will likely give you a list of 20 or 30 things, and you're going to think "what piece of shit did I agree to BUY?"  but in reality, that's not the point.  EVERY HOUSE, even new construction, has SOMETHING that can be done better/different.  But whether you get price relief on (or get the seller to fix) the big things, you now have a list of things to just keep an eye on.

I'm going through this now with my stepson and his wife; they are closing in a matter of days on their first home, and the inspection report was 25 pages long.  The wife was all "f--- this noise, we're bailing! This house sucks!"  We walked through, got the seller to take care of the three or four bigger items, and the rest are things to be taken care of piece meal over the next couple years.  Replacing outlets.  Regrading the back yard.   Stuff like that.

My home inspection report cost $700 and was 66 colored pages when finished. Worth every penny IMO. He pointed out everything, not just potential issues. There were areas that I guess are points of common problems in a house and he made it a point to document and explain why that wasn't the case in the one I was buying. He took pictures of perfectly good stuff and noted things like "no evidence of termites, water, or mold along ______", or took multiple pictures of the old knob and tube wiring with a multi-meter connected to it showing it was no longer active. By the time I was all said and done, I was able to negotiate an additional $4k or so off my offer because of the inspection.

Offline Chino

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #714 on: September 15, 2020, 11:19:14 AM »
On the Bachmann trains; my kid loves them (but he doesn't have a layout, he just likes the trains themselves, the detail and such) are the workings something that can easily be tuned?   Meaning, is it always the same thing, or is it a matter of shoddy materials/workmanship all around?

In my experience, it either comes down to terrible solder jobs resulting broken connections, or wheels literally falling off of the locomotives. Two different models I had had issues with the wiring, and two different other models had the wheel problem. They're great display pieces, they just aren't great on the tracks.

I personally cannot solder on that scale. HO scale isn't too difficult, but N scale is a bitch.

Offline Grappler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #715 on: September 15, 2020, 11:22:33 AM »
Normal feelings and fears. It's likely the biggest purchase that you'll ever make.  But having been down that path before, this is the one case that insurance is your friend.   It won't cover you if you don't keep up on your maintenance and repairs, and it won't cover you on things like washers/driers, but if something egregious happens, you have SOME protection. 

Keep in mind that insurance is for accidental damage only.  If a windstorm rips up your roof, or a tree crashes through your window, then you can file a claim.  If the roof is just 30 years old and leaks due to wear and tear, then insurance won't pay.  It's just like car insurance - you can't claim an oil leak that develops over time, but you can claim an accident that caused damage.

I was a first-time homebuyer 11 years ago and it took me a good year or two to get comfortable with home repairs.  Something would need a bit of repair and I'd have to figure out a way to handle it, and a call to my dad is still my first tactic if it's beyond me.  Some I can do myself, or with my dad or father in law, some I've hired others to fix for me.  You quickly learn that your home is your primary expense and asset, so cutting back on spending so you can save up money to have available in an emergency helps.

Youtube is also your friend - I'm always looking up stuff on youtube for a how-to video when something is broken or isn't working like it should.  Chances are, someone has already figured the answer out and you can replicate it yourself. 

Now that I've owned a home for 11 years, I'd advise people to pay attention to the location of the home in the same manner that they would the aesthetics.  Is it uphil or downhill?  Are the homes a few streets over higher or lower?  Drive by the home when it's raining to see if water flows down the street or if it flows towards the house.  My house is on a hill, so water runs away in 3 directions.  It's caused some issues with my yard, as dirt washes away, but my basement is 100% dry. 

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #716 on: September 15, 2020, 12:45:23 PM »
When my wife and I bought our house in Dallas in 1999, one of the first things she said was 'pray for a really bad hail storm'. Sure enough, a couple of years later - we got one and a a new roof courtesy of insurance. Fast forward to 2017 and we got another hail storm and another new roof but one thing I learned is never get a 50 year roof as insurance will only pay to repair the damaged part of the roof whereas they will replace the entire 30 year roof. At least that was my experience and in Dallas, you can count on getting a new roof every 15 years or so. 

Offline ReaperKK

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #717 on: September 18, 2020, 02:47:36 PM »
Anyone ever consider having an Epoxy seal done in the garage?

I enjoy tooling around in the garage, so I think I will look in to this when I buy a house. Here's a before and after of what it looks like:







My buddies parents did this to their detached garage and it was awesome. Easy to clean and it was also heated so it was always warm to walk on in winter.

Offline Phoenix87x

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #718 on: September 30, 2020, 08:02:29 AM »
Anybody have any recommendations on the best thing to use to clean the bathtub/shower?

I've got hardwater and soap scum going on and have tried a couple things and didn't get much success. What do you guys use?

Offline Chino

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #719 on: September 30, 2020, 08:03:05 AM »
Anybody have any recommendations on the best thing to use to clean the bathtub/shower?

I've got hardwater and soap scum going on and have tried a couple things and didn't get much success. What do you guys use?

Also interested in this. I haven't found anything that works. Maybe it's something in my water.

Offline Podaar

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #720 on: September 30, 2020, 08:26:05 AM »
CLR and a lot of scrubbing is the best I've found. Use good ventilation though. Shit is nasty.

That being said, once you get things clean I recommend a daily shower spray like this



You just keep it in the shower and when your finished you lightly spray it on the wet surfaces and shower head. Once of prevention, etc.
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Offline Grappler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #721 on: September 30, 2020, 08:51:32 AM »
CLR has a tub/tile cleaner that works well.  For the last few years, I've used Mrs. Meyers' brand cleaning products, which are more all-natural.  They have a shower cleaner as well.   You can also use vinegar - that works incredibly well to cut through hard-water and scale build up. 

Offline Stadler

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #722 on: September 30, 2020, 09:17:24 AM »
My wife has us using vinegar as well. 

I'd also recommend having a spray in the shower (or near) and using it frequently in between more formal cleanings.  The longer you go (even if it doesn't look bad) the harder it is.

Offline ReaperKK

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #723 on: October 03, 2020, 07:13:01 AM »
Anybody have any recommendations on the best thing to use to clean the bathtub/shower?

I've got hardwater and soap scum going on and have tried a couple things and didn't get much success. What do you guys use?

Bar keepers friend with a magic eraser worked for me. We have diamond hard water at my house and hardwater stains are everywhere, this is the only thing I found that works.

Offline Phoenix87x

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #724 on: October 08, 2020, 09:38:25 AM »
Couldn't find the magic eraser in the store, but I did get some Barkeepers friend and so far its working pretty well. The first go around got half of the stuff up and then the 2nd go around got it looking pretty good all around, so I'm pretty happy.

Offline ReaperKK

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #725 on: October 10, 2020, 07:07:29 AM »
nice :tup glad it's helping somewhat.

Offline Chino

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #726 on: April 06, 2021, 09:59:11 AM »
It's warming up outside and it looks like expensive season is just around the corner!

I scheduled two big projects today and both should be done in the next 3-6 weeks pending material availability.

1) One of my chimneys (the one over the furnace) is in bad shape. The original terracotta lining is crumbling in on itself and the top/cap disappeared in a storm a while back. They're going to be relining the chimney with stainless steel, doing some plumbing/duct work in the basement, and recapping it. Thankfully, the chimney for the fireplace seems to be in fine shape.

2) The roof. This one I'm pissed about a bit. I was going to do it last year along with my gutters, but I opted to do gutters only and instead get $8k worth of trees removed. Now, with the prices we're seeing everywhere, the roof without new gutters is still $2K more than the estimate last year with them  :tdwn. They're doing the shed too, and I'm going to double the size of the skylight in the finished attic. It needs to be replaced anyway. It's starting to leak.

Once those jobs are done, I really only have two projects left - Replacing the rear sill of the house and fixing my upstairs shower/office ceiling. Hopefully I can wrap them all up by the end of 2022. Owning a house was way easier when there were two incomes in it  :lol

Offline cramx3

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #727 on: April 06, 2021, 10:08:03 AM »
I've got some home projects that I really need to work on as well.  Painting the living room, fixing a leak in my outdoor hose nozzle, and then power washing the house, fence, and shed.  These three things I've been putting off and it's really starting to become time for me to act on them, especially the power washing as the siding of my house is quite disgusting right now, but I need to fix the hose nozzle first....

Offline Chino

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #728 on: April 06, 2021, 10:54:25 AM »
I've got some home projects that I really need to work on as well.  Painting the living room, fixing a leak in my outdoor hose nozzle, and then power washing the house, fence, and shed.  These three things I've been putting off and it's really starting to become time for me to act on them, especially the power washing as the siding of my house is quite disgusting right now, but I need to fix the hose nozzle first....

Shit. I forgot all about that. I need to do that too! I came home a couple months back and mine was blown off the house. Water was coming out at full pressure for who knows how many hours. It made a hell of an ice scene in my backyard. Pretty sure water froze in the pipe because I never turned it off at the end of fall, and the faucet broke off when it expanded inside the pipe.

My sister's BF is giving my power washer a once over. He's handy and the ICE on it isn't running properly. My house needs a cleaning so bad.

Offline gmillerdrake

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #729 on: April 06, 2021, 11:01:50 AM »
We're about to undertake a nice little project as well. When we built 7 years ago we just had the basic contractor grade carpet installed because at the time our boys were 8,7 and 3 so we knew the carpet would get trashed no matter what with three boys growing up. We just said....lets get through it until they're a bit older and then we will replace it. Well, it's 7 years later and the carpet is well past the point of needing to be replaced.

But we're going to go with hardwood in lieu of carpet. The living room, my office, the formal dining room and foyer will be replaced with hardwood and we're going to re-paint our main floor as well all as a part of our 'Phase 1'. We're looking at new curtains and curtain rods.....I have a guy who is going to do the base board for us and crown molding also.

 'Phase 2' is replacing the carpet upstairs in the loft and bedrooms with carpet later this summer after we've got the kids rooms (and ours) in order which is going to be a massive overhaul in itself. The older two are now full blown teenagers and their rooms need to be decluttered of all the 'kid' stuff that's accumulated....need to get rid of the loft beds that they've outgrown and get them 'real' beds....it's just gonna be no fun at all  :lol  So we figured we should just start with the main floor and get that done then move on rather than try to do it all at once.



This is the hardwood we're going with, it's overlapping our kitchen tile so we could see how it looked. We liked the mixture of lighter tones with the darker, and it's 'real' 3/4" thick hardwood so it leaves us the option to be able to sand down and re-stain at a later date if we really wanted to. The planks come in lengths of anywhere from 7' to 18".









Then, as a part of the project we wanted to change it up a bit with our traditional looking fireplace, so:






I think once we re-paint and get the darker flooring in the new look of the fireplace will really fit in. We like how it turned out though. Took less than three hours to make the change.


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Offline cramx3

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #730 on: April 06, 2021, 11:23:50 AM »
That hardwood looks really nice  :yarr

Pretty sure water froze in the pipe because I never turned it off at the end of fall, and the faucet broke off when it expanded inside the pipe. 

Yea, this was a home owner noob mistake I made, forgot to turn the water off for the hose.  Luckily, only the nozzle froze and now leaks when I turn the water on, none of the indoor piping froze or got damaged.  It still works just poorly and with a leak outdoors, but not well enough for a power washer to use it.  Because it works just enough, it's been something I haven't really bothered to fix but now I really need it.

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #731 on: April 06, 2021, 12:00:50 PM »
Frozen pipes ain't no fun to fix.

Nice floors Gary... looks fairly similar to ours - though ours are already "distressed", so I never worry about the dog mucking them up, or dropping anything, or scraping them.  It's a real bonus.  Also, we went the engineered route - we had real hardwood in the last place.  Can't exactly remember why, just that the style we wanted was an engineered floor.
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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #732 on: April 06, 2021, 12:10:32 PM »
we went the engineered route - we had real hardwood in the last place.  Can't exactly remember why, just that the style we wanted was an engineered floor.

Our second choice was engineered. The quality of engineered is as every bit as good as hardwood itself.....especially these days. We just ended up liking the look of this one a little bit more.
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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #733 on: April 06, 2021, 12:17:24 PM »

I'll tell you what's really been blowing my mind lately is the rapidly rising value of our home.  We've been in this house for 8 years this coming August and its value has increased by nearly 50% which I find simultaneously exhilarating and worrisome.  Exhilarating because, holy shit, what an investment! :eek   Worrisome because, holy shit, what a bubble!

We've seen this movie before.  This is my second home.  My first one was a starter home that we purchased at a very, very high point in the market cycle, like we're at right now.  The house was WAY overpriced.  By probably 20% or more.  I don't know if anyone remembers but back around 2006 the housing bubble began to burst.  It REALLY dropped off in 2008 and as a result we were under water on our mortgage by almost $100k.  We never intended to stay in that house for more than about 5 years, but we ended up having no choice but to stay and keep paying down the mortgage until 2013 when we were finally able to GTFO and buy the house we're in now.

We are ABSOLUTELY in a housing bubble right now and it's going to crash and burn at some point.  We have no plans of selling this one anytime soon.  We consider it our "forever home" with "forever" really meaning until my mother dies.  That may not happen for another 10 or 15 years, she's only 77 and in reasonably good health. 

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Re: The Benefits of Home Ownership?
« Reply #734 on: April 06, 2021, 12:24:42 PM »
I've got some home projects that I really need to work on as well.  Painting the living room, fixing a leak in my outdoor hose nozzle, and then power washing the house, fence, and shed.  These three things I've been putting off and it's really starting to become time for me to act on them, especially the power washing as the siding of my house is quite disgusting right now, but I need to fix the hose nozzle first....

Shit. I forgot all about that. I need to do that too! I came home a couple months back and mine was blown off the house. Water was coming out at full pressure for who knows how many hours. It made a hell of an ice scene in my backyard. Pretty sure water froze in the pipe because I never turned it off at the end of fall, and the faucet broke off when it expanded inside the pipe.

My sister's BF is giving my power washer a once over. He's handy and the ICE on it isn't running properly. My house needs a cleaning so bad.

I did mine this past spring and it's a lot of work, but it's SO satisfying to see when it's done. 

I built my deck in the fall, so I'm pricing out the railings now (I kept them off because of snow; good thing I did!).   I did a fair amount of painting over the winter, so that's done.  I finished the last part of the last room this Sunday (I'm rather anal about that, so when I paint, if I haven't already, I change out the electric outlets and switches, with new covers; it's irrational but dirty faded electrical outlets bugs me).   These first couple of weekends I've also been burning in the back yard, all the piled up brush and stuff.  I finished it this past Friday (I had off) and I'm pretty psyched.  All that's left for me after the railings is a good inside clean; I won't tackle anything new since we're likely putting it on the market here in the late spring.

For the hoses, get the hose bibb with the frost proof device; they range from about $25 to about $45 (I just picked that one because I know Prier and it's got the best picture of it.)  Mine has that, and if it gets too cold, underneath that circular metal cap (which pops off) is a plastic and rubber 'disk' (which you can either reset or replace, depending).   Mine actually popped out twice this winter, which means I dodged TWO "Winter Classics" in my backyard!   You still should shut off your water, but if you forget or get a freak cold spell, this might save you!