SCHM1AN

I am very impressed with the amount you can get done in a year.

It's like a fishing story

The fish was THIS BIG (How much I think I can get done in a year)

The fish was ACTUALLY *this big* (How much I actually get done in a year)

Apartments being built across the street from my house, starting next spring. Trying to decide if I want to sell now or wait until they're built and tenants are all settled in, then sell. If we sell now, the house will be as-is. If we wait, I'll have the basement rec room and office all finished, a master bedroom walk-in closet done, and the front and back entryways will have tile instead of linoleum floors.

Currently, an eyesore of a building is across the street which houses a yoga studio and an overhead garage door company along with 2 townhome-style apartments. Here's the view from my driveway currently:

Apartments are aimed at empty-nesters and will be considered "luxury" apartments. $1200 for a one-bedroom and $2000 for a two-bedroom. 40 units being built, and enough underground and surface parking spots that it shouldn't overflow onto the street. (View from my house above shows overflow from Yoga class every 2 hours of the day). The apartments will look like this when they're done

What do you think? Should I stay or should I go?

Lots of stuffs going on with our house...

So my wife and I found out we're having a baby (yay!) so of course we had to paint the nursery and get some furniture

That room used to be my office, and thus my office got moved downstairs into a dark and dingy corner... had to build some shelves for all of my text books

We had some lights installed in the basement (city code won't allow me to install myself, so we had to call an electrician)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Also got some outlets installed in the ceiling so we can watch football on the weekends with our projector and soundbar setup

Painting the baseboards

Did some landscaping and added some tree rings in the front yard

And lastly, ripped out all of the old dingy shelving in the cellar, painted the block walls, and installed some new shelving. Real brick flooring will be installed sometime soon

Where do i find cheaper, bright 4" LED Recessed light? Lowes seem to has the brightest 665lm but $55/ea, Home Depot $47 but only 550lm, Costco and Sams only has the retrofit kit only 500lm.

At Home Depot you can get the CREE 4" recessed LEDs for $20/ea. I have 6 of the 6" variety in my kitchen and they work great with a dimmer. No buzzing, no more heat pouring out of them, and great color at all but the lowest dim settings

With the onset of cold weather my wife and I found out why the previous owners sold the house in spring; the rooms farthest from the furnace just don't get enough heat and are subsequently cold. After some diagnosing and identifying which ducts were responsible for those rooms, I slapped some R-6 fiberglass & mylar around the ducts. Both of the rooms affected are bedrooms, and the bedroom on the first floor had an addition in the 70s for closets which were added onto the foundation with a small crawl space underneath. During my holiday break, I tackled both of these problems and vastly improved the comfort of our home. I'd say the bedroom is now 5 degrees below the rest of the house instead of 20 degrees below (yes, it was THAT bad). Once we got the bedroom temps up, we noticed that the closets were still cold even with the closet doors open, so I shimmied myself into the crawl space and glued some R-10 rigid foam to the foundation walls. Again, the difference is amazing!

Well continuing this saga, the rigid foam on the foundation walls did help to prevent all the cold air from penetrating the crawl space, but what cold air that did get into the crawl space made its way into our closets and thus our bedroom by way of a 3/4" hole drilled into the closet floor to allow the electrical wires to enter in. I pulled out the batted insulation, glued some more R-10 rigid foam between the joists to the rim joist and the sub floor, sealed all the gaps with expanding foam, then stapled Reflectix to the joists and taped the seams with metallic tape. Last night was the first night to make an evaluation, but it seemed to make a big difference.

Tonight I plan on finishing a few more joists and also sealing and insulating the return air duct that runs through that crawlspace

What's with the conduit?

No idea. Is there anything wrong with it?

With the onset of cold weather my wife and I found out why the previous owners sold the house in spring; the rooms farthest from the furnace just don't get enough heat and are subsequently cold. After some diagnosing and identifying which ducts were responsible for those rooms, I slapped some R-6 fiberglass & mylar around the ducts. Both of the rooms affected are bedrooms, and the bedroom on the first floor had an addition in the 70s for closets which were added onto the foundation with a small crawl space underneath. During my holiday break, I tackled both of these problems and vastly improved the comfort of our home. I'd say the bedroom is now 5 degrees below the rest of the house instead of 20 degrees below (yes, it was THAT bad). Once we got the bedroom temps up, we noticed that the closets were still cold even with the closet doors open, so I shimmied myself into the crawl space and glued some R-10 rigid foam to the foundation walls. Again, the difference is amazing!

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j224/icehawks11/image4.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j224/icehawks11/image5.jpg

BEFORE:

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j224/icehawks11/image1.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j224/icehawks11/image2.jpg

AFTER:

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j224/icehawks11/image3.jpg

I used Solidworks to map out reorganizing my room once... measured all of my furniture and figured out how to make it fit.

Doing so with my basement cellar. Trying to figure out how much room I'll have for shelves after all the insulation, studs, and drywall are taken into account

The nerd's way of doing things:

Just get a new hoop. Those old fiberglass boards break and lose their bounce over time. The paint will probably chip off after shooting around for a couple weeks. That style backboard can be had for under $100 now.

 

I'll post pics when we move into our new house. It has a dedicated 40x25 court in the backyard. Eventually I'd like to extend it to 50x30 to have a college regulation width so can rain 3s all day. The bad part about it is that it has a hoop like ones you'd find at your local outdoor court. That thing looks like it'll be a total PITA to remove when I want to drop in a 72" Spalding hoop.

Do you think a polycarbonate board will suffice or would you recommend splurging and getting a glass board? Keep in mind I only shoot around recreationally when friends are stopping by

Spent almost a full week in our new place and we're loving every minute. From the moment we got the keys and opened the door we felt at home. Not like moving into a new apartment where you get the weird out-of-place feeling- We truly feel home now. Have a few projects ahead of us, but the house is in great shape. I tell people it's build like a brick sh!t house since I can wake up hours before my wife on the weekends and not have to tip-toe around the house as to not create a stir

First home improvement project was replacing the raggety basketball hoop. Next up will be sanding and re-painting the backboard

The family who owned our house before us did a great job remodeling. I just dug up these "before" pictures from the internet

Before:

After:

Yes, look on the first page. There are different options, depends on what you prefer.

I had the Osram Rallye H7 bulbs, lasted about 2.5 years. Replaced them with Philips Extreme. Both are a good option and brighter than stock. The Philips are whiter.

http://store.candlepower.com/bfcopotphxtp.html

Whiter means nothing. As stated before, it's all about the lumens.

Ben, no problem. The DWS are good for an all-season tire, but you also may want to check out the new Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 tires. No word on how they do in the snow yet, though since they're so new.

Franz, you've got a PM

Dont worry about it--kids tend to be a bit skinnier and more flexible. I'm sure her and some nice freshman boy will fit in that tiny room just fine...

my friend's dad was a carpenter, so to deter his son from sleeping with any girls at college, his dad made him a box spring only big enough for him to sleep on, then found some tiny mattress which fit. He forgot that people can fit vertically too

Welcome to the forum- I'm between Cedarburg and Sussex most of the time but I sold my LGT back in May. I'm typically driving a red 03 Impreza Outback Sport or a black 09

FXT.

SCHM1AN - Nice! How many of you were working on that deck? Looks like you passed the posts through the deck for those benches. Are they set in concrete?

Thanks! There were 6 of us in total, 3 young guys and 3 older guys working from 8am - 7pm. The posts are indeed set in concrete about 2'-3' below ground, and we did cut around them with a jig saw which only took an extra 5 minutes per board. In the coming weeks, the owner of the house will be building stairs exiting between the two benches, and also from the white door on the right side of the picture.

Built a deck on the back of a friend's cabin this weekend

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/07/15/5arebema.jpg