Denvers Ideas

The House

Its been a long time coming but now I have my house. Word of advice if your going to buy a house look at everything and don't buy private. The house looked good and I didn't see anything I couldn't deal with at first but after getting in things changed. Also never buy from someone you think is a friend. Friends are the first ones to fuck you in your ass.

The house main house is around 80 years and the add-on is around 24. The total size of the house is around 2900 Square ft. Electric hot water and oil heat. I have approx 3.5 acres of land with 3 wells and nice big pond. I also have 2 good size sheds.

1 Bath, 6 Bed Rooms, 2 Kitchens, 1 Setting Room, 3 Living Rooms & 1 Mudroom.

Sep 27/05 Changed main living room doors into a window and fixed the door sill that rotted out the wall in that area. $5 in flashing would have fixed what turned into $200 worth of rot.

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Nov 25/05 Back tower was also rotten because of lack of flashing and just plain dumb people holding a hammer. How some people build stuff is just funny. $10 in flashing would have prevented $150 of repairs.

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Roof repair on main house. When asked the old owner said he attempted to fix the roof in that area a few times with no luck Total cost of repair was $1.25. Two major rain storms and no leaks seems to be fixed to me.

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This one was just funny instead of spending the time to fix it right they used what must have been $100 in cocking with no luck. LOL just funny. Total cost of my repair was $78 and change. Layer of ice and water along with new flashing and a bag of shingles. Fixed and fixed right also looks a lot better then a crap load of cocking.

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Sep 21/05 A lot of digging. Someone had the idea that putting a drive way over the septic system was a good thing. After spending a few hours digging in the yard in an attempt to find the septic system in the area they said it was I gave up. After cutting a peace out of the deck to find the pipe I was able to follow it along to find the tank. 4 good hours and getting done around 10 at night I fixed it enough to get me though the winter and I'll have to deal with it more this summer.

Summer 06 Fixed the septic system for good.

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Sep 23/05 week in the house I woke up to a funny sound in the bathroom when I checked we had a cracked line. $20 in new pipe and we had water again. This fix was also a dumb one someone used a steel clamp over a copper pipe. Well anyone will know two metals will corrode quick

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Nov 15/05 went to take a shower only to find valve for the hot had cracked. Simple fix $56 for a new tap set and around one hour in work.

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Dec 5/05 Waking up to no hot water. After looking the tank over I found we had a crack in the tank. Good thing was the tank had warranty. So that was the good news. NOW FOR THE FUNNY!!!!!! Well as we all know its nice to put shut off-valves in so we can turn the water off. Witch they did BUT when they heated the pipe to connect it they didn't take the valve apart and burnt out the rubber ring inside the unit. Plumbing 1.0.1. ALWAYS take apart the valve and remove the ring so you don't burn it. With out the ring the valve don't work and is only for looks. 5 min in time would have save $20 in new valves.

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Planed step going from the first floor of the tower to the second floor. The step that had been in place didn't meat code and were way to small for my feet. I'm not sure what they were thinking but from the other things I have found they didn't think about anything. Some of the steps I took out were so small that the heel of my foot hung the right off the edge. So I ripped them out and will be replacing them with normal steps. I will be install a platform instead of round steps. They will give me a lot of over room back and look a lot better.

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The house was very cold all the time because of the old part that im not using. So I spent a few min and closed off the door and made it nice and air tight.

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Installing insulation in the second floor of the tower is a simple job and is the first step in completing this room. This is soon to be the master bedroom. The total size of the master bedroom is around 24x24 a very good size if you ask me.

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Door repair is a slow boring job but in this house it was something that had to be done. Not one door had proper trim or was hung right. All the doors didn't close or were very noise. One full day and I had installed new handles and installed the trim along with painting it to match the door case. I also had to fix a few other things to get some of the doors to close right. But they all work and look good now.

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Not sure why they didn't take the time to install the pipes on the inside of the wall but I'm sure it was a good reason. HA HA HA no they just were lazy. Another simple job that only took me a few min to fix and only cost around $5 for pipe clamps.

BEFORE

AFTER

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This was a crappy job and I didn't like it at all. after a few days in the house I noticed that there was no way to get into the attic. So I had to build one. After spending a few min looking around and tapping like crazy I found a good site were I had enough room to make the hole. Making a probe hole to make sure I didn't cut into a roof truss's I used the saw to make a big hole. I then used some trim to line the outside of the hole and put in a few feet of weather stripping to stop air. Simple and done.

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Wood Stove installed and working good.

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Summer 2006 I ripped down the old house and started the garage.

This is a good picture of Kalyn working on the rip down.

Garage Floor and Framing started Nov 6/06

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Also in January I will be changing one of the bedrooms into a very large bath. I have the plumbing and prep work done.

Update Bath was finished spring 06.

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July 2006 I started the repair of the back of the house. This was a big job. Not much $$ not alot of work. Another thing that could have been fixed with the use of some gutters and flashing.

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Built a nice deck over the pond in the back didn't get it done yet.

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I removed the back deck as we will be removing this door come spring as this room is going to be the main living room and we don't want people going in and out of the room tracking mud in. Simple to room I took my time and saved all the wood so it could be used to build some other project.

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Some dumb electrical work done in the house was found when updating outlets and switches. One thing found was a closed in box with live wires and no cover or marets. I also found a outlet made using an extension cord. BIG NO NO. A few live wires out in the open with no box or marets were also found. Another big no no. After a few days I was able to find and fix 90% of the crap electrical work.

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These are two pictures of my back yard and pond. No water in her right now we had a really dry summer.

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Some pictures of the house.

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Junk left behind. Well they said they would come and get it. That was 14 months ago.

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I just got to let you all know of some funny things found in the walls while doing repairs. While doing plumbing to the bath tub I had to remove some insulation. By the time I removed the insulation around the underside and backside of the tub I had found 2 bath scales, paint roller and can of bug spray. I have found mono foam cans, brooms, newspapers, matches, condoms, smokes, old taps, oil jugs, one pot, a huge bag of shack YES shack like crap from a weed plant. It was stuffed in a hole in the wall. LOL I found a few more things but I cant think of it all now. Also note the picture of the electric heater found in a build in seat. This heat was hooked up and working. Funny they took the time to cut around it but not the time to remove it. Major fire hazard!!!

Cool picture of my house from space in the summer of 2004.

All work done by you know who. ME!!!