What was your last home project and what is your next home project?

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Brovane

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2001
6,146
2,420
136
I have no plans for a $100,000 driveway.

Total cost was $21,530.30. We had a quote from a contractor to do all the work for $45k. Total sq ft was 2700. We also had quotes to do tear out the asphalt and laydown new asphalt for $18k. I think the pavers look a lot better than asphalt.

We planned and did a lot of work ourselves and supplemented with hiring labor directly that we paid in cash plus a bottle of Tequila when the job was done.

This was the cost breakdown.

materials$ 13,520.30
labor$ 4,510.00
services$ 3,500.00
 

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,870
6,247
136
Total cost was $21,530.30. We had a quote from a contractor to do all the work for $45k. Total sq ft was 2700. We also had quotes to do tear out the asphalt and laydown new asphalt for $18k. I think the pavers look a lot better than asphalt.

We planned and did a lot of work ourselves and supplemented with hiring labor directly that we paid in cash plus a bottle of Tequila when the job was done.

This was the cost breakdown.

materials$ 13,520.30
labor$ 4,510.00
services$ 3,500.00
That's one hell of a deal. I would have bid that at least $50k.
 

Brovane

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2001
6,146
2,420
136
That's one hell of a deal. I would have bid that at least $50k.
My dad thought the bids would be closer to around $60k. Was surprised at the $45k bid.

It was also a lot of work on our part with planning, cutting pavers etc. Had to pay very careful attention to the grade and the pitch of the driveway to make sure the water went where we want it to go. Spent a lot of effort getting the pitch right where the driveway meets the rocks to the left of the driveway. It helps a lot that my Dad lives next door and has equipment like a tractor, forklift, plate compactor etc. It really makes it simpler to get a 3,000lb pallet of pavers to where you want it when you can just go pick it up and place it exactly where it needs to be. I got to learn how to operate a forklift. Over a decade ago my Dad found someone local that was looking for a place to dump 100 cubic yards of decomposed granite. My Dad has 10 acres on his property next door and just had them dump the DG on his property thinking that sometime he would have a use for it. Having that ready supply of DG was very helpful as we leveled the base for the pavers. We spent a lot of time working to get the screeding of the base exactly as we wanted and then put a thin layer of sand on top of it. Once we had that down the pavers went down very well and level with only minor adjustments.

 
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Brovane

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2001
6,146
2,420
136
The driveway looks great!

What is this thing called? Looks useful.
View attachment 114213

Thank you

We call that the "Limo". About a decade ago my Dad found it on Craig's list for sale and yes it is extremely useful for moving things around the property because of the extra long bed. It is basically a standard golf cart with a extended bed. Many years ago McDonnell Douglas had about 50 of these golf carts modified by the manufacturer and used them at it's Long Beach manufacturing plant for the C-17 Globemaster transport plane. After production stopped for the C-17 in 2015, these golf carts started being sold off as surplus and somehow my Dad managed to acquire one. It is much more comfortable than one of those Taylor Dunn utility carts to drive. The cart has a 48V motor and works very well for moving things around for projects because of it's long bed and removable sides.

I believe this is one of them for sale.
https://surplusrecord.com/listing/excellent-used-long-bed-utility-golf-cart-ez-go-391936/
 
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Jun 18, 2000
11,193
766
126
Whoa nice driveway. I like paver drives but the weather here sucks and they can't really be plowed or blown without damaging them.

I'm in the middle of a backyard redo. New fence, paver patio, and fire pit. The weather has paused the final touches. I'll post pics if I remember later.

@Brovane good job doing that yourself. Our 400 sqft patio itself was $10k. The work looked simple enough if you have the heavy equipment to prep the area.
 
Reactions: Brovane

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
7,989
3,468
136
Whoa nice driveway. I like paver drives but the weather here sucks and they can't really be plowed or blown without damaging them.

I'm in the middle of a backyard redo. New fence, paver patio, and fire pit. The weather has paused the final touches. I'll post pics if I remember later.

@Brovane good job doing that yourself. Our 400 sqft patio itself was $10k. The work looked simple enough if you have the heavy equipment to prep the area.
$25/sf is the bottom of the going rate here seems like. I've had a lot of quotes (8 or so over the last 2 years). So even if you have a tiny driveway that needs to be replaced you are talking $20-$30k easily. I have a tiny driveway and I look at homes for sale out in the suburbs that have massive driveways with cracked 1970s concrete and can't imagine spending that much money to re-do them.
 

iRONic

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2006
8,120
3,437
136
Continuing the remodel… See post #22 ^^

We had purchased the appliances, lighting fixtures, and ceiling fan in preparation for price increases this year. During the deep freeze this past week we tackled the fan and lighting installation.


The work boxes for the ceiling fan & can lights were the wrong type and installed with sheet rock screws just like the previous overhead cabinet was! JFC!


Picked up three of these from Lowe’s.




The wife loves the pendants but can’t decide if she wants to keep the fan. *shrug*

We measured out the remaining side walls and will head out to the design center for the cabinets, countertops. and backsplash drawings next week.
 

RearAdmiral

Platinum Member
Jun 24, 2004
2,280
135
106
Moving my two boys into one room to make room for the 3rd kid soon. Painted their room a dark blue space theme and managed to get two coats up in one day. Had some help to make an accent wall with stars painted with paint pens, came out nice! We also ordered more slightly textured wrinkle white switch plates that we've used in our kitchen and the baby's room. We put these in the space room and the bathroom we remodeled last year too. Really nice step up from your plain plastic white plate. switch plates
 

iRONic

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2006
8,120
3,437
136
*sigh* This is the last Silver Maple in my front yard. The last two winters have been brutal on them. 😢
 
Reactions: skyking

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,263
9,869
136
Just getting a lot of little projects done after a year of hand surgeries that made it hard to do everyday stuff. Last one was Oct. 30, 2024, so mostly recovered now. 4 carpal tunnel surgeries and 5 trigger finger releases.

I did start a new project about 5 days ago. There are 3 Juniper trees in front of the house that have been growing for decades. They mess up the front roof gutter. I noticed something online about them being a fire danger. I tested that by clipping off some and putting (undried) in my fireplace and they exploded with fire! Evidently they are very rich in combustible oil. I filled my vege recycling bin with clippings from one, it will be emptied tomorrow. I figure around 4 months of doing this weekly and the trees will be cut close to the ground. How to remove the stumps will be another project! I don't know how I will deal with that.

Junipers (Juniperus spp.) are one of the hardiest, most versatile and drought-tolerant shrubs. They are also one of the most fire prone species, and are sometimes referred to as a "gasoline bush" by firefighters.

I could get an arborist to do this stuff, but save money doing it myself, at least to the point where only the stumps remain.
 
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Reactions: iRONic

Brovane

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2001
6,146
2,420
136
Just getting a lot of little projects done after a year of hand surgeries that made it hard to do everyday stuff. Last one was Oct. 30, 2024, so mostly recovered now. 4 carpal tunnel surgeries and 5 trigger finger releases.

I did start a new project about 5 days ago. There are 3 Juniper trees in front of the house that have been growing for decades. They mess up the front roof gutter. I noticed something online about them being a fire danger. I tested that by clipping off some and putting (undried) in my fireplace and they exploded with fire! Evidently they are very rich in combustible oil. I filled my vege recycling bin with clippings from one, it will be emptied tomorrow. I figure around 4 months of doing this weekly and the trees will be cut close to the ground. How to remove the stumps will be another project! I don't know how I will deal with that.



I could get an arborist to do this stuff, but save money doing it myself, at least to the point where only the stumps remain.

Good job - You could try drilling holes in the tree with a auger bit and putting diesel fuel in holes. Barring that you might just have to use round-up repeatedly on them as little branches sprout out of the stumps. Just stay on top of them. I had about a dozens trees that I just paid for a strump grinder to come and grind them out. Was about $100 a stump.

 
Reactions: iRONic and Muse

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,870
6,247
136
The wife wanted a screen for the door leading to the back yard. Has to have a solid bottom so the dogs don't shred it. Not liking the offerings at the big box stores, I built one out of Red Oak. Looking pretty good so far, just waiting for the piece of clear acrylic I'm using for a dog height window in the bottom so they can look out when it's closed (happy dogs are a big deal in this house).
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,263
9,869
136
Good job - You could try drilling holes in the tree with a auger bit and putting diesel fuel in holes. Barring that you might just have to use round-up repeatedly on them as little branches sprout out of the stumps. Just stay on top of them. I had about a dozens trees that I just paid for a strump grinder to come and grind them out. Was about $100 a stump.
I'm planning to use Roundup (I have concentrate from ~20 years ago!) to kill grass-weeds, etc. that are all over my back yard. I grow veges, basically in growing season, which is starting here now. Tomatoes and kabocha squash, also borage, which I grow because it attracts bee pollinators for the squash, not growing much else, some herbs in pots. I'll try to not get any on the patches where I grow veges, so spray when there's almost no wind, i.e. on calm morning. I've heard that Roundup deteriorates over a couple weeks, hope it's true. Figure I should wait until there's several days of no precip before spraying, so holding off. Meantime, I have the ground prepared, planted kabocha seeds a few days ago, which probably won't come up for 2-3 weeks. Figure to buy tomato plants (maybe 8 inches tall in little pots) from Home Depot in about a week to plant under the trellises I created last year from bamboo.
 
Reactions: iRONic and Brovane

iRONic

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2006
8,120
3,437
136
These contractors are pulling fiber optic to my neighborhood. Does anybody have any experience with Kinetic fiber optic by this company:

Kinetic

I'm sure they will be offering some introductory offers. I'm mainly interested in reliability, customer service an rate increases after those introductory offers.

Our Spectrum 400 Mb service is mostly reliable but it seems that they raise the prices every other freaking month! I'm at $98 a month now just for Internet.
 
Nov 17, 2019
13,203
7,846
136
Kinetic is the new name for Windstream who bought a bunch of areas from a bunch of companies.

Some like their service. Some hate them. CS has dropped dramatically in the last few years as they joined the exodus away from US based support to offshore somewhere.

I have them for DSL, no fiber here. My local techs are pretty good.

Rates are all over the place and geo-affected. One area has a rate for a certain speed, another area is much lower, and yet another area is much higher ... same service, same speeds.
 
Reactions: iRONic

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
65,777
14,197
146
View attachment 122168View attachment 122169These contractors are pulling fiber optic to my neighborhood. Does anybody have any experience with Kinetic fiber optic by this company:

Kinetic

I'm sure they will be offering some introductory offers. I'm mainly interested in reliability, customer service an rate increases after those introductory offers.

Our Spectrum 400 Mb service is mostly reliable but it seems that they raise the prices every other freaking month! I'm at $98 a month now just for Internet.
Hell, I pay $125 for 250/15 cable internet.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
69,982
13,479
126
www.anyf.ca
Starting to work on my garage again now that it's not as cold out. Finished adding the ceiling joists so I can add insulation, vapour barrier, and probably drywall. This was way more work than it should have been since 80% of the time was spent moving stuff back and forth to have room for the ladder and the joists were all twisted so had to use clamps and leverage etc to get them straightened out so they can be straight at both ends. In the process I moved lot of stuff to the shed and outside so it got easier.











The darker ones were already in place to act as collar tie supports for the roof so I just worked around them and put them at same height, built that wall on the left side in first pic a year or so ago. Not everything is 16" OC so I'll add 2x4 strapping going across the joists too for drywall. I will do the insulation and vapour barrier first though so that there is a space between the plastic and drywall to act as a space to run wires etc. For lighting I'll most likely just put back the T8 fixtures I had before. The bulbs that are there now were just thrown there temporarily. I'll be putting a few security cameras around the house and running the wiring through garage too before I close up the ceiling.

The end goal is to turn this into a small shop for wood working projects etc and condition the space so I can use it year round.



The rest of this post is older pics of progression of the project. First order of business was removing the old fireplace chimney and fireplace itself in the living room which is on other side of that wall as the garage is small so it took up lot of space. Then wanted to add more concrete as that floor was in rough shape.

Ready to start on chimney, this is the cleanest the garage has ever been.





Progress pic of when I was removing the chimney, I didn't bother removing that hunk of solid concrete at the bottom. Will just foam that in when I insulate and the work bench will cover it anyway.





Also added conduits going from house crawlspace to garage floor so I can run power, data, etc.


In house:



Under garage:



Garage floor:



New concrete:







and epoxy:




This is more pics that I wanted to add, but figured I'd post the progression from the start. It's been a long project that started in like 2019 as I kinda skipped working on it some years and work on other projects. My goal this year is to at least have the ceiling insulated and the walls partially insulated. There's lot of stuff I want to do like run an EV charger circuit outside and also security cameras so need to do that before I cover up everything. Also will need to add a new electrical panel and bring in a bigger feed. That's what the conduits are for. Power, data, and possibly hydronic heat from the house, and a spare for future use.
 

Paperdoc

Platinum Member
Aug 17, 2006
2,447
347
126
Lots of work, and I can hear the pride. A note of caution for you to check on. You plan to leave a gap between insulation / vapour barrier and the sheetrock ceiling to run wiring through. That may not be allowed. A basic principle for wiring is that it must be accessible for inspection and repairs. What you plan would hide it completely in that gap. The common plan, of course, is that the wiring is done from above after the insulation / vapour barrier is installed, with an access hatch into the "attic". Wires and all junction boxes are attached to beams as you pull the insulation aside temporarily. If the only items to be connected are your T8 fixtures connected by screws through the sheetrock into beams, you MAY be able to just run supply cables just though holes through the sheetrock directly into each fixture. BUT you may actually need to use octagon boxes attached to beams and poking though the sheetrock against the back (top) of each fixture. Then you'd need a hole cut out of the top of each fixture to match the octagon box so you can access that box's wires from inside the fixture. I recommend you consult your local electrical inspection agency and be sure you do it the way they WILL approve.
 
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