cmonkey's journal

[cmonkey]

No, we didn't clear anything out. I did spend 2 minutes organizing it.

We also hadn't been to the store in 1-2 weeks, but its generally not that much more. Usually we just buy dairy and some baking supplies. So now our fridge has some more cheese, 1/2 gallon of milk and some rice milk (yum!). Oh and a huge watermelon from the garden.

I try to keep a tight lid on fridge build up.

[cmonkey]

The Don't Build 'em Like They Used To....and That's a GOOD THING!


I have gotten a lot done since my last update, mostly tearing out our living room. We are also nearly done with the bathroom. I have all the trim done, the laundry cabinet is complete. I am waiting for a part for the dryer because it is broken. After I fix that I'll be sharing.

Bedroom 2 is just a couple days away from painting. Bedroom 1 is full to the brim of all of the contents of our upper floor (minus kitchen/bath).

Here's our livingroom after clearing everything out. The girls haven't a clue what to think.










Here's where I am tonight after 2 days of cleaning up all the plaster and insulation. I still have 2 walls to tear out. But I found a dance floooooor!!!

But then I over-engineer everything.

From one overbuilder to another....how does this irk your builder bone? My jaw almost hit the floor when I saw this.

What you are looking at is a ceiling cobbled together out of 2x4s! Spanning 20X20 FEET! 24 inches on center. Each joist is doubled up and every board is a different length. Some of the sistered spots are only 3 feet long.

I wondered why my entire ceiling plaster was cracked. Well THIS is what causes cracking. Especially 500+ lbs of insulation and plaster on it.

So now I get to rebuild all this AND rebuild the trusses because they are built from 1x3 and are not even supporting the rafters. The in-laws are coming Thursday-Monday and I HAD planned to have the ceiling ready for drywalling in both the livingroom and dining room. That plan just went out the window. I'm just glad they are coming this weekend, it is rather serendipitous, as I could not do this work alone.

Look at that sag!

[Viktor K]

I don't know much (anything) about building, but that ceiling looks real sketchy. Could that have come tumbling down at some point? Sorry if the answer is obvious :p.

Those are nice floors underneath that carpet from what I can see. Are you going to keep that wood? Also it looks like you're outlining something on the floor with like little rocks. What are those for?

Hope all the renovations keep going well

[cmonkey]

I don't know much (anything) about building, but that ceiling looks real sketchy. Could that have come tumbling down at some point? Sorry if the answer is obvious :p.

I am surprised it didn't sag more, yes. It has been up there for several decades (I think the room was added on in the 70's or 80's) and it has held up VERY well for what it is. I don't think it would have fallen, but it is very very crappy building. It was strong enough to allow someone to walk over at one point....someone built a walk path. They have guts!!!

Proper building would be 2x12s spanning the length of it. As it is, I don't have a way to transport anything over 12 feet long so I will be sistering 2X12s and securing the hell out of the 5 feet of sistered portion. Steel plates, about 20 nails through the entire thing and doubled up trusses. Considering what I have now, my build will last at least twice as long as this will.

I also need to secure the rafters. They are built out 2x4s, 24 inch on center as well. The span is perhaps 10 feet, which is reasonable, based on some quick looking, but they need some more supports. Our roof doesn't sag at all so I'm not too worried.

Those are nice floors underneath that carpet from what I can see. Are you going to keep that wood? Also it looks like you're outlining something on the floor with like little rocks. What are those for?

I sorta like the floors too, but DW abhors them. We are going to recarpet after taking up this floor, securing everything and putting down a subfloor. Those little lines of 'pebbles' are the staples that held the carpet pad in place. Still a little bit of pad stuck under them.

[George the original one]

I would bet that some homeowner before you ignorantly ripped out a loadbearing wall which ran down the middle because they wanted a large open room...

[cmonkey]

That might be, I'm not sure. If you are referring to what looks like a beam running down the middle, that is the walking board. I tipped it up to dump the insulation and haven't removed it yet.

In any case, this was built by a DIYer who didn't know what he was doing...

Just to add to the amazement that this never fell down....each of the sistered 2x4 is nailed together with a single nail about every 12 inches.....a few of the joists only have 3 or 4 nails in them...total.

Either we are COMPLETELY overbuilding these days, or the guy that built this was pretty damn lucky.

[Ego]

You may find this helpful....

https://www.nachi.org/roof-framing-part1-2.htm

[cmonkey]

Thanks for the resource Ego. I have been doing a bit of study, and it seems that purlin systems need a bearing wall to be properly installed. However, it looks like there is another option if you don't have a bearing wall.

From that resource. Seems if you have a strongback ( a really thick board ) running the length of your ceiling and have the purlins bear on that. The example they gave noted that there was no sagging to be found in that installation.




Given my roof is not sagging with what is in place, this might be the best solution.

[FBeyer]

...Either we are COMPLETELY overbuilding these days, or the guy that built this was pretty damn lucky.

If US construction went anything like Northern European construction, then there was a period around the 70's 80's where everything got OMG ONE BILLION NAILS, 'cause more nails are always better.
Then someone did some math and figured out that n square centimeters of wood with a nail through it only spreads so much strain and the amount of nails required by law was greatly diminished.

[cmonkey]

Well I feel a bit sheepish. Seems I over-reacted and have no issues at all and I am good to go. Turns out this room/addition is a completely different type of engineering from regular joist/rafter building.

Looking up the span lengths for 2x4 truss systems, I am well within range of this being a safe design. I'm really glad I did my research before I ripped into this!

I am going to re-enforce the truss system a bit with some steel plating and screws. Some of the nails have popped out. Besides that, I am ready to put in fresh insulation and lights.

[Ego]

Well I feel a bit sheepish. Seems I over-reacted and have no issues at all and I am good to go.

That is good news! You are smart to ask questions and risk a little sheepishness rather than plunge in without knowledge. Good job!

[cmonkey]

A little late to your issue. Those are definitely trusses and considering the age of your home they seem to have held up fairly well. You can fix the sag before you drywall and speaking of which it is standard to hang 5/8 drywall on 24" centers, especially ceilings. I don't know if you have considered that or not but with 1/2 it can sag with that much unsupported span.

You would have saved me some anxiety.

Interesting, I had thought that putting up 3/8 drywall would be easier on the trusses. Hrrm. So drywall can sag that much eh? I suppose 5/8 would give a bit better thermal protection as well.

Also, now I see a couple people questioning whether I do indeed have trusses based on the fact that I have a ridge board at the peak of my roof... So it seems this might be one of the earlier renditions of truss engineering or something. It definitely looks like a truss, but there are differences too. Another being the sistered chords.

Good job!

Thanks Ego, and thanks for stopping by!

[cmonkey]

Ha, I was only kidding.

At least you didn't start ripping your roof off, right?

Oh man.... I lugged all the lumber home though, that's almost as bad! Now I need to lug it all back.


So are you sure this is a truss system? The ridge board doesn't negate that?


Also, what I took off was plaster, and it was about 3/4 - 1" thick. The cracks were only on the joints, so I suspect it may have been just a poor finishing job. In any event, I will go with 5/8....and I'll stagger those butts.

[cmonkey]

It's a stick built truss, but it's still a truss. There is no way that span would have worked out otherwise, especially with the weight of plaster. You can still beef it up and level your low spots, just keep in mind which forces are in play.

Thanks ffj! I would definitely trust your advice on structural framing after seeing that treehouse you built.

The entire framework drops by about 1" from each side to center which is across 10 feet, but it mirrors the floor sag, so I think it's probably sagging just due to being old. Not really a structural issue. The other part of the house was a bit worse actually.

I am not sure I will fix that, as I would need to disconnect the hangers, jack each chord up and reattach. That's a lot of work for not much gain TBH. I am not at all versed in how trusses work anyway and I don't know if you can even do that in a safe manner.

Also, if it's not broken, don't fix it! I would possibly introduce problems that don't exist now.

I will be securing it with some plating, screws and replacing some of the blocking. The blocking on the sides needs redoing.

[cmonkey]

Oh you mean double up the 2x4s and level those? I did that in the bathroom, but not in the rest of the house so I hadn't thought of that. I didn't think it was worth the hassle and it also made installing insulation more difficult. The ceiling was flat, just not level. You can't even tell though.

In the living room, it is not actually flat, since it goes from high -> low -> high again, by about an inch. If I did that I would need to notch the boards by the walls to bring them down to being level with the middle.

Originally I was thinking about how to level the existing boards and I couldn't think of a way.

[cmonkey]

I have been off work since last Thursday when DW's parents arrived for the weekend. They left today in the morning. As usual, we got a lot done while they were here, but I think we may have broken the record for 'work done' this time.

Our future dining room went from 'almost untouched' on Thursday morning to literally being just a couple days away from being drywalled in just a few days. And it was a COMPLETE MESS. I should have it drywalled this week/weekend, all I have left is to finished the floor, install my outlets and I can drywall.

In the past we have called this room things such as the 'junk room', the 'massive hallway', the 'crap room', etc.... because this room really had no purpose other than taking up a huge amount of space in the middle of our house. We had our laundry facilities in this room but other than that it was just storage.

It used to be the kitchen, which is why there were old kitchen cabinets in the room. When we moved in, we decided before even signing the paper we were NOT going to use this room as a kitchen, so we gutted the room on the south side of our house and built a kitchen there.

This room also had about 3-5 different 'partial renovations' done to it over the years. 2 different ceilings, 3 different floors, 2-3 different wall coverings with plaster behind it all. The wall between our new dining room and our living room was also an old exterior wall and so it had old balsam wool insulation and old 1x6 sheathing boards on it. Really nasty! I hated this room the most in our whole house and it was a real pleasure to tear it apart. I have been looking forward to it.

We also decided to have 2 huge open doorways between these two rooms. Originally we were planning the smaller opening (which was already there) and a large window opening. Well I got the header built and we just loved the look and feel, so decided to make it a huge doorway instead. This area is completely transformed by it.

A lot of work went on before I took photos as well, mostly the ceiling. The attic ladder has a tripled up 2x6 header next to it to catch where the old stair wall was and the joists were also doubled up next to this header. We also built the frame for the attic ladder.

Anyway, here are some before (I took these Thursday) and some now (tonight) photos.

Thursday







Tonight









Major items completed.
- dining room completely gutted
- ceiling lights done
- ceiling insulated, vapor barrierd, and drywalled
- a new attic ladder assembly installed
- most of my subfloor installed
- rebuilding the wall between our living room and dining room

We are also 100% complete with all demolition in our house!!! Totally completely, "never dealing with plaster again" DONE!!! Well except for taking up the floor in the living room, but those are just plywood panels. Easy.

[cmonkey]

Monthly Update, August 2016

Expenses/Savings

August was one of the better months we have had all summer. The Summer of No Savings is officially over. We spent very little outside of renovation expenses. Over half of our normal spend was property taxes ($518), leaving us with normal spend of $439 + $180 of car-sale cash we spent on groceries for a total of ~$619 in normal spend for the month. I think that is a new low!

I started taking some steps to reduce our expenses in the coming months. I switch our internet plan to lowest cost and that will kick in next month.

I can also state that we are getting close to finally wrapping up all the work we are doing to our house, with only about 1.5-2 months left! So our renovation expenses will be plummeting soon. We do have a couple large expenses coming up (3 windows and insulation) but aside from that we just have drywall, paint and misc to pay for. Oh, and our carpet, I have perhaps 30% of the money saved for that. The rest will constitute our last final renovation expense and will probably hit the books in November.

Normal Spend - $957.04
Remodel Spend - $2379.19
Total Spend - $3336.23
Total Savings - $2537.69 ; 46%






I added a new graph to my updates. This shows the past 12 rolling months of investment income compared to normal spending. Looking for this to overlap.





Account Details

I made some changed to my Lending Club summary to reflect a 3% SWR, rather than an expected ROI income.












I also created this chart this month. It shows our SWR over the past year for both Lending Club and Total (for all 3 accounts).






Total FAI - $2872.51 (+130.73)

Time to Bills Only - 13 Months (-3)
Time to Bills & Food - 29 Months (-1)
Time to TTM Expenses - 51 Months (-2)

TTM Expenses - $14550.66(+25.22)


I made some changes to my FAI values this month as well. Instead of using expected ROI for Lending Club, I changed everything over to use a 3% SWR number instead. This lets everything match up with our actual expenses on the chart.

I also changed how I am calculating our TTM expenses. Instead of averaging out each monthly value's annualized number over the past 12 months, I am simply adding up each monthly value instead. It's much simpler.

In the end our FAI value is lower, but so is the 'target' on our chart. Our actual progress hasn't changed at all.

Renovation

A month ago I had just started mudding bedroom 1. Bedroom 2 didn't have drywall up. The bathroom laundry cabinet wasn't even started, I still needed to build the wall and the platform for the dryer. We had not done any tearout for our dining room and hadn't moved anything out of our livingroom.

It's been a very productive month, even though it hardly felt like it until this past weekend. Main accomplishments include completely finishing bedroom 1 and the main floor bathroom. We moved everything from our livingroom into bedroom 1. Bedroom 2 still needs a coat of paint, but I have been putting my efforts into the dining room this past week or two. Our dining room is completely gutted and we have a LOT of the building done. The living room is essentially gutted except for taking up the floor. I have some structural work to do on the ceiling but then I'm ready to build.

By my next monthly update the dining room will be 100% complete and we will be finishing up work on the living room. I want to be to the point where we are ready to paint by Oct 15. That will be a push, but given what I've done so far, I think it's doable. My motivation for getting this done so quickly is that we have a relative coming to stay with us on Oct 16 and I'd like to have the house put together before she arrives. DW's parents are also coming back the 3rd weekend on October....and we need places to sleep for everyone!!!

I haven't shared photos of the bathroom yet because it's been a bit of a mess with the in-laws in town this week. We also need to put up some of our decoration and the towel hooks and such. Probably this week.

[cmonkey]

Spent a long week/weekend drywalling and mudding the dining room. After 7 hours of work today, I have the entire 1st coat of mud on now and also have all the drywall and 1st coat up in our hallway.

Before getting the drywall up, I also installed the sub floor and put in all my outlets this week. I also installed a small HVAC duct in the wall leading to our kitchen.

The plan is be painting the diningroom and hallway by next weekend. Maybe bedroom 2 as well, it just needs a couple of smooth coats.

After that, DW will do the paint while I move on to the livingroom. Last room!!

[cmonkey]

The Last, Most Difficult Month

Work is going well on the dining room and we are also painting bedroom 2 this week. The ceiling is almost done and then the walls this weekend. I am also finishing the closet for bedroom 2 tonight and that can be painted tomorrow.

As for photos, I am going to share photos of the bathroom, bedroom 2 and the diningroom once the dining room is painted next week.

Despite the progress, I've been realizing over the past week that I am heading into the most difficult phase of this entire renovation project. Even though I don't have a real deadline for this thing, I still cannot escape creating one in my mind and since October 16 is when our relative is coming, that is what I have picked on a subconscious basis. It's just my nature to work on deadlines. I really hate this part of my personality and I am trying to fight it off! Since I have this in the back of my mind, it has started to freak me out. This week in particular it has gotten worse due to the level of mudding I have in front of me. Ugh.

Some of it is also that I feel like it's hard to 'wrap up' something like this. When is the actual "done" point? When I'm done mudding (& DW starts painting)? When I have the trim up? That's really easy so maybe I'm done before that? Maybe we are "done" when we (FINALLY) have carpet again and I can just spend hours and hours laying on it, instead of walking around on OSB all day.

Being so close to getting done with everything is also making me feel extremely lazy and it has become more difficult to work on this each day. I haven't really cut down on how much I'm doing, but I'm not seeing a huge mountain to climb anymore and so I'm climbing more slowly...even though our quality of life hasn't improved yet. It doesn't help that my motivation cycle is coming around to 'unmotivated' again.


One thing that is helping though is looking back through this journal at the work I have done and the sheer level of determination and perseverance I have displayed this year. I have worked my ass to the bone and I'm pretty proud of it. It's really incredible, considering before this, building something like a birdhouse was consider "big" for me.

[jacob]

Ha! I've noticed a possibly similar thing in myself. Or perhaps it's entirely different. Most of the work around here in this fixer-upper was done during the first 6 months because of an externally [city] imposed deadline. Since then I've been climbing the end of a sigmoid which feels like climbing a false hill. The ROI is getting lower and lower. Since the beginning I figured I'd rebuild the kitchen, but after fixing the most important stuff (fridge, stove, working sink), the kitchen is sufficiently useful already and I feel no need to improve it by an additional epsilon. I received a stack of "This Old House" magazine from my neighbor. That magazine seems to be all about tearing existing functional stuff out and finding meaning in life by replacing existing stuff with stuff that's marginally better within the 3000 sqft that your homeowner's deed defines. I don't see the point of that exercise at all, even if it is very popular, but the target demographic certainly does. I think I passed "done" quite a while ago.