# Summer renovations thread!



## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

So...what house projects are you getting done this summer? Share 'em here!

I went on vacation for two weeks and got some drywalling done in the master bedroom (replacing lathe and plaster), along with new bedroom windows. 

We also had all the remaining knob and tube wiring removed and had the house totally rewired. OH MAN, THE DUST. The drywallers did a great job keeping dust down but I am washing every surface in the house this weekend, after running the shop vac for several days. 

Next up: repainting the 50 patches in the house. (We're also replacing the bathroom skylight, but that's subbed out.) I'm seriously just taking a break from washing surfaces by making this post. 

What's everyone else up to?


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## PuckiTwo (Oct 26, 2011)

MoneyGal, I am glad I am not alone. Emptied yesterday a floor-to-ceiling-6ft-bookcase, removed all artwork, covered books, cabinets, sofas/chairs with every sheet I can find in the house. Tomorrow come the carpenters to put a floor-to-ceiling window where the bookcase was, close one window, replace gyproc with new one, move a heat pump, move a gas tank, move a bush. I am not looking forward to the dust - I hate cleaning, especially if it is on top of the regular one.

*Edit: *At the same time my spouse had to decide to replace an outside staircase which leads to moving plants - and all the interesting additional jobs which turn up when you start a renovation project.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

My husband, Mr. Moneygal (or perhaps he should be just "MoneyGuy") has a web client that started out as a painting business, but is making much more money operating as a post-reno cleanup service. I am sort of thinking about hiring a one-time-only cleaning service to wash all the walls and floors!


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## mind_business (Sep 24, 2011)

Just finished renovating our current kitchen and upstairs 3 piece bathroom. We were on a leisurely pace to complete the renovations ... until I accepted a job transfer. So I took a few weeks off and completed the work. Yes I did the majority of it myself, with the exception of some trickier plumbing.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

We DIY'd our kitchen when we first moved in - the upstairs bathroom was already in good shape (I did repaint it recently!). Mr. Moneygal has announced he'd like to spend the rest of the day repainting the bedroom floor, so that's what's next. The prep is going to take an hour or more, and then the painting. Two walls also have to get repainted in that room...time to crank the tunes and enlist the kids.


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

Our renovation plans go something like this:

Me: We need to change the floor in the kitchen. Let's go look at floor products.

Mrs. Spidey: Well it would make sense to paint before the new floor is down.

Me: Yeah. I guess that makes sense. 

Mrs. Spidey: And before the new floor is down it would make sense to rearrange the placement of the cabinets. I don't like the way the sink is so close to the stove. I would like to put the sink in the island. 

Me: That's getting a little involved it involves new plumbing under the floor.

Mrs. Spidey: And once that's done we should replace the counter-tops. 

Me: I would like to get new counter-tops eventually but I would prefer to do this one step at a time. I was just planing the floor this year and possibly new counter-tops a couple of years from now. I don't think it is worth it to re-plumb the kitchen. 

Mrs. Spidey: It makes sense to do it all at once.

So getting a new floor (perhaps $1000-$2000) has now escalated into a $30,000 kitchen renovation. We've gone through a similar scenario with the powder room. Long and short of it, we've been kind of making do with the crappy floor. I remember seeing a Saturday comic that outlined a similar scenario so it must be somewhat common.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

With any room in my house Spidey, this is the conversation my wife and I have.

Maybe it's an Ottawa-thing? Nah, highly doubt it.


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## hystat (Jun 18, 2010)

awful well pump saga.... the plumbers have screwed up several times. They're coming back for the 5th time this week. The old pump lived 25 years so I was ok with replacing everything but the work is sloppy and they run away before testing things completely, and I have lost lots of vacation time and sleep with the back and forth.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

We have a Florida property we close this week and we are going down on Aug 23 to oversee a big 10 day project new kitchen ,floor and paint right through .I am sure when we get there that list will get larger lol .I am awake at 3am picking out Floor tile lol


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

I am awake at 6 a.m. starting the wall painting - the floor is done, the walls are primed and ready to get painted. 

I do totally see how one reno project begets another - the hallway floor is looking pretty shabby in contrast to the beautiful newly-painted bedroom floor...


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## tiffbou2 (Jul 4, 2013)

Good luck on the project MoneyGal. I actually love painting and it makes such a difference.
My husband is staining our deck and pergola today. He built it last summer - what a big job that was.

Sort of off topic, how does everyone finance big home renos? When we moved into this house nearly 4 years ago, it was the worst house on the street. Everything original circa 1982. We bought it because it was in our preferred neighbourhood, a big home close to the lake and other houses on the circle the same size were selling for 50-100K more than this one. Anyway, we have done some things in the recent years - we had to do the deck and pergola because they were rotting and dangerous (a guest fell through our original deck!) We had to do exterior doors because we were getting ice on the inside of the home near the doors in the winter. We did all the main floor flooring because the carpet and linoleum were just nasty. I painted every square inch of the house's interior including over 60 cupboard doors in the kitchen. Anyway, there are still a lot of needs. The house needs windows, particularly upstairs (cheapest quote for all windows is $12K. We could do just the upstairs ones for about $5K). We also need to do the two bathrooms on the upper level. The main bath is ok, but the tiles are starting to come off the wall. Our ensuite isn't usable at all. Both the toilet and the nasty shower are cracked and leak. There's cheap wood laminate on the floor that is lifting and peeling. 

We have no debt other than a large mortgage ($275K owing on $360-$380K property). We haven't saved much of an emergency fund yet but it'll build fast since all our debts were recently paid. I don't want to touch investments. My friend (a bank manager, lol) is urging me to refinance mortgage and take $25-$30K to do windows and bathroom. Our mortgage is up for refi in less than three years - I'm thinking we could do what we can between now and then and when refi time comes, then take out $$ for the rest. Or should we just live with it, patching stuff up, until we save the cash for each project. There's a whole lot more I'd like to do in this house that's not listed because they are not as necessary renovations as the windows and baths. I just don't want to get to 10 years from now, still not having the house the way we want it, and kids are moving out. It's so tempting to borrow and do everything now. My friend's justification is that it will increase our home's value.


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

I personally wouldn't borrow money for any renovations other than those absolutely necessary - particularly when already carrying a sizable mortgage. If borrowing is necessary, I would consider touching non-registered investments. Let's say you have $25000 sitting in bank of Montreal stock. I would cash that in to pay for the windows. I would set up a HELOC (home equity line of credit) and buy the same stock or a similar stock (eg TD bank) depending on the tax consequences. (eg. if you are selling BMO at a loss you cannot claim that loss if you buy it back immediately.) 

So what have you accomplished? Your loan amount is the same. Your investment is the same (minus commissions). But now the interest on your $25000 is tax-deductible.


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## mind_business (Sep 24, 2011)

I would never finance renovations, except for the following reasons:

1) Issues that are safety related (wiring problems, furnace that needs replacing immediately, etc)
2) Issues that will continue to damage other parts of the house (ie: water leaks)
3) Or 'maybe' if I wanted to gamble that a reno would increase the value of the home ... but ONLY if I was going to sell the property right after the reno ... and even then it's a gamble at best whether you get your money out of the reno's.

I would recommend living in the house for a while, building up your emergency fund ... not to be used for the reno's, and then saving up for reno's one-at-a-time. People seem to be in such a hurry to live in the perfectly reno'd home, rather than managing renovations / savings carefully.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

@hystat,

Check this out about sump pumps...I solved this issue on my own...thanks to a crappy job by a professional plumber:

http://www.myownadvisor.ca/2012/03/a-story-about-hiring-a-professional-and-getting-amateur-results/


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

I'm with Spidey. As long as I have a mortgage, I'm going to try and avoid any home renovations using credit. Save the money, use the money for renovations, no more new debt.

My mortgage is still well-over 6-figures and it freaks me out. I want to kill it.

Your idea about selling the stock, having HELOC to buy back stock, is a good one if you need a bunch of cash to pay for a reno.

We have just started to save for a bathroom reno. I figure it will cost us $15k. Hopefully we can save that up in another year or so.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

In my own case, this is the first time I'm not paying for a reno out of existing cash - we're financing the windows and the rewiring. However, we save a relatively large fraction of our income, so by temporarily directing some of our regular savings to repaying this debt, we will be clear of it by next spring. 

There are a couple of reasons we did it this way - we had an electrician in to do some work earlier this year and he raised some concern about the state of our wiring (because he opened a wall). We had been thinking about having the wiring replaced "eventually" (I think I probably posted about knob-and-tube wiring here) but when we decided to go on vacation for two weeks, that was the opportunity (every single room in my house was upended - it was a full-time job by a couple of guys over the course of a week plus for the wiring, and then the patching, sanding and finishing). 

So what I was paying for, all told, was a family vacation for four to another province, while reno's were taking place in my principal residence. I didn't have enough cash to cover ALL of that. In these circumstances, I'm OK with financing the reno's. (The last time we took a two-week vacation was in 2007...waiting for "the next vacation" didn't seem like a workable plan!)

Also, I think my idea of reno's is probably on the really lowball end. We renovated our kitchen ourselves when we moved in (12 years ago - a 1940's kitchen that had never been touched!) and we did it for less than $5K. All the cupboards and countertops and sink etc. were from ReStore and IKEA, plus scratch-and-dent appliances from a big appliance retailer. 

Also, I'm partly paying for the windows and rewiring using *social capital.* Our renovator is our neighbour and there's a long story about how we saved the life of one of his pets way back when. He's been repaying us by discounting reno jobs since then - he did our roof last year.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Wow, great to have neighbours and friends like that MG.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Our summer renovation plans have all been foiled by non-responsive contractors.

When we bought our house, the inspector pointed out that the beams and sills in the basement were full of dry rot: you could stick a pencil into some of them. We negotiated a deal with the seller, who also reinforced them and guaranteed them for 10 years. But the dry rot has continued to advance, and we're at the stage where we need to replace the beams and sills in the next few years if we want to keep the house from falling down around us. It'll cost between $30K and $50K; we have the money saved up for it, but we've had no luck getting someone to do the work. I had a contractor in here in February who came up with a game plan and said he'd get an engineer in to evaluate; the work was going to happen this summer. But despite a few repeated promises to get the ball rolling, he seems to have disappeared and never returns messages. I found an engineer who can come do an evaluation, but it's getting too late to do the work this year so we'll try again for next summer.

Our second renovation job this summer was to replace some stone steps coming up to the house, which have come loose due to some subsidence (related to tree roots); it's too big for me to do on my own and involves removing all the steps and laying a new course underneath. Same story: we had someone come to evaluate and give us an estimate, we agreed to their estimate and asked when they could begin the work and then...nothing. 

Nobody seems to want our money!


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Brad: Sorry to hear that. I think this is a pretty typical story - perhaps Donald would have some ideas about how to make contractors more responsive!

TiffBou - since you asked, here are some thoughts in response. One way to think about your dilemma (which might make you feel better, or might make you feel worse) is to conclude that you didn't, in reality, purchase a house that was $50K cheaper than neighbouring houses, but a house that cost $50K more than you paid for it, with $50K added to the purchase price over time in the cost of renovations. 

It sounds as though you don't have a lot of options for paying for the renos other than remortgaging (or potentially using a HELOC - I didn't go back and look at your numbers to see how much equity you have). If you are going to finance renos, it is time to roll up your sleeves and do some more intensive financial planning. There is some reason that you didn't pay $50K more for a house when you bought. Do you feel ready now or more financially prepared now to take on a larger mortgage debt than you did then? If so, what changed? 

But this is about more than just "feelings of readiness:" if you add to your mortgage debt now, what is your plan to become mortgage-free given the larger debt load? (For that matter, what is your existing plan to become mortgage-free - how much would this disrupt that?) I think this might be the place to start - to consider the tradeoffs and develop a plan you can live with that takes more than just the state of the windows and the ensuite into account. Good luck in your planning!


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Our first home 22 years ago we were on a shoe string budget so we would do a project every spring $3000 -$4000 which is what we could save for it.My husband did all the work including windows and siding and bathroom renos.Moneygal the dust brought back memories for me , we had this house custom built and when it was handed over to us there was so much dust and dirt here ,even sawdust and screws in the drawers lol.
We had our regular cleaning lady come with her niece 3 days in a row to clean the house before we made any attempt to move and every morning she came there was new dust on the hardwood .


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Does re-caulking qualify M.gal?


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Just like winterizing your car certain maintenance like caulking and reno's should be done in the summer. A person should look over the entire outside of their house to identify problems to fix while the weather is right every year.


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

That's odd brad that you have had no luck!It might be that you are not identifying the right contractor?Both your jobs suite a company not a individual(esp your basement/structure issues)
Basement-renovations/home building outfit
Stone steps-landscaping contractor
What where the contractors that you called?individuals?what are the services?''general?did they have office and admin staff ect?web presence?bonded/insured/licensed/history ect ect ect
I personally think you are lucky(dodge a bullet)the contractor that dis-appeared on you seemed ill-equipped and likely it was out of his scope.
When getting a job that involves structure beam replacement and a fairly high amount of work and cost,this job should follow written quotation/prompt returning of phone calls ect/
On the surface it sounds like you where dealing with a ''handy'' man?


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

My major project was to 'summerize' my front lawn. It involved moving 3 deck chairs out of my shed and placing them carefully on the lawn. Whew! That's enough for me, at least until I have to reverse the process this Fall.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

donald said:


> What where the contractors that you called?individuals?what are the services?''general?did they have office and admin staff ect?web presence?bonded/insured/licensed/history ect ect ect
> I personally think you are lucky(dodge a bullet)the contractor that dis-appeared on you seemed ill-equipped and likely it was out of his scope.
> When getting a job that involves structure beam replacement and a fairly high amount of work and cost,this job should follow written quotation/prompt returning of phone calls ect/
> On the surface it sounds like you where dealing with a ''handy'' man?


Thanks, Donald, but definitely not a "handyman." This guy does major structural renovations for a living and has a big team of engineers and workers; he was recommended to me by a friend who deals in real estate and he's been in business for about 30 years. The only explanations I can think of are that 1) we're a bit outside of his usual geographic territory, and 2) once summer gets going people get booked up and he probably just doesn't have the capacity to handle us this year.

The stone steps was a landscaping business, albeit a small one (five people); same story I assume, they're probably just too busy. Given the fact that summers are so short I think I need to plan these things a year in advance and get myself booked for next spring now.


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

Glad to hear brad.Surprised he isn't keeping the lines of communication open though,he should be.
Structural work def is something you don't want to leave to ''chance'' and sounds like obviously you have the right contractor.
I know those types of projects are harder to price out esp because there can be some many different variables(uncovering potential problems that are unforeseen that need to be addressed & also a high skill-set)def worth the money to place in the hands of the contractor you are describing you have.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

steve41 said:


> My major project was to 'summerize' my front lawn. It involved moving 3 deck chairs out of my shed and placing them carefully on the lawn. Whew! That's enough for me, at least until I have to reverse the process this Fall.




+1. Haha - I hate renos, so that sounds like a great project for me.


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## hystat (Jun 18, 2010)

My Own Advisor said:


> @hystat,
> 
> Check this out about sump pumps...I solved this issue on my own...thanks to a crappy job by a professional plumber:
> 
> http://www.myownadvisor.ca/2012/03/a-story-about-hiring-a-professional-and-getting-amateur-results/


I wish I was talking about a sump pump - this is a submersible well pump down 70 feet - big bucks (thousands) , and a no show today. But the major hurdles have been overcome and the house has water now.

And I'm still a fan of my well over municipal water supply.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

NOTHING! I'm going to drink Gin and tonic on my deck and if there are any issues I'll call my landlord! Whoop!


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Just started building a long planned back yard storage shed over tha past weekend. Felled and cut up three 'weed' trees and extracted the stump and roots of one of them. 

Nicely cut up the trunks and stacked them on the curb, and they were gone in half an hour. Some people don't know crap firewood when thye see it!

Yard waste bagged the leaf canoppy and smaller branches. 

Then dug holes for six foundation sonotubes in the heavy clay that is my locale a few inches under the top soil. By hand, just me and a good strong digging bar. Too narrow a gate and too big a hassle to take down the gate to get even the smallest post hole digging machine in. 

Not the easy way to tone up and loose weight, but it certianly has that effect for me. I am another kg lighter that I have been working on droping for a few weeks now.

Concrete gets mixed and poured and anchor bolts set tonight. 

I don't start around the house projects until the RRSP's TFSA's and RESP's for the year are full, and I have put at least $10K into the non registered account, and bought the company stock shares that I am obligated to take a paostion in with my job. So by this time this year, the rest of the year's money is 'mine'.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Nice! I have a sonotube project in mind, too...


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

none said:


> NOTHING! I'm going to drink Gin and tonic on my deck and if there are any issues I'll call my landlord! Whoop!


+1 Except scotch on the balcony. After owning for 3 years I don't miss the work it takes. My landlord lives downstairs and bonus it's easy to find someone to look after the place while I'm gone


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

m3s said:


> +1 Except scotch on the balcony. After owning for 3 years I don't miss the work it takes. My landlord lives downstairs and bonus it's easy to find someone to look after the place while I'm gone


yeah, my last house I learned how to do everything (ever re-wired the *******). When we first moved to Victoria my wife always commented about how lovely all the houses looked in our area. All I could see was how much work it would take to keep it at that level.

Great thing is that with all the money we save by renting instead of owning we have a house cleaner now. I haven't cleaned a toilet in years - it's awesome. More free time to spend with my wife and son. That's what life is about.... well, that and gin.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

As I type this, a new roof on our six year old house due to windstorm is being placed. Tomorrow it's drywalling the basement due to some water infiltration from said storm (and roof being ripped off). We came out lucky, some in our town had huge trees fall on their homes and vehicles. Luckily no person in the area was injured seriously, so we're happy to work with our insurance to have things repaired.

Last year we had professional gardens put in both front and back (I'm not in great health so can no longer maintain the garden of my dreams), as well as insulating the garage and resealing the driveway. All good things to have done.

We moved from a 100+ year old house to a 4 year old house and there's never a lack of things to fix or do, regardless of the age of the house!


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

My main renovation was the front yard, did most of the work myself (after requesting many quotes and not hearing any responses, contractors not showing up when they were suppose to, and few quotes so high that I had to ask if this was in dollars). Hired a guy at a daily rate to help me out and saved myself thousands, after few days of backbreaking work I was glad to go back to work the following week, but I am really glad how it turned out (hence the pics, hopefully). We bought the house last year and the before pictures are already after clean up of the weeds hip high.
Also did new roof this year (initially wanted to do it myself but hired a company, glad I did), also had an electrician come over to do some wiring. All renovations paid cash.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

HH - you did a fantastic job! I'm sure your neighbours are also pleased. Way to go!


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Nice work Homer! Looks great.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Homerhomer said:


> 1. after requesting many quotes and not hearing any responses, *contractors not showing up when they were suppose to, *
> 2. and few quotes so high that I had to ask if this was in dollars)......
> 3. saved myself thousands.....


1. Unbelievable!
2. LOL. :highly_amused:
3. Fantastic.

With all the $$$ you saved, hope you enjoyed your 'all-inclusive' vacation in CR. Trust you went on rainforest zipline adventures, and other unforgettable stuff. :wink:


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

MG, yes, we were the worst house on the street, much better now although I really had issues with spending money on the area which serves no purpose other than look good.
Thanks FP.
T.Gal, yes we did lot's of stuff, it was fantastic, drove around exploring local towns, met monkeys, crocodiles and so on, hiked rain forest and even went to Nicaragua for a day, maybe it's time for summer vacation pics thread ;-)


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Homerhomer said:


> MG, yes, we were the worst house on the street, much better now although I really had issues with spending money on the area which serves no purpose other than look good.
> Thanks FP.
> T.Gal, yes we did lot's of stuff, it was fantastic, drove around exploring local towns, met monkeys, crocodiles and so on, hiked rain forest and even went to Nicaragua for a day, maybe it's time for summer vacation pics thread ;-)


I only looked at before photo and spent 5 minutes trying to say something positive lol Glad I looked again to see the other photos  Very nice


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

marina628 said:


> I only looked at before photo and spent 5 minutes trying to say something positive lol Glad I looked again to see the other photos  Very nice


We were after maintenance free no grass look, but not the death valley desert style you admired in the first pic ;-)
Thank you.


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## hystat (Jun 18, 2010)

hystat said:


> awful well pump saga.... the plumbers have screwed up several times. They're coming back for the 5th time this week. The old pump lived 25 years so I was ok with replacing everything but the work is sloppy and they run away before testing things completely, and I have lost lots of vacation time and sleep with the back and forth.


 and then the hydro bill comes... lol
As the old well pump was not reaching cutout pressure, it was pumping 24/7.... 240V, pulling 5 amps continuous.. almost 30KwH each day.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Three weeks after my first shed posting the thing is mostly up, and that includes a weekend with my mom caring for her after catarcat syrgery, and a wekend at a pal's cottage.

Barely a drop of rain to set me back. Temporary tarp over the wall for fighting of called for thunder storm this afternoon. All materials on hand to commence with making trusses and erecting and sheathing roof over the weekend.

After that a few days to weather shield and shingle and place windows and doors, and I will be water tight for the winter.

Shed siding is going to wait and be packaged with a siding replacement and insualtion upgrade on the hosue slated and next years project. 

Oh, and the joy of digging about 20m of trench to take a 100A permannent power feed to the shed. It will be worth it though, because that will make us that much closer to a planned hot tub deplyment adjacent to the shed.
Shed construction has been heavy duty and insulated.

This should allow it to be heated in winter/ ac in summer to use as a workshop, and the roof will be strong enough to allow us to mount solar water heater panels in the future to aid in heating the hot tub if we want to.


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