My House's Work In Progress Thread (Pic Heavy)

I can remember when Mr Jane bought them home and plugged them in for the first time. My jaw dropped to the floor as to how clear the sound is through them beauties.

 

Now for Mr Jane's Workshop.

Originally when we arrived our intention was to use one of these two garages at the back as a workshop for Mr Jane's woodworking activities.





Mr Jane then put in a large screwfix order for a lot of tools and they were all put in here soon after they arrived. Everything we thought was fine until we discovered after a brief shower that the roof leaked and all over some of Dave's brand new tools. Thankfully these were only the hand tools, so were dried off.



We looked into replacing the roof and a quoted quickly revealed to us that this garage was not worth keeping. As for the same price of replacing the roof we could have bought a brand new large wooden workshop and pretty much start from scratch.

The garages we thought would be a nightmare to get rid of. But I had an idea to stick them up on ebay and low and behold someone down the road bought both of them off us for £161 and took them both away in a weekend. We didn't even have to help (although in hindsight I think we should of).

Garages plus rotten old shed were removed and a new base was laid over the other existing garage bases. You can see just how much space was freed up.



New workshop was built by a company in Staffordshire and was delivered to the house by a massive lorry. Unfortunately we couldn't erect it on the day as no one was available to help out.

So it was left leaning against the wall for a few weeks.



New workshop was then erected in a day and here was the finished result.





Then a coat of paint was given to both the inside and outside.



Old garage bases were eventually removed (to find asbestos underneath the concrete - see garden progress for photos of this work) and replaced by a lawn.

Meanwhile inside the workshop. A new bench was built, along with a long built in bench/storage area at the back.



2 years on from when that picture was taken the the place is now full of tools and loads of wood.





His pride and joy being his 1930's Myfold ML4 metalworking lathe.





His lovely tool chest he built last year too.

 

Last room to go now and then we are up to date.

We are currently working on our dining room. With me plastering the damaged walls and trying to get them into a better state of repair before laying a new floor, decorating etc.

This is what it used to look like a few weeks after we moved in. A massive room with lots of potential, but bright yellow walls (not keen on yellow), a horrible noisy fire, with a wonky tiled hearth, plus a very uneven tiled floor that seems to be always dirty no matter how much I clean it and an archway I wasn't keen on either.







This room had been left till almost last as it would have the most upheaval in our lives as we still have to eat in this room and cook in the adorning kitchen. A lot of work had been done to it in the past two years, lots of channels were cut into the walls and new cable put in both by sparkies and ourselves.The plan was to split the room into two halves, working on one side while we ate/dined on the other.

When the new boiler was installed the old fire and back boiler were ripped out and left this big hole in both the wall and ceiling.






Fire was eventually replaced after we finally found the right fire to fit with what we wanted.



Then the damage caused by removing the old boiler and pipework at the side of the chimney was repaired. You can just make it out in the above photo. I mounted anglebeads to the corners of the breast and then hardwall the damaged wall.



Next I then started the process of plastering the walls. You can still see what I mean about the large channels dug out of the wall on the photo below. Large wall was plastered last week (which I don't have pictures of)





Now I'm focusing on the archway between the dining room and kitchen.

This is how it looked like once all the tiles were removed over a year ago.



Then with the steel formers removed (also boxing for the pipework on the far left replaced)



Then hardwalled.



Got to give it another coat of hardwall just to square it off a bit better and then skim it. Then our attention will turn to the other side of the room.

Meanwhile Mr Jane and myself are arguing on the design of the bookcases that will go into the alcoves either side of the fireplace. Hopefully they will end up looking something like this.

 

Hello; I stumbled here via your post on the worm farm. I made all my money buying nice houses so rundown they were rotting away and rebuilding them. (one had 21 rooms over 3 floors) Anyway I do most of the trades but have gotten to where I cannot stand to pick up a tool anymore. This house I am sitting in I built with one guy - all of it except driving the pilings. Every single board carried up, cut and nailed - wire pulled, painting, bathrooms.......... That was the last new build I had in me.

My cottage next door was an odd project. the city will only allow houses of a minimum of 1000 sq foot to be built. So to beat that I found a rotting cottage that had been a legal home and got it, permitted rebuilding it, dragged it across town, had 40 foot pilings driven, hired a crane, put it 20 foot in the air - and got my cottage (420 sq ft) - you could not build new one like it, but it was a legal home allready. Here it is, a picture I took yesterday for something else:



the lift



re building houses is something else - but good money when you have the energy for it.

 

Are those straight arms on the 1210's there? How come?

 

They are indeed! They are Rega RB250 tonearms which hardcore audiophiles use.

Mr Jane wasn't happy with technics standard tonearm and so replaced them with these.

He's into the whole turntable modding thing and added these lights under the platters too.

 

Ooh nice, I guess he's done the phono cable mod. That's something I always wanted to do but never did get round to it.

 

Not very USB is it? :heehee

 

Ha, how dare you?! I think the mixer (Rane Sixty-Two?) might be...?

 

Sonos in all the rooms for me, hooked up to a cache of MP3's ripped onto one of the PC's in the house, and Spotify

Much more USB

 

Oh, I am about to draw up plans for another just like the cottage for a bit of land I have that does not have the size restrictions. Permitting a house build is such a pain though. I do structural design which is easy for any carpenter but the drawing everything like the driveway, parking, all the setbacks, specking all the materials........is a tedious chore and I have been dragging my feet on doing it.

The land is 1/4 acre I picked up from a tax sale for $2200 - it is how I got the cottage above! And then hauled the house off (It was a complete wreck, it had gone completely under water during hurricane Katrina and then left for years with all the furniture and a leaky roof) and now I will build it back where it had been; odd bit of fate. But now the cottage I took from there (picture above) is on the water and has excellent views - the one I will build back will be a cheap rental.

I did what is called a 'take off' or a list of the lumber needed to build, also the roofing, plumbing, siding, (6 pilings driven is $3600, labour and materials) doors and windows and came up with $15,000. I am now too worn out physically to do the build alone so would have to hire a carpenter, possibly a labourer too. That would run $16/hr for the carpenter, $11 for the helper = $27/hr. So 10 weeks = $10,800.

To borrow $25 thousand (I have the loan available) would cost $80 a month. I would rent for $425.00 Not bad!

 

It's an Empath actually. One of the best mixers I've used

 

And here is the finished result (minus coving and a ladder)



Have just finished plastering the last wall in this room yesterday (god I ache today) and now need to paint the walls, add coving and skirting, as well as a floor.

 

Love it Jane. You guys have done so much work its very very impressive