Project Townhouse: 1st Time Buyers

[ViPER1313]

Yea I ripped that shit out years ago. I don’t have to squeegee my shower curtain.

Cool. I didn't buy a house to shower like a poor person in my master bath. Guests get the shower curtain treatment since it is a full tub.

Just... wow.

[JPolen01]

[WRXtranceformed]

I lol'd 

For real tho I'm a huge fan of all glass showers even if it adds a little cleaning routine for us.  At some point I'd like to actually convert our master shower to an all-glass seamless with the nice big heavy doors like some of the nicer hotels I stay at.  Right now ours is all glass and tile but it has these kind of mildly upgraded contractor grade metal frames that hold it all together.  It's very "builder special"

[SlimKlim]

Do you guys not have house cleaners? Step your game up.

[Apoc]

We had a glass shower for five years and never owned a squeegee. Cleaning your own bath is for poor people; pay someone.

[WRXtranceformed]

Do you guys not have house cleaners? Step your game up.

I used to, then i got a wife   

For real tho, it's hard to find good help. All the house cleaners i used in the past didn't do a good enough job that's up to my standards. Good help so hard to find nowadays.

[ScottyB]

For real tho, it's hard to find good help. All the house cleaners i used in the past didn't do a good enough job that's up to my standards. Good help so hard to find nowadays.

it seems like the only house cleaners worth hiring are the private/self employed ones you find out about through word of mouth, because they're the ones good enough on their own merit to stay booked without having to advertise.

that's how we found ours, and i literally have to put away or block off some parts of the house i DONT want cleaned because they literally clean everything in sight.  nice problem to have.

[Apoc]

Lee, does your wife know you married her because she's the best cleaner you found?

edit: Our cleaners are a legit company we found based on Yelp reviews. I don't trust some random joe that doesn't have a business presence to be in my house.

[JPolen01]

My wife wants a cleaning lady. I have been holding off because I don't want to spend the money, but I am seeing that we have less and less time lately so the tradeoff seems worth it.

[Apoc]

Also, cleaning is shitty.

[WRXtranceformed]

My wife's love of cleaning was a nice side benefit (as well as her ability to bake the most insanely good banana bread) but not why i married her

---

Well maybe the banana bread was a big reason why i married her

[JPolen01]

Our neighbors just sold their townhouse (4 bed, 2.5 bath) for $337k. We have been kicking around the idea of finishing the 4th bedroom in the basement and this finally gave me the motivation to get started. We bought for a shade under $300k about 4 years ago and with the equity we currently have in the house we will easily get the money back on this room and then some. 

But in order to make a profit on this room I needed to do the work. No problem! I've been learning by helping a buddy flip houses. My skills aren't sharp enough to do this alone so I recruited the same buddy that flips houses. I've helped him a lot, he's helped me a lot. I knew this would be a more in-depth project than just a day and require his truck to get materials, go to the dump, etc. Typically when framing we use drills/screws. I wanted to save time and he wanted a new toy so I agreed to buy a framing gun and compressor for this job and give them to him after as a trade for his work (now I can use the gun and compressor whenever I want!! I think he kind of figured this though...)

I let him pick it out and on Friday I stopped by Home Depot and grabbed this Ridgid 3 1/2" Framing Nailer and 4.5 Gallon Compressor. Did not expect to have so much fun, but a nail gun sure puts a smile on your face. Got 100ft of hose for the compressor so we could put it outside - it says it is something like 75% quieter than the competition and only 77lbs so not too heavy you can't move it yourself. I'll say this thing is pretty quiet for what it is. We stood next to it talking at normal volume and could hear each other fine. Ear protection is definitely needed when firing the gun as well as using the .22 caliber Ramset HammerShot to secure the footer to the concrete. That bitch is loud! 



Here is a portion of day 1 framing. In the past we have found it is much easier to frame the wall on the floor in pieces and then stand it up against the wall. We did this here and saved a ton of time. You can see by the header where the two modular pieces match up. We had to double up on the header because we didn't realize they sold 2x4s that were less than 8ft long. We made it work, but now we know to double check the racks at Home Depot. It ain't perfect, but it's going behind the drywall so...


Plan to finish framing and hanging closet doors next Saturday and hopefully start drywall on Sunday. I've got a buddy coming by to put in 4 recessed cans and a couple outlets and another coming by to look at dropping a HVAC vent in this room. Luckily the furnace is in the same room so it shouldn't be too much work.

[WRXtranceformed]

Nice! Nail guns are super fun. I did watch a framer put a nail through his boot though while tacking in roof trusses. Poor dude, that definitely looked painful...those guns are no joke!

[ScottyB]

aw man definitely in for updates. i'm trying to learn to do this kind of thing as well.

[Beej]

Holy shit, that's incredible timing.  I've been stick-building a shed in  backyard the past week or so.

I have been SUPER cautious with the nail gun.  All it took was one awkward position, a momentary lapse of judgement, and an accidental double-tap to send me off to the ER to have them yank a 3.5" nail out of my thumb on Friday.  Fucking awesomely productive tool, saved a ton of time even including the ER trip - just don't lose your concentration.

Scotty if you can do that trailer, you can do 90 degree angle basic shit, too.

[JPolen01]

Ouch glad it wasn't too much damage. I've been pretty cognizant of where my left hand is... No where near what I'm nailing. My wife has been checking on us routinely...I did make her fire a nail though. I think the Hammershot scares me more than the nail gun though. You put a .22 in that thing and hit it with a hammer!

Scott I've seen your woodworking. This week be cake for you whenever you take a shot at it. And it will probably look much better than our work.

[Beej]

Thanks man. I mean it sucked and still sorta does, but I got real lucky to not hit bone. To add more excuses, I was wrong handing it and on a ladder doing it vertically, which makes the double tap that much easier to do. Either way, entirely on me.

Building with wood is weirdly different than car stuff, right? A mm here or there doesn’t matter like it does with cars, but man there’s so much measuring. It’s a weird trade off.

[JPolen01]

Sometimes as little as a saw blade is all you're off. That's what the big sledge is for.

[HAULN-SS]

You probably bought stud length instead of a 2x4x8. What's going on there with the cinder blocks that already have framing coming up off them? Could you have doubled up the stud there and put a strip on the cinderblocks to fasten to, and save some footprint in the room?

[JPolen01]

The wall was already studded around the windows (above the blocks), but we decided it would be easier to build the entire wall from the ground up in front of the blocks to hide all the wires and fios box. I am going to put an access panel on the wall for the fios box. It's not the best solution, but it will work for a room we aren't going to use all that often.