The Beginning of the End

It's been a long time coming, and it'll be a long time till it's done, but I'm in the final stretch.

A quick look back

While sitting here, 4 pints in at the brewery nearest to my work, I realized I could have replaced one door on my house back in 2013 and avoided this whole fucking mess. Maybe it was Jesus' recent revival, maybe it's the beer, I'll never know. But I just realized this whole mess started with my hot water heater's pilot light going out. The pilot light went out because I removed some of the old peal n' stick tile to see if I could put something more attractive down. The removal of the tile left a sticky layer that the old door's seal got caught on, quickly ripping it off. The lack of seal let the wind in and blew the pilot light out...time after time after time. 

I fucking wish my issues were waking up to no hot water. Man, I was(read: I am) a fucking idiot. Instead of putting in a $200 door, I decided to put in a tankless hot water heater. Then I found a tankless heater on Craigslist that goes on the outside of my house. Then...it just snowballed into where I am now. I regret it. I could have lived my life nicely without these hard lessons. So many people just call a plumber or an electrician. But nooooo. I gotta be the idiot. 

Shew. Anyway. I have a blog to write.

The Last of the Bullshit

About the last dreadful part of my house remodel is the plumbing. The previous owners used soft copper and compression fittings to tie into existing galvanized water lines and some old cast iron drainage. I don't really blame them, but I still despise the fact that not even one part of this house has been a break in the perpetual shit list of things to do. 

As seen in the previous post, I moved the washer box and added plumbing for a vanity in the mud room. I hadn't done anything beyond running the new stuff down past the subfloor. So...crawl space.

Fuck Cats, man.

I had to wake up at some absurd hour, like 8am or some shit. My list of things to get done was a mile long and I didn't have time for this mess. But I got a text from my neighbor. I wasn't home and wouldn't be for 8 more hours. 

Eight hours and a dozen beers later, another neighbor, BJ, was helping me unload tile and he stopped mid sentence and said "was that a meow?". It was. This cat was so stuck. I was mildly Sunday drunk and this was not gonna be my problem. Might be my foundation, but that ain't my fucking cat. So I called animal control, turned on some 90's country, and drank beers with BJ and foundation cat until Brenda(or whatever her name was) showed up. 

She tried putting soap on it and twisting and pushing for a while, but ultimately we ended up chiseling out a bit of block until it was free. Now this little orange bitch is in my crawl space. 

Sorry for the screenshots. 

Whatever. I still get mad about this part. I'll spare you the pictures, but it left a pile of kittens in my crawl space. Dead, tiny kittens. Those pictures do my crawl space too much justice. It's like 20" tall down there. I had to lay on my stomach and move these smelly dead things before I could get to the plumbing part. 

Just kidding. Here's some dead cats.

Pipes and Shit

Literally. I'm cussing a lot in this post. Maybe I should slow that down. But here's a bit more of what you're used to from me. 

The usual:

-Rip out the old

-Put in the new

-Take some pictures

-Make a blog

Cut out the old.

Cut out more old.

Soft copper. 

No copper. Gas lines I installed a few years back.

Put in the drains. 

Get some 3/4" copper goin on. 

This is all mud. Like 3" of mud I laid in for 12 hours.

Progression

Each blog post represents the trough of my ambition's waveform. The progress being the crest, and the endless tiring work between the two is likely just self deprecation and drinking heavily. Generally at a predictable 3 month interval I make a couple leaps in life then wallow for a while. 

I woke up on a Tuesday and decided I would quit smoking and being a grown up. I DID GREAT. No more cigarettes meant less Casey's stops. I limited my food spending and took every leftover meal my neighbors had to offer. Two months in I had paint on my walls, doors where there should be doors, and even a few extra dollars laying around. Scrubbed my garage until it shinned. Gave the dog a bath. You know, all those normal things I generally avoid. 

Here is what all that looks like:

TV wall and hallway.

For reference, this house had a 4" step down into the hallway when I bought it. The floors were actually collapsed in the opposite way. They managed to layer on the bullshit 6" thick.

He doesn't always look this dumb, we both have troubles expressing happiness. 

Put on some trim. 

YAY!

The pile of things in the middle is the tile for the mudroom and kitchen. 

Resume normal George

I tried out the happy and productive life. Wasn't for me. Luckily for all six of you that read this pile of garbage, it takes a bit of loathing and anguish to get one of these done. Let me give you a little insight.

As soon as all this progress was made, a whole list of shit broke. The only two lines I hadn't replaced in the crawl space sprung a massive leak. My truck's axle, hub, drum, and tire slid out the side of my truck while I was driving down the road, I found a fucking bird in my dryer duct.

Nope.

Kitchens are for families

So I'm gonna buy a new 4wheeler instead. It could be a while before you see pictures of cabinets on here. 

Drywall and Relationships

Reoccurring Themes

Any of you remember highschool chemistry? It's where I learned about hypotheses. And drugs. But don't tell Mrs.Harriot that part.

Now, 8 years or so later, I have been testing my own hypothesis...and I've come to a conclusion. I, George Russell, am incredibly bad at (at least, but in particular) two things. Drywall, and relationships. I mentioned it in my last post, but needed to do some further testing to be certain. And holy fuck am I certain.

I've tested both as a one-tailed and a two-tailed hypothesis because I needed to be thorough. I can now empirically confirm the above stated hypothesis is true. This post covers many months. An inordinate amount of bad relationship attempts. Twenty sheets of drywall. All of which provide more data points to prove my hypothesis. Also a therapist. Because when you correlate drywall and relationships, it is behoove of you to seek professional help.

THAT SHIT SUCKS.

Continued Work.

Look, I can make 100 excuses about why the work on my house is going so slow, but really it's just lack of desire. Remodeling your own home is painful and exhausting. Like most of my life and all of my relationship attempts. 

Last time I posted about the 650sqft of plywood and 2X4s, I was finishing up some inside work. Now it's onto the exterior. By exterior, I mean windows.

I don't actually care what the outside of my house looks like. That's for people that live in subdivisions and go to HOA meetings. But I do know that I have a mixture of windows in places I don't want them to be.

Per usual:
-rip out the old
-install some new things
-put whatever old stuff back that you have to
-take pictures
-write blog

Remove window.

Install window.

You know, they make these window things pretty easy now. You just make a hole and nail a window somewhere inside the hole. Before this, I had five different kinds of windows. Which is annoying, mostly because I only have seven windows.

This was my first go at vinyl siding, so I was nervous and didnt really know what to do besides slowly and carefully remove it. With a hammer, and a crow bar...obviously.

I don't really like these windows. But they have a 10 year warranty and cost about $20 a piece. Yes, twenty. Why these things were so cheap, I may never know. However, I do know that I bought seven brand new windows from Lowes for less than the advertised cost of one window.

A Brief Intermission

 

I put that new window in during the month of march. I just left all the siding laying in the yard. As you'll see in the graph below, I needed to curate a little more information just to be certain about my previous theory. Fast forward to August. I now have at least three more data points for the graph, and I am in the middle of some mild crisis. Luckily the byproduct of a George crisis is just productivity and irreversible mental anguish. The later of which I'll deal with at some point. For now: windows.

A Brief Period of Motivation

At some point in this adventure my yard looked like a junk yard, the inside of my house was trashed, my garage was a disgrace, I didn't own a thing that didn't require work. I still don't. However, for a brief period, I had a normal human's motivational level.

I built a new workbench in my garage, I finished up the one ton project, I got rid of the junk yard, sold the old blazer, and fucking rocked out all new windows and vinyl, and even a new door! I might have skipped work for two weeks, ate only casey's cheese burgers, avoided showering and almost all human contact...but progress is progress.

North facing front window. Not new door.

West facing side window.

FUCK THIS WHOLE WALL.

Good enough.

It doesn't even look like I learned on this window.

I know it's garbage. But it's my garbage.

So at this point I have all the major exterior work done until I decide to build 60 linear feet of porch. But that's just an idea at this point. Currently, I'm content with siding that's marginally different colored, windows that match, and two well insulated doors.

Empirical Proof

Ok. Look. I've done my research. I'm almost to a decade of data about this. The only weird part here is gonna be if a girl asks what data point she is. Uh, please don't.

Drywall

I tried to hire out the drywall. I saved up some money and was going to call a real company(or one of the aforementioned data point's dad's remodel crew), but my neighbor talked me out of it. In the long run, I'm happy I didn't hire it out. There is some bit of dignity in doing all the work yourself(or watching your neighbor do it, that's the same...right?).

So now there is a gap all the way around.

My house is of an unusual size. It may or may not vary in height as well. The average wall height is about 100 inches. The average drywall height is....not average at all. It's very specific at 48 inches, or 96 inches if you hang two sheets properly. 

I was feeling pretty good about this.

Lots of fillers, tape, and mud later...DAVE PARSONS

For reference, this picture was taken while standing in a very similar spot less than two year ago.

This is an exterior wall. On the outside of this wall is the tankless water heater mentioned in post two. Also within this wall is the gas lines that feed the water heater as well as the furnace in the attic. There is cold water and hot water for the washer box. There is a drain for a sink as well as a drain for the washer box. 220v for the dryer. 110v for the washer. A two gang box for some cabinet lighting as well as a receptacle. More 110v under the sink, and more 110v above for future network cabinet. The only part of the drywall I messed up was the drain being 1/4" off. And I'm pretty damn proud of that.

Hot Wings and Cold Beer

There isn't really anyone involved in the terrible decisions I've made that have led me to fix up this tiny little home of mine. But there is someone who taught me how to do so many of the things I know, and not to be concerned about tackling the other parts I haven't learned yet.

I remember when I was about 12 years old, we had an old bathroom in the basement that was in desperate need of repair. I recall coming up the stairs to my step father, Dannie, reading one of those Menards how-to-fix books, but not really caring what it was about. The next day I woke up to a large pile of dumpster material in the same location that we used to have a bathroom. Piece by piece, getting parts only on the weekends, he built a new bathroom from floor to ceiling.

We got a garage, he did the same thing. Never made a deal about it, never worked up about it, wired the whole thing. Insulated, covered the walls, built a work bench out of the neighbors old hardwood flooring. Poured concrete, ran plumbing, built a shed, wasn't a thing he couldn't do.

I could go on forever about all the projects Dannie had. Always working on something, never worried about getting it done, never questioning his own abilities. He taught me many things and he gave so many memories. Always so certain, always a little bitter, and always in our hearts. Miss you, Dannie.

Side Projects - Certainly Won't Float

Good At Things

Between working on my house, my actual job, and some less-than-glamorous side jobs, I like to work on fun projects. Some of my own, some for other people. They almost always involve wires and something with motors because they're simple creatures that I understand. So here is a post about one of my more shiny accomplishments.

Sub $500 Deals

I'm a sucker for any form of a vehicle that costs less than $500. They're just too much fun. It's kind of like a one bedroom house. You can have lots of fun, do real things, learn some stuff, and if you mess it all up...you're not out much. Turns out this is true for boats too. So, I got a boat.

The only picture of it in its previous condition

It isn't fancy, it isn't impressive, it's just a 14ft flat bottom Lowe. Similar to my house, I have high hopes for this one. I want a bass boat, dad wants a stripped down shell of a Jon boat. So we both win on this one.

Step one: jump the gun and start playing around

I wanted two batteries that would be out of the way

Carpet Burn

The next 10 steps have carpet in them. I don't like gluing carpet. It sucks. But it goes pretty quick and the results are large. After building a proper deck on the front of the boat, and laying some fresh carpet, I had somewhere to put my fancy electric anchor winch and trolling motor. 

I want to caption every one with Boats and Hoes

Many years ago, the previous owner had a great idea. Instead of using plywood flooring he lined the bottom with Styrofoam and laid aluminum sheeting over it. Genius! Lightweight, extra flotation...except Styrofoam.  It actually sucks up water and rots out. So I replaced that with closed cell foam and recovered the floor with nice carpet...and it looks decent.

What you can't see is the 500 hours of aircraft stripper and burning skin involved. 

Like all projects work, its the same handful of processes over and over again. 

So:

-Rip it apart

-Strip all the old things out

-Strip the paint

-Paint

-Glue the carpet down

Here we go!

Stripped, painted.

Oh that looks better than I thought it would.

LEDs, Switches, and 100ft of wire

If you've ever read my previous posts(pretty sure you're the only one, mom!), I like to be a little excessive. But it doesn't seem that excessive to me.
Logic lesson:
-Flash lights are annoying, batteries suck, and you lose them. So wire the lights into the boat.
-Air horns go bad, whistles are for kids. Wire the horn into the boat.
-Bilge pumps are for big boats, or my boat. So I put one in.
-Nav lights are needed for night things, but you can get battery ones. Again, not my style.
-Electric anchors are for exerting no effort, add a switch 3ft closer to you.
-You're gonna want a live well. Well maybe not. But if you do, put a timer on that recirc pump.

Good conversation guys. Now its just wires and more wires and fancy switches.

I LOVE SWITCHES.

Also I'm pretty good at wires.

Fast Forward One Year

I didnt really take any more pictures after this. I just kinda piled through it, put it in dads garage and forgot about it.  

Other things I did:

-Rebuild the trailer

-Add new fenders

-Weld up light brackets to avoid that generic trailer lights

-Buy dope ass wheels for it

-Forgot that I owned it for like 8 months

BUT HERE IT IS! 

Maybe the only project I have ever 100% finished. Because its a boat, and an unfinished boat is bad.

This is the day Ty puked all over my truck.

It's a 14 foot boat. It holds 2.5 people. It ain't worth much. It don't do much. But every once in a while,  it's everything a person needs.

Things that make sunday's even more perfect.

He cannot swim. We learned the hard way.

Never Nothing

Talking To Myself Again

I recently had a weird sit-down talk with myself. I have too many projects. Everything I own needs something, I haven't completed anything in a long time, and I'd like to park in my garage again. I made a six month plan to get my house complete(minus kitchen), finish the boat, and get the 1 ton finished. But I realized something.

23 Years Of Projects

I don't have projects because I like completing things. I have projects because I like to have a half dozen things to focus on. Something to research, something to learn, something to do, something to ignore so my Netflix and pizza nights feel more justified, something to blow all my money on. Here is all of my projects that have at least two wheels. I'm not sure I document my other projects well enough to post about them.

Before we get into all that, bask in this piece of America.

From My First To My Most Current

I know you guys like pictures. Here comes buckets of them.

My first and most expensive car. It was a poor decision. Four front bumpers, three rear bumpers, and lots of shades of red. Met its ultimate demise to a well placed tree.

And shortly after, I bought my first truck.

But it was ugly, so my brother and I made this.

Then Phil wrecked his truck. Naturally I bought it.

Years later, still have it.

Then I bought one like this, sans the whole front end. Had it for 2 weeks, added a fuel pump and made $900 on it.

The blazer. My pride. I love this truck more than most things.

The "Zombie Outbreak Response Vehicle" stickers made this thing internet famous.

Seriously. Google it. This truck is kinda famous.

I'm starting to lose track of the timeline. But I think this was next. My first motorcycle. It was pretty, never rode it.

Then I got this one. But I think there was some vehicle in between these.

Jew wrecked it. Time for apartment living room rebuild.

Wasn't joking.

The duct tape stayed forever. I rode this thing at sturgis. Got so many weird looks.

Oh yeah. The Rac'n mower. Built that in highschool shop class. Never finished it, still have it.

Christine. This car was a devil. And my first 3.1L headgasket job.

We left at 10PM for a 6 hour(read 12) road trip to trade the monte for this thing. I will own another. I loved that thing.

Traded the LS for this. Long story. Not happy about it. I hated that thing.

Sold the Taurus to buy this beauty. Sold it for dumb grown up purchases(read: houses are expensive)

This fits in somewhere around this time period. Man did we have some fun with all 125cc of that bike.

I wanted a tractor. Bad mistake. Shouldn't have done that.

Easily top three favorites. Ugly as sin. So fun to drive. Bought it for $400, put $100 into, drove it for 60,000 really hard miles.

Bought this from a coworker with good intentions. It was so cool. Had too many irons in the fire.

I LOVED THIS TRUCK. But the PO really fucked me. Traded it for a .45

I only drove it twice, I swear.

Maybe a mistake. But it was fun for the 2 days that it ran.

A little love, aircraft stripper, and plasti dip and it looked way better.

Upgraded to this beauty. Had 16 hours on it. Rolled it. Ran it hard. It was stolen.

The 300C. Put 50,000 miles on it in under two years. Still proud of it.

Ok, ok. I know it's a ninja 250. But it was $250. I taught dozens of folks to ride on it, and spent many nights cruising dirt roads on it.

Remember the raptor that was stolen? Replaced it with a sportsman 850 with power steering. Real dope wheeler.

But I kinda wrecked it.

And my bones just couldnt hold it together.

So now I have some muffler strap and 7 drywall screws in me.

THE OLD DODGE! Probably the coolest first gen cummins in the county. Love that crusty bitch.

It's a v6 station wagon. It shouldn't be cool. But it's so cool.

Wagon life tho.

When my friends wreck their trucks, I buy them.

Real smashed. 

Currently in the process of cab swapping that truck. You'd never imagine the work that goes into that. It will receive its own post when I'm done. In the mean time, here is a few pictures of the progress.

Step 1: Purchase new cab.

Step 2: Leave cab there to make your yard more trashy.

Find neighbor with A-frame.

And you're gonna want a chain hoist.

In case you were wondering, I'm as trashy as you thought.

This was 20 hours more work than I thought it would be.

My truck is so dope.

There might be a couple I'm forgetting. This doesn't include the 100(probably literal) other vehicles that I've done work to that I don't own. At some point most of these have been sold. I currently only posses the Dakota, First Gen, K5 Blazer, and the 1 Ton Ford. The 300C and the Magnum are still around, but owned and driven almost primarily by my father.