Topic: I might buy a Man Cave

[faux fiddy]

After dealing with all the arseholery following my fathers passing away, I am concerned with having a place.

Of course, my brother who lived rent free for two years as his house was foreclosed wants me to start paying exhorbitant rent or leave. (His ability to piss away money and go bankrupt concerns me).

Anyway, I found this house for super cheap, in a blighted white trash okie  neighborhood.  Super cheap, it needs lots of work, but at least I will be working on something that is mine.  It could be perfect for a man cave.  The lot is almost 100x200. has a couple sheds full of crap where I can put my rust piles.

I would have to pay of liens and pay  a couple thousand bucks.

Anyone ever tear out floors, joists and pour a  slab?  I hear of it being done , I think I saw a building in Juneau getting this upgrade/ rennovation. I know I would have to fill and compact material. I'm picturing a garage off the right side, maybe an incline where I could roll things into the living room and out the other side.

[Duanob]

As someone who has dabbled in home renovations I would say go for it. The neighborhood is condusive to your hobby. Nobody to complain about the noise of motorcycles. The lot is almost a half an acre, the house looks like decent design from the pic, the attic might be exapandable space. If you only have to pay a couple thousand to move in that's less than what it takes to rent a house here. If you plan on living there for a while and you don't have a spouse to complain about dust and noise and tools then you can renovate at your own pace. You might even make some money down the road.

As far as a slab what's wrong with the current floor? If you have a crawl space you will have to make up for the difference in ground level. Also not sure where you live, Alaska? Concrete floors are super cold and damp  unless you put an expensive geothermal heating system embedded in the concrete. It might be cheaper to replace the wood floor joists and decking and put in high efficient insulation and vapor barrier.

Anyway just my thoughts.

[faux fiddy]

This one is in Oklahoma, about 35 miles from where I am now.  Not in Alaska anymore, but where I was insulated slab was a pretty good plan if you weren't in a swamp or could fill to above grade.


The floors are wavy and I think the front part of the house is close to a hundred years old.

It probably needs a complete re-wiring, but I don't have to move in immediately.  I've been shopping for a battery operated power tools, all I have now is the screw gun.  Until I at least get a breaker box and a couple plugs it will be off the grid.  I guess the chainsaw works , too.

I thought I might even get a couple solar panels and a few 12v lights for the interim.

[Duanob]

A portable generator might come in handy too. Make it a Honda 

[MCRider]

Gota agree with Duanob on the floor. I've lived in 2 houses with slabs. The first was a ranch and had the heat ducts from the central furnace in the concrete. That served to heat it and it was comfortable. I was a child then and spent a lot of time playing on the floor.

Later in life, I spent 7 years in a 2 story with a slab and the heat was in the ceiling. Wow was that floor cold. Sitting on the floor to watch TV or whatever was out in winter. Walking on the floor or standing in the kitchen required heavy socks and slippers.

So spend the money making sure the foundation, piers or whatever are in good shape, and feed in some extra floor joists if you need some strength. Then some bat insulation and plastic vapor barriere. But if you have 2x10s on 16" centers that should hold whatever you have.
If you fell the need for the slab, I'd leave the wood, at least the joists, in place, box the bottoms of the joists and just pour into and around them. Why not?

[Stev-o]

Get it!  +3 on leaving it pier and beam. Wood is relatively cheap easy to work with.
You can do it!

[BeSeeingYou]

Looks to need a new roof too.  Better than paying rent but be wary of sticking too much into it in a blighted neighborhood.  Hopefully the tweakers won't steal your bike.

[Retro Rocket]

Gota agree with Duanob on the floor. I've lived in 2 houses with slabs. The first was a ranch and had the heat ducts from the central furnace in the concrete. That served to heat it and it was comfortable. I was a child then and spent a lot of time playing on the floor.

Later in life, I spent 7 years in a 2 story with a slab and the heat was in the ceiling. Wow was that floor cold. Sitting on the floor to watch TV or whatever was out in winter. Walking on the floor or standing in the kitchen required heavy socks and slippers.

So spend the money making sure the foundation, piers or whatever are in good shape, and feed in some extra floor joists if you need some strength. Then some bat insulation and plastic vapor barriere. But if you have 2x10s on 16" centers that should hold whatever you have.
If you fell the need for the slab, I'd leave the wood, at least the joists, in place, box the bottoms of the joists and just pour into and around them. Why not?

Hi Ron, almost all of the low set houses where i live have concrete floors, we don't have the cold weather that you guys have. There are a number of ways to beat the cold floor like , a floating timber floor over the concrete, insulation and then underlay and carpet.
Even when we have a cold winter i have never felt anything through the floor....

[burnoutking1971]

I would purchase your own home. At least it's yours and there is not rent or siblings to deal with. Renovations can take some time but well worth the effort. Might as well add to your wealth and net worth rather than paying rent.

[verslagen1]

You need your own cave.
renovations can steal all your spare time, but having your own is worth it.
I would leave the wood floor, access from underneath for plumbing, and wiring, which you're going to need.

[faux fiddy]

You need your own cave.
renovations can steal all your spare time, but having your own is worth it.
I would leave the wood floor, access from underneath for plumbing, and wiring, which you're going to need.

All of that for sure.  Roof is prioroty and screwing metal sounds good for the front half until I figure out the other rennovations. More important than the floors, which I decided are tolerable.

I went down to look some more and perhaps I'm just sold on insulated slab for cool and warm. At least around the perimiter insulation and slab. I have trouble with sending my belly under the crawl space, but I realized today that the floor is fairly stable, but the whole place is uninsulated. No need to dump a bunch of money [and work] into the place if I can just do a roof and make it liveable.  Reports say it has been six years since anyone lived there.  I cut the lock on one shed and the other one was just looking like it was locked.  Both were filled with crap, but useable space.

I might get some battery tools and harbor freight solar panels to run a battery panel for the interim, leave a radio on to discourage intrusion by vags. Not sure I want the burdern of another set of bills until it is ready to habitate, but things like running a sewer snake, etc might require a good relationship with the neighbors with real electricity.  Just let them see something progressive is going on and they will be friendly, I figure. After all they're okies.

I think I buy. LD took some pics, seems some vags have been in there , lots of crap everywhere, but asking a lazy man, he would say put the beds/matresses under the heap of sh8, and have a rope to them where you can  tie it off and  just pull away and the crap on top unloads without touching it a second time. 

Thanks for the encouragement, I've been working on this deal for  2 months.

[Retro Rocket]

Good luck with it Fiddy....

[faux fiddy]

Perhaps good or bad , I also heard that the vo-tech school wants the two blocks across the street, which might mean access to recyced materials, a new field across the street, and /or progressive development, and perhaps students who build /tinker / labor for edification and beers.

[faux fiddy]

Looks to need a new roof too. 

Yeah, we counted layovers. Maybe some did the first course right , which means from the edge we would count two layers for each new roof. It looked to me like there were 7 layers from the edge, which means a lot of weight , and as you see a lot of garbage to get rid of.

[Bob Wessner]

Code here, and I suspect most places, two layers of roofing is the max allowed. Yup, seven layers is a lot of weight.

[fmctm1sw]

Absolutely...  I can see it now, "SOHC 4 Motorcycle Klub...  NO GIRLS ALLOWED!"

[Really?]

Your nuts!!!!!  Um, yea, that's all I gotta say.

I'm subscribed now, so I am watching like Holmes on Homes or whatever that show is called.

[faux fiddy]

Your nuts!!!!!  Um, yea, that's all I gotta say.

Um, yeah, of course.

I went to see the place again yesterday and the owner is in town, or at least the area.  Pulled a tape front to back, measured windows last time I was there.

Just left a message with the city to find out they've racked up in mowing charges. I had talked with them before. Taxes are owed, but cheap I will get on the phone with the county and see what is owed there.

My friend has a storage locker 8' x 20' that he pays $100 a month for, he only rents, of course. ( See any logic to this ?)



This house is closer to 30' x 48', a little narrower, like 20' in the back half, so rough guess it's just over 1000 ft sq.  maybe as much as 1200.

[heffay]

Looks like it could be a nice old place with some TLC.  I've been in a lot of those style homes in KS and OK and they're usually not much more than 750-1000 sq ft.  how many beds and baths you got? 

[faux fiddy]

Looks like it could be a nice old place with some TLC.  I've been in a lot of those style homes in KS and OK and they're usually not much more than 750-1000 sq ft.  how many beds and baths you got? 

I would call it a two bedroom at this point, but it started as just a two room. The front with the gable ends was apparently the two room starter with nothing but maybe had a stove and chimney.  It has some really old style trim, nothing else is as old as that part of the house. Probably a 12/12 pitch on the roof like an old Sears Roebuck kit house. There appears to be a couple additions, first going back, and then a shed roof  off the side of that. The shed roof has the bathroom.

Here's a pic of the back I took off of google maps,  sort of shows the shed roof off the far side.  The little sun room under it has a poured slab.

[Duanob]

Your nuts!!!!!  Um, yea, that's all I gotta say.

I'm subscribed now, so I am watching like Holmes on Homes or whatever that show is called.

Heh heh start a project thread under "other motorcycles"

You should separate what's needed now from what's needed later. If the floors and roof are acceptable for now as in they won't cave in or leak then leave them, you will have lot's of time to fix or replace them later. I think plumbing and electrical and heat would your first priority to make it liveable. Not sure how cold it gets in Oklahoma, heat and insulation may not be a priority.

Don't think of it as one big project it's too over whelming. Small projects are a lot more manageable both in time and money. My primary house has been like 1,468 small projects but I still enjoy working on it and I haven't declared bankruptcy yet. My rental is a different story because that just needs to get done and rented ASAP and I just finished a complete 2 month/ $10,000 remodel and I am pretty burnt out and broke at this point.

I peronally don't think you can go wrong buying a house at this point. If you can get for a couple thousand and change you will come out ahead in the future.

[heffay]

It does look a lot longer from that new angle, at least that's what she said. 
does look like a reasonable amount of space, that yard space is awesome!

If there might be a vo-tech across the street, maybe you could get zoned for some sort of commercial/business endeavor?

[Really?]

Your nuts!!!!!  Um, yea, that's all I gotta say.

I'm subscribed now, so I am watching like Holmes on Homes or whatever that show is called.

Heh heh start a project thread under "other motorcycles"

Does my YZ thread offend you being in the Project Thread?

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To me, that house is more than I would want to take on myself. The things I still need to fix in the house I have now is enough with everything else I have to deal with in life.

I am subscribed because I would like to see how he comes along with it. I give him kudos for wanting to take on a challenge of that size. I hope he does it and makes a better life for himself.

I still think he's nuts.