Today is independence day - in more ways than one.
On Friday I closed on the house. Welcome to...
MidCentury Moto Mecca Makeover 2.0
I have been quiet for a long time and especially recently for many reasons but now that our separation is final and our housing situation is resolved we are both free to move forward with the next part of our lives. The kids are noticeably happier and I'm starting to see some light after a long period of darkness.
Let's back up a little.
A lot of the reason that house projects slowed down is that the relationship was broken. I am a person who thrives on encouragement and positive feedback and this disappeared many years ago. If everything you do for someone is not appreciated you get to a point where you don't want to try. That happened about 4 years ago.
More than anything I want to fix things but a relationship isn't a house and some things can't be fixed. When we started the separation in September I really thought that Judiaann would be much happier in an apartment that was new, clean and modern. She hates old things and the house became a thing of great resentment - something never finished. I think for many reasons she didn't want to accept the split or the idea of being displaced.
So I moved - or started to. The POD was her demand that I get out of
her house. I started packing in early spring, started house hunting and generally started getting my head around the idea of moving. Starting over.
We had both gotten estimates on the house in it's current state from real estate brokers - they were both about the same, $650k. She had been approved for a refinance but the paperwork had taken forever. Back in March the last step for her was the appraisal and we agreed that I'd move out at the end of April - most likely to a rental while I continued to look for a place.
During Judiaann's appraisal she pointed out all of the issues that needed attention on the house - and there were plenty. It was fair to make sure the value reflected the actual condition. I took time to point out the things I'd done over the last 10 years and she pointed out what I'd not done.
While I was in India over spring break I got an email from her that she wanted me to buy the house. Her refinance was approved on the condition that she make the repairs she pointed out before funds would be released: new roof, skylight repair, water damage to the porch doors and beam rot repair.
It was a very expensive list. Too expensive.
For me to buy the house the whole process had to start over. We agreed on a price that reflected the current state of the house with the repairs it needed. I was able to get financing with the help of my mom but I needed to get through the same appraisal process. To be clear an appraisal
is not an inspection. Most likely an appraiser wouldn't see issues unless they were pointed out but I wasn't about to take any chances.
There's no way I could make
all of the needed repairs and still have enough for the downpayment and closing costs so my goal was to fix what I could and cover what I couldn't to fix later.
This beam was the worst and something I'd tried to repair when we first got the house. Unsuccessfully.
This was much worse than I thought - I can't tell you how much anxiety this was giving me. I found this one week before my appraisal.
The doors and this porch were an addition done in the 80's and it was a bad idea but did add the loft area. Ben and I have discussed this and the plan is to eliminate them, replace them with windows and redo the whole wall correctly so that water can't get in but for the appraisal it needs a quick and dirty repair.
The beam was the bigger issue and there was no quick or easy fix - it had to be done right this time. But the doors were something I could hand off and so I called Mwas. If you've been here a long time you may remember him as one of the guys who jack hammered the living room floor out right after we first bought the place 10 years ago. He's a good guy and I let him run with this.
For the beam the way to do this correctly is to support the roof and cut out everything where there is damage or rot.
I used a chain saw to keep probing into the beam to find the end of the rot and then screwed in a guide for the Festool jigsaw to try to make a straight cut. I finished the cut with the hand saw.
I used the Fien to cut the nails that held the remainder.
The plan here is to replace the cut out part of the beam with a new one but use steel to replace the strength.
The beam I picked up was the same width but about 1/2" taller so I had to rip it with the track saw on both sides and then clean up where the cuts met with a hand plane.
I used the Bridgeport to drill holes every 8 inches that I'd use for 1/2" bolts.
I don't know what I'd do without Ben. Aside from the obvious help and guidance over the years he's always here when I need a hand. I was able to get the beam cut out, the roof prepped and new beam ready but I wasn't able to get it into place on my own. Ben showed up to help.
The plan was to use a cradle of 2x4's to support the beam. I glued the ends after treating the replacement with a wood hardener. The glue is not going to be structural but it will seal the joint. I screwed a block to both sides and then we used clamps to pull the replacement beam into the old one.
We needed to keep things aligned as we clamped and then screwed the two beams together.
We used a lot of clamps to keep things in place while the glue dried. The next day, after everything had dried, but before any supports were removed, I drilled the beam with the steel in place and bolted the two parts together. I don't have any photos of that process as I was really working hard to address the other issues.
I put the heads of the bolts on the side facing the windows so from inside you wouldn't notice them as much. The steel is on the other side. I suppose you could use two plates to sandwich the beam but from what I've seen one is all that is typically used.
So that is the correct way to fix the damage. I still need to do end caps to prevent water getting into the end grain but I'm going to do that when I do the roof repair.
This is the wrong way. But with only a bit more than a week after getting my loan approved I needed to address what I could and kick the can where I had to. Finished with body putty and paint.
Skylights were painted and trimmed.
And Mwas finished up the quick and dirty repairs on the doors. This is something I want to fix before winter along with the roof so it was unfortunate to spend so much for a repair that was only meant to pass the appraisal.
For 6 weeks I got up at 4am to work on photography jobs and then from 6-8am and again from 4-6pm Nadia and I would work on her 6th grade house project for school. They had to design, draw, furnish and build their own dream house. It had to be 1500-2000sqft and Nadia started with a rectangle. I showed her that by cutting her rectangle into squares that represented 5'x5' or 25sqft she could make it any shape she wanted.
That was all she needed to unleash her creativity because it freed her of the math or rather gave her a visual way to look at the math. So often the problems we face are a matter of perspective - something that seems insurmountable can be broken down and looked at another way.
My contribution to this was making the longer X-acto cuts on her lines. Letting her make mistakes and then figure them out. She put in serious time - about 3-4 hours a day for over two weeks. I could not have been more proud of her or her determination. At one point, with time running out, Judiaann suggested that she just draw pictures of furniture rather than make it herself which was an acceptable solution for the assignment but Nadia rolled her eyes and said, "What? I can't stop now!" and then proceeded to build all the furniture from scraps of foam board, color them with markers and collect plants from outside for the "garden" in the middle of the house.
Not only did she get straight A's for her last semester but when her teacher passed the rows of house projects he stopped, backed up to Nadia's house and said, "Holy ****! Who's is this?" and getting a teacher to involuntarily curse during school? Well, that means you nailed it.
So it's been 8 long weeks. Judiaann moved to her new apartment on the 20th but has not finished packing. I've been packing her things for the past week (to help move the process along) and slowly unpacking mine.
It will probably take a few weeks to settle in to
my "new" house.
So the next chapter has started for me. I am excited about the prospect of being unconstrained with the house. Over the years I made a lot of compromises that, on my own, I would not have. I am filled with ideas, beyond excited to tackle them and filled with enthusiasm to start again on the house.
I am also a bit terrified. Even getting the house well below market (to reflect my equity) meant I paid way more than we originally paid for it. Before I paid half of an $1800 mortgage - now I'm on the hook for a $3100 mortgage plus all the expenses on my own. I'm more than tripling my monthly costs. It's been suggested to me for a while, even in this thread when we talked about video, that I start a
Patreon page to let people contribute. I've resisted that for years but I'm ready to accept some help.
Nothing will change here - or anywhere. I hate the idea of paywalls and who I am is someone who shares freely. Anyone who supports me on Patreon will be helping me continue to tell the stories that I've been doing all along.
When we bought this house I poured every bit of time and money into it to make it something special. There were many times when, due to the unreliability of my freelance work, I was pretty much broke. Having a partner smoothed the finances and allowed me to keep working on the house. I have known that I need to spread out the risk of being dependent one or two large clients and I've also known that I want pursue the dream I have about building bikes, doing tours and teaching. I've done that over this past year and will continue to do that to try to add some consistency to my bottom line. Patreon is just another way to try to add some consistency.
I think over time I'll find a way to be comfortable with it. I have gotten support from this community from the very beginning and honestly, when things were bad and the work that I did was not appreciated but denigrated (at home, not by you) people here lifted my spirits and helped me feel that I had worth. So thank you for following and supporting me along the way.
But, for those of you who like the house content here... well, hold on to your hats. This is now my house. Completely.
I will not be compromising. I will be diving down every rabbit hole and trying to figure out how to make this one of the most amazing houses in Portland. I have so many ideas, so many things I want to do and try. I'm very excited to get started.
One of the first things I want to do is actually have people over. J didn't like that the house wasn't perfect or finished and so never wanted to have people over. Outside of her family she never let people inside the house - and only now, as I type this, do I realize that over the last 10 years she never had a single friend over for dinner...
That isn't me. I have a really amazing group of eclectic and interesting friends. We've had a couple of parties but I'd like to do that more often. I like bringing people together so I'm going to do that.
So thanks. For following, contributing, being patient, being supportive and being here.
Gregor
