Not to get too 'off topic' with the renaming of the garage, but I thought I would post here what Rick had written in another thread on here that pertains to his garage/house and its history. It really gave me a better perspective of this build and ultimately, Rick's incredible DIY tenacity. I hope it gives others a good perspective of how incredible this thread really is. Rick, I hope you don't mind. I have a lot of respect for you, as well as a lot of other guys on here, but this just made that respect shoot up 1000 times more. I don't think I could have done what you did. Hats off to you, my man
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We had a house fire in Feb of 2009 . The fire was in the basement and pretty well destroyed everything down there ( 3 bedrooms , 2 storage rooms , a brand new front loader washer and dryer set ) . This was just the basement . The fire also required me to have to gut the main bathroom , kitchen and dining room all the way to the floor joists . I with the help of 2 freinds ( when they could get time ) gutted the basement and filled 2 40 yard dumpsters . This wasnt easy I set up an electric winch on a wall at the top of the stairs in the garage and would roll a 90 gallon toter ( what you call a dumpster ) down the stairs and fill it . Then I hooked the winch to it and hauled it out of the basement . Then I took it to the 40 yard dumpster and emptied it . Then I did it all over again trip after trip after trip until the basement was empty and I mean empty furnace,water heater , ductwork all of it went until I had a floor and 4 bare walls left . Then I took a pressure washer down there and pressure washed the entire basement .
Then SWMBO and I with our 16YO at the time son went into the bathroom upstairs and gutted it completely to the studs to include the floor and ceiling . The following weekend my 2 buddies showed up and we gutted the kitchen completely . Then we rippped out the floors in the kitchen and dining room . Then we started taking out the floor joists one at a time and replaced them as we took them out .
I then repiped the entire house all supply and waste lines replaced all the way to the vent stacks going through the roof all new . Then summer hit and I got busy with actual work . I ended up paying a buddy of mine to put down the new subfloors in the kitchen and dining room as I just plain didnt have time .
Swmbo and I started comming over every night and rebuilt the bathroom and rewired most of the house to include a new main electrical panel . Once we had the bathroom done and had cleaned and painted every room we didnt gut . We sanded and refinished all of the hardwood floors that were not being replaced . This braught us to just before Thanksgiving 2010.
We moved back into the house at this point as we had been renting a house from a freind of mine in a not so great neighborhood . My son and I layed all new hardwood in the kitchen and dining room ( after we were back in the house ) .
Mind you we still didnt have central heat or air at this time ( Ok I had the equipment in a storage container in the driveway but it wasnt installed yet ) . We heated the house with my big Dayton 220 volt electric garage heater and a couple of smaller space heaters last winter .
We have insulated every wall we removed drywall from due to the fire to include the attic above the bathroom, kitchen and dining room which we also pulled the ceilings down in .
We have managed at this point to get the ceilings back up in the kitchen and dining room and redrywall almost all of the walls in those 2 rooms ( one wall left in the kitchen to be finished .
We rented 2 hotel rooms a couple weekends ago and moved the whole family for the weekend and SWMBO and I finally got the dining room and kitchen floors done Poly and all.
This brings us to present where I have put the HVAC system back into the house ( all new ) and have almost finished up building all new ductwork . We still dont have a real kitchen yet . Theres a laundry sink hooked up in the kitchen and an oven and microwave and new refrigerator but no cabinets yet .
Meanwhile the money from insurance has been gone ( lesson learned made sure I have 100% replacement coverage now ) . This has also been one of the worst years I can remember in 20 years of doing HVAC ( the economy was in the toilet and somebody flushed ) .
I will have the HVAC finished up by the end of the weekend and we will get the kitchen finished over the winter . We have managed to do almost all of this with just SWMBO and I doing 95% of the work .
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. Sumthin' will pop in there..........
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