GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

6ixString's Home Improvement and Mindless Ramblings Thread....

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Sunday, May 8, 2016 14:48
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Monday, May 28, 2012 7:11 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Hey....

Has anybody used one of these before?????

http://menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-materials/edger
s/garden-wizard-raised-bed/p-1727122-c-5783.htm



It's the "Garden Wizard Raised Bed Garden" It's a 4'x4', self irrigating decorative bed with resin composite that doesn't fade and looks like bricks.

I was at my bro and sis-in-law's house for a barbeque tonight and with all the gardening they're planning on doing, they got me a bit stoked to do this. I LOVE tomatoes, and she says they're VERY easy to grow. All you have to do is pay about 2-3 bucks for a vine of the cherry tomatoes and she was getting about a pint worth of tomatoes everyday once they started blooming until about mid-October last year off of just 3 plants. That was 9 bucks of plants, a little weed preventer and watering and assuming a harvest like that every day for the months of June to October, that's about 40 bucks worth of tomatoes a season... far more than I could ever eat. And they're a lot better than the insecticide ridden ones you'd buy at the store!

I've seen this particular unit go for as much as 250 bucks at different places, but Menards has it for only 99 bucks! I'd have to drive a bit to get it since there out of stock almost everywhere, but I kind of figure why when everybody else charges so much for them. I posted the Home Depot specs since Menards' website is kind of lacking compared to Home Depot and Lowes....

Self irrigating, and a maintinance free composite? What could go wrong?

I just can't believe there aren't any reviews ANYWHERE online for it.



I think I'm going to pull the trigger and buy it this week. For whatever reason, even after re-seeding the area I believe was a sandbox before I filled it with dirt from scratch 10 days ago, the grass is still barely taking hold there. My brother had mentioned that this would be a perfect place for a 4x4 garden.



If I can really get 400 bucks worth of tomatoes a year, and maybe have room for a few other vegetable plants there, I think that would really ease my pain for paying more in taxes than anyone else on the block. I always wanted to set something like this up down the road, but why wait until then... For about 150 bucks upfront costs, I could be well on my way for having so many free vegetables for the season that I'll be giving away the surplus to my neighbors.



The grass is still filling in good in the pool hole, Mama Rabbit is still tending to the kids, and I saw them kicking up a storm in the nest today.

Everything's gravy.... at least, that is, until my water bill comes in next week.......

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Thursday, May 31, 2012 1:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


History of erasing evidence of a 29ft crater in my back yard.....

Late September:



(I really wish I'd taken a picture of the weeds and stones before getting even to this point. This was before 15 yards of dirt was filled in.)

Late April: (After dirt filled in)



May 3rd:



May 9th: (Pre Re-weeding)



May 21st: (About 1/2 of re-weeding and lawn patch done)



May 31st:



(As you can see in the background, the weeds have all but re-taken the "crabbage patch" after all of that work. There is some solid grass in there though. I think I'll just keep weed'n'feeding it and overseeding it during early spring and late fall and just keep mowing it down. Hopefully in a few years the grass will crowd the weeds out. At least, I've heard that works if you're diligent about it.)




I'm giving up thinking I'll have the pool filled in before it's too hot to do any more work, but all in all not too shabby. Once the rabbits move out of the hole I'm just going to weed'n'feed it and start mowing it regularly with the rest of the lawn. After the double work done on the weeding here, I'm hoping to have this part of the lawn completely looking nice by next summer.


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Friday, June 1, 2012 12:25 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


JO!!!!!!

Need your crazy math skillz buddy!

The fight against property taxes is back on!

I've come across some new information today that can really Break the case on their part. It seems that, even though almost EVERYTHING is wrong about the card and some of it is in my favor, they're claiming this land is not in a flood plane and I just checked with the village and it still is considered a flood plane. So not only should that devalue the worth of the land, but when they see that my basement is unfinished, they can't deny me not wanting to EVER finish it when it could flood again at any time, and they can't just chalk that up to lesser value on the home because it was a foreclosure sale.

So... since the game is on... let me send you a rough, and not at all measured out draft of the REAL acerage of my property as opposed to what they're claiming...



The dimensions and footage laid out, are what the taxes are based off of now. I haven't even checked to see if these are real yet. The problem is, the "black line" that goes through the pic is where underground pipes are placed, so there is a very large easement of this property they're still taxing me on. As I said, I haven't measured this yet, and this pic and my calculations are based off of eyeballing the yellow markers on mine and my neighbors property and guessing off the original figure. I will be doing the dirty work this weekend though.

I used a program called sketchandcalc.com. It's "pretty" cool, but it could do some upgrades that would allow you to put exact numbers instead of just scroll around and hope for the best. Since I was able to get really close numbers to what I assumed, I'll go with what the site values were.

Based off of the new black line (and the complete inability to give the EXACT dimensions I wanted to in the program), I had a left side of 78.35ft, top of 135.5, right of 91.68 and bottom of 135.02.

This gave me a total acreage of .264 acres.

The ORIGINAL on my taxes completely threw away the irregular form of the lawn and just said it was a perfect 118x134 foot rectangle, for .363 acres.

The ORIGINAL land value based off of their callous calculations is $41,800.

With the new, albeit guessed acreage, I come up with $30,400.

I do like to think that my eyeballing is correct.

At this point, that's really my only question to you. Is my eyeballing pretty on, or way off? I assume with the existing dimensions and the new black line, the new property lines would only be 72.72727272727272727272727273% of the claimed land.



(Actually... I have another question.... what would my true acreage be just based off of their original claims to the sq footage without my black line???? I bet it's still less than their bastardized 118x134 measurements!)





Before I commit myself to this, I'd like anyone's opinions here before I open the proverbial can of worms. I've constructed a Pros and Cons list, and a "maybe" list on the side.

Pros.....

1) They claim I have 2 A/C units. There are no A/C units.
2) They claim I have Heat in the 1st, 2nd and sub floor footage. There is only overhead heat on the 1st and 2nd floor. (There is a spot in the crawl for a furnace, but there have probably been 4 furnaces at least since the house was made that "died" because of flooding).
3) The claim I have aluminum siding. I have vinyl siding.
4) They claim I don't live in a flood plain, and I just verified with the village today that I do.
5) They claim that I have 3 bedrooms, and 7 finished rooms, but with a completely unfinished and constantly flooded basement over the years, I only have 2 bedrooms and 4 finished rooms.
6) They claim my back enclosed porch is 280 sq ft. The actual sq footage is just over 210 sq ft. (The unfinished storage shed is included in this figure to make 280 sq ft, but it's already billed separately as a non-homestead side addition.)
7) I've been told by my county that the only way a porch can be included in finished square footage is if it's a permanent structure (either cement, or a wooden deck with hole-posted-supports). Mine is just cinderblock pavers that can be torn up tomorrow. (Though they do list this as only 280 sq ft, even though it's closer to 350 sq ft.)
7) To drive the point that EVERYTHING about my assessment is wrong to the very core, like an icepick to the face, they claim my street address to end in "AVE", when it's a "ST".

Besides... I'm paying WAY more than anyone on my block. I don't think they'd have the nerve to try to hit me with higher taxes if I open my mouth.......

Negatives......
1) They list both the full 1st and 2nd floor inside as being covered in carpet. Even though the first floor had 1/2 shitty vinyl tile and the 2nd half was beat up hardwood. The 2nd floor used to be carpeted, but I've really upped the value by removing the carpet and refinishing the floor myself.... not to mention how much nicer the rest of the 2nd floor looks.

2) I'll definitley have to remove any GLARING code violations like the romex connecting plug outlets in the exposed basement.

Maybes......
1) I think they have already included both the basement and the attic as "finished area" although the numbers are so wrong I can't figure it out at all. They state my 2nd floor finished area is 570 sq ft. They state my 1st floor is only 478 sq ft. They also (for the first and exclusively only time) correctly claim that my house is a "Tri Level", but at the same time for "Basement" and "Attic" they say "NONE".

So.... After reading this, sight unseen, I would think that this house was a mythical creature. A tri-level house which only had two floors and was shaped like a mushroom with a 2nd floor that was almost 100 sq feet larger than the 1st floor.

2) I really don't think the "finished" carpeted attic would hurt me if they came inside, because I can't figure how they got the huge 2nd floor sq footage without including it as finished. No doubt I could squeeze more sq footage out of the assesed value by removing it, but with all of these numbers so far being complete fabricated bullshit, I don't know if I should rip out the carpet for no reason before they come around.




Bottom line, it turns out that no matter how bad my eyeballing was today, I have at least 20 percent less land than I'm being charged for. I'm the highest charged house on the block.

I really believe that I couldn't be hurting myself by fighting this.

My house today is "valued" at 148k by the township. If I were to put it on the market at 130k it would sit there for years.

Should I pull the trigger??????

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Saturday, June 2, 2012 4:16 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Geez... I hope my RWED Posts haven't killed any interaction in this forum. I feel like the sound a tree falling in the forest makes when nobody is there to listen...



This book is Amazing! All New Square Foot Gardening: http://www.amazon.com/All-Square-Foot-Gardening-ebook/dp/B0055IW8R0


My garden has cost me a small fortune to start up now, but until I decide to make more of them the upkeep costs should be next to nothing from here on out. If I grow just tomatoes in it this year, I should easily make that money back and more compared to prices I'd pay in the grocery store.

I'm going to build up the sides beneath the raised garden with the flat cinderblock stones I had pulled out of the pool area and elsewhere on the property. I will still have to bend down a bit to garden, but it will be raised enough where animals won't have an easy time getting to it, particularly the bunnies. (I hope to start constructing it all this week, so I'll have pics of what I'm doing along the way).

Materials/Costs so far:

GARDEN CONSTRUCTION:
1 Raised Garden Self Watering 4x4 bed: $99.99
1 3/4"x4'x4' medium grade, untreated plywood (on sale): $15.97
12 4" strips of wood lath (for the grid): $2.28
60 cinderblock-tops to build it off the ground: FREE
1 Tarp to wrap the plywood with: Reused from previous job, so essentially FREE

"MEL'S MIX" PERFECT RAISED GARDEN INGREDIENTS:
2 1.5 cubic foot bags of Varmiculite: $25.98
3 cubic feet compressed Peat Moss: %9.99
2 40 lb bags of cow manure compost: $3.94
2 .75 cubic foot bags of Mushroom based compost: $7.74

(There will be about .4 cubic feet of Varmiculite, 3 uncompressed cubic feet of peatmoss and .4 cubic feet of compost left over for another garden with these measurements. I'll probably give the rest to my brother and sis-in-law if they choose this route for their gardening project)

PLANTS:
Dunno yet... I haven't gotten that far. They're relatively cheap, and I'll HAVE to buy them this first year, but I plan on doing this all from seeds starting next year when I get ahead of the weather.

My guess, for the square footage, about $20 bucks for the plants.

So, in the end, for this first season, the upfront costs for this garden will be $185.89 plus tax. I know that that seems staggering, but at the same time, the book says that a single 4x4 raised garden bed properly done will garner a large salad for a single adult every single day during harvesting season.

I don't know about where you live, but by me it can cost $3 to $5 dollars for a salad mix bag full of washed vegetables raised with pesticides and man made fertilizers. I look at this as an investment of having a "Home Goods" store right in my back yard, and because I sprung for the self watering system it's a nearly maintenance free home goods at that. It should easily pay for itself and more in just one season.

Doing it Mel's way, it would be MUCH cheaper. Being handy and cheap like I am, I could have easily gone this route, but the idea of having a nearly maintenance free garden to start with that watered itself, I spent 100 bucks on the 4x4 kit that I could have built nearly for free if I scavenged around for wood planks to make the box out of.



There's THREE great things about "Mel's Mix":

1) You don't have to fertilize it EVER! The only thing you have to do between growing new plants is to add new compost (by far the cheapest ingredient of the mix). The Vermaculite and Peat Moss are nutrient free and don't biodegrade. You don't mix any infertile, weed infested, soil from your yard in the mix, and you start with a great base of 2 materials that retain water, allow drainage, and allow room for root growth, and the nutrients all come from the compost.

2) You barely have to till between growing... just enough to mix the new compost in. Since the garden is raised and nobody will ever be walking on it, combined with the "loose" nature of vermiculite and compost, it maintains these properties year to year.

3) The ingredients are all natural. If you make your own compost, it's even FREE to keep up year after year! Even if you choose to buy compost, it will only be maybe 10 bucks a year per 4'x4' garden before you plant your seeds.

After all of that, weeds will barely be a problem. They're designed to grow in "dirt", but this isn't dirt at all. Since you're rarely tilling anything, and since it's such a small easily tended space, weed growth will be minimal and easily be controlled.

Also, by building the garden so far above the ground as I'm doing, it's a natural barrier from animals and slugs and even from leeching tree and shrub roots which would leech off of the water and nutrients.



Mel's book is GREAT for somebody like me. I'm a total novice at all this stuff, aside from the college of hard knocks I've been through with the grass and hostas, but I wasn't looking for a book that spelled out every single step to the minute detail. This book explains just enough of the details to get you on your way, but doesn't bore you with minute details for every single given situation. There are also a lot of full color quality pictures that are worth a thousand words each.





Being that my own project will be my own particular "spin" off of Mel's suggestions, I will have plenty of photos and documentation about how and why I'm doing what I'm doing and how it turns out down the road. He suggests many times in the book to take this basic idea and make it your own.

Here's hoping everything goes according to plan....

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Saturday, June 2, 2012 8:49 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Here's hoping everything goes according to plan....

Oh yeah, cause that'll happen for sure.

If yer planning to grow tomatoes, you really oughta talk to Dreamtrove about, cause he knows way more about that kinda thing, and what I know wouldn't fill a thimble - seriously, gardening is WAY out of my competence zone, I only even recently figured our soil PH might friggin matter...

-F

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Sunday, June 3, 2012 3:50 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Here's hoping everything goes according to plan....

Oh yeah, cause that'll happen for sure.

If yer planning to grow tomatoes, you really oughta talk to Dreamtrove about, cause he knows way more about that kinda thing, and what I know wouldn't fill a thimble - seriously, gardening is WAY out of my competence zone, I only even recently figured our soil PH might friggin matter...

-F


Haha.... Why should I believe that this plan will be different than any of the others?

If I run into problems I'll take your advice there. I don't know if Dreamtrove does the Square Gardening Method or not, but if he doesn't, he's doing a completely different type of gardening and it would be like a Chemist trying to teach an Engineer student their job using Chemist ideas.

The only reason I know anything about Ph of the soil is because Mel mentions it in the book. He only goes further on about it to say that you'll NEVER have to have your soil tested for PH, and that he won't even bother explaining it in the book since we won't have to know what it means or ever have to pay to have it fixed.

Really Frem, if you don't know shit about gardening, as I didn't 2 months ago before pulling a billion weeds and trying to get grass to grow over 1,600 feet with moderate success, I probably wouldn't attempt it either. I think it's going to be REALLY easy with this system, and a 4'x4' garden that could supply an adult male with one essentially free salad a day for life after it pays for itself could be done for MUCH cheaper than I did it.

Maybe you should buy "Square Foot Gardening" for that kick ass girl you think so highly of????

If things go well here for me, I'll have 4 more of these next year at least. I'll be well on my way to moving on from vegetables to having my own chicken coop in a few years. Maybe some solar panels on the roof and a corn burning furnace for the winter. Maybe one day I'll be brewing my own beer and growing my own tobacco too?

Who says you can't support yourself, even in the suburbs?

If I'm going to be paying so damn much in property taxes to largely support schools and welfare for kids, when I don't have any of my own, Isn't it about high time I made my property work for me????




As for the garden.....

I get the actual garden walls tomorrow, and I've got my mix all ready to go. I took quite a few pictures, so I could document my step-by-step approach to prep-work I did on my own that isn't discussed in the book. This is the Extra type of stuff that he says a lot of gardening enthusiasts can and will do to make the project their own. Actually, this part took me less time than I thought it would, although I did have to do a bit of extra work fixing things. I know for next time though that I would have done something completely different and I'll mention that in the step-by-step that follows.....




BUILDING MY OWN SQUARE FOOT GARDEN (SFG) SYSTEM; PART 1:

STEP 1: HAVE ALL OF YOUR TOOLS AND MATERIALS READY.



4'x4' sheet of 3/4" plywood (non-treated... the treated stuff will poison your food).
Aluminum tape (The type you would buy to secure ductwork elbows above your water heater.
Staple gun (loaded with staples, duh!)
Cordless Drill with a 1/4" wood bit.
Pencil
Tape Measurer (If you have a 4-foot T square, the job will be MUCH easier, I didn't have one yet.)
A tarp that measures at least 5'x5'



Also, since the entire idea behind Square Foot Gardening is that it can be planted anywhere and that you NEVER mix it with the crappy soil in your lawn, you can put it up as high as you'd like. Since this is my first year doing this, I didn't want to spend more money on stones, but if I like how this turns out, I'd like to switch in a more decorative base next year, and also one that will raise the garden to my standing height so I don't even have to bend down to do the work. These pavers I had from the pool should do the trick of at least keeping rabbits out without having to fence the garden in.

STEP 2: ATTACHING THE TARP

Mel's system doesn't even call for adding the tarp, but I added it because wood eventually falls apart when it gets wet. It will still get wet with the drainage holes, but I'm hoping that this additional step adds 10 or 20 years of life to the board since it cost 16 bucks on sale. I think my logic here is sound. Check back with me in 20 years to see if this was worth the time and effort.

Lay the tarp out on the ground and place the plywood over it. Do your best to eyeball the center. You don't need to measure for perfect center because it really doesn't matter underneath.

Pull the tarp on your first side nice and tight so that it looks even on both sides, and then shoot both ends of it about an inch away from the ends of the plywood with a staple. Then pull the center in and do the same with two more staples somewhere even between the middle of the tarp and the two staples.

Go around to the other side and this time, REALLY make sure you pull it taught and then repeat the staple process.

Once you put all the staples in, take small pieces of your aluminum tape roll and tape over the staples. The staples will rust on their own. The Aluminum tape covering however, will not. That stuff bonds to anything way better than duct tape.

If you did everything right, it should now look something like this:




Originally, the next step was to do the same for the 2nd two flaps, but I shit-canned that idea and I explain why at the end of the next step.... live and learn.....

STEP 3: DRILLING YOUR DRAINAGE HOLES

The last thing you want is water pooling and your roots drowning. If you plant your SFG directly above your own soil, this won't matter, but if you use plywood or any other covering, you need to allow for drainage below.

You should have a grid of 25 holes when you're through. The four corners will be 8" from the end of the plywood both directions. This can be done with a tape, as I did it, but that's a much more cumbersome task than if you simply used a T-Square, generally used for drywall cutting. For the sake of shortening the instructions, I'll assume you have a T-Square.

From one side, draw lines straight down from one end to the other at 8", 16", 24", 32" and 40". Then repeat from either 90 degree side and form a grid.

You'll also want to have holes close to the 4 corners, so mark 3" from each side of the plywood by the corner.

Now simply drill holes wherever the lines intersect. There should be 29 holes total when you're through.



(Actually, I'm a little disappointed that my crappy little camera didn't highlight the holes here. I assure you they're there).



From the bottom....

THIS IS THE STEP I WILL FOREVER CHANGE IN THE FUTURE!!!!

What I say next is just to document what I did to "fix" this, but since you'd just wrap enough tarp to "double lip" and staple only 2 inches from all four sides, you wouldn't have to go through all of this pain.

As you can see, the sides I wrapped 2nd, I pulled back in the middle and re-stapled and sealed. There was simply way too much tarp to drain through. The whole idea of this tarp system is to keep water away from the wood as much as possible, but I realized that this would just keep it there indefinately. I cut holes in the tarp on the bottom anywhere that the tarp was covering the drain holes and then I taped around them with the aluminum tape. HUGE pain in the ass, and something I'll never do again. Lesson learned...

For the REAL way to do this, just imagine that the underneath picture has tarp wrapped around it only 2" in on all 4 sides, and that you cut the rest of it off with a utility knife or scissors. (Remember, it doesn't have to look pretty down there.... nobody will ever see it).

STEP 4: RAISING THE SFG

As for form or function, the little I was able to raise it now for free just using blocks that were eating up garage space is really just to make people more curious about what I was doing here. I managed to have EXACTLY 50 15 1'2" cinderblock tiles which was the exact amount needed to make a 4'x4' spot raised 5 rows off of the ground. Hopefully after the 3/4" of plywood and the additional 10" walls of the unit itself, it will be too high for the bunnies to get to. At the very least, it should keep slugs away.

To make my template, I just laid the tarped plywood down and moved it this way and that until I felt it was the most asthetically pleasing and symmetrical for the area. Then I took a hand tiller and just marked the ground around all four edges. These cinderblocks seemed perfect for the job because they allowed space between each other for airation. Since the unit will be self-draining, I think it would be a very bad idea to ever brick and mortar this area. I might be wrong about that, but I just imagine 3.6'x3.6' cesspool building up over the seasons if there was no air getting down there.

Then I just laid 3 bricks evenly on two of the sides, and two bricks in between evenly on the other two sides to make my first row.

Take your tape measurer and make sure all of your corners are exactly 48" apart and adjust the bricks this way and that accordingly until you have a perfect 4'x4' spot.

Stagger the 2nd row so that 3 bricks lay on top of the two center blocks and the two halves of the previous 3 block rows, and then fill in the other sides with 2 blocks on top of the previous 3 block row.

Repeat until you run out of bricks. It will take 10 bricks per row using 15 1/2" x 7 1/2" blocks. Ideally, I would have had about 6 times as many bricks so I could stand while working, but maybe next year.....

For aesthetic purposes, any cracked or chipped bricks should be on lower levels with the best sides facing outward)



STEP 5: CENTERING YOUR PLYWOOD BASE:

Now just put your plywood, tarp-side up on the base. If you did a good job with your first row and you kept your subsequent rows nice and even, it should match up everywhere just about perfect. Make any adjustments as you see fit.



END PART ONE



So.... I know that's a LOT of work for no payoff at the moment. The implied value, at least in my mind, for many years down the road could be staggering.

Tomorrow night I will be working with my brother to install the actual unit walls and mix the "Mel's Mix" with a tarp. I'll be taking pictures of that process and show you how the self-irrigating system is supposed to work in the process. That will all be part 2. Part 3 will be my "too late to plant seed, just plant a..... plant".

After that, we'll just wait and see and I'll show you if this is all worth the effort and money. I'm hoping that by next early spring you're all on board for this idea. Mel's got me sold. I really believe that even though there are large up-front costs to do it my way (his way is WAY cheaper) there will be way more vegetables growing per season than I could ever eat by myself. Here's hoping.








Oh, and by the way... here's what my pool is looking like now......



Pretty sweet, huh?

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Sunday, June 3, 2012 11:03 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Been bizzy lately, so sorry I didnt get to your questionz.

Me, mad math skillz? HA! But, sq ft calculationz are very basic. Just get out there with a tape measure and get the real numbrz. I dont know if itll help that much with the taxez, but like you sed, its worth a try. Just be nice wen talking with the burokrats. If you get on their bad side, they can make it a personal vendetta and rap you up in red tape for ever.



----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Monday, June 4, 2012 4:45 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Very basic for you JO, lol.... Give me a square or a rectangle and I'm golden. Give me something with 4 different sized sides and I'm lost. I better get out there soon since I only have until Friday to file an appeal.

I'll be sure to bring plenty of tact to the table. Never bad advice there when it comes to the gumment.


BUILDING MY OWN SQUARE FOOT GARDEN (SFG) SYSTEM; PART 2:

This part won't have much to it, because putting the box together was easy and mixing the ingredents for Mel's Mix was pretty self explanatory.

STEP 1: PUT THE BOX TOGETHER

Just follow the instructions and when you're done it will look something like this.



An additional step I took was to add the Aluminum tape along the bottom for stability and to keep any water from seeping out of the sides. You could probably skip this step though, because especially when you've filled the sides with water, that beast isn't going anywhere.

The only other note I have is to follow the instructions and loop the hoses over each other, and NOT to do what my brother and I tried. The way the hoses were pictured on the picture on the front of the box seemed to be a smarter way to do it, but these water-permiable hoses kink something aweful, and once you've bent them out of position it's impossible to keep them from kinking up, even if you went the right way with them. The only negative effect I see now is that several of the sides won't fill each other up because of the kinks, I think that the water should still be able to make it out to the middle before the kinks though so the irrigation feature should still work fine.

Oh... I also skipped the step to put the anti-weed fabric on the bottom. The drainage holes are so small, I don't think that it matters.

STEP 2: MAKING THE MEL'S MIX
The book says to buy 5 different types of Compost. I wasn't able to locate more than two around me.

Also, to make things easier, I simply put in 3 cubic feet of each ingredient, rather than try to figure out how much 2.67 cubic feet of each ingredient would be.

1/3 Compost (2 40lb bags of horse manure and 2 .75 cubic foot bags of mushroom based compost)
1/3 Peat Moss (A little less than 1/2 of a full bale)
1/3 Vermiculite (2 1.5 cubic foot bags)

Spread out a tarp and mix the compost together.

Add the peat moss and with a metal rake do your best to till them together until the color is uniform. With a friend, you can pull up the sides of the tarp to further mix it and keep raking it in.

Add the Vermiculite and mix it together until everything looks even.

This step will take a little bit of time and energy.


STEP 3: FILLING YOUR GARDEN

Drag the tarp so it butts right against your garden so if you drop any off of your shovel (which you will), it will fall back into the pile. Just shovel away until you can pull up the opposite side of the tarp to condense the last of it, shovel again, and then with a friend when not much is left carefully pick up the tarp and pour the rest in. Spread the mix evenly in the box.

END PART TWO



Here's what it looks like now:



What do you think? Not too shabby huh?

I hope to pick up my plants tomorrow and get everything started. I'll be taking pics of it every week or so and keeping record of how much produce I get. I'll just be starting with tomatoes this year, but I hope to expand that a lot next season.

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Tuesday, June 5, 2012 3:31 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Grrrrrr.......

Note to self, Anything that sounds as easy as a "self watering garden" comes with many problems of its own.....

It's got a pinhole leak on one of the corners, on the inside of the joint. There is no way I can get to it until late fall when I pack it up (or without about a days worth of work of removing all the soil, dumping the water, fixing the leak... waiting a day for it to dry, filling it all back up and then planting). I'll make it work this season, but I'll have to figure out a way to patch it before next year.


I worked on tightening the hoses and hollowing out the top layer of bricks so my corner drainage holes could actually drain (duh!). Glad I had a spare masonry blade lying around for my Skilsaw. At least fixing the hoses kept the leak from being bad. I lost about 15 gallons of water overnight since we only hand-tightened the hoses. I worked out all the kinks, set it up right and used a cresent wrench to clamp them in and now the water leak is barely noticible.

Tomatoes will be bought and planted tomorrow, so help me!!!!!



Oh... and I'll also be taking my drug test tomorrow too, and assuming no black marks on my background check (which there won't be), I've got my orientation on Sunday and I start work on the 18th. It's not much, but it's 3 nights a week at above minimum wage. Should be enough to cover about 90% of my regular bills, and give me 4 days a week to figure out how to make more money and to look for a better job. In the mean time, it's unloading trucks and staging merchandise... just the type of low level job with a million menial tasks to perform that will make the night fly by for me, in a store that only has about 5 people in it at those hours.

I know I'm capable of so much more than that, but if I've got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel right now for jobs, I can't think of a better position to be working with my personality.

The only thing that could make this suck now is if I'm working along side a couple of real dicks. Here's hoping that my new co-workers share my shiny, happy personality




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Tuesday, June 5, 2012 8:29 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Congrats!

I hav sum luk myself lately. More machining work than usual, so I will be able to pay sum billz this month.

Odd polygonz are easy to calculate area. Just lopp off trianglez till you hav a rectangle. And the area uv trianglez iz 1/2 hite x width.

----------------------------
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http://www.nooalf.com

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Wednesday, June 6, 2012 3:08 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Congrats!

I hav sum luk myself lately. More machining work than usual, so I will be able to pay sum billz this month.

Odd polygonz are easy to calculate area. Just lopp off trianglez till you hav a rectangle. And the area uv trianglez iz 1/2 hite x width.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com


Thanks for the tip and the congrats! Good to hear that you got more work coming in too. Nice....

Fortunately, I don't have to have the entire thing written up by friday like I thought. I only have to put the request for a petition in by then. I still have time to build my case.



Didn't get the tomatoes planted today, but I got 8 plants for $3.50, way cheaper than I thought they'd be!

I just didn't buy enough tomato cages for that many plants. I have to figure out the best route since I'm not actually using the SFG method this year. I will use it next year when I can start seeding at the proper time. (And hopefully I'll have 1 or 2 more 4x4 garden areas by that time as well).

Pictures tomorrow hopefully


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Wednesday, June 6, 2012 5:45 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


I wuz under the impression that you can grow tomatoz frum the seedz frum tomatoz you get frum the store. Am I mistaken?

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Wednesday, June 6, 2012 5:58 PM

WISHIMAY


Yeah, but if you want to eat some this year, and have them be big enough to do something with then you kind of have to start the seedlings inside in early spring, it's late in the season now...

I'm glad SOMEONE has had some luck...We finally got around to putting in sewage lines in the new bathroom (water lines were in months ago) and had a miscalculation as to the layout... Had to take floor back up and drill new holes... dropped somethin' on mah pinky and it's all purple too... Dammit.

Siding is coming along, but had a couple setbacks on that too.

Why can't things ever go easy???!

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Thursday, June 7, 2012 7:49 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


I hope you dont get persistent leak problemz, 6string. Leaks and clogz are like a demonic force against me!

It seemz like wherever I dont want fluidz flowing, they alwayz find a way and wherever I want them to clogz up! I coud hav a 10 ft diameter drain pipe and I'd be continually cleaning out junk. But the frame for the hatch on my roof deck rarely goez more than 6 months without leaking no matter how carefully or cleverly I try to seal it.

----------------------------
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Thursday, June 7, 2012 7:57 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Good advice about not mulching, Wishy.

I mowed sum more today and it went much eazier with the side discharge open. I remowed the areaz I cleared a few weeks ago and expanded them. I found that I coud do a wheeely and gradulaly lower it to chop down the tallest stuff.

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Friday, June 8, 2012 1:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Yeah, but if you want to eat some this year, and have them be big enough to do something with then you kind of have to start the seedlings inside in early spring, it's late in the season now...

I'm glad SOMEONE has had some luck...We finally got around to putting in sewage lines in the new bathroom (water lines were in months ago) and had a miscalculation as to the layout... Had to take floor back up and drill new holes... dropped somethin' on mah pinky and it's all purple too... Dammit.

Siding is coming along, but had a couple setbacks on that too.

Why can't things ever go easy???!


Yeah, way late in the year to grow from seeds. Actually, I was surprised that in the book the guy says that tomatoes are one of the few plants he recommends buying small plants rather than growing from seeds yourself. Can't exactly remember why he said so, but at 1.75 for four plants, I think it's worth having the plants 8" tall aready at that price point.

Glad you're making progress too. As for things never going easy... know that I'm one of your deepest sympathizers



Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I hope you dont get persistent leak problemz, 6string. Leaks and clogz are like a demonic force against me!

It seemz like wherever I dont want fluidz flowing, they alwayz find a way and wherever I want them to clogz up! I coud hav a 10 ft diameter drain pipe and I'd be continually cleaning out junk. But the frame for the hatch on my roof deck rarely goez more than 6 months without leaking no matter how carefully or cleverly I try to seal it.


That thing leaks like hell and there's probably nothing I can do about it. 20 gallons of water basically gone after only 3 days. The good news is, it is properly irrigating the soil in the mean time. Just 1/2" below the surface the soil was quite moist. So I guess I'll just water by hand most days, but if I have to go away for an extended weekend I should in theory just be able to fill the sides and it would take care of itself while I'm gone.

I should probably take the unit back, but the plants are in now and I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting another unit. I will be putting up the first review for the item on all the sites that carry it and it will be a very unfavorable review.





But that was yesterday..... today??????

Have you ever had one of those days where every damn single thing just goes exactly according to plan???? Marking it in my own journal here.... Friday, June 8th, 2012, was Jack's Day!

First, there was the property tax scenario. It's not done, but the preliminary interaction exceeded my wildest expectations. I thought I was just going to be dropping off the form and be on my way and expect a call back in 45 days. When the guy made a dated copy for my records he came back out and told me that if I have pictures of the mold remediation, we wouldn't even need a hearing and I could just come back and they'd give me signifigant relief on the property taxes for a year because of that!

I told him that sounded great, but I wanted to also bring up issues like being in a flood plane and that's why I never plan on actually re-finishing the basement and putting another furnace down there only to see it flood again. He told me to get a letter from my Village saying that it's in a flood plane and that can be taken care of as well (yay! That's one "finished" floor off my taxes for good!).

He also said with pictures of the brick patio that isn't a permanent fixture we can get that 280sq/ft removed from the taxes as well, and I'm feeling pretty good that we can get the finished attic removed without ripping up the carpet because there is no heat or A/C up there (it's 110 degrees in the summer and 35 degrees in the winter... not exactly livable. We'll also remove the 2 A/C units from the taxes, and fix a few sq footage issues.

All of this, and THEY'RE NOT EVEN SENDING AN ASSESSOR OUT TO THE HOUSE!!!!! All I have to do is bring a flash drive with the pictures to illustrate my points, the letter from the village, and my measurements.

I was nothing but grins before leaving and as I got his business card I thanked him and told him that I thought this was going to be like pulling teeth. He said, nah man... we're not out to screw ya. Sometimes things aren't right in the books and we're here to help you make it right.

God bless Indiana.... I lived so long in Illinois that I didn't realize that local government employees or agencies even had a heart, let alone anything mildly resembling a sense of reason.

I may be shooting for the stars here, but I'm hoping that when take care of this next week I get about 400 bucks a year off my property taxes and maybe even a much larger amount off the 1st year because I was living with all that mold and no hot water for so long.





Part two of Jack's Day... Got the call from KMart. Passed all the background stuff, like I knew I would, and Orientations on for Sunday.


Part three of Jack's Day... finally got my tomatoes planted, with a HUGE upgrade to the garden that didn't cost much, thanks to ideas in the book.

I figured I'd need at least 5 more of those cheap tomato cages to house all of the plants that I was putting in the garden. That would have cost me about 16 bucks with tax.

The flimsy cages should be enough to support the cherry tomato vines, but I didn't think there would be any way they'd hold the weight of the Beefmaster tomatoes. Why spend 16 bucks when I already had some spare conduit lying around and all I needed to buy were 2 90 degree elbows, a 10 foot piece of 1/2" rebar and a 5'x10' nylon netting for a traceless?





When these plants become beastly in size, this system should have no problem supporting the weight. I've even got about 1/3rd of the garden in the front left for some Romaine lettuce.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Anti-Oxydants....

Just what this smoker/beer drinker needs

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Friday, June 8, 2012 11:47 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Thats too much good luk. I'm afraid that bumps you up to a higher tax braket.

My luk iz averaging out with sum bad breaks and dum mistakes. The motor on my mill iz getting worse. I packed a special tap in with a job I delivered even tho I still needed it for the next job, so I lost sum time.

The new blue ray player froze up alredy. Had to pull the plug to reset it.
I gess this iznt such bad luck, since I'd rather hav it fail soon so I hav no problem returning it. I alredy ordered a Sony.

I Like Toshiba, but the reviewz werent good for any uv their playerz. Maybe Sony iz making good stuff again?

A sine uv good luk - I got to Prometheus and back without the usual car trouble!


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Sunday, June 10, 2012 8:45 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Thats too much good luk. I'm afraid that bumps you up to a higher tax braket.

My luk iz averaging out with sum bad breaks and dum mistakes. The motor on my mill iz getting worse. I packed a special tap in with a job I delivered even tho I still needed it for the next job, so I lost sum time.

The new blue ray player froze up alredy. Had to pull the plug to reset it.
I gess this iznt such bad luck, since I'd rather hav it fail soon so I hav no problem returning it. I alredy ordered a Sony.

I Like Toshiba, but the reviewz werent good for any uv their playerz. Maybe Sony iz making good stuff again?

A sine uv good luk - I got to Prometheus and back without the usual car trouble!


----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com]

Hehe.... If I was just sitting around wishing on a wishing well for good things to happen, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly JO. Days like the other day are so hard to come by that if it just popped up in my lap one day in the middle of a month long Fallout 3 bender, I'd be wondering who is controlling the outcome and what angle they have.....


If you're averaging out on luck, that's at least the best you can expect today if you're one of the people at least putting a real effort into it, (and I commend you for that because I believe you are one of those people). If you could only find the time and energy to reach a little higher than that just a few hours a week, you might be surprised at what the positive outcome might be.


With a little research and speaking to my Twp. Assessors office directly, I now can navigate my "Tax Card" like a pro. Even after talking with him, it took me about 3 hours to really get familar with it, but what was Klingon a week ago is like English to me today.

You have to remember that this stuff is abbreviated and coded in such a beautifully intricate way that it can on one face completely obfuscate the truth from most people, but at the same time will open all doors to reason for the few people who dig deep enough, so there is no legal recourse, such as class-action lawsuits for hiding the truth.


(As a VERY meaningful aside to this point.... the fact that a house is a "foreclosure" immediately negates the selling price on a "distressed property" from affecting the tax implications on the property henceforth. Time will tell.... but I believe that this is just a way for Twp's to save their own ass in these bad times and that only those who are truly vigilant and do their research can prove why their house was bought so cheaply, and should get deductions accordingly)

In the end, MUCH less of my Tax Card was false as I originally believed it to be. Most of my gripes, although they were trivial ones in the end, were because I was ignorant to the "lingo". Sure, some things are blatantly false, and from my interaction, they have no problem fixing those based solely on my word and a few pics. The Flood Hazard issue is going to be a massive windfall for me when I show up with the letter from my town saying I'm on a Flood plane (NOTE: In order to have land that currently, or has previously claimed FEMA funds after a flood, the Village/Town/City has to agree to re-zone that property so that another structure can NEVER be built upon that property... so if a tornado hits my house today, I can't rebuild here).

So, the Flood Hazard claim not only explains why my 7-room, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house is actually a 4 room, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house... but there is the implied tax deductions of owning a property I'd never be able to rebuild on if this structure was razed in a fire or tossed across town by a tornado.

If you simply take the unfinished basement and the legitimate decrease on the back porch size and the complete removal of the paver stone patio out of the equation, my
taxable finished area quickly diminishes from over 1600 sq ft to just over 1100 sq feet, and a deduction of about 6k in non-finished additions. From my previous discussion with the assessor, as long as I have the flood letter and proof via pictures to back up my claims, I don't think that part should be a problem.

Without even pressing the issue of the Flood Hazard, the square footage issues alone should reduce my taxes by about 350 a year, which would make me feel good since it's about what my neighbor across the street pays with his smaller property, but a full 2 story brick house..... He's not on a flood plane though. I might have to go to the state for a further reduction about the flood plane issue after the fact, but I'm okay with that.

I've already been told that I could get a great discount off the first year of taxes for the mold problem as well, so I'll be bringing plenty of pics of that evidence. It's nice that it seems so easy here in IN to make things work if you take the initiative. I almost didn't even bother because I grew up in Illinois where they just tell you to swallow the pill and like it.


Once this is locked in though.....

Next year I'll be fighting for cheaper taxes over the flood hazard issue, and also because of the gas-line in my lawn that reduces my actual acreage significantly...

Baby steps....

No reason to pull every ace out of the sleeve in one year.....







Bummer about your Blu-Ray man......

I'm about 5 years behind on tech today, even though I was the first person with every new gadget in my late teens and early 20's..... I figure, let the others work out the bugs, and I'll be happy to buy the disposable crap versions of the "new" tech 5 years from now when China is making it and it's sold at Wal-Mart for 30 bucks and doesn't have copy protection.

My advice.... don't EVER buy anything from SONY, besides Playstation 3 if you're into games, since nobody else can do what they do there.

I used to be a HUGE Sony guy. When I was 19, my 27" Trinitron, DVD player, "19 mirco-head VCR" and 200 disc changer were all Sony and could all be controled by the same remote.

At the same time, they cost me $570, $300, $250, and $200 plus the stupid 4 year warranty I never used for a single one of them. Today, I'd be lucky to get 30 bucks for all 4 of them if I sold them in a lot.

Far too many 3rd party companies are out there now to give them competition on the "sweet spot" merchandise. I'd only recommend buying Sony stuff that isn't Exclusive to Sony if you were the type that NEEDED to keep up with the JONSES, and had "something to prove" about your wealth to everyone else.

I'm not telling you to just buy any cheap old thing.... but to do your research. If you're not as handy with the net as I am with that, or you don't have enough time on your hands, get a magazine subscription to Consumer Reports. It comes with a free subscription to their web based articles and archives. Except for gaming platforms, 9 out of 10 times, CR (and more importantly, their subscriber reviews) will tell you not to buy Sony.



Speaking of Wishing on a Wishing Well....

I don't recommend the practice, but it was a bad ass song from my childhood


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Sunday, June 10, 2012 9:14 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Thanks! Thats a great song that I only ever heard in passing. Didnt know who made it. Not the genre uv myoozik I hav my radio on.

Sony made good consumer stuff up till about 85, 90. Then they seemed to forget ergonomics, then quality went to hell.

Toshiba haz alwayz been my fave, but several yirz ago I got a DVD recorder that didnt work properly rite outa the box. But the customer service wuz still outstanding. They were on the fone in minits and talked me thru an attempt to solve the problemz.

This netbook Im on here iz a Toshiba and haz never failed. I had a complaint about the touchpad and customer service walked me thru a setting change that fixed it.

The Sony BR player wuznt much more than wut I paid for the Philips, but it haz a 3-1/2 star rating in Amazon, so its probably going to be decent.



----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Tuesday, June 12, 2012 2:52 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Ha... yeah, the music stations that would play that song these days wouldn't be on my presets either. Back in the early 90's though this was played in heavy rotation on the "party radio" station one summer. Memory is funny. I hear a song like this today and I have a lot of good memories about that time. Living through it as an awkward pre-teen sucked though. Kind of cool how good music from the past can bring up the good feelings without bringing up all the crap with it.

I've never had much experience with Toshiba. I can't remember ever buying anything from them before. Overall, I've been pretty lucky since almost every piece of electronic equipment I've ever owned served its purpose until long after it was antiquated. I'd have to say the only "stand-out" piece of electronics I ever owned was that 51" Hitatchi projection screen TV. Even though it's about 6 years old now, the picture is just as perfect as the day I bought it, and it's survived 3 multi-story moves before it found it's final home before the tech-graveyard. It's still a larger screen than many people's LEDs or Plasmas, and because the design is so attractive it looks as though the base with the speakers is like a perfectly built TV stand for a much thinner TV. Throw that bad boy in the corner and it doesn't look as weird or ugly today as a lot of the other aging projection screen TVs still in houses. The only thing I wish it had was 1080 capability.

All in all, I'd say that's one of the best big ticket purchases I've ever made, especially since it was about 40% off when I got it.



These days though, I really just wait for tech to age before I buy it and then get it from a 3rd party manufacturer. Always do research on reviews though before buying something. With any product, even from top names, you're going to have some horribly negative reviews... so I just throw out the top and bottom 2 or 3 reviews and look at what everyone else says. Many times, as a bonus, you get extra functionality out of these 3rd party devices that you'd never get with a major player like Sony. It's not because Sony couldn't make it happen, it's because Sony either wouldn't want to make it happen, or because they're so high-profile they're not willing to go into grey areas of the "law".

2 examples...

When my 300 dollar Sony DVD player crapped out about 5 years after I bought it, well before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD came out, I was nearly broke. I needed something though. I was able to buy 30 dollar unit that was barely twice the size of a DVD itself and cased mostly in plastic, but it played ripped DVD movies and also would play CDs loaded with mp3s. International laws prevented a company like Sony from allowing even a foreign DVD to be played on the unit I bought in America for 10 times the price 5 years earlier, but here this no-name Chinese piece of junk lasted just as long before the DVD tray broke and it allowed me to do far more than the Sony ever could.

I also bought a pretty expensive mp3-to-radio transmitter unit with a digital readout and cigarette lighter recharger for listening to my mp3 player in my '79 LTD since it had the vintage 2-knob radio and I didn't want to cheapen the look of the car by putting a flashy new CD player in it. It was about 50 bucks. Even though it got the best reviews I'd seen at the time, the reviews all came with warnings that if you lived in an area that there were a lot of radio stations (Chicago..... check), you'd have a lot of interferance no matter what band you listened to it through, and you'd find yourself changing bands every few minutes to keep listening. True to their word, whenever I came within 15 miles of Chicago, the unit was basically useless........ What a waste of money.

I don't remember the brand name of that unit, but I know it was a well known name. It wasn't their fault either as I'm sure they could have made an awesome product if they weren't handicapped. The FCC put laws down on companies making units like these similar to ham-radio laws and the laws back in the very early 80s regarding fariday cages that video game consoles needed to make for their product to keep radio-waves from interfearing with other nearby devices. The funny thing is though... Seems that China doesn't give a shit about that, and nobody is monitoring units sold for $6.99 at Wal-Mart. I bought a no-frills replacement for the previous unit when it crapped out. No digital readout (just 3 jumpers you could rotate around to pick different stations that were printed out on a label so small you could barely read it), and no recharge ability (just 1 triple-A battery).

That unit ROCKS!!!! I still use it today, and it's at least 5 years old. (About a buck a year, not bad... )

The fact that you couldn't read the jumper label didn't matter since you almost never had to change them no matter which band you were using. I've never tested it out, but I'd be willing to bet that I was taking over radio signals from other cars listening to the same band as I drove past them. If the transmitter was able to reach the 5-6 feet from my front seat to the antenna on the back of my car, no reason it couldn't reach the same 5-6 feet across a street lane to the neighboring car's antenna, right?


Some say it's breaking the law... But I think if I pass up any car and give them even a split-second schooling in the virtues of Petty, Pearl Jam or Soundgarden, that can't be a bad thing.





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Tuesday, June 12, 2012 5:02 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Returned the Filips BR to Target today. No hassle. Thumbz up for Target.

I like the Sony so far. Duznt put stupid big junk over the picture in pauze. The response to the remote iz immediate. It loadz BR disks quickly. And a bonus I may never uze - turnz out it playz 3D BR disks!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Thursday, June 14, 2012 12:46 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


If it does what makes you happy, that's all that matters. Sony does put out a really good product, I just think they're overpriced on most of their things they sell that other companies sell as well.


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Friday, June 15, 2012 1:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


WHAT

A

DAY!

I KILLED on the Property tax thing! Got the paver patio removed, got the basement removed from finished area, got the pool and A/C units removed, got the back porch size corrected and also had the depreciation grade of my house downgraded.

I was hoping for at least $34,000 less on the assessment and I walked out with a whopping $54,000 less! I thought it shouldn't be a problem getting about $325-350 off my taxes and I was shooting for over $500, but if my calculations are right this will end up being just shy of $650 off per year after it's all set in stone!

Score one for the little guy!


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Friday, June 15, 2012 1:45 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


YOU DU MAN!!!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Friday, June 15, 2012 4:34 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
YOU DU MAN!!!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com]

Hehe.... thanks JO!

To any haters from the RWED out there....

JO ain't the only one who's told me so today!



I could teach you, but I'd have to have a reason to want to, and it would be done via PM. If I reveal all of these secrets to everyone, I'll be paying just as much 2 years from now when everyone figures out the tax cards.....

Self preservation...

If you have gripes JO, let me know. Get your tax card and we'll talk about it.


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Sunday, June 17, 2012 2:39 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Update to the tax scenario....

It's even better than I thought.

I just assumed the 1% tax cap on property value plus the huge voter approved changes would dictate the price, so as of yesterday I thought I saved (Only ) about $650 a year.

I did a little research though......

I won't give exact numbers, since all of this stuff is available online and I wouldn't want anyone to figure out who I am, so let's just say my property assessment was lowered to an even 100k from an even 150k.

BEFORE:

Assessed value of $150,000, using the math that will be explained below on the new figure ended up with a tax burden of $2579, but was reduced a few hundred because of the 1% tax cap.

AFTER:

100,000
-
45,000 Homestead Deduction
-
19,250 Supplimental Homestead Deduction (35% of value after HD)
--------
35,750
*
.037795 (Local Tax Rate)
--------
1351.17 !!!!!!

In actuality, it's quite a bit less than that if I used the real value in the equation.

So instead of shaving about 25% off of my taxes, the real number is much closer to 50%.

Without getting into actual numbers, the amount of cash I need to shell out for this years second installment is just shy of 5% of what I thought I'd be paying come November after my first installment overpayment, and I'll be paying little more than 100 bucks a month to the government for the privilege of living in my own home.

I know people who pay that yearly amount in apartment rent every month.

Don't let people scare you out of doing things when you know in your heart you're right. I almost didn't do this for myself for fear it would backfire on me, but I'm so glad that I did. This doesn't just benefit me today, but every year I live in this house.... maybe even until I die.

Get your facts straight, make a plan of attack, word your thoughts on paper just right, dot all the I's and cross the T's and I think you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

I thought this would take months, maybe even years to get satisfaction. Not only did it take only about 2 actual hours of driving time and time spent in the assessor's office, but the end result was double my best case scenario and triple my worst case scenario going into it.

That's about 170 hours less I have to work at K-Mart to pay the bills per year




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Sunday, June 17, 2012 5:18 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Just thinking about REM and how bad ass they were.....

And of a little known show by Bill Murray's Nephew Chris Elliot called "Get a Life"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Life_%28TV_series%29

Sure, it's sad to be 12 and your hero is a 30 year old guy living with his parents delivering papers on a bike only to crash at the end, but I blame REM for that....

The song was just that awesome.....





What's cool to me is reading that Fox Exeuctives HATED the character of Chris and HATED the show. I don't think anybody at Fox HATED Firefly. Chris died 12 times over the short series run, but every episode reset.

I've only had the pleasure of being able to see 4 episodes on a re-released DVD about 10 years ago. As far as I know the series was never re-released in it's entirity.

The only memorable line from the show was Chris breaking the 4th wall and saying to the audience "No offence to our Italian American Viewers" after the words "guinie pig" were used.








Anyway...I had no idea how awesome the song was back then and that it was a lot longer.

REM kicked ass...


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Monday, June 18, 2012 1:41 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


I liked that show! I got wun on a tape here sumwer. The wun wer he goez hunting withb hiz dad & buddy and they get wakt out frum eating halucinojenic berryz.

Chris did hiz best stuff on Letterman - The regulator guy, the guy under the seats, hiz spoof uv Morton Downey Jr. - a bunch uv great stuff!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Monday, June 18, 2012 1:05 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Good for you on working out the property tax thing, it sounds like it worked out optimally for you.

So how long will you let this thread go before you start another instead, 200 posts maybe?

I have Kathy Bates on speed dial, mwa ha ha ha (in exaggeratedly evil voice)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Tuesday, June 19, 2012 2:02 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I liked that show! I got wun on a tape here sumwer. The wun wer he goez hunting withb hiz dad & buddy and they get wakt out frum eating halucinojenic berryz.

Chris did hiz best stuff on Letterman - The regulator guy, the guy under the seats, hiz spoof uv Morton Downey Jr. - a bunch uv great stuff!


Haha... I remember that episode! My favorite one was when he became a food inspector for the FDA and was taking bribes of nickels and 5 dollar bills to let rat turds in the processing plants slide. It was playing the song "Money, Money, Money, Money....... MooooNay!" while the nickels were stacking up. I just remember him showing off his pinky ring and asking how much Bill Murray's brother thought it cost him and when he guessed 5 bucks, he pulled out his other hand and said "No.... 2... for 5 bucks!" I'd sure love to see the entire run on DVD someday.

I've never seen any of his Letterman stuff. I should check it out. "Cabin Boy" was unbearable, but he was good on Groundhog day, and he and David Cross were the only 2 funny things about Scary Movie 2.




Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Good for you on working out the property tax thing, it sounds like it worked out optimally for you.

So how long will you let this thread go before you start another instead, 200 posts maybe?

I have Kathy Bates on speed dial, mwa ha ha ha (in exaggeratedly evil voice)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.


Thanks Riona,

SUPER Optimal! I moved in here originally, perfectly okay with the idea that my "rent" to the government would be nearly 200 bucks a month. I figured that was the best I could do if I wanted to be within driving distance of my family and any decent jobs. The unique situation I'm in with the flood plain in an area that doesn't have many houses at all designated as such allowed me a TON of weight on the re-assessment. I just can't believe that NONE of the previous owners ever brought it up. Hell, because I didn't get a mortgage, I wasn't forced to pay $1,200 bucks a year for FEMA flood insurance by a bank, so I wasn't even aware it was on a flood plain until my neighbors let me know.

So... rent now is about 100 bucks a month! Yay!

I know people who pay 3 hundred bucks more than I do a year to rent a one bedroom apartment in Chicago.



I'm still blown away by how wonderful the assessor's office was about the whole thing. All it took was an offical packet from the town stating I'm on a flood plain, and about 30 pictures of the mold damage and the changes were made, no questions asked. The fact that I got about 350% more of a reduction than I was hoping for is just amazing.

I knew there was a better reason than to just stroke my ego that I've taken about 600 before and after pictures since I've started working on the house. I had no idea it would ever pay out these kind of dividends though. If there were zero inflation for the next 20 years I lived here, and my property taxes never went up (both not possible), I just saved about $21,000 in property taxes over the next 20 years




About posts... hmmmmm..... I didn't really think about it. It was an issue with the first post because there was no way to just show 50 or less posts like we can now and it was taking JO 3 minutes to finish loading the thread. Seems that Haken fixed that with the new build. This is just kind of my "Journal", and it's cool that it's interactive and other people can post here too. It really is cool to do it this way and be able to look back and see exactly which day I was doing what, and seeing how much has gotten done in a certain amount of time. Really, this is my only means of keeping track of how long projects are taking me since I'd never sit down and hand write an actual journal.





Had my first night of work at "The Mart" last night. It's pretty much going to be exactly what I thought it would be. Stock shelves, organize things, clean up. All things I don't mind doing at all. The crew seems pretty cool, even if there is a bit more shit-talking than I'm used to. I better brush up on my shit-talking skills over the next few weeks. Since I'm a pretty formidable looking guy and just quietly observing everyone now, I didn't have any shit directed my way, but it seems like the guys getting the most of it were good natured about it and gave it right back. All in all, not at all any different than I expected it to be. The night shift at any job is a completely different enviornment than days anywhere you go.



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Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:15 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Anybody know anything about gutters and how much they should cost?

I got a quote for all the material I'd need for my house and garage last year and it was around $1,200 bucks. Kind of prohibitive, even though I'm working now. I was talking to a guy at work today and he thought I should be able to get everything I need for about $400 bucks at Menards..... but I wouldn't have seamless gutters then. I was considering maybe just paying the expensive place a delivery charge to come out and run my seamless gutters and then buy the rest of the parts I'd need from Menards.

I'd be happy if I could get them done for about $600 bucks and owe one of my friends or my brother a huge favor for helping install them.

Aside from buying a battery backed up sump pump, it's really the last large Critical thing I need to take care of. Everything else is just cosmetic.

My step-dad is coming out this weekend and we're going to run a shit tone of electric through my garage. Finally get some outlets out there, some serious lighting inside and finally get the motion sensor lights on the outside. I can't wait!


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Sunday, June 24, 2012 11:53 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I know I have better things to buy, but I was really getting tired of not having some outdoor patio equipment so people can sit and relax and eat outside. I've been working at The Mart for a week now and this set caught my eye:

http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/spin_prod_575698701?hei=600&w
id=600&op_sharpen=1&qlt=90,0&resMode=sharp&op_usm=0.9,0.5,0,0

http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/spin_prod_627888801?hei=600&w
id=600&op_sharpen=1&qlt=90,0&resMode=sharp&op_usm=0.9,0.5,0,0

Imagine the thrill when I saw that they were having a 50% off Outdoor Living sale, and for this week there was an extra 10-15% off! With very little internet research I found sites that gave online coupon codes for items there. Unfortunately the BIG $20 and $30 discounts didn't work on "extreme deal" merch, but I did find one for 5 bucks off a 50 dollar purchase that worked, and since you could split this up into two separate orders it was worth 10 bucks.

Normal price for the table and chairs: $700
Sale price for the combo pack: $299.00
Sale price after additional 10%: $269.10
Sale price after additional 10 bucks off: 259.10

After tax, it was about 280 bucks! Not bad for a 700 dollar set.

It doesn't come with the umbrella and stand though. Those were an additional 150 or so on sale.

I've still got a heavy duty vinyl MGD umbrella that I yanked from a bar in my idiot youth days that I've never used to this day. I'll be making good use of that and some left over paver stones to anchor it until the umbrella goes on clearance in the fall

Until then.... White Trash up in this Bitch!

I'm so excited to get it all put together!




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Tuesday, June 26, 2012 5:52 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


BIG WIN AT THE MART TODAY!!!!

Membership has it's benefits, that's for sure.

15,000 sq/ft Scott's Turf Builder - $31.50 (Normally $63.00)
2 bags 5000 sq/ft Scott's Turf Builder - $7.49 each (Normally 14.99 each)
2 bags 5000 sq/ft Mart Weed'n'Feed - $6.49 each (Normally 13.99 each)
10 lb bag of Kingsford Charcoal - $3.49 (Normally 6.99)
Lighter fluid for charchoal - $4.50 (Real price)

Are these prices for real, that's for sure. How are they possible? Being a Mart employee. I even got the full employee discount off the whole ordeal.

Aside from the lighter fluid, they were all "damaged goods" which means the bags had holes and customers wouldn't buy them, so employees get first crack at the half priced goods before the public gets them.

AWESOME!!!!!!

Everything on that list cost 5 bucks less than the single bag of 15,000/sq turf builder would have cost alone after tax!

Sure.... it's money I haven't even put in the bank yet, but after sales tax it's what I made working tonight before taxes. Can't pass up a deal like that.


Got the grill working for the rest of the year and got my fertilizer needs for the next 1 1/2 years taken care of in only one nights labor costs.




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Thursday, June 28, 2012 2:45 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Has anybody had any experience with Bamboo or Reed fencing? I didn't even know it existed until tonight at work. I had two ideas for where I could use this. The first would be to cover both of my neighbor's hideous privacy fences. The second would be to cover the walls in the basement that I had to expose to remove the mold.

The only problem is that it's not exactly "cheap".... It's sure cheaper than having my own privacy fences installed when I can just piggyback off of their fences, and it's a better alternative in the basement right now to leaving bare studs everywhere for the next few years since I don't want to do a full on rehab until I know that the water issue is quelled.

I'm just wondering if they hold up well at all. It sounds like a great idea, but for the price if it looks like crap after 3 years that was a lot of wasted money.


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Saturday, June 30, 2012 8:17 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Nope. I know bamboo iz very dense, so that givez me the impression that it'll last, but you shoud research it.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Saturday, June 30, 2012 7:11 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Nope. I know bamboo iz very dense, so that givez me the impression that it'll last, but you shoud research it.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com]

Yup.... "Mature" Bamboo is VERY dense and will probably last a lifetime for me..... Unfortnuately mature bamboo is much more expensive per sq/ft that drywall and paint is....

I need to make a decision here.

I could make it work and cut around outlets and if the tax man cometh I can tell him to go scratchif I have bamboo walls.....

BTW... just got a letter in the mail today. I was wrong about owing nearly 60 bucks come November on my taxes, it seems that my 2 installments were so low that if I get it notarized I have a 48 dollar overpayment coming back my way. My taxes, believe it or not, were slashed over 50%!!!!!!

I'm going to just call them up and ask if they can apply that to my next year's taxes rather than go to a notary and do all that BS. On principal, I usually don't like having any excess government funds out of my hands when they don't need to be, but I make that in like 6 hours now.....

More trouble than it's worth.

Just glad I don't owe another 1,150 in November and they actually owe me now :)

It's F-KING official now !

I owe only 47.9% of the taxes I owed in May.

I guarantee that I could NEVER repeat these results for 99% of the population that asked me because I lucked into a prime postion myself, but I can also guarantee that I could reduce anyone's taxes by at least 10% if they asked me to help.

I might be a dick, but I'm a "dick for the people" :)


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Monday, July 23, 2012 8:09 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


DAAAAAAAMMMMM! Did a long post here & the whole site crashez! HAKEN?!

I rote about my year & 1/2 uv not being able to drive very far kuz the enjin overheats. O! It wuz a rouzing tale, worthy uv a Firefly episode adaptation! Similar to Out uv Gas, but preferably with more hot naked chicks!

Anyway, long story short: Turnz out it wuz the fan clutch; "a nothin part till you dont hav wun". I spent over 6oo$ and untold owrz goofing around trying to fix it, including changing the fan clutch with a uzed wun. So my usual 20 mile round trip 2 or 3 timez a week woud often include an owr uv sitting in a parking lot or on the shoulder waiting for it to cool down.


----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, July 31, 2012 3:53 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Speaking of nothing parts man.....

My advice, always have a spare thermo-couple for your furnace on hand.

Stupid little 8 dollar part, but if yours ain't working one cold February night, you'll be glad you don't have to wait until the morning to buy one, especially if you have work the next day


Glad you figured out the car though man. I don't know crap about cars except for changing oil and tires.

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
DAAAAAAAMMMMM! Did a long post here & the whole site crashez! HAKEN?!

I rote about my year & 1/2 uv not being able to drive very far kuz the enjin overheats. O! It wuz a rouzing tale, worthy uv a Firefly episode adaptation! Similar to Out uv Gas, but preferably with more hot naked chicks!

Anyway, long story short: Turnz out it wuz the fan clutch; "a nothin part till you dont hav wun". I spent over 6oo$ and untold owrz goofing around trying to fix it, including changing the fan clutch with a uzed wun. So my usual 20 mile round trip 2 or 3 timez a week woud often include an owr uv sitting in a parking lot or on the shoulder waiting for it to cool down.


----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com


"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Saturday, August 4, 2012 7:03 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Welcome back!

Spare thermocouple iz a good idea. I hav a very old furnace and shoud get sum spare parts for it. I had spare motor luckily a few yearz ago, but its even older than the furnace!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Friday, August 10, 2012 4:50 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I don't know much about motors, but a spare thermocouple is a must during the winter.

You'll be your wife and daughter's hero when you get the heat working again at 1:00AM when nobody who carries one is open and it's 20 below with the wind chill.

Not a bad price to pay.... 8 bucks...




I've got a potential job lined up that would be along the lines of what I used to do. I'm not used to driving 1 1/2 hours round trip for a job, but if it pays nearly double what I'm making now with benefits I'm down for some travel.

Wish me luck,
~6

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Friday, August 10, 2012 6:34 PM

WISHIMAY


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:


Wish me luck,


Good luck

Also, gave some thought to yer "What shall I put in the basement" thing....
I was thinking concrete backer board... Pretty mold resistant and it could either be painted or left blank and tiled over later... and they just screw in real easy.....

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Saturday, August 11, 2012 8:32 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Wife & daughter? HA!

I wuz in hi skool wen I realized therez alredy too many humanz on this rock & I'm not going to be gilty uv contributing to the problem.

Good luck with the new job. I've been overloaded with work lately. almost to the point uv considering hiring sumwun.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Monday, August 13, 2012 8:35 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Good luck

Also, gave some thought to yer "What shall I put in the basement" thing....
I was thinking concrete backer board... Pretty mold resistant and it could either be painted or left blank and tiled over later... and they just screw in real easy.....


Thanks Wish,

I thought tiling the bottom half of the walls with a concrete backer board would be a great idea, until my grandma said "well, what if you have water seeping from outside the foundation????". Good point... I'd have a hot mess of water behind the scenes and a virtually indestructible wall blocking me from getting to it. (Nothing a sledgehammer couldn't take care of, but I'd be crying at all that wasted money on expensive drywall and tile to find out that I have an aquarium behind the scenes.... :)



Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Wife & daughter? HA!

I wuz in hi skool wen I realized therez alredy too many humanz on this rock & I'm not going to be gilty uv contributing to the problem.

Good luck with the new job. I've been overloaded with work lately. almost to the point uv considering hiring sumwun.


Haha! The lone wolf mentality. I know that all too well. MOB!

I haven't heard anything back from the job app. Probably just another dead end that won't even call me back. Bummer...

Good for you for being so busy. Wish I could say the same here. I might not be making enough money to pay more than the bills, but the cooler weather is at least making me think about new projects instead of sitting in front of a fan 24/7 when I'm not at work.


Right now, my focus is putting my bedroom closets back together, and down the road, how I will put in doors that make sense.




I made myself a mock-up of what my master bedroom closet looks like and the dimensions.



Any ideas from either of you how to maximize space here?



I really need to start thinking about this. In the summer I'm just mainly wearing t-shirts so I can just have folded clothes down here. In the winter though, the clothes are a lot more bulky and I'd rather be hanging them and stop having wrinkly clothes. I have them all hung on a rack in the finished attic, but that's a chore to make an extra hike upstairs for a shirt, and since I smoke up there my clothes all smell like I was in a bar 2 weeks straight even though they're otherwise clean. (Not to mention that it gets down to like 40 degrees up here in the winter, and I don't want to even open that damn door in the winter and let the cold air into the rest of the house!!!!)

The closet in my 2nd bedroom and hallway should be much more straightforward, although I plan on going VERY decorative with the hallway one since it's only 9" deep. It's not really deep enough to even house large towels, but it's great for backup toothpaste and mouthwash and toilet paper and hand towels and the like. I was considering making a very decorative arch on the top and having two separate doors opening to the inside (a larger one on the top and a smaller one on the bottom that might open to drawers.) Maybe even have "bread-basket" type opening doors to it.

I'll show you schematics of the other two closets when I get them made.

Any ideas you've got, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks!!!!!


Hope you're both doing well!
~6


EDITED TO ADD:

2nd Bedroom Closet.....



EDITED TO ADD 2:

Hallway "Closet"....



The dark purple lines on the sides are the painted "holders" for the shelves. I plan on staining the shelves to match the floor and to buy beveled glass tops for them. :)




EDITED TO ADD 3:

total cheap mock-up of an idea for this pseudo-closet...



They'red be a lot less grey and a lot more white. Doors on top as well.... like I suggested before, maybe two doors that are on tracks and look like "bread basket" type doors.

This is a real oppurtunity to put some artistic flair into the house. It is essentially a useless closet, but before it had a single bi-fold door and the ugliest aqua-marine contact paper covering the walls and shelves. It might not fit full towels at only 9.... some inches deep, but to be able to have a decorative cover for a Sam's Club bounty of surplus toilet paper and toothpaste, it's potentially a great spot for some creativity.


"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Tuesday, August 14, 2012 1:19 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


WOW!!!!!

Me likey.....

http://pinterest.com/pin/224546731391866063/



"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Thursday, August 16, 2012 3:01 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Hey JO; Wish,

Either of you know anything about vapor barriers?

I decided that i was just going to throw greenboard drywall up in the one room in the basement you can see from the 1st floor just to give the house a more finished look. I wasn't going to put up any insulation behind it because it didn't seem to get too cold in the basement during the winter and even on the 110 degree days in the summer it's easily in the low to mid 70's in the basement.

I was worried about water diffusing through the concrete though, and over time causing another mold problem.

Currently, there is a layer of plastic sheeting between the concrete walls and the studs. Also, the walls of the foundation are solid concrete as opposed to mortared brick or cinderblock. I still think this isn't enough protection from vapor.

I started looking into products like double-bubble and Prodex Total insulation, but they are VERY expensive and from what I hear they do just about zero for keeping heat in or out unless you build them "to spec" which ends up costing a lot more even. The only benefits to this I see are that they're both mold proof materials and they both offer a vapor barrier.


I was considering just buying large packages of aluminum foil (24" wide, to cover the space between my studs... weird, I know) and then staple the lips onto the studs. I would then cover the seams and staples with aluminum tape.

I was wondering if either of you knew, or knew anybody who would know if between this and the existing plastic barrier would be enough to keep moisture from poisoning the back of the drywall with new mold???

Thanks :)

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Sunday, October 28, 2012 3:08 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Been bizzy lately. Partly money work, partly projects.

Last few weeks wuz weelz & tirez for the New Yorker.

The thing about big 70z luxery carz wuz that they had tall tirez to help smooth the ride. That wuz a selling point back then. The problem iz that this makes them wallow like boats. I have alwayz swiched them to 60 seriez or lower tirez, usually 255/60/15 BF Goodrich TA radialz on 8 inch wide weelz. This makes them corner pretty good. I had a set uv 265/55 Dunlops on a 69 Imperial and it wuz like it wuz on railz!

A little drawback iz that the speedometer iz overstating the speed, tho. It wuz so far off in the Imperial that I changed the speedometer output gear in the tranzmission to get it closer.

So, wut I wanted to do this time wuz get bigger weelz to make up the difference. Also, 15 inch tirez are getting a little rare.

Found a set uv 17 in wire spoke weelz at a uzed tire shop. 200$ seemed like a good price, but then I found that the spokes were all loose in wun and another had 2 broken spokes. The nuts are totally frozen, so they are both probably junk. So, I really only got 2 weelz.

Then, shopping for tirez wuz a little bit uv a hassle. Nobody had the size I wanted in stock, so I finally ordered 2 at Samz Club.

Herez where it gets interesting.

I'm sitting there waiting for them to put the tirez on. Already been like an owr. 2 managerz walk past quickly and I know its trouble with my car. I say to the guy waiting for hiz battery install "Thats my car! Alwayz cauzing trouble! Didnt hear an explosion, so it cant be that bad!"

The managerz and 3 'mechanics' come out, all wide eyed, and the short indian manager sez "Sorry sir, the weel fell off your car! We are going to put your old wunz back on!"

It wuz pretty funny, really, but it wuz 4 owrz till I got home with the car on a flatbed. The brake diusk had hit the ground and there wuz a rumbling which made me think it wuz a broken bearing ( see the beginning uv this topic ).

So, condensing the next week uv hasslez: Turnz out it wuz mostly my fault. The nuts I gave them to mount the adapter hub were too long, so the bevel splinez werent meshed together. I actaully had to destroy the PS nut and adapter hub to get the weel off. The rumbling wuz the weelz riding on the nuts!

And, after all that, I'm swiching to aluminum weelz anyway. Wire weelz are heavy - 40 poundz each! And I'm going to put 20 inch weelz on the back and thoze woud probably be 60 poundz!



----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Wednesday, November 7, 2012 12:18 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


[url]]

Theze tirez got fantastic traction!

[url] http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/tire-selector/category/sports-performan
ce-tires/g-force-super-sport-a-s/tire-details]

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Thursday, November 15, 2012 11:43 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


HEY! 6string! Wer you at man? Hav you giiven up on your own thred?

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012 5:53 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


I wuz just starting to feel a little safe, then yesterday the weel slipped on the hub again wen i applied the brakes. Found that the goram nut wuz alredy loose by about a haf turn! I'm not going to bother trying to sell them wen I get new weelz; I'm just going to give them back to the 2nd hand shop I got them from.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Thursday, November 22, 2012 6:12 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Ran outa gas yesterday not far frum here. Got a ride to the gas station & back. Then I backed into Wisteria Lane to turn around and found that applying the brakes in reverse hard enuf will unscrew the nuts!

I wuz barely able to get the PS side screwed back tite enuf, kuz the crappy rench broke again. I'm going to hav to make wun out uv steel just to tide me over till I can afford to get rid uv theze stupid thingz.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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