This Old Crack House

Floor Boxes for Old Houses

2012-01-26T00:08:00.007-05:00

When you own a brick house built in the 1840s you can be pretty certain that electricity was not even a consideration in the floor plans. Limited electric wiring was installed in our house in the late 1880s when the burglar alarm system was utilized to deter the neighbors from entering the property in search of stocks and cash that were supposed to be hidden somewhere in the house. Knob and tube wiring was eventually installed before 1916 because we have photos of some of the rooms from around this year and there are electric lights in the photographs. Since the bulk of the walls inside the house are brick and drilling holes up through the walls was almost impossible using a hand operated drill, the easiest place to install plug outlets was in the floor. Floor boxes were common in old houses but they were also dangerous because things could get in them that could cause an electrical short. Things like water, bobby pins, needles or wire. In this house there was once a fire in one of the apartment kitchens because a refrigerator was located on top of a floor box and it leaked. So I was told ....
To follow proper codes, proper floor boxes have to be installed. Modern floor boxes are designed not to allow things to fall into the box where the wires are and they come in several styles. Some of which you are about to see. All are moderately expensive compared to installing the equivalent in a wall. They average about $33.00 each and I needed fourteen in all. That is how many holes I had in my floor!
Years ago they were not readily available from big box retailers. Since they are not necessarily in huge demand, they were generally something one would order online. Every so often I would see some at Home Depot and started buying them a few at a time until I could install a rooms worth. Starting with two in the parlor and getting these a while ago when single socket was the only style in stock

Two of these were needed to rest in some holes that remained after removing the whole house vacuuming system left over from the 1960s. One in the hall at the top of the stairs and the other in the main living room area behind a door. It was easier and more practical to install these than attempt to cut a piece of wood and plug the holes.

Then I found three of these but only used two in one of the bedrooms so I currently have a spare.

I only have a spare because now you can buy these at Home Depot and they look nicer.

Eight of these grace the two main living rooms, four in each room. It is so nice to have outlets available in all these rooms and all around these rooms instead of little rectangular holes in the floor or metal boxes that fill up with dust, cat hair and kids toys! It has only been two and a half years since we moved in. On to another project .....

Pictures from the White House

2012-01-25T23:59:00.000-05:00

One of the great advantages of being a Mayor of a mid sized mid-western city is that every year I get to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington DC. Every year I have been invited to the White House to hear the President of the United States speak. This year I took an iPad with me and took a few photos to share on this blog. I have always been impressed with the curtains. So I took a lot of photos of those. Having recently acquired curtains for the "Crackhouse" you should understand why ......

Could never figure out why Bill doesn't have a cigar in his hand ....

So there you have it. Doubt you would ever see this on any other House Blog!

We Have Curtains!

2011-12-21T00:56:00.005-05:00

I have wanted curtains in the front room for a long time. I got tired of looking at the pile of boxes that were stacked up in that room since we moved in over 2 years ago and relocated those to another room that we don't use yet! One day I can go through them and throw everything out or sell it because we haven't used it for over two years. Now, I could make curtains myself, after all I do actually know how to use a sewing machine but would like something really regal looking in that room. That would involve some thinking and some math skills. I did the next best thing instead. I went to www.jcpenny.com and browsed the window treatments where I saw the perfect arrangement listed as "Chris Madden Hilton" and if you click on the photo below, it will take you to the exact page.

Now, there is a catch. The photo shows an arrangement that is actually five layers. There is a balloon shade, a pair of striped sheers, a pair of gold curtains, a pair of burgundy curtains and then a valence made up of five individual pieces. Once I figured that out and the fact that everything is sold as single panels and not pairs I placed an order. Three windows worth in all. They were not exactly cheap but hey, I am worth it! It was certainly considerably less than having them custom made and I didn't have to go shopping for fabric or looking through boxes to find the sewing machine. When I showed my daughter the picture of the curtain arrangement and told her that we would have curtains that will look like this her eyes lit up and she said that "Those are the kind of curtains you would see in a mansion!"
Now I still have this window to finish restoring because it was boarded up for 40 years

but the other two currently look like this. The balloon shades are on back order and should arrive in February but the shipping was free so I can't complain. The room is starting to look quite grande.

Helping Mother - A Comedy of Errors (part three)

2011-11-14T15:35:00.003-05:00

I know, I know, why has it taken so long to post this? I've been busy and have actually been getting some work done on the Old Crack House itself!

When I last wrote, I mentioned more issues with plumbing. I couldn't figure out why the "speedfit" adapters were leaking where they were attached to the original copper pipe. When I turned on the hot water supply, the shut off valve was also leaking at the joint where it was attached to the old copper pipe. My mother made a comment that prompted me to have one of those moments when you realize what the problem is but you don't know right away how to fix it. She said rather calmly, "You don't suppose it's imperial pipe?"

In England, household supply lines are generally 15mm or 22mm pipe. Imperial measurements would be exactly as we use in the U.S. either half inch or 3/4 inch. Luckily 1/2 inch equals 15mm but 22mm is about 1mm larger than 3/4 inch thus explaining the cause of the leaks. They make a fitting for this but I was running out of time, patience and the part that I needed would have to come from a plumbing supply store and those close early in the UK. I wasn't planning on replacing the old copper hot water supply line but now it would actually be easier and faster to do so. Since I couldn't readily acquire an imperial to metric fitting so I bought some 3/4 inch brass olives for a compression fitting and used one at the shut off that I had installed, removing all the copper after that point and replacing it with the plastic pipe and "speedfit" fittings. This worked! Once the plumbing was functioning properly I was able to finish grouting tile and installing fixtures knowing that any additional leaks would be from the fixtures. My older brother who lives an hour away could fix those if he could get his hands on an adjustable wrench. So, with the plumbing done, what else could go wrong? Easy, the new drain fittings were metric and the old pvc waste lines were imperial which meant that I had to replace the drain traps and some pvc pipe. Fortunately these pipes just had to go through the wall to feed an outside drain. The sink trap had to have an adjustable neck though because the new sink drain pipe would not line up with the old one .... Then there was the tile that I broke installing some baseboard molding and the fact that I couldn't install the towel rail because there was problem with one of the parts .... need I go on?

The comedy of errors ended with the bathroom looking like this.

I estimated that I saved my mother $2000. In the process she learned a little bit about plumbing and how the time taken to do anything related to plumbing is inversely proportional to the complexity of the job! I still hate plumbing!

Helping Mother - A Comedy of Errors (part two)

2011-10-17T23:38:00.004-04:00

OK, in England the plumbing is weird. You can buy copper pipe for plumbing. It comes in 22 mm and 15 mm sizes and you can buy plastic pipe, similar to PEX but more rigid which is joined with what we would call "gator grips" in the US. Of course in the US you can also use PVC or CPVC pipe for plumbing.
So, I have to re-route the plumbing in order to shut off the downstairs bathroom from the rest of the house. This I am able to do using the plastic Speedfit system however I run into a problem. The copper pipe feeding he bathroom is in a very awkward place behind the bath tub. In fact it was so awkward that at one point a hole was knocked into the wall to access the pipes due to previous leaks. Here is a picture showing a boarded up hole in a concrete block wall behind where the bath tub was located.

I was able to re-route the cold water line quite easily. It was all 15 mm pipe and the Speedfit fittings worked great. I had problems though with the 22 mm fittings over the copper pipe. They tended to leak. Here is a picture of the new plumbing in the water closet. Some of those copper pipes feed the radiator system. Don't get me started on that ...

Now while I was trying to figure out the plumbing I went ahead and tiled the walls. I ran into a slight problem though. The tile cutter that we had borrowed would cut tiles up to 12" across. My mother had chosen 16" tiles. Of course this was realized late at night. This meant that we had to rent a long tile cutter. Since the stores in England tend to close by 6 PM, this was another delay.

The next day I rented the tile cutter but after cutting 8 tiles the device that split the tiles broke. This meant a quick return to the rental facility before it closed so that I could get a tile splitter that would handle the 16" tiles. Murphy's law was certainly at play!

I also needed a hole cutter for the sink waste pipe and a carbide saw blade for a jig saw. Let me just say that things are quite expensive in England. By this point it is Wednesday and I was hoping that I would have been finished by now. No such luck though!

Next I will tell you why the 22mm Speedfit fittings were leaking. By this point I was frustrated with plumbing, however, I am used to it by now .....

Just so you can relate to everyone involved, here is a picture of my mother doing what she likes most .... shopping!

Helping Mother - A Comedy of Errors (Part one)

2011-10-05T22:30:00.004-04:00

A couple of months back I got an email from my mother. She was going to get her bathroom remodeled and she was quoted $6000 for a room that was no more than 10' X 8'.
So, being the good boy that I am, I volunteered for the job in order to save her several thousand $$$. The job involved putting tile on the walls and installing new bath tub, toilet and sink.

Well last week I went to mother's house and spent 7 of the 12 days working on the bathroom project. Just like at The Old Crack House I managed to under estimate the time it would take to finish the job. When people ask about how I am doing with our house, I generally reply with "I am ten years into my three year project!" If all went well with my mothers bathroom it could be done in 3 days, possibly 5 days. Needless to say, nothing went well. My brother stopped by soon after my arrival and proceeded to tell me that where my mother lives the only water supplied by a main pressure line was the kitchen faucet. The water would then feed into a cistern in the roof that feeds all the other parts of the house by what is referred to as a low pressure system. I put my nephew to work right away pulling up carpet tiles and then linoleum tiles from the floor while I set about looking at the plumbing.

The first thing I had to do was isolate the downstairs bathroom from the rest of the house so that I could remove all the fixtures and still have water supply to the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. After turning off the water to the house I installed two shut off valves. One to the hot water line that came from the water heater and a cold water line that went to the cistern. I disconnected and removed the toilet from the room and turned on the main water supply that was located under the kitchen sink. Well, water started spewing everywhere! Upon close examination I could see that the water line from the kitchen went under the floor and came up behind the bath tub where it branched off to feed the sink, toilet and bath before going up to the cistern. The water line would not be accessible unless the tub was removed and it would appear that a hole had been put into the concrete block wall behind the tub in the past for this very reason.

I learned three things that day. One, my brother knows nothing about plumbing. Two, the water was going to have to remain shut off for at least a day since, three, it was going to take longer than expected simply because where mother lives the shops close at 6 PM and it takes 15 minutes to go 3 miles in a car.

Here are pictures of the bathroom before I got started. My mother and her friend had already removed much of the wall tile before my arrival. You can see all the lovely avocado green fixtures that were popular in the 1970s. However, this bathroom was done around October 1983 if the newspaper stuffed as a filler in some of the wall spaces has anything to tell us. The pages were dated September 23, 1983.

Now before I continue with part two of this saga, I do need to mention that mother lives in England .......

More Recognition

2011-09-21T00:01:00.001-04:00

Wow. No posts for months and now you get three in three days! My "Steam Punk Bathroom" got some web recognition back in July and I am finally getting around to mentioning it on this blog.

1800recycling.com posts articles about reusing materials and keeping them out of the landfill. There is also a search by zip code feature that informs you where you can take certain types of recyclable products. Try it out!

To all my Facebook Friends, these ramblings are posted to my houseblog at http://www.thisoldcrackhouse.blogspot.com and get fed to my Facebook account so that they appear as Facebook posts and not as posts to a blog page. To see the posts you need to click the "view original post" link next to comments. Some of the links and video don't work through Facebook.

You Know it is Getting Colder When ....

2011-09-20T12:08:00.000-04:00

You know it is getting colder when 8 tons of wood pellets are delivered to your house and you need to move them to the basement! Eight tons arrived last Wednesday. Have already moved five tons to my basement.You know, last year we had 8 tons delivered and I had to move them. All I can think of is this song ....

I ought to get me some coal.

The Added Cost of Screen Doors

2011-09-19T23:50:00.000-04:00

Way back in June 2002 I took all the siding off the outside of the kitchen and wrote about it on my web page at that time. Then 7 years later we experienced the great termite invasion of 2009.
I never realized that it has been two years that I have lived without gutters on the kitchen. The lack of gutters has posed a few problems for us over the years.

Anyway. Since the weather has not cooperated with my schedule to do more work on my roof, I have embarked on getting things done to the outside of the kitchen. The last post indicated that the addition of screen doors meant that the color scheme was due to be changed. Well, I just have one more coat of paint to put around the windows and something has to be done with the 8 inch space near the ground but here is the back of the house now. Complete with screen door!

As you can see in this photo I have a new toy to ride around on.

This one is a bit blurry but it says "Elvis 150" on the side. Never thought I would own own anything with "Elvis" on it .........

The Roof and Other Projects

2011-09-05T23:17:00.010-04:00

Since I haven't been able to finish the roofing project this year because of the wettest spring in decades and then some 30 days of 90+ degree weather this summer and the lack of 4 consecutive days without rain at 80 degrees or below, I decided to take on some lesser projects.
The first was putting in a window well and a replacement window in the front of the main house.

This window project came about after tearing off the front porch last September. Once we did that it exposed an old window opening that was below grade. My box gutter work fixed the leaks in the back that flooded the basement but now water and dirt was coming into the front room of the basement so I had to put this in. I have since inserted a water faucet through the framing so now that it is September, I can water the front yard. (After everything has shriveled and died.) I have put an electrical box on the opposite side of the frame but haven't connected it yet. Maybe I can have that done before Halloween. I was forced to reorganize the basement in order to access this window. That project was 10 years overdue. This meant sorting through a pile of scrap copper and fittings which I still have to take to the scrap yard. Now here is the funny plumbing story because anyone who has followed this blog knows that I can't do plumbing without a leak. I connected a PEX line to an existing shut-off valve and ran it to the faucet set up. All I had to do was turn on the valve and watch for my PEX to leak at a connection. Well, I turned the valve which has been off for only 10 years ....

Water started pouring out of the valve and shutting off wasn't working. So I had to shut the water off to the whole house and figure out what to do. Of course the valve was now in an awkward spot since the furnace duct-work was installed adjacent to it last fall. It was fortunate that I had not taken the metal to the scrap yard because I was able to reconstruct the valve from old parts in a bucket! The rubber had deteriorated in the original valve. Needless to say a simple project took an hour longer than planned. I really hate plumbing .......

Next I'll tell you how my screen door project has forced me to re-paint the outside of the kitchen. Here is the view the wife has been yearning for. Something about a cross breeze she says ....

Nothing is ever easy with this money pit!

How to Get Rid of Stuff the Slow Way

2011-06-02T21:48:00.004-04:00

Now that my relationship with the City has changed I want people to know that I am still treated just like every other citizen when it comes to rules and regulations. I was issued a warning notice because my yard standards were a little lacking this spring. I still had a small pile of wood in the front yard left over from the porch removal last fall and a moderate pile of concrete and other crap in the back yard after the removal of the fire escape as part of the roof restoration last September. I was also told to cut my grass and the wondrous collection of weeds that have accumulated after the heaviest seasonal rainfall this city has experienced in recorded history. The bad news was that I effectively had 5 days to comply and since my schedule had been put together months in advance with little time to spare, this meant that I had one day to make a difference. Now I could have called for a roll off dumpster to be delivered but those are not cheap, require a location for placement and are limited to being available for a certain number of days before they are hauled away. I used one of those last September, you can read about it HERE.

Now that someone has acquired the house across the alley I didn't think it would be very neighborly to plonk a dumpster across their parking space for several days. I also didn't have the time to fill it to the top in one day. So I tried something different. A friend had told me about a program that is run by Waste Management called "The Bagster" Since I saw a real potential of using this program within some of our inner city neighborhoods to reduce costs in City Hall, I was willing to try this out for myself.

When you analyze the cost it is actually cheaper to use the baggies than to rent the roll off dumpster from Waste Management. Last September we paid a grand total of $407 for a 4 ton dumpster and an additional $21.75 for an extra .75 tons. So in essence three of the bagsters would hold 4.5 tons of debris. The dumpster cost would have been $421.50 for 4.5 tons. I only used two of the bagsters this spring. The bags cost $30.00 each from Lowes or Home Depot. With tax the two bags were $64.00. Three bags would have cost me $96.00. The pick up cost in my zip code area was $89.00 for the first bag and $69.00 for additional bags. Once again, I only used two bags. Here is a picture of them!

Three bags would have cost a total of $323.00 making it almost $100.00 cheaper to use the baggies! Cutting costs and getting the job done is what I am all about. I will probably need to use two or three more of these bags to empty my basement of all the excess wood and make some room down there, not to mention that I still have much concrete to dispose of.
This program is not available in all areas and I don't make a dime promoting it. I just like to let people know that they have choices!

The Screen Door Saga

2011-05-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

The wife wanted screen doors. Three in fact but let's start with two. She likes the idea of the wind blowing through the house creating a cross breeze through the kitchen. The screen doors were bought at a big box retailer. I believe it may have been Lowes. They cost $88.00 each which was reasonable. Well, now they need to be sealed and painted. We had one color that we could use. We have used it inside the house. It is a dark green. These doors needed some extra flare, so more colors were needed. That means two gallons of paint at $30.00 a gallon and then there is the screen door hardware. The front door was 3 inches too short and so I had to make a shim for the bottom of it. The back door isn't in place yet because I have to redesign the entire rear of the house just to accommodate it!

So, here is the front screen door.

Now let me tell you what I have to do as a result. Paint the windows and doors. Redo the entire porch and install a second doorbell because you can't ring the traditional one installed in the middle of the door if the screen door is locked! It is very fortunate that I anticipated that this day would come and I ran doorbell wire through the brick and into the basement several years ago.

The Thermo Gaseous Electro Daily Fragment Modulator.

2011-05-22T19:01:00.004-04:00

aka the Steampunk Clock.

I went to Ikea one day and among many other things I got a wooden, cabinet style wall clock that was on sale for $21.00 or so. Then it sat on my floor for a month or two until I could figure out what I wanted to do with it. Eventually I came up with an idea and went out and spent some money on some copper plumbing fittings and some electrical parts. I also ordered an assortment of different light bulbs and sifted through a bag of odds and ends. So, an additional $50.00 later I now have a unique wall mounted clock that looks like this.

The two antique looking bulbs on each side are actually "Balafire" bulbs that have a moving carbon filament so that it looks as if a flame is burning inside the bulb.
When the thing is turned on it looks like this.

So, the big question becomes ..... "Where do I put it?" That was easy. It hangs in my office where I am slowly framing some weird and wonderful patents of inventions from Dayton, Ohio and placing them on a wall with an 1870 version of a birds-eye view of the city.

Eventually this wall should get covered in these patent pictures. I just need to find some time to go through all the patents. There are thousands of them. The step ladder was invented in Dayton, Ohio for all you home renovation enthusiasts out there. The clock and pictures are the perfect compliment for the radiograph machine, L.C. Smith typewriter and the Plasma lamp on my credenza!

Ask and you shall receive!

2011-03-24T13:11:00.001-04:00

Many years ago I posted a link on the right side of this page that told readers what few items we were in the market for. The main two items were a door that is 101" X 36 " and a ceiling light fixture for the parlor. Well, we have had several referrals but no luck on the door. We got one email about a month or so ago regarding a light fixture though. I took up the offer to acquire the fixture and installed it the day that it arrived. The only issue was that it came without the six shades that it needed. I don't know if you have ever looked for shades but they can end up costing more than the light fixture if you are not careful. Kind of like getting a picture framed. I just spent $300 a piece getting two $20 posters framed. Some things just don't make sense!
Any way. The person who sold me the light fixture has been eager to see if I would make a post about this. I held off until the light shades arrived. I was able to get the best possible price for these shades at Lehmans which is here in Ohio. Believe me I searched extensively online at many options. These were the most cost effective. Of course I had to order 6 pieces which caused an automatic backorder situation which delayed delivery. Anyway, here is the light fixture in all it's glory.

Now I am going to have to paint the room!

Dayton Patented

2011-02-01T10:19:00.001-05:00

Dayton, Ohio has the unique reputation as being the city with the most patents per capita than any other city in the United States. It had over 1200 patents issued before 1868. I have been researching some of them because I find some of the inventions interesting. Dayton is famous for the airplane, the automotive starter motor, the ice cube tray and the pop top can BUT did you know that Dayton has claim to the automatic gate, a wringer and of all things House paint? Anyone who owns a Victorian brick house may find this patent interesting. It is for house paint and is from 1837. We still have flakes of this or something similar on our place. Click on the image to read the ingredients.

Year End Update With Pictures!

2011-01-10T14:05:00.001-05:00

I get asked this question often. "Did you finish your roof?" The answer is "No, but it is two fifths done."
The gutters are the time consuming part. They have to be riveted and soldered in place and each corner has to be custom made. There are eight corners due to us having a bay section with four 135 degree corners. The good news is that six of the eight corners are in place so in the spring I just have three straight sides and a dormer to remove and replace with a window similar to the others. I am not looking forward to that window construction.
So here is why it has taken so long. Besides the roof, I had to brick up this hole in the wall.

I still have one row to complete but it involves standing on a ladder. I don't stand on ladders unless it is at least 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a news clip from New Years Eve where I get asked about the roof. This was aired live at 6:10 AM so I was up early for it.

Leitzell praises risk takers: wdtn.com

I had three downspouts to replace. This had to be done to stop the waterfall we encountered on Thanksgiving Day in our bedroom and parlor which was also the result of not completing a section of gutter before a torrential rain.

Then there was the eight tons of wood pellets that were delivered and moved to my basement. Before they could be stored, I had to remove a huge pile of wood and store it outside.

We had a furnace installed this year.

I actually paid for this to be done. If you live in the Dayton area, call Mr. Hartley who owns Dayton Air Conditioning and Heating, at 937-277-8864 and tell him the Mayor referred you. I did have a role to play in the installation.

My role was to seal up a window opening that we used to vent the furnace. I put in a second piece of 4" pipe for future use if needed. It is easier than knocking a hole in the wall!

While I was at it, I replaced the bulkhead doors which were destroyed by some kids trying to break into the house in 2009.

Then I installed this door in the basement in case you get through the bulkhead doors!

I have also made a bead board wall to replace the handrail to the third floor so that I can install a door and keep some heat in the house. I have also replaced the toilet in the Steampunk bathroom with one that actually works and doesn't require three flushes to clear! I also put a toilet in the 2nd half bathroom area (also the laundry room)so that I don't have to look at the hole in the floor any more!

Did I mention lining a chimney so that we could use the wood stove in the parlor? Well I did that too. I poured vermiculite around the liner and wondered why it was taking so much to fill the space. After entering my bedroom I saw the problem. My fireplace had filled up with vermiculite! This meant that there was a hole between my chimneys. After figuring where it was I proceeded to knock a hole in the chimney to repair the hole. After repairing the hole and pouring vermiculite again, I discovered another hole higher up. So I had to make an even bigger hole in my chimney to repair it. Here is a picture. I still have three bricks to install in order to finish the work.

After all this, homeschooling my daughter and doing Mayoral things there are still people out there that call me lazy!

Roof Progress (the continuing story)

2010-10-13T01:09:00.003-04:00

This saga has been going on for quite some time but the reality is that I have actually only worked on the place for 14 days. Six of those days involved tear down of the front porch and fire escape and one day was spent forming copper gutters. After rebuilding the structural elements and filling the gaping big hole in the roof, it left about 4 days of actual work on the roof. Here is the progress.

Tar paper on one side of the chimney.

Tar paper on both sides of the chimney.

Faux slate on one side of the chimney.

Faux slate on both sides of the chimney.

A close up peak at the composite shingles.

This stuff is made by Tamko and is called Lamerite. It is a composite material that is warranted for 50 years and comes in assorted shapes and sizes. It is easy to cut and can be applied using a nail gun which makes attaching them so much easier than original slate.

They look good too and from the ground, they look like slate!

The bad news is that I suspect that I will run out of daylight and time before I run out of roof to replace. The good news is that I can apply this and the gutters in sections. The flashing around the windows and chimneys is a bear to do and there are two chimneys and 5 windows total. Currently I am one chimney and one window down. I forsee plenty of roof work in my future!

About Copper Gutters.

2010-10-12T23:57:00.005-04:00

I have never done copper gutters before. I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to line the box gutters with copper. I didn't choose copper because I wanted fancy gutters that no one would see. I chose copper simply because I would be able to solder it 30+ feet off the ground while kneeling on an 18 inch gutter ledge using this soldering iron.

Here is a section of the copper gutter. I had to make these (with the help of a friend) from 10' X 3' sheets of 16 ounce copper that cost $160 a sheet. I have 17 sheets. I hope it is enough.

Well I have some spare copper, so I am using it for various channel drains and flashing. This is a channel that I had to construct that lies in a very narrow gap between the chimney and the window. This channel has been one of my major sources of leaks for the last nine years! This copper should more than do the trick. That yellow stuff is "Great Stuff" expanding foam. I am using it as a filler to reduce the amount of tarring that I have to do.

And here is some chimney flashing that I had to make from scratch. This was another major source of leaks. The original metal flashing had rusted out after 120 years.

While I haven't mastered the art of soldering, I am getting better. The flat parts are quick and easy. The slopes are a pain because gravity causes the solder to run and pool in the trough.

The copper is 10X better than the original sheet metal which was quite thin and a whole lot better than the tar covered gutters that still encompass three quarters of the roof!

Song of the Week!

2010-10-05T00:53:00.005-04:00

Roof Progress

2010-09-29T00:11:00.003-04:00

Progress on the roof is slow. I still have to home educate my daughter and I have had to attend many meetings this month. Both can mess up a construction work schedule. Still, I do what I can. Last Saturday I had around 14 people show up to help move this

to this

We managed to get the bulk of the pile in the front yard cleaned up as well. We also hauled 120 bundles of faux slate to the third floor. We all celebrated afterward with pizza and beer.

The roof went from this

To this

Then it rained for a day and a half! Now I have to finish recreating a frame for the gutter so that I can walk on it and remove the rest of that slate. I can then get tar paper down and then, hopefully, I can put the water buckets away.

What a Difference a Day Makes .....

2010-09-19T23:26:00.008-04:00

Day three photo of the fire escape tear down.

Every time a section gets cut out I have to stand back and calculate the order in which i have to cut wood beams so that the entire thing doesn't collapse on me. I got the roof off with some help from a neighbor. Day two and three were solo. Today I got help from the neighbor again and here are some photos of us before the final showdown. These were taken just before the final two cuts were made in case they were to be the last photographs of us alive! This really was a scary project. Doing the roof and gutters does not scare me. Tearing this thing down did and I don't scare easily.

The entire structure had moved about an inch away from the brick wall over night. I wouldn't walk out on that top platform today whereas yesterday I was standing on it cutting wood. My neighbor in position as far away as possible holding a rope to pull down the remaining structure.

Here I am making the final cut.

Here are some more after pictures.

When done with this we threw a bunch of crap out that door onto the pile below. Now I have room for the 119 bundles of shingle that I have to get up three flights of stairs. I am hoping to get the layers of tar out of the gutter and the wooden part of the box gutter re built this week. I have already removed a ten foot section of tar and rubber membrane from the gutter. Some of it was so thick I had to use the sawz-all to cut it out in sections. Each small section weighed about 30 lbs.

What is amusing is that it rained today after we got this thing on the ground and my roof leaks less with this thing down!

How's That Roof Coming along, Mayor?

2010-09-19T12:25:00.001-04:00

Slowly! In fact I haven't got started on the roof because I have been busy tearing down the fire escape so that I can rebuild the roof and a 10 foot section of gutter. The fire escape was put on this place way back in 1962 when the third floor was turned into an apartment and the building was zoned commercial. It was made of wood and had corrugated fiberglass nailed to the sides for protection against the elements.

I thought it would take me two days to tear this thing down but it is in worse shape than I thought so I can't work off any of the platforms inside the structure for fear of the floors collapsing. The steps have all started to collapse as well. I have to work off of a ladder for the most part.

The top of this is about 40 feet off the ground and cutting wood with a saw-zall while standing on a ladder this high up is a little scary. Especially if you cut the wrong piece of wood.

Day 1 got the roof off. This took a few hours to do.

Day 2 Got it this far.

Yesterday was day 3 but I don't have pictures yet. I expect it will be down by this evening.

I have only been able to spend a few hours a day working on this due to meetings and numerous phone calls. This is more than the trivial roofing project that the local paper wanted to portray it as. I think they are realizing that because they sent a photographer out to to take pictures of me working.

Die Fledermaus

2010-09-18T23:29:00.003-04:00

I always thought it was mice leaving poop in the middle of my floor in the "attic." Every so often I would catch one in a mouse trap. These things come back every year and I witnessed one climbing up the fire escape once so I knew how they were getting in. Well, it isn't mice. We have a resident bat. Here is proof.

This one bat left this much poop in a week!

I haven't been bit by a mosquito in a while ......

Let the Sun Shine In!

2010-09-09T01:56:00.005-04:00

The work on the roof project has begun. The first phase involves removing the front porch in the front of the house and the fire escape in the back of the house. Yesterday the front porch came down and today I ripped up the floor of the porch. I also have to get the roofing supplies from the back yard to the third floor of the house.

Here is a picture of the house without the front porch. It hasn't looked like this since around 1906. That was the date on a piece of newspaper stuffed into a cavity by the window trim that was covered by the porch. I found it interesting that the porch was put on before the house was painted red.

The pile of wood from the demolition.

After the fire escape comes down I will rent a dumpster and invite all those people who volunteered to help me over for pizza and beer so we can transfer the piles into the dumpster! The work on the gutters and the slate will begin after that.

I am going to be installing the faux slate shingle instead of real slate. The main reason being that it can be installed with regular roofing nails instead of copper or stainless steel nails and I am less likely to break the tiles. They also come pre-shaped so there is no specialized cutting to be done. The total cost so far for the tools and supplies has been about $8200. Remember, I was quoted $43,000 to do the job. I predict that the total cost will be between $10,000 and $12,000 after renting a dumpster and buying a few more tools if I can't borrow them or rent them.

This is going to be a tough job and probably time consuming. I will know in a week or so as I start to work on the back section of the house. It could be worse though. Last week we were in Belfast, Maine where I took this photograph. I have to admit, we have our fair share of abandoned property in Dayton but this is proof that someone, somewhere is worse off than you!

The Saga of the Roof

2010-08-22T22:29:00.004-04:00

The local newspaper reporter contacted me last week because they want to run a story about me having a light schedule for the month of September as the mayor. Here is their story;

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/politics/dayton-mayor-lightens-schedule-in-september-to-fix-the-roof-on-his-home--874524.html

The rumor that the reporter got was that I would be on vacation for the month of September. This is not true. I will be fixing my roof! I will be attending commission meetings, school board meetings, attending my regular morning news appearances and doing a few community related events. Weather will dictate if I attend the office but I have worked from my home for so long, I really don’t need to be in the office in order to much of what my job entails. I can communicate by phone from home and I can access my office computer from anywhere in the world and so email communications can be addressed.

Now for the real story that needs to be told. The slate part of my roof and the box gutters need to be replaced. The slate was put on in 1890 and has outlived its usefulness. The dormers and aluminum windows that were installed in the 1960s were not installed properly and the shingle that was used for flashing has deteriorated. This is specialty work. Box gutters and slate roofing is an art form that requires craftsman skills. We had five companies look at the roof and gutters. Four refused to do the work because it was too specialized for them. Including one guy who employs Amish workers! The fifth company quoted me $43,000. Not being a person who is put off by hard tasks I did the research and calculated that I could do the entire job myself for about $10,000 and still have some really cool tools to show for it at the end.

Since the newspaper plays on the aspect that roofing is not as specialized as mayoring let me describe and show for you exactly what I will be doing since, after all, it has been indicated that I will not be working hard.
Firstly, this fire escape has to be removed. It is already in very poor shape and removing it is likely to be more dangerous than replacing the roof.

This porch needs to be removed. Once gone I will make the decision to either replace with a smaller porch or to not replace at all.

Here is a view of the gutter from the back of the house. It is fortunate that the trim is actually made of metal. As you can see it is failing and the wood has rotted out.

Here is an interior view. I have been jacking up this part of the roof for the last three weeks so that I can put some struts back in. The original posts were removed about 40 years ago and since then the roof has been sagging.

People don’t know what box gutters are. Here is a picture of ours. You can see they are in bad shape. I will be replacing the tar, rubber and rusted metal with copper. Making copper gutters from sheets is an art form that I am willing to learn. Of course there are some areas where the wood base has rotted out and needs to be replaced. That is an art form as well.

I am posting this article because I want people to realize that this is no vacation. In fact, given the choice between being in an air conditioned office working the phones, meeting citizens, making speeches at dinner events OR doing hard physical labor 40 feet above the ground in hot weather crafting a roof that should withstand 100 years of brutal weather, most people would chose the former. However, I am not like most people. I am not afraid to do what it takes to get a job done right for the least amount of expense. Fixing this roof myself is worth $33,000 in real money to me. If you add income taxes that I pay out, it would have cost me over $50,000 to pay the only company willing to quote me a price. That is more than I make as mayor.

I look at this way. I am saving a piece of history by fixing this house properly. I am investing in my future stake in the city and I am showing people that I am not afraid to get my hands dirty trying something new.
One day the editors at the local newspaper will realize that. What is that old saying? Extra ordinary people achieve extraordinary things ....

Life on the Edge!

2010-06-21T02:57:00.004-04:00

I have been doing some garden work lately. Albeit rather slowly since I no longer have a life outside of work!
I went and bought some metal edging. Couldn't buy it in Dayton. I had to drive to Lowes in Springfield, Ohio. None of our local big box retailers carried the stuff. Any way, I have been at this project for at least three weeks. If it would stop raining on the weekend I might finish it.
Here are some pictures of the progress.

The cool thing is that we figured out what to do with all those surplus sign stakes now that the campaign is over.

I didn't have to buy any tomato stakes this year!

The Kitten Saga

2010-06-12T16:34:00.006-04:00

The saga of the kittens is both happy and sad. The sad news is that the mother had 6 kittens and only two are left. The mother cat was too young and inexperienced we figure. This was probably her first litter. She divided the litter after we found her in the attic.
At one point all but one kitten had been removed from the attic. We found two on the ground in the fire escape at the back of the house. Both were in poor condition and covered with flies. We managed to save them though and energize them with this

Who would have thought you could by formula for kittens? We removed the one from the attic and had this trio for a day.

Deborah and Elizabeth took it upon themselves to be feeders of kittens. At one point hey had the little black and white one on the grass in the yard and the mother cat came up and swiped it away.

We don't know what happened to the first three kittens of the litter but we found the decapitated body of one of them under a bush about ten feet from the opening of the fire escape. A day later we found the decapitated body the black and white one in the same spot but the former body had disappeared.
We can only assume that the mother or one of the father cats had killed the litter off. I don't understand the ways of cats and don't plan on studying them at this point.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth but Elizabeth got over it. She got her first dose of how cruel life can be.

The two remaining kittens were fed every morning and evening and any time in between if we were able to. They really needed attention every 2 hours but that was impossible. They weren't going to die though. After about a week our mail delivery person rang the doorbell and told us that her neighbor fosters cats for SICSA (Society for the Improvement of Conditions of Stray Animals). After a phone call we were also informed that the neighbor was currently fostering a nursing mother with four kittens. Within a day or so after that our two abandoned kittens were placed in a home where they could learn to be cats. I would like to thank the federal government (via the USPS) for their support in relocating these two orphans. When and if we ever catch the mother we are going to get her fixed and release her. Maybe I should issue a Mayor's Proclamation. I certainly need to cover that hole in the roof of the fire escape before I have a case of Deja vu!

Things That Go Bump in the Night!

2010-05-24T14:46:00.004-04:00

We have had a little bit of excitement here in the last two days. It certainly explains some of the nocturnal sounds emanating from our third floor in recent weeks. Yesterday I was up in the attic area because I needed to measure some things relating to our roof (which is an entire series of posts that will be forthcoming) when I heard some unusual ruffling sounds. Walking towards the noise I heard a hiss and found myself looking into the eyes of a black cat that isn't one of ours. Upon a little bit of investigating, in a nearby box standing on its side there were a pile of kittens. They are about a week old. The cat is getting into the house via a hole in the roof of the fire escape. Don't ask me how it gets on my roof. I can only assume it climbs up the fire escape. We left the cat some food and water in the hope that it doesn't abandon the kittens.

Of course Elizabeth is excited. The wife and myself are not.

This morning Elizabeth and I went up to check on the kittens. There was only one in the box. This meant that the mother cat realized the box was not a secure location and was moving her litter. Possibly outside the house.

The wife and I were excited. Elizabeth was not.

A few hours later Elizabeth and I went up to see if the last kitten had been moved. It had. Now I was really excited .... until we heard a ruffling noise on the other side of the room in an area that is pretty inaccessible. Upon closer investigation I could see the mother cat with her kittens in a spot that I don't even want to try to get to right now.

Elizabeth is excited .......

Anybody going to need a kitten in a few weeks?

Selling Dayton

2010-05-21T06:18:00.003-04:00

Now I am a tiny bit bias but, I believe Dayton, Ohio has more to offer than many other places and I have been to or through quite a few of them. We have some of the most affordable housing in the nation. Our cost of living is below the national average and we are sitting on the largest aquifer in the United States if not the world, so we will never run out of clean fresh water.
With as few posts as I have been making lately I still average 150 hits a day on this site. So I am using it to make a sales pitch to the world with our Greater Dayton Plan which was unveiled this week.

More Steam Punk Light Fixtures

2010-04-28T23:40:00.002-04:00

Click on the image to go to the web site.

I got an email solicitation from www.schoolhouseelectric.com this evening. Guess they thought I might blog about them!

Steampunk Your Light Fixtures

2010-02-22T13:25:00.003-05:00

Those wonderful people at Rejuvenation Lighting sent me another catalog on Saturday. I grabbed it and took it with me so that I could look at it in the car as the wife drove us around to the various places we needed to go.

They have some new lighting fixtures! The most interesting to me were these. If you click on the picture it will take you to their pendent fixture page showing this and several other fixtures.

Industrial Victorian caged pendents. I'm thinking one of these might look good in the stairwell to the basement!

Surviving the Winter

2009-12-30T00:13:00.003-05:00

It is cold here! For those who have not been following the saga let me remind you that our primary source of heat comes from two wood pellet stove inserts. We have four furnaces from the days when this place was four apartments but none are hooked up because they all vented out of chimneys. They are all 80% efficiency furnaces. The main part of the house has no attic insulation either. We have been struggling with getting the temperature on the first floor above 60 degrees and on the second floor it hovers around 62 degrees. We have had to resort to a few different strategies. One is the traditional method

This raises the temperature as long as there is wood inside the house to fuel the fire. Unfortunately, at night when the fire goes out, so does all the warm air. Right out the chimney. We wake up to 56 degrees on the first floor! We have curtains up between some less used rooms and the main hallway to keep the warm air contained. That hallway is very cold!

We bought a "Heater Fan" for Elizabeth's room.

This is a Reiker brand fan and cost us $269. It was installed by yours truly the day that it arrived. It maintains the temperature in her room between 63 and 65 degrees. It is still not enough so I went out and bought this

50 bags of blow in insulation. I get to borrow the machine for free except that you get it for 24 hours with a 20 bag purchase. I negotiated 2 days since I really didn't have to buy all 50 bags at once. I have to go back to pick up the machine when I have some time because it took 4 hours to make two trips to the big box retailer and haul those 50 bags up three flights of stairs to the third floor!

The plan is to spend New Years Day blowing this stuff into the floor of the "attic." Fortunately we have many floorboards already ripped up so this should be a relatively easy task. When done it should give me an R-value of around 26 between the second and third floors. That will keep some of the heat in and reduce our pellet use - I hope. We bought 4 tons of pellets in September. We have used 3 1/2 tons almost. I have one ton still from last year. Looks like we need to buy another 4 tons. It makes me wonder how they heated this house around 1890. I know it had a coal furnace but one would have to shovel coal in it constantly throughout the day. I have to fill the pellet stoves first thing in the morning and last thing at night or they will run out of pellets causing the temperature to drop.

So now I am running around doing some last minute rewiring of the bathroom before the insulation goes in because it will be much harder to do it after Friday. Stupid stuff like moving a light switch so that it isn't behind the door when it opens. Of course, when I installed the switch the first time we didn't have a door or a toilet for that matter! So now I have to come up with something to hook the original switch to. I'm thinking wall lights but that means more wiring!

Update

2009-11-07T23:58:00.003-05:00

News will be slow for a while. In case anyone didn't know, I am the Mayor-Elect of Dayton Ohio. The race has been described as the "Big Upset" locally and may be national news very soon. I am an Independent candidate. I won the election on a budget of $17,000. There was no special interest money donated to my campaign. The incumbent spent at least $120,000 and had the full backing of the Ohio Democratic Party as well as the Montgomery County Democratic party. Six of the nine political mailings done by the incumbent were negative about me. I had no money for mailings. We went door-to-door. I had the backing of the voters of Dayton which trumped the political machine.
If the incumbent had read this blog and understood the enormous task that this house presented, maybe she would not have underestimated my capabilities.

Update;
The incumbent spent $134,000 and had an additional $60,000 in-kind donations. My money expenditures were $17000 and I had an additional $5000 in-kind. You don't need big money or a whole lot of support from a political party in order to win a mayoral election. Working smart and good timing can beat money and an established name in the political arena. Even a two term incumbent, democratic party super delegate.

Back to Brimfield

2009-09-14T00:38:00.008-04:00

We were on vacation last week. We decided that it would be cool to visit Maine and on the way back, go back to Brimfield. Maine was beautiful. I have never been to Maine before. We went to Belfast and spent a day in Acadia National Park looking for starfish and sea urchins with Elizabeth. Since we are home educators, much of this trip will get logged in as science. On Wednesday we drove to Brimfield, Mass.
If you have never been to Brimfield, it is an experience. This year marked the 50th anniversary. It all began in 1959 when an auctioneer opened his property up to 67 dealers to sell their stuff for a few days. Now it has grown to 21 different fields along a one mile stretch of road with some 5000 dealers. If you go to the link above you will see an aerial photograph that will give you an idea of how big this show is.
This year I had the privilege of running into someone that I used to work with in my Pittsburgh days some 15 years ago. Jack Dill is an auctioneer that I worked with for about a year and a half. He now has his own business. He bought an old Victorian house back in 1994 and proceeded to renovate it. He has been selling at Brimfield for 25 years. It is because of him that I knew about this place. Here he is in action!

Elizabeth was in her element. She collects Wade figurines and had discovered an entire box full of the things when I took this photo

We also discovered a great craft item for kids when we went to one local restaurant. They are called wikkistix. These wax covered pieces of string can be used like pipe cleaners to make things. Here is a photo of my figure (on the right, in a pike man's pose) and Elizabeth's figure which is about to stick a pie in my face!

But alas, vacation is over. Today I cut the grass, weed whacked the back yard and made a dash to Home Depot to get the wood paneling to fix my termite infested kitchen wall. Tomorrow the craziness associated with running for mayor begins. Only six weeks to election day and then I get my life back!

It's Been Awhile .....

2009-09-01T00:04:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the delay in posting. You would think I was running for mayor or something ....

What has August brought us. Let's see. Lots of rain has caused much havoc and our bathroom ceiling finally produced a black hole where there once were mushrooms growing out of the wall and ceiling. I have made several trips to the roof with tar and flashing in hand to reduce the effect of the rain. At one point during a severe storm, I emptied three five gallon buckets of water in 7 minutes.

I have been chopping wood. The back yard jungle has been cleared to some extent and needs much more work. There is so much wood debris. We need one of those chiminea things so we can just burn most of it. I'm tempted to take one of our wood stoves outside. In the meantime we have lots of termites back there. As long as they stay away from my kitchen I don't care. What we really need is an anteater for a day or two. A couple of goats would be good too. I wouldn't have to cut the grass.

Now let's talk about the raccoon that has been frequenting our attic. Several nights in a row we have been awakened around 4 AM by something going "BUMP" in the night. On the third floor no less. After investigating the first time we heard it, I found a raccoon climbing up one of the structural joists. After a few prods with a long stick the thing wouldn't budge so I told it to leave quietly and went back to bed! Two more nights it returned and it sounded like the thing was having a relay race around the central chimney up there. So a couple more trips to the roof to plug a few holes and we are back to sleeping like babes except that the dumpsters at the Dollar Tree store are emptied at around 4:30 AM every other morning which is a violation of the noise ordinance I believe. The driver of that truck bangs those things so loud that the whole house shakes. Maybe they need a raccoon to keep them company.

TERMITES!

2009-07-20T00:46:00.003-04:00

Bastards!

Super Bastards. They ate the pink styrene!

Oh well, we needed an excuse to re-paint the outside of the kitchen.

Laundry Room Blues

2009-07-01T00:26:00.004-04:00

In 2006 the laundry room looked like this.

You can read about the progress back then if you search the archived posts from around July 2006.

This morning the room looked like this.

I spent a couple of days putting the tile down and getting the room painted. We decided to use up some old paint that we had left over rather than buy a new color. So we ended up using three colors since we didn't have enough of any single color to do the entire room. Two walls are the same green color that we used in our bedroom. One wall is dark brown and one wall and the ceiling is a pale yellow color. Not bad considering that I started on Friday and today is Tuesday. It's not like I'm running for Mayor or anything important like that ....

Last night when I was painting, Elizabeth wanted to help me with a paint brush but the only brushwork was cutting in the edges which requires a steady hand. So I promised her she could come out with me today and help me paint out some graffiti on this old building. All in a days work!

The Chronicles of Narnia.

2009-06-30T01:37:00.006-04:00

Like we need more furniture! We went to another auction at our favorite auction house and bought a wardrobe because Deborah has way too many clothes! The three closets don't cut it. Of course, in the 1840s when the house was built, people only had three sets of clothes and a drawer full of collars and cuffs. So in those days the three closets were adequate and probably quite bare.
The wardrobe is a Gothic style knockdown wardrobe from the 1840s. We know this because it has those pre 1846 flat tipped screws holding the hardware together. It is in excellent condition and we got it for $350. You can't get a new one at IKEA for that price!
Here is the money shot;

Elizabeth thinks it will take her to Narnia. I hope she isn't too disappointed.

While we were there we bought another mirror. We have so many. This one was a deal at $55.

It is leaning against the wall in the hall until I find time and a location to hang it ..... I am hoping no white rabbits will emerge from it.

We are STILL living out of many boxes.

More Evil Roots

2009-06-24T00:35:00.003-04:00

I am so far behind with blog updates. That is what happens when life catches up with you!

Anyway, would you believe that one week after snaking out the drain, it blocked up again? This time I did what any sane, intelligent person would do. I asked the wife to call Roto Rooter and schedule for them to come out and clean the thing!

The poor man was here for at least two hours. He got about 2X more roots out of the main sewer drain than I did one week earlier and called for a supervisor to stop out with the "camera." A few days after my drain was professionally cleaned we got it "scoped" to see if we were facing any major problems.

The drain passed with flying colors! In fact, considering the fact that it has been there for at least 113 years it was in remarkably good shape. Three tiles exhibited slight separation. One may be off by one inch due to settling. It had a root protruding through it into the drain. Looks like we dodged the bull(et) dozer this time around. Think of all the money we saved!

The Root of All Evil

2009-05-28T12:04:00.003-04:00

Wouldn't you know it. Three weeks after we move in the sewer backs up. This is a common story. Fortunately it wasn't so bad. Of course it would happen the week that I was out of town. I don't know if I ever mentioned it before but when we bought this place, upon closing we discovered that the sewer had backed up and my very first job was wading through two inches of water and sewage in the basement in order to clean the place up.
Anyway, I rented a large drain snake on Tuesday and proceeded to snake the drain. At about the 50 feet mark the snake was kinked and I could not get it to go down the drain. It kept winding the coil in the rotating cage such that it would not pull out in order to be fed down the drain. This was frustrating because I had a luncheon speech and a neighborhood tour to do this same day, so I must have changed my clothes five times between various events. Eventually I gave up and went to bed late. On Wednesday morning I returned the equipment and got another to replace it. I rushed home and got the job done before 11:00 AM so that Elizabeth could go to her playgroup by 11:30! Good job I'm not afraid of dirty work.

Here were the results;

A pile of roots bigger than my hand

and the tell tale signs that the drain had been snaked!

The Move From Hell (Part Two)

2009-05-12T00:37:00.003-04:00

So this last week has evoked such intelligent conversation like;

"Honey, where is the (insert common household item)?"
"It is in a bag in the kitchen."
"Do you know which bag? I count at least nine that I can see."

Then there are these conversations:

"Wow! I haven't worn that shirt since 1982. Let's see if it fits." Rrrrrrrip! "Oh well, now I have reason to throw it out."

"Cor blimey, what the phuck? I used to use this thing when I went to school. I wondered where it went. Guess we'll box it up and stick it in the basement."

"Do you think Elizabeth will want this old toy when she is older?"

We have also vowed NOT to buy any more books at the library book sales. We have boxes and boxes of kids books. We could probably open our very own neighborhood children's library. Guess who has to carry them up the stairs to Elizabeth's room?

So what have I done in the way of work on the house this week? Quite a bit actually. A neighbor and I hauled the claw foot tub to the third floor and got the worlds heaviest washing machine to the second floor laundry room without destroying the woodwork. I hooked it up and guess what? It doesn't leak - yet. Remember those two marble tiles I busted out in the bathroom a couple of years back because the pipe froze? Well, not replacing them paid off because the other pipe froze sometime in the last two years and when I turned on the hot water to the shower I had water dripping into the basement. I fixed that problem by cutting the copper pipe and using a "gator grip" cap. Where were "Gator grips" eight years ago when I needed them? I remember PEX was not approved for use by the city back then also. Anyway, the tiles are still out but those empty plastic wood pellet bags duck taped to the wall provide a temporary cover for the time being. The shower works great but we can't use the body jets just yet unless we want to mop the floor beyond the center of the room.
We had the phone number transferred last Friday but then I realized I had run phone line throughout the house but had failed to put any jacks in. So that was another trip to Lowes. Then on Monday the phone went out but the DSL didn't. Don't know if anyone has ever tried to contact the phone company when the phone line is dead but we had to stop at Deborah's work to call that problem in. I also got two of the four slide out shelves made for under the kitchen counter, the computers are hooked up, the faucet changed in the bathroom and a plug installed. Oh, I also had to get the smoke detectors installed before the pancake breakfast and when I burned the first pancake soon after opening the doors we knew they were working just fine!

So, here we are, finally moved in after only eight years and thirty days and about to embark on the busiest six months of my life. Guess how long we will be living out of boxes!

The Move From Hell (Part One)

2009-05-11T23:49:00.000-04:00

Not wanting to sound like a post from "The Devil Queen" I will describe what I hope was the final moving experience of my life. We planned to move into the "Old Crack House" the week following my fund raising pancake breakfast. Which was great by the way. In fact, the local paper wrote a story. Deborah took the whole week off of work so we could pack and move stuff. Then we hit the first snag. Deborah had to show up for jury duty on the Monday. Of course, with all the people they could have chosen, she was picked ..... for a murder trial ...... that would last the entire week. The good news was she was home early on Thursday because she would deliberate on Friday. Since it seemed to be a slam dunk case, she knew what her verdict was going to be and if everyone was in agreement she would be home early on Friday. One person of the twelve did not agree and so it took the entire day to decide a verdict. In between appointments, amusing Elizabeth and attending the odd meeting, I managed to pack a lot of boxes.

By this time we are behind on our packing. We moved a few things over during the week in a borrowed van but the big move was going to happen on the Saturday when we would rent a 16 ft Budget Truck. We were only moving 4 blocks so we didn't mind having to make a couple of trips. While we were moving stuff out, the renter of our other house was moving stuff in. We warned her that we were running a bit behind on our plan and she had no plan to actually reside in the place until Tuesday. So we had four days to do a weeks worth of work. We moved on Saturday and we moved on Sunday which was much worse than Saturday because I miscalculated my ability to judge distances by 3 inches and clipped the bumper of the neighbors car with the rear step of the truck while pulling in front of the house, doing a mere $1200 worth of damage to her car. So while we are actually moving into the "Crack House", I have been relegated to the "dog house" but I've been there so many times I am used to it. We have been paying insurance premiums without an accident since 1990 so I was long overdue and since bad things come in threes, I will let you all know when I have the next two accidents and whether I make it out of the dog house before those happen! We moved again on Monday and got more stuff Tuesday and I still have to retrieve items from the garage and one corner of the basement.

I never realized how much crap we had! I hadn't seen some of this crap since I moved to Dayton from Pittsburgh fifteen years ago! If I stick it in the basement here it won't be found for another 30 years! I remember that old skit from Saturday Night Live, "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!" I can safely say I have very little stuff that is Scottish and what I have that might be would certainly fit in an extra small sporran! Of course, since it belongs to us, it is stuff, but in reality it is crap. Now here is what some of our rooms look like so you have an idea about the magnitude of our crap collection.

These are big rooms. This is a lot of crap!

Stop It With The Farmhouse Sex!

2009-04-20T08:47:00.004-04:00

Why are people doing Google searches for "Farmhouse sex"? I haven't figured it out. I get several hits on this site every day from people searching for "Sex in a farmhouse", "Farmhouse sex", "Sex in an antique farmhouse" or just plain "Sex on a farm". I know why they are finding the site. It is because of this post some two years ago. What I don't understand is WHY people are searching. You can rest assured knowing that the majority of such searches originate in India or Pakistan. Must be something to do with a translation glitch. Maybe there is a rock band called Farmhouse Sex, I don't know. I think I'll Google it and find out for myself ........

"Hey, what is this Crackhouse site?"

This is my 500th post by the way. I apologize if you have had to read the other 499 in order to find this one that tells you absolutely nothing about what you are searching for. I suggest that you go buy a goat!

Gosh, Darn, Blast and Phuck it!

2009-04-14T01:57:00.002-04:00

I did something yesterday that I haven't done in two years. Wait for it ...... now you all remember just how much I hate plumbing, right? Wait for it ..... Well, um, er ... I turned the water on to the second floor of the house. I am proud to report that Newtons gravitational theory still applies in the 21st century. Well at least to our cold water line. Water emitted between the 1st and 2nd floors did manage to find its way to the basement within a matter of seconds.

Phuck it, phuck it, phuck it, phuck it, phuck it!

An Open Invitation

2009-04-08T00:34:00.003-04:00

Gary Leitzell
For Dayton Mayor
Ready. Willing. Able.

You are respectfully invited to a Pancake Breakfast and Open House at
“This Old Crack House.”

Enjoy homemade pancakes with delectable toppings.
View before/after photos of “This Old Crack House.”
Suggested donation: $5.00 per person
All proceeds and donations will go to “Friends of Gary Leitzell.”

Please RSVP or there won’t be enough pancakes for you!
(937) 253-1359 or Gary@daytonmayor.org

Where: 114 Volkenand Ave., Dayton, OH 45410
(Across the street from Wayne Ave. Family Video)
Time: 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Date: Saturday April 25, 2009

www.daytonmayor.org

Paid for by Friends of Gary Leitzell
Dan Kennedy, treasurer, 525 Heiss Ave. Dayton, OH 45403

The Family Portrait

2009-03-28T20:51:00.003-04:00

Seen through the eyes of a six year old!

That thing above Deborah's head is the ceiling fan in case you wondered.
I noticed that my lips are so much fuller than ever before and I have my old waistline back!

The Price of Gas!

2009-03-24T10:24:00.001-04:00

We just got our gas bill from Vectren yesterday. We used to pay just $3.50 several years ago as a service charge each month but that was increased to $7.34 about two years ago. Now, realize that we use NO gas at the "Old Crack House" or so little that we got billed for one ccf last year and that was for cumulative use of the tankless water heater. Now the fee has increased to $13.47 a month with an added volume charge based on usage. Next year it will go up to $18.37 with no volumetric charge. That means we are paying 83% more for a product that we aren't using. I don't understand it. The world markets are plummeting, we have another 100 plus years supply of natural gas and the cost of that has decreased about 30% since last summer. So, how can it cost 83% more to get it to my house when it has been coming in since the 1890s and I have gas lines in my floor to prove it!

Overdue Update

2009-03-18T23:43:00.003-04:00

Here is an overdue update of what has been happening here.

1) House update; very little to report. I have done little to nothing for the last two months due to item 3) below. I am trying to get the place cleaned up and all the clutter put away because we plan to move in very soon!

2) Kid update; Elizabeth turned six last week and is more excited at the fact that she has a loose tooth than the fact that she has almost completed her kindergarten course for the year. Of course the completion of school work only guarantees that she will proceed to first grade material before entering first grade. The losing of baby teeth means she has to be more vigilant with her brushing!
She didn't want to go ice skating this winter either ......

3) The Dayton Mayor update; If you don't live in Dayton or check my link periodically at the right side of the page that says "DaytonMayor" then you have no idea what has happened in the last few weeks. Five people submitted petitions to run for mayor. Only two qualified. The incumbent and myself. Since then two of the people that did not acquire enough valid signatures from registered voters residing in the city have filed protests with the board of elections. The board of elections has rejected their protests since they have little legal claim but if their claims were valid I would have been running unopposed! I am running as an independent candidate but have managed to attract the favor of the Republican Party which is going to help me out tremendously in the days ahead. Fortunately there will be no primary election since we only have two candidates. This means that I didn't get swept up into a whirlwind of chaos preparing to be on a May ballot. Hopefully this also means that I can get some work done on the house!
This will be an interesting year. I hope I can keep up!

Today I ....

2009-03-08T23:03:00.002-04:00

did something I haven't been able to do in a while. I worked on the house! I have to get the place cleaned up for several reasons. I will elaborate more in the very near future! In the meantime I am starting to get the third floor cleaned up a bit. We have lots of walnut shells littered all over the floor up there. Me thinks we have a squatter .....

The Cost to Build in 1965

2009-03-01T21:12:00.004-05:00

I went to visit my father in Cleveland a few weeks ago and he wanted me to go through a stack of old papers. Most of the papers got shredded but I saved an old folder pertaining to a house that my parents built in 1965. I remember the house vaguely. I remember visiting the site once while it was under construction and I remember a little bit of the time we lived there even though it was for about two years. My grandfather gave my parents the lot since it was next door to them. My brother and I used to run over to their house on Saturday mornings so that we could watch the cartoons on TV in color since they had a color TV while we still had black and white. Everything my parents paid is documented in this folder. It is quite interesting to someone like myself. The house was a brick veneer modern ranch style 40' X 24' single story house with a basement and integral garage. The model was called "The Christopher".

My parents took out a mortgage for $12,500 AT 5 1/2% interest. Their mortgage payment was $80.00 a month. My father made $613.00 a month as an industrial engineer. The basic shell cost $7618.00 and labor cost to build was $775.00.

The entire cost to plumb and sewer was $335.00. Wiring was $140.00. Heating was $108.00. Plastering cost $520.00. The garage door cost $90.00.

The total cost on the construction loan sheet was $13,258.75. I believe the place was completed within 6 months.

I think we have spent way more than this. My labor cost is nothing and we still aren't done yet! My dad told me he once ran for the school board so it would seem we have more in common than one would have thought!

Dayton Home and Garden Show

2009-02-20T12:00:00.004-05:00

The Dayton Home and Garden Show is next weekend, February 27 - March 1 at the Dayton Convention Center. So all you folks from the Dayton Region need to go out to this and get lots of ideas for your own renovations. All I can ask is that when you use a contractor to do the work, make sure it is a local one. We need to protect jobs in our region.

Check out this site while you are at it Improve Your Home and Garden they are part of the promotion team and have some interesting articles on their site.

Our 4th Break In.

2009-02-16T22:47:00.003-05:00

We have experienced yet another break in. I don't understand why some people risk their lives to acquire nothing. This makes number four since we bought the place. The only time anything was actually stolen was when some idiot took my chainsaw and hid it by my old van so they could come and collect it later when mommy and daddy weren't going to be home to smell the gasoline fumes it emits because it leaks! I recovered the chainsaw so they achieved nothing and left me with two broken window panes.
This break in is totally weird. Someone made the effort to climb our fire escape at the back of the house. The first flight of steps has been removed to discourage such activity. Once at the top they busted out two pieces of plexi-glass that I use to stop raccoons from accessing the box gutter and getting on my roof so that they can climb down my chimney. Then they climbed out onto the box gutter and hopped up on the top of the fire escape and then on top of the roof where they managed to heave the cover of the access hole off. This would require some force. Once opened they would have found a ladder leading some 13 feet down to the floor. There is no evidence that they entered the building. All I can think is that someone who used to live here when the place was apartments my have been under the illusion that they would drop 6 feet into an attic and another 7 feet onto the third floor where they could rob the apartment. Well, if they come back they are in for a shock. The door hatch is secured better and the ladder has been removed.
I think they did this to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday since it happened last Thursday. It is a pity they didn't fall off my roof so that they could qualify for a Darwin award.

You Know What Today Is?

2009-02-02T01:26:00.002-05:00

If you want to know my Groundhog Day joke you will have to read this old post!

Dayton Housing

2009-01-31T13:36:00.001-05:00

Property values in Dayton are our best kept secret. I posted about this before a couple of years ago. The real estate bubble bursting did not affect our values tremendously but has caused a surplus in vacant housing. We have another wave of foreclosures coming. Adjustable rate mortgages that are going to reset at a higher interest rate in the next two years. Then there are all those "interest only" loans that are going to affect the owners of the mcmansions in the suburbs. I would urge anyone to refinance if possible and lock in at a fixed rate and would always recommend 15 years over 30 years. If you have at least 20% equity in your house then a home equity loan used to pay off the first lien holder could save you thousands $$$ in refinancing fees and reduce the term left on a 30 year loan to 20 years.

I'm telling this to the world now and I will continue to over the next few years because we are poised to recover faster than many other parts of the country if people know about our low property values. You can buy decent houses here for less than $40,000. Old houses, big houses, fine houses. Why so cheap? Besides the fact that there are so many empty houses in the area, they are stripped of copper and heating systems in many cases. To fix them up yourself may cost as little as a few thousand $$$. To pay someone may cost $20,000. Not bad for a fixer upper. Most are in solid shape. Here is the real news though. In two years when the banks start loaning mortgage money they are going to go back to the old rules. That means 10% to 20% down on a house. It is going to be easier to save 20% for a house valued at $80,000 or less than for one that is $200,000. What about jobs? We need more well paying jobs here because we have lost many manufacturing positions (just like every where else) but if you ever had the inclination to start your own business, this is certainly the place to be. We have affordable housing and a cost of living that is below the national average. We are located almost equidistant between Indianapolis, Columbus and Cincinnati. If you own a home in New York City then you could sell it and retire here in a much bigger house!

Follow up to "The Crap In My Back Yard"

2009-01-21T23:25:00.003-05:00

Last April I posted about the "Crap in Our Back Yard." In this post I complained about how our county sells tax liens on piece of sh*t properties that the lien holders don't have a hope in hell of collecting on. Well, in the last 9 months since writing the post the city and county were supposedly working together to identify properties like these so that they could prevent liens from being sold so that people could acquire the property through another program offered by our city. In the same 9 months one of the houses has had SUR 13 sprayed on it (which I'm guessing isn't good) and both properties have had significant reductions in property value while ours went up 43%. In the same 9 months two adjoining properties to ours have become vacated bringing the total number of vacant structures in the immediate vicinity to ours to 7 out of 18. In the same 9 months I mentioned these properties to city directors, a commissioner and if you recall from my April post, the mayor, who acknowledged my concern about such properties several times during the same nine months. I was told at least twice from different sources, that these properties were on the nuisance list and scheduled to be demolished. I reviewed that list on line last week and these properties were not listed at all. In fact, one is listed as having 3 code violations while the other has 6 code violations. I checked the online tax records this evening and noticed that the 2007 liens were sold. This means that these will sit ANOTHER 2 YEARS before I can attempt to acquire them in any way that is affordable because the total owed in liens for both properties is about $15,000 now. I have no way of knowing because the taxes are no longer delinquent. Way to go!

One other thing, 9 Months ago in my post I threatened to run for mayor and now I'm going through the process of making that a reality. So at least one person is willing to do something to improve the situation. Just like the old saying, "If you want a job done properly, do it yourself." I wish I could just go down to the courts and file a civil suit against the property owner for contributing to the demise in property values but the county auditor isn't co-operating with us!

Even More Cold Weather Crappity Crap

2009-01-19T23:59:00.003-05:00

Here I am worrying about the pipes freezing at the "Crack House" during ultra cold weather. On Friday the pipes froze in the downstairs bathroom at the residence and low and behold, the pipe feeding the toilet was completely splintered were it sits in the wall. Of course I only discover this AFTER it has been thawed out for two or more hours. Did I ever tell you how much I hate plumbing? What, you don't remember?

I walked down to the basement where most of the floor was covered in water. Turned off the shut-off valve to the bathroom (I've been through this before!) Waded through the inch and a half deep puddle which was already draining itself down the floor drain and put on a small electric floor fan. Then I walked away. Two days later the floor was dry and I replaced the CPVC pipe that was cracked with some new CPVC (I keep a stash on hand at all times.) I need to buy a new shut off valve to the toilet but that repair will take 5 minutes. It is so nice not to be phased about what most people would consider to be a major plumbing problem. The wife wasn't even upset, so I guess I have finally arrived when it comes to plumbing woes!

More Cold Weather Crap!

2009-01-19T23:34:00.004-05:00

When the thermostat for the pellet stove drops below 38 degrees, which it often does after running out of pellets on really cold days or nights, it registers 99.9 degrees and the whole heating plan for this place falls apart. So I have to go over to plan B which is to put this thing

within three feet of the thermostat to get it to read at least 38.4 degrees so that this

comes on. However, it turns out that on really cold nights like we had last week, I have to revert to our back up heat source

and our back up to the back up heat source

just to get the room temperature up enough to get the pellet stove to kick on! Eventually we can get the first floor up to a real toasty temperature as you can see here ....

Of course, Elizabeth running around the place adds a couple of degrees to the temperature so I make certain to take her along every day when I check on the pellet stove!

Another Day at the Auction

2009-01-05T21:53:00.005-05:00

We went to ANOTHER auction on Sunday. Our favorite Auction House, Woods Auction, had an all-day er and we came home a little poorer than when we arrived there. I don't know about the rest of the country but it seems that the market for basic antique furniture has tanked. If you want beds, drawers, tables or chairs then buy at an auction. We kick ourselves for not buying stuff sometimes. Even if we don't need it!

We tend to buy things we like or things that we know that we need. Sometimes these become split second decisions at an auction. We bought two old irons for $15 to use as bookends or doorstops. Did we plan on buying these? No, but they would go with the house and we have a Godawful amount of books that we get at library book sales. Cast bookends sell for a lot more than $15! We bought a large Victorian oval picture frame with the curved glass for $20. I bought three of these several years ago in a box lot for $20 which was one of my better scoops. I put black and white or antiqued pictures of Elizabeth in them and hang them on the wall. Maybe we'll do a family portrait for this one.

We bought a set of three hip hugger chairs and a captains chair. Two are pictured here;

We got these for $17.50 each. Now, if you say that you are all about recycling or saving the rain forest, buy things at auction. The tree was cut down long before you were born and you can't save it now. Besides, a single, new wooden chair at IKEA will cost you $40 - $60 and isn't anywhere as nice as these. I learned a long time ago not to buy very much that is new. Old stuff like furniture is made better than anything you find today and is often solid wood if it was made before 1930 when plywood started becoming popular. You can't beat old iron cookware either. After it is seasoned it is better than any non-stick pan on the market. Teflon is just a thin layer of a carbon based compound that flakes off eventually. A seasoned iron pan has a decent residue of real carbon and is readily replaced by burning the remains of last nights meal onto the bottom of the pan then rinsing it with water!

The Back of Beyond

2009-01-03T10:58:00.002-05:00

Now here is a view of the house that you've never seen. I never really paid too much attention to it either. In the summer you can't see the house for the trees.

You can see the fire escape in it's full ugly glory. Complete with missing pieces that blow off every so often. This contraption is responsible for most of our roof leak problems. On rainy days I'm glad I kept all those empty joint compound buckets!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-12-31T19:02:00.004-05:00

2009 is already upon us. Soon we will be entering the eighth year of our nightmare. This year I resolve to move in to this place. May you all finish your projects before we get to move in if you haven't done so already!!!!!

Where's Santa?

2008-12-27T00:53:00.006-05:00

We went out to do bargain shopping. I saw this scary ornament in a craft store.

I didn't catch the news. Did the "Big Guy" get shot down in Borneo?

*Update.*

See how little I know. Shrunken heads come from the Amazon! (Though I suspect that this one says "Made in China.") Maybe Santa crashed near there!

The Big Announcement

2008-12-22T01:39:00.004-05:00

If you wonder why I am not posting every other day like I used to it is because I am very busy doing other things besides home improvement. I'm sure that I have mentioned before on this site that I am the president of my neighborhood association and I also chair our local Priority Board which is supposedly recognized as the "official voice" of the residents of our fair city. In between the numerous meetings that I am expected to attend without compensation I am home educating my daughter who is in kindergarten and already 70% through her curriculum for the year and ready to start on first grade material in three subjects. She is reading 2nd grade books and already solving second and third grade math problems. We started early with her learning because it makes our lives easier as she gets older. I guess we plan well ahead and give ourselves ample time to react as needed.

That being said, I am making an early announcement that will explain why things are slower at the "Crack House". I am going to run for Mayor next year and have just slapped together a web site and blog to use in my campaign. I shouldn't have to post to the site very often. It is a tool to allow me to connect with residents of the city. I have added a banner in the right sidebar that links to "Dayton Mayor". There is a petition process that is quite time consuming. I hope to be through with it soon so that I am ready to do more work on the house. Don't worry, this won't become a political blog. I'm really not a politician. Just a mover and a shaker who gets things done.
Now I can say that the worse thing that could happen to me personally is that I get elected, because I would have to do the job and we certainly are facing some challenges here in Dayton. I am willing to face those challenges but I won't be too disappointed if the voters don't think that I am the best person for the job. On the other hand, we are certainly going to have the right house if I can just get things finished!

Fondelling My Volute

2008-12-18T00:26:00.001-05:00

Last March at our local Chili Cook-Off event I met someone who was a self described fan of this blog. Sometime in May or June he and his wife got a tour of the "Old Crack House" and he was telling me about his woodworking ability. So I whipped out my volute and handed it to his wife. "Can he match this?" I wondered as she held the thing with both of her hands.

Now before you all start commenting about being a pervert you need to know what a "Volute" is. Raise your hand if you know.....

A volute in our case is the spiral end of the stair rail that sits on top of the newel post. The very tip of which is missing!

The gentleman volunteered to try his best at replicating a volute for us and I must add that he has surpassed all expectations. As a result he needs to be showered in praises. Especially because he offered to do this for us for the sheer pleasure of helping us out and the challenge to try his hand at some carving.

Here is the end result resting in place;

I wasn't worried about the wood matching because there is so much filling of divots and cracks with putty to be done on the original wood that I am going to have to tint the shellac that I apply to this rail so the original cherry is going to be masked anyway.
So, if you are impressed, let his wife know. She has her own blog you can leave comments on.
I don't know for sure but seeing this thing lying on her kitchen counter every day for several months may have something to do with one of her latest announcements ....

Being Labelled

2008-12-17T00:28:00.004-05:00

I made a bunch of labels like the one above this afternoon. If you put clear shellac on them they have that "Old-Timey" look. Let me tell you why I did this.

I think the time has come for many beaten communities to get back to their roots. Dayton has been beaten and stomped on for many years. This city was founded on invention and progressive thinking. I collect old Dayton items. Most say "Made in Dayton, O." on them or have Dayton patents issued on them or were sold as souvenirs of Dayton. We can't find many items any more that say "Made in USA" let alone a city or a state.
My wife attends a stampers club meeting every month where she makes cards. I often tell her that her cards should be stamped "Made in Dayton". The stuff that I toy around with and make for our house like my concrete sink and counter tops, or the funky steam punk air filter that I made, should say "Made in Dayton". People who make crafts locally or grow food locally should label their stuff where it is made or grown. I would buy something made in Dayton over something similar made in another part of Ohio. Then I would buy something made in Ohio over anything similar made anywhere else in the USA. Why are we importing green peppers and salad items from Mexico when we can grow them here?
So I'm labeling stuff I make or do with the above labels because I'm proud of where I live and what I have been able to achieve. In most instances, with no previous knowledge. I think this could be a start to turning local economies around.

Tomorrow, if I can catch her. I'm going to stick one of these on Elizabeth's bottom!

Death From Above

2008-12-12T12:13:00.001-05:00

It is scary what you can do on the internet!

Not Much to Report

2008-12-10T01:31:00.002-05:00

I am officially slacking! At least it seems that way to me. In reality I have been doing many small jobs. I made a wood "damper" for the "WEE Rumford". I figured that paying $150 or more for a damper on a fireplace we may use three times a year is foolish at this stage so I made a block that seals the throat of the fireplace and stops the passage of warm air up the chimney. I just have to attach a tag that says "Remove before lighting fire" or we'll have a problem or two. I put proper stove pipe on the wood stove and lit a fire to test it. The fumes that come off the stove pipe from the factory paint are quite nauseating. (cough, cough) I've been patching some areas of wall that took some water damage this year from our leaky slate roof. Drawer slides are installed in the kitchen counter cabinets. I just have to make the shelves to attach them to. The hardest thing I did last week was stack two tons of wood pellets in the basement. 100 trips up and down the stairs with 40# bags is quite a workout. Especially for someone only used to weight lifting 12 oz bottles!

Time Is on My Side, Yes It Is.

2008-12-01T18:33:00.002-05:00

We now have a back up to the emergency heating system. This wasn't that hard to do once you figure out where to place the bricks. This is a small fireplace. The opening width is just 18 inches. I'm sure the mantle was made for a gas fireplace or a shallow coal burning fireplace with a built in basket grate. This job was a little hard on the knees though and I almost had a faux pas by forgetting to remove the large piece of cushion foam that I had stuffed up the chimney to keep the warm air in the room. I remembered when I was two thirds of the way done. Otherwise it would have been bricked in would have been a bugger to get out. I already tested whether smoke will draw properly up the chimney by burning some damp paper in a coffee can and it seems to be working fine. I did manage to rid myself of my rubble collection. For several years I have been saving broken bricks, stones, plaster and bits of concrete to fill the space behind the fire bricks so as to build up a smoke shelf. I had buckets of rubble on every floor of the house. I used five and a half joint compound buckets full of rubble in this project leaving me with just half a bucket of cellar dirt which I can dump in the back yard where there is a large pile of rubble waiting to be placed in buckets and brought into the house when I rebuild the main living room firebox sometime in the future. Guess that will make me a "Rubble Rouser" ..... nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

Preparing for the Next Project

2008-11-28T13:42:00.003-05:00

The next project involves getting this firebox rebuilt to accomodate the smaller opening. I bought 45 firebricks and two buckets of refractory mortar this week for the job. All I need now is some angle iron, an ash dump door and the most important thing, some TIME!

A Walk in the Woods on Thanksgiving Day

2008-11-27T21:27:00.003-05:00

We went to Sugercreek Metropark this afternoon for a walk in the woods. There are a couple of 500 year old oak trees in the woods there. There used to be three but one died several years back and some moron set fire to it and now it is laying on it's side. They are still called the "Three Sisters." We were surprised at how many people visited the park today. Besides hiking around the woods we took a stroll on the prairie walk when Elizabeth began to get fussy. It took us a while to figure out why she was so bored on this walk because this was our view from the path.

Then we got it. This was her view!

Reminds me of the one about the Fukarwee tribe of pygmies in darkest Africa. They got their name because they jump up and down in the tall grass shouting "Where the fukarwee! Where the fukarwee!"

Current Tax Evaluation Update (Hint: It Still Sucks!)

2008-11-26T00:34:00.004-05:00

Remember a few weeks back how our real estate tax evaluation increased our property value 96% over last year? The price of everything around us has dropped. Metal and oil prices are down considerably? Well, I made an appointment to plead my case and explained that we don't have three and a half bathrooms, we only have one full bath that doesn't work. a half bath on the first floor that does work and a quarter bathroom on the second floor because I haven't installed the toilet and that room isn't functioning either because we don't have heat on the second floor and the pipes keep freezing. I also explained that the total square footage of the two floors that they count for tax purposes isn't 3970 but in fact 3631. I gave them pictures showing how the front porch is collapsing and we have an extension of the Amazon Rain Forest in our very own back yard yet alone in our bathroom when it rains and the walls blossom with mushrooms!

The guy told me that the value would be adjusted down and should come in about where I would expect it to. He said I would get notice of an adjustment within three weeks. That was six weeks ago! So I check the treasurer's website and noticed a few weeks ago that the value dropped $3000 when the correct number of bathrooms was listed. Last week the value dropped another $44,000 because they corrected the square footage and probably reclassified the condition of the property. Currently we are at a 43% increase over last year and $40,000 - $60,000 above everyone else on our side of the street who have finished, livable houses. I think we are about $60,000 higher than the other side of the street. This equates to a $600 increase in taxes for us every year. The house is worth little more than we paid for it in its current condition, even with all the work because it isn't any where near finished. I told the man if he wanted to appraise it $5000 dollars above what we paid I wouldn't argue but any higher and I would fight it. Especially when 5 properties adjoining ours are vacant and have been for several years. Currently we are $33,000 above last years tax value. They must have justified the increase because I finally rebuilt that chimney and put in the bulk head doors, which are the only improvements I have made in the last 12 months! So you know that economic stimulus check that we got back in June because we pay too many taxes to the Federal Government? Well, it looks like our local county auditor wants to claim ours. In January I can appeal my evaluation to the State. Looks like I might be doing that. I better go find where I packed up the boxing gloves!

This is a Test of the Emergency Heating System

2008-11-13T20:58:00.003-05:00

This is only a test. If this were a real emergency you would see cups of coffee and hot cocoa in the vicinity.

I need to replace the duct pipe with black stove pipe and I need to line the chimney ultimately but since it is clean and I don't plan on having to use this thing this winter I figured I should fire it up to see if there are holes anywhere in the stove or in the chimney! This old thing raised the temperature in the adjoining dining room from 50 degrees to 52 degrees in three hours. At this rate we might get up to 70 degrees by Christmas! The pellet stove is programmed to come on at 45 degrees. We don't know if it will work this winter because we haven't tested it yet. Hence the need for an emergency heat system .......
The thing seems to be working just fine. I didn't manage to burn down the house today and the upstairs rooms didn't fill up with smoke, which is a good thing, I think.

Bulk Head Doors are Done!

2008-11-02T01:06:00.002-04:00

These babies lock on the inside. Later in the week when it rains I will find out if water still floods into my basement or if these do the trick!

If You Love This Blog You Need To Do This .....

2008-10-24T11:14:00.002-04:00

You need to go over to Dogs and Jen and post a big thank you in her comments because she IS the savior of these sites! I don't know what kind of other magic she is into but she sure knows how to handle a guys files! I understand the whole process took minutes to complete whereas I would have spent countless hours trying to achieve the same result.

For those who don't know, America Online is dumping "Hometown" which is its FTP space provider. I had to move 7 years worth of web page entries and photgraphs. All the pages that make up "The entire Crack House Story" and my website were scheduled to be terminated on October 31st even though I have paid AOL thousands of $$$ over the last 13 years. So you may find a few dead links or a couple of pictures missing from this blog in November. I have to go through all my entries, and there are over 470, to find and edit the links to the old host. The new hosting service is managed by a gentleman who lives two blocks away who is doing it for all the free publicity that I can give him! Just as soon as I get a banner ad or a button from him, I will add it to this blog but here is the link anyway.

So, what good will come of this? Well, I can dump my dial up service now since I"m losing the web hosting capability with AOL and get high speed internet! Whoo hoo!!! Travelling at the speed of light, Baby!

More Polished Concrete

2008-10-23T00:26:00.003-04:00

A little over two weeks ago when I had to fight with the tax appraisel folks I took this picture of our unfinished hearth in the main bathroom. Complete with water puddle on the floor from our leaky roof.

As of last night it looks like this.

Here is a close up for all you polished concrete sceptics.

This was poured in place and glass was pressed into the surface. The fact that it was poured in place and trowelled means the surface is slightly uneven. It is level but uneven. Most of the surface area is going to be covered with a mantle and a pellet stove insert. I curved the front to make it more interesting otherwise it would have been too square for the room.

I noticed our tax evaluation hasn't been adjusted yet to reflect the market as I was assured it would be. Gasoline is way down, copper is way down, natural gas is down and our house value is still double what it was a year ago.

My Big Boy is Finished!

2008-10-17T11:11:00.004-04:00

It only took about 6 real days of work, something like 320 bricks. 8 sacks of mortar, 12 gallons of water, two chimney liner tiles and 14 bags of vermiculite for a total weight 2400 lbs. of stuff that I had to haul up three flights of stairs and 13 feet up a ladder through a small opening onto the roof!

Now after some five years or so it is time to get all those old crumbling bricks from the original chimney down to ground level. I can think of one easy way to make that happen!

Politically Incorrect for Columbus Day

2008-10-14T01:33:00.004-04:00

We just participated in another 17Th century re-enactment event. This one is local. We have the Sunwatch Indian Village here in Dayton. It is a 11Th century archaeological site that has several reconstructed huts. It is a cool site and a great place to host this type of event. We put on a trade scenario and a couple of ambushes circa 1680. At this time the natives won many of the encounters because matchlocks were the affordable weapon of the day and plug bayonets were not a common thing. None of our scenarios were scripted so we went with the mood of the day. Both trade scenarios went bad for the English trading party. I got jumped twice. I did manage to survive one of the ambushes though. The worst thing is my daughter has been influenced by the natives into thinking that I am one of the bad guys!

She was an active particpant in the trade scenario on Sunday. She even learned to shoot arrows and fire off my musket. The cool thing is not many 5 year olds get to experience history this way. The things she will do to run around barefoot in a leather skirt!

Land Contract vs. Rent to Own

2008-10-14T01:28:00.001-04:00

You may have heard of these two terms in the past but not understood them fully. They are both forms of owner financing a real estate sale. You can Google both terms to find out more information than I will provide here because I'm not a real estate agent or a whiz at financing. Just someone who is aware of numerous ways to creatively finance a home sale.
Rent to own means just that. You set a price value on a house with a prospective tenant interested in ownership but lacking the credit or large down payment needed to buy a house at the present time. You get a down payment which is basically a right to exercise an option to buy a house at a pre-determined price for a period of 1 to 2 years. The option amount and a portion of the rent paid is applied to the purchase price if the option is exercised and becomes equity for the buyer. Real estate taxes are not required to be brought current until the house is sold under the option. This type of arrangement makes code enforcement, tax liability and maintenance the responsibility of the seller for the rental period. The seller also has the right to sell the property to another who will uphold the rent-to-own contract or increase the sale price of the house at the end of the option period.
A Land Contract is a sale of the property but a withholding of the deed by the seller until final settlement. A price is agreed to and the buyer pays principle and interest to the seller. Since a land contract can be filed at the county records office, the taxes must be paid current to the day of the contract by the seller and a recording fee is involved. The buyer should expect to incur some closing costs as a result but these are often applied to reducing the principle. The buyer is responsible for taxes, insurance and maintenance of the property. After a set number of years, generally three to five, the balance owed to the seller is paid in full by a conventional refinance through a mortgage company or a bank. At this time the deed is transferred.
In both cases, if the contracts are not complied to by the buyer, the property becomes the responsibility of the deed holder except with a land contract, the equity acquired by the buyer is generally refundable to the buyer as a result of liquidation of the property at auction if necessary.
So, if you want to buy a house and your credit is currently shaky, find a seller who doesn't need the money right away and work out a deal that benefits both parties. You don't need to look for "For Sale" signs either. You can always walk up to someones front door and make an offer though it is less likely to be accepted. Now if anyone wants to offer me a cool million $$$ for the "Crack House" I am all ears!

Enquiring Minds Want to Know .......

2008-10-08T00:03:00.001-04:00

Did we sell the house? Well, we have a strong potential buyer and I will know more in a day or two how the transaction will turn out. We will end up with either a rent to own or a land contract scenario. The process has been interesting because it didn't produce the results we were expecting but it did produce a result that we wanted. So in that effect, the concept worked. Here is what happened. I placed adds on numerous free classified ad sites for greater exposure and I designed a pull off phone number type flyer and put a few of these up wherever I could but realized that there were so many potential places to place them that I could never get to like the employee cafeteria at Wright-Patt Air Force Base or Wright State University etc. Soooo, I attached a copy of the flyer to an email and sent it to everyone on my email list who receives the neighborhood newsletter every month electronically and asked them to put the flyer up if they could. Now the fact that it read "$100 or highest best offer" got some immediate response. I got a call from an old neighbor asking about what we were doing. We sat on the roof of the "Crack House" for an hour or so while I was working on my chimney discussing financial options available and covered a few owner finance scenarios that might work for him. He reported back to me just days later that he may be able to sign a land contract with a friend of his on a duplex that he could live in while renting the other half and fixing the place up. Then, one person we know fairly well called and told me that they had placed our flyer up at work and offered to rent the place for $600 a month if we couldn't find a buyer. So effectively we had a bailout plan before we even placed the ad in the newspaper or held the open house days. We got over 40 phone calls. Most were investors looking for cheap property to fix up and rent. I suspect many of them drove by the house after I revealed the address and realized that it was truly worth more than they were willing to pay for it. What is the place worth? We bet it could appraise in the $85,000 range however, we elected to have a sale at the same moment the U.S. credit and financial markets were crumbling around us. We factored in many things. Our dream price would have been $90,000 but to get this I would have to replace the roof, replace the water heater and put in a new furnace to replace the perfectly good 1950s era gravity furnace that has worked for half a century! So I would have to spend $8,000 or so reducing our realized price to $82,000. Then, to get the best possible exposure we would have to list with a realtor in order to be on the multi-list. Upon a sale we would be expected to hand over $5000 in commission, taking us to $77,000 realized gain but this could take a year or even 18 months costing us between $5,000 and $7,500 in mortgage payments, taxes and insurance as well as the cost to heat the "Crack House" just to keep the pipes from freezing and the walls from cracking. Net gain ends up being $70,000. So we decided that if we got any offer in or around that amount it would be acceptable.
We held an open house over two days. From 10 AM to 5 PM each day. This was a huge waste of time. We should have run it from 1 PM to 5 PM because we had only 9 or 10 lookers and 5 bids. I think about all the work I have to do on the "Crack House" and I am stuck indoors on a beautiful weekend waiting for people to arrive at our door. Most of the people who showed up for the open house were walking or driving around the neighborhood, saw my signs and stopped in out of curiosity. Two left bids for the opportunity to get a house very cheaply. All bids were very low and unrealistic. On Sunday night, before calling the bidders, I called our rental offer person and asked if they would like to own the property if we could work out a land contract or rent-to-own deal. They said "Yes" and lo and behold, a $600 rent equates to a $70,000 mortgage plus taxes and insurance. There is a variable depending on what interest rate you use. We picked 5.75% as being very reasonable. Effectively this established a best offer scenario for us but since they were not a bidder on the bidding sheet, I had to follow the process that we had established. The purpose of the whole process is to establish a sales price that is agreeable to both parties. Nothing was binding until we agreed on a price, then a finance arrangement and we made it very clear to everyone that we would accept the best deal for us. The highest bid did not get above $35,000. We don't know if that was because the bidders did not understand the concept of an auction or they had no real idea what houses are worth that are ready-to-move-into quality. I called the "serious" bidders back after the bidding came to a halt and told them our best offer is a land contract for $70,000 and they have the opportunity to offer us something reasonably better. That didn't happen. So. I meet with our "buyer" later today to make sure they are happy with the place and to discuss the financial arrangements that we can fine tune and at the end of the month we can sign papers and depending on the arrangement, get them filed with the county. No muss, no fuss and we probably won't need a lawyer or have horrendous closing costs.
So we have to ask ourselves, "Did this system work." The answer is yes and no. Yes because the effective marketing brought forth a candidate who would have never considered they would be in a position to own their own house had they not called us. We were also able to explain that we could, if need be, owner finance for several years. Had we just posted a sign in the yard, this person would never had considered talking with us. Yes also in the fact that we found a serious real buyer very quickly. No in the sense that the bidding process did not establish a fair market value for the home. Of course the financial crisis did not help our situation as far as strangers were concerned and advertising at $100 attracted a whole bunch of "bottom feeders" who realized quickly that our home would be worth more than they were willing to pay. The financing thing isn't so bad because we act as the mortgage company and earn interest so after say 5 years we will have realized a real $ amount close to our dream price!
How did we get so smart? We purchased the "Crack House" in a similar manner and I would advise anyone to seek alternative financing arrangements over a traditional one any day because closing costs will eat you up! Plus, real people are easier to deal with than banks.
My next post will explain the difference between a "Rent-to-Own" and a land contract so you have a better understanding of the concepts in case you want to try what we did.

More Bugger-it Cursings!

2008-10-04T22:00:00.002-04:00

Not only do I have to go and fight with the real estate tax appraisal people next week, try to sell a house this weekend AND wrestle with the three cats to get them transferred to the "Crack House" so they don't get out during our open house. I have just been notified by AOL that they are no longer supporting their FTP space. The layout of this site will be much affected if I don't do something. I have 7 years worth of web pages stored there! I now have to move them and worse than that, I have to go through every single one and change all the links! So, if you have never read the link on the right that says "The Entire Crack House Story" you might want to go ahead and read all that stuff now because after October 31st it will all be GONE! At least until I find another free hosting site. Anyone have some suggestions?

The Plight of ELVIS.

2008-10-03T12:46:00.001-04:00

I have been informed that ELVIS (Extra Large Volume Iron Soaker aka "the worlds heaviest bathtub") was abducted from it's retirement home though it may have eloped with an iron sink that appears to have gone missing at the same time. It was not, I repeat NOT slumped over, in, on or even near a porcelein telephone. I'm sure there will be reports of sightings before too long in many major cities across the U.S. If you see a cast iron shower tub, circa 1955 in a donut shop please let me know .........

My Big Boy!

2008-09-25T23:47:00.003-04:00

My stack doest grow straight and erect. It has gained 56 inches this week!

I think me shall namest it "Big Boy."

Falling Back and Re-grouping

2008-09-21T00:27:00.002-04:00

Well, the home sale attempt is being postponed two weeks due to lack of response. For those of you who are following this blog, you will know that we are attempting to sell the resident home using the "5-Day Method." The whole concept is based on making the advertising look so intriguing that you get flooded with calls and have a very active open house weekend. What do you do to make the ad so interesting? You start with a price point at or below 50% of the house value. This is supposed to get you 25 phone calls by Friday evening. If you don't get 25 calls then you cancel the sale and start again. As of Friday I have had exactly 7 phone calls! Here in Dayton we have so many foreclosures that our price point isn't attracting real buyers. there are so many piece of junk properties being offered below $30,000 that our ad is lost in the sea of foreclosure sale ads. If you click on the above link you will see that the author of the book has a forum for people to subscribe to. Here you can read what people are doing and get a feel for the process if you feel you need to try it. It may not be a very good system if you have very little equity in your house. It is geared towards getting fair market value on the day of the sale. This means you won't necessarily get top dollar but then again, you won't have any commissions to pay to real estate agents who don't put forth an effort to sell your home either.

What are we going to do? We are going to take a two pronged approach. The purpose of the advertisement is to draw attention to our house. We also want the real buyers to attend our open house. I don't think retail buyers are attracted to a half price ad. I know I wouldn't be looking in that price range myself. I plan to edit all of my online free classified ads to reflect a new date. I haven't had one response from any online ad. I will also post several online ads. Some for say $88,000 so that it looks like a real estate listing with an open house date. Maybe one for an open house with no price and then the big impact ad! What is that you ask? Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. I have posted a question on the 5-Day Forum and will be interested in seeing what the "experts" say.Since these online ads will run for the next several days or until I pull them, they will test my next step. In a traditional market, when you don't get a single bite, what do you do? Lower the price. So reduce the price we will! We are thinking of changing the ad to read $100 or Highest Best Offer. That should attract people from all parts of the spectrum and I'm hoping that will jam up the phones for a few days!

I will keep you all posted .....

The Wrath of Ike

2008-09-15T00:37:00.002-04:00

Today I was working on this

when it started to get windy ..... very windy. Several times I had to run down these steps to take cover. Especially when this happened.

Later, when standing in the kitchen I saw our pear tree come down. This was a shame because it was finally producing pears that were bigger than a walnut. Just this week Deborah asked how we could get the pears off that were at the top of the tree.

I'd say it is no longer a problem!

Guess what I'll be doing for the next few weeks ....

The Ad!

2008-09-14T01:04:00.003-04:00

DAYTON

WALNUT HILLS 1500 SQ. FT BY OWNER
Beautiful Home.
3/BR ,2/BTH, Finished Attic
2 Car Gar, Orig. Woodwork, Garden
$29,500 or Best Offer
Inspection Sat. September 20th and Sun. September 21st
10AM – 5PM
Will be sold on Sunday night to
HIGHEST BIDDER (937) 256-0410

Selling Our House Next Weekend!

2008-09-14T00:56:00.001-04:00

No, we are not selling the "Crack House" we are selling the residence house that is three blocks away! I have mentioned before that we are using the "5-Day Method" to sell the house. We bought a book several years ago called "How to sell your house in 5-days" and decided way back then that this might work for us when the time was right. The concept is quite unique. The traditional way to sell a house is for the seller to establish a price that they would like to get for their home. Then lower it after 3 months, then lower it again. Then accept an offer below the asking price or haggle with the first person in many months to make an offer and hope the deal closes. The "5-day Method" is different. We offer the house for less than half of what it is worth. Advertise it like crazy in as many places as possible and hope we get 25 responses to our efforts before the open house on Saturday and Sunday. If we get fewer than 25 responses we postpone the sale and increase our efforts. Right now we have about $300 tied up in advertising and promotion and $250 for an inspection report. Some of our ads will hit a little early but the main effort begins on Wednesday. We only have ONE open house and that is for two days. This makes life easy, doesn't it? We only have to clean the place up one time! Out of the 25 responses to the advertising we should get the three real buyers for our home. On Sunday night I call the people who have left bids in a "Round Robin" bidding sequence in increments of $500 until we have a high bidder. All this does is establish a value for our home. Nothing is binding until we sign a sales agreement. The end result is that we have a real buyer for the house AND a back-up for $500 less. The house should bring fair market value, which it would do if we used a traditional method and we don't have to pay a commission to a real estate agent! Besides this, it will save us up to one years worth of mortgage payments, taxes and insurance. So our acceptance threshold is considerably lower than it would be if we used a traditional method for selling this place. What does this mean? Some lucky buyer is going to get a real deal on a ready-to-move-into-house next weekend and we get to move into a home with a leaky roof that is in dire need of being finished!

Bulk Head Doors

2008-09-08T23:24:00.006-04:00

Many of you will recall that last March we had a little problem with the freeze/thaw cycle that prompted me to replace the right side wall with poured concrete in October. This last week or so I have finally removed the rocks that held the left side together and upon building my framework for pouring concrete it proceeded to rain for two days leaving me with an inch of mud in our basement and the added pleasure of having to remove the framework and re-dig several inches of mud out of the pour area. Hey, why do a job once when you can do it twice, right?
Anyway, I took this picture over the weekend before I got all the bricks in place and I am proceeding nicely with the project. I even used a few of our stones for the first step just to make the place look rustic.

You know, I just noticed that the graffiti on the lintel says "EAST SIDE." See, without the photo, I would never have figured that out. I'm impressed that they spelled both words correctly.

I was searching online for wood bulk head doors or wood cellar doors and all I could get were sights trying to sell me or screaming the benefits of steel replacement doors. I'm not opposed to steel doors but for these steps it would have to be custom made and I could produce a perfectly good set of wood doors for less cost and have them done before winter rolls around. Trouble is I couldn't figure out how to attach the wood framing and what it should look like. The good news is that when we travel around I take pictures and store them in an idea folder. Last year I wrote a post about Carriage Hill Farm where they have two sets of bulkhead doors. I had a picture in the folder and went back to take a few more. For some reason the stars must have been in the perfect alignment because one set was open at the exact moment of my arrival and so I took some pictures. These pretty much tell it all.

Now all I have to do is get the stars to align once again so that when I make the doors for our bulk head they actually close properly!

The Week's Projects

2008-09-07T23:29:00.000-04:00

There are three projects going on here this week. First the cellar stairwell now has the left wall poured and the foundation laid out. I have even started putting the bricks in place on Saturday so that I can make the bulkhead doors. I went and bought some pressure treated wood today and some anchor bolts so that I can get the framework in place and finish bricking in the side walls. I already have the wood cut, sealed and primed. Hopefully this frame be done by next weekend. All that will be left is to make the doors. I will elaborate more on this in a couple of days and post pictures because there is very little info available on the internet about wooden bulkhead doors.
The second project involves pouring the concrete hearth for the fireplace in the main bathroom where the second wood pellet stove will be inserted. I removed the brick hearth and leveled the floor of the fireplace with the proposed floor of the poured hearth re-using the bricks on Saturday. I had to do this so the pellet stove sits properly in the fireplace and doesn't need to be raised in the front like the one on the first floor because the back of the fireplace was an inch higher than the hearth. I didn't realize it until I installed the pellet stove! I caulked in the framework for the hearth today and have to allow the caulk to dry before I add the concrete. I have put a curve in the front and will pour this one in place and polish in place just for the hell of it!
Thirdly, I installed another 8' of chimney liner to one of the two in the back of the house today as well and hauled 70 bricks and two 13"x13" tile liners up onto the roof. Maybe I can get a start on adding the six extra feet to that chimney in the next week also.

While all this is going on I am trying to get the residence house up to snuff because we are selling it using the "5-Day Sale method" on the 21st. We got an inspection report done last Monday and we are putting the advertisements together this week. Since it finally rained here I now have to go and weed the garden AGAIN!Once again, it isn't easy being me.

Getting Screwed Royally!

2008-09-04T00:45:00.002-04:00

AKA The Real Estate Tax Fiasco of 2008 (The Prologue)

Everybody in Montgomery County, Ohio listen up! I was just checking our real estate tax listing at www.mctreas.org and found that my 2008 evaluation on this place went up 96% while almost everything around us plummeted 10% to 60% in value! Out of 16 properties around us, twelve dropped in value while two commercial properties and two residential properties went up between 1.6% and 4.6% but nothing compared to our WHOPPING 96% which means our taxes will almost double. I'm going to fight this one. If they want to increase our property 4.6% when everything else is dropping I'll accept it but I can't sell this place for what they are evaluating it for. Right now I would be lucky to get $10,000 more than we paid for it because it is unfinished, has no garage, the back yard is a jungle and the front porch is falling off! I'll keep you posted. If I'm going to get phucked it would be nice if I got a kiss first ....

E.L.V.I.S. Has Left the Property!

2008-08-24T23:51:00.005-04:00

Remember ELVIS? Not only has ELVIS left the building. ELVIS has left the property. Since Friday evening, ELVIS has a new home a mile down the road in a communty arts garden where I am sure it will be put to good use. Maybe they can paint a picture of it on some black velvet ....

Today We Reached a New Milestone

2008-08-10T23:46:00.000-04:00

This increases the number of distractions that will affect my working on the house in any timely manner ....

One Mans Castle

2008-08-04T00:20:00.002-04:00

On Friday and Saturday I had the fun job of hauling 500 bricks from the brick yard to the "Crack House" and getting them into the dining room. On top of that, I have already hauled about 100 of them to the third floor. Since the demise of the old van, this took three trips in the Saturn, 175 or more bricks at a time, 11 trips with a wheelbarrow from the car to the back door and 80 trips from the back door to the dining room. Since nobody raised their hands to volunteer to help me, my newest best friend is a set of brick tongs! A pallet of bricks doesn't look too overwhelming until you haul them 7 at a time with some brick tongs and realize that in order to add 6 feet of height to a chimney, you have to make 54 trips up and again down three flights of stairs and then another 54 trips up a ladder to the roof. On Friday it was 80 degrees on the first floor and 90 something on the third floor. Fourteen trips up and down the stairs was enough for me. I must not complain though. My work on this place is petty when compared to what I saw today.

We took a road trip to Loveland, Ohio to visit "Castle Laroche" which is one of those urban legend things that read about once in a while. Deborah visited the place sometime in the late 1970s and met the man behind the legend. If you visit the web page you can read about this guy. Anyway, he started a project in 1929 that blossomed into this

It is made of 56,000 five-gallon buckets of river rock that he carried from the bank of the river below the property and thousands of concrete bricks that he made using cardboard quart milk cartons as molds. He really started to work on it full time in 1955, after he retired, and continued until his death by which time it was 98% complete. The whole thing cost him $12,000. What is so ironic is that he died in 1981 at the age of 91 from injuries related to a trash fire that he started.
So my 7 years working on the "Crack House" has nothing on this guy and unless I inherit a quarry or something similar I guess it never will!

Coming Out of the Closet!

2008-07-30T13:32:00.004-04:00

Not much to report on the house front. We got distracted twice this weekend with the Dayton Celtic Festival. Actually, we got distracted this weekend with one particular aspect of the Celtic Festival. You see folks, secretly Deborah is a "Gaelic Storm" groupie. Ever since she saw them play at the Dublin Irish Festival about 5 years ago she has to go see them every time they are in town and buy a CD so they can afford another pint of beer! Here is a picture from my position at the back of the crowd.

Elizabeth has been a fan for the same period of time and she is only five. They had her dancing on her seat.

This week, besides lots of garden work, I am working on continuing the vinyl tile from our bathroom into the closet where there is pre WWII tile over tar paper. So I have been on my knees, in and out of the closet for several days now as I level the floor with remnants of luan and backer board and tape the seams. Which leads me to a confession that I need to make after seeing a tee-shirt on an acquaintance that made me laugh.

"Mom, Dad, I'm Gaelic."

My Future is Already Planned.

2008-07-25T12:31:00.003-04:00

I already have my next major project lined up, whether it will happen we have to wait and see but it is already planned.

Deborah's mother is from Spain and her parents bought an apartment there back in 1971 which is why we were able to afford to go to Spain this year. Accommodations were covered. Her mother also inherited a 50% share in a plot of land at around the same time. The other 50% was inherited by 7 or so cousins. This land is inland but near Alicante and was a weekend retreat for Deborah's grandparents and great grandparents. It is basically an improved "cave" cut into the side of a shallow terrace where grapes, olives and almonds were grown. When I say "improved" I mean the dirt walls were plastered over and the floor is tiled. There is no running water, bathroom or electricity at the location. It is very "rustic" shall we say?

The place has been neglected for 30 years, the doors are knocked down, the windows missing and the walls are graffiti covered. Much like some of the housing stock in Dayton!
The property has never been divided because 8 owners could never agree how to divide the land. Everyone wanted the "cave" for one reason or another except Deborah's mother. She always wanted to sell the whole plot. This year all the owners are in agreement to sell the whole plot because they are all around 70 or 80 years old and failure to do so will cause more people to be listed as inheritors of the land which I understand is quite common in Spain. Derelict houses can have dozens of owners. The process has begun to survey the parcel and record the property properly because it appears there are a few recording discrepancies. The official record shows 105000 square meters and the deeds show less. This is good news for the property owners but will take time and red tape to correct. If the records are correct this equates to about 26 acres of land. If anyone is interested in buying land in Spain, let us know.

I took some pictures;

This is the general area. The "cave" is in the center of the photo but you won't find it easily. Here is a close up.

Then there is the inside. It looks just like the rooms in the "Old Crack House" when we bought it only better!

So we have decided that if the land hasn't been sold in 5 years time that we will take a year off and fix up the property to make it look more attractive to a potential buyer AND write a book about the whole story and those associated with the land. So in essence we plan to go fix up an old cave in Spain for the hell of it!

This is mostly stone and plaster work as well as tilling some land. We have to replace a few doors and windows and fix a fireplace. All within the realm of my ability. The stone is already right on the property! There is a method to our madness though. By improving the appearance of the property it should sell for more money. This is in our best interests because ultimately Deborah and then Elizabeth become the benefactors of 50% of the site. If we write a book, the trip becomes a business trip regardless of how well or badly it does and if it does OK we may make enough money to buy the other 50% from the relatives which permits Elizabeth to inherit land owned by her great great grandfather and to make some choices when she grows up. If we don't and the land sells, Elizabeth can at least say she spent a year growing up on her ancestors land and have the memories her entire life.

So this means that I have 5 years to learn to speak Spanish. This is good thing because when I go shopping it looks like it may be mandatory in the U.S. very soon!

Been Laying Luan on the Bedroom Floor All Day!

2008-07-20T22:58:00.001-04:00

That's right folks and the wife has been checking in periodically! The bedroom floor at the residence house has looked awful for years since wifey decided to pull up all the carpet. We have had to deal with grey 1940s roll linoleum over tarpaper for years. In several spots she even tore up the linoleum so it looked pretty bad. Since we plan to sell our residence house in September using the 5-day method we decided to make the floor look presentable. Rather than put in carpet that a new owner may hate, we decided to cover the floor with a suitable material that would accept carpet or vinyl tile. So I have been installing 1/4 inch Luan board on the floor and in the closet. The new owner can put in what they want and bid on our house accordingly. I spent yesterday on the roof applying roofing cement to all the seams on the porch roofs and at the edges of the dormers. It was hot up there and my bottom is sunburned from sitting on the roof! I also installed the last of the GFCI circuits in the basement and we also have a working doorbell! It's amazing, we have all these things at the "Old Crack House" but not where we live. Fancy that .....

It's Competition Time!

2008-07-19T10:20:00.005-04:00

There is another competition going on at Houseblogs.net and the prizes are awarded as a drawing instead of a judged entry. This means I have a chance to actually win something, right? I am generally unable to enter home improvement competitions because nothing here is really finished completely and the judges want to see furnishings, carpet, appliances in place and all that fine stuff. Well, we do have one room that is almost finished and it is a vast improvement over what it looked like before and in between. The kitchen. It has been featured on this blog before because it was the first time I had made a concrete counter top and it sucked up so much of my time in the early years. I won't describe what was done because, quite honestly, we did EVERYTHING and no contractor was used! Sure I made a few mistakes. Sure I had to correct them, but it is better to fix your own mistakes than those of someone you paid to make them! I'll let the pictures show you the stages so you can see the scale of the project. In case you are trying to figure out the dimensions, this room is 26 feet long by 8 1/2 feet wide. Now multiply what you see by 13 (the number of rooms) and you will realize the enormity of the task we undertook when we bought this place. You can see some pictures of some of the other rooms at this site. It was and still is an ambitious first project. The only other rooms that are this close to being done are a few closets and the "Steampunk powder room". So, I present to you our kitchen in pictures but before I do that I have to give you the sales pitch that makes this entry qualify as a contestant.

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value.

Tile, Tile Everywhere!

2008-07-17T12:52:00.004-04:00

In Spain, ceramic tile is the medium of choice when it comes to flooring and even walls. I don't have to explain why tile is so desirable because if you ever lived in a hot arid, sandy region you would certainly understand. If you haven't well, maybe you should visit one or stomp around the neighbors sandbox and then walk across your nice wall to wall carpet. If things aren't stucco-ed here, then they are tiled. The sidewalks are tiled

The houses are tiled

And the mother of all tile jobs was this. The esplanade in Alicante that extends for several blocks.

Then of course there is the stone carving.

Even this is too grand for "The Old Crack House".
And let's not forget "Betty"! She would look so "kewl" next to Elizabeth's red pig!

I have a question for all you folks who really know Spanish. I wanted to learn to speak Spanish really badly. So, I searched the web and from it I learned to speak Spanish really badly! I tried three different translation web sites and got three different answers for the phrase "This Old Crack House."

Here is what I got;

esta antigua casa de crack
Esta casa vieja de la grieta
Esta Vieja Casa de Primera
I suspect it is Este casa vieja de cocaina or something similar. Sombody please enlighten me!

Shoebox Living

2008-07-15T09:50:00.005-04:00

I spent two weeks on the Costa Blanca in Spain, along the Mediterranean coast. Also known for many years as the Costa BloodyFortune! Almost everything is "New" there. Most of the buildings are less than 40 years old. The oldest buildings stand out from all the rest because they are only one storey high. These buildings could be a couple of hundred years old but it is often hard to know the age of a villa because they tend to be covered in stucco and the style is all the same! I did notice that the oldest buildings are made of natural stone. Early 20th century buildings are concrete block. There are many buildings that are both stone and block. Stone makes up the ground floor and block makes up the second and third floors. However, post WWII construction uses ceramic blocks. Here is what they do

They knock down an old structure which is generally located between other structures and rebuild using newer materials. You won't find any wooden structures around here. Everything is iron, concrete and ceramic. The apartments get taller. You will often see these ceramic blocks being used to add a fourth or fifth storey to an existing, older building. These apartments average around 700 sq. ft. in area and are expensive. In the area we were staying they range between 170,000 Euros and 225,000 Euros depending on size. Which translates at the current rate of exchange to be around $272,000 to $360,000 for a shoebox! Anyway, here are some more scenes from the streets of Spain for your viewing pleasure.

Since stairs are an integral part of daily life here and many people live on the slopes of mountains the one thing that you will notice above all is that most people are slender and fit. I do believe that this will change soon .....

Where Did he Go?

2008-07-11T10:24:00.002-04:00

I know the long silence and suspense is just killing you. You have many questions - like;

What happened to Gary?
Where did he go?
Why isn't he posting anything?
What the phuck is HIS problem?

Well you need not worry any longer. I am back from two weeks in Spain with some pictures and at least two ideas for blog posts. You will have to be patient though because I just got back at 3 AM yesterday morning and I have already cut the grass at both houses and chaired a public meeting last night. Jet lag is catching up with me today but there is beer in the fridge to help with that problem!

Huh?

2008-06-23T17:57:00.000-04:00

This really takes the biscuit when it comes to absurd Google searches that make people find your blog. Today someone in a New England State clicked through for a full nine seconds after Googling;

"Perfect Asshole measurement and pictures."

I hope they found what they were looking for and in case you come back for a second peek, I'm 5'8" tall and my picture is in the upper right side of this blog page!

Finally I've become perfect at something ....

I think this out does "Amish Sex Toy" any day!

Up on the Roof!

2008-06-22T00:22:00.009-04:00

The weather has been nice lately and I haven't done a whole lot of work on this place. I took the camera with me to the roof and took these pictures.

Then there is the picture of my roof complete with ribbon banding. I was feeling artistic when I did this. You can't see it from the street though.

Then there is the chimney that I still have to re-build and finish lining.

The pile of bricks from the aforementioned chimney. These have been here for several years!

Finally, the way back into the house. It's a good job I'm a skinny guy!