Well the new house project is under way and much like a Bronco project it has snowballed....big time! We were planning to do a little work and move in but the plan has creeped to a full remodel. Unlike a Bronco project, the clock is ticking on this one. I have the good fortune of having a cousin who is an architect and his wife is as well. They have given me the family discount on their services and we are in the process of changing most everything. The big issue is that I currently am renting so I have to get this place torn apart and reassembled pretty fast. As a result the house project has now been broken into three phases that continue to evolve. In the interest of not living out of the 5th wheel, we are trying to get framing, drywall/texture, plumbing and electrical all done in phase one along with all finish work in 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms. Kitchen renovaton and finishing the other rooms is phase two ( After we move in ) and project nice big garage is phase three. I may need to swap phases two and three to maintain my sanity but for now the goal is to have it livable in 8-9 weeks while still going to work everyday. Seems impossible but I have lots of free to semi free help. My uncle is my volunteer GC and has lots of experience in that area. He's also an engineer so that helps. I have additional help from the family to guide us down the path on the electrical and a family friend who will help us frame it all. Basically , we will only be hiring out the drywall work, hardwood floor refinishing and some of the trim work.

Oh yea, the new Casadejohnson project needs an official name.

My Working title is:

The Henry Ford Memorial Equine Research Facility

It nice but seems a little clunky so we are open to suggestions.

Maybe FoMoCo would be willing to give me a grant for the project.....More likely, they would probably sue me for the use of the name.

Good luck! I'm just recovering from 2+ months of working on my house every weekend and evening. Still feeling brain dead, and unmotivated, even though I haven't done anything but recover on the couch for about 1 week (and go to work, obviously).

Seems like a good plan, to get the dirty jobs done & the house looking "finished" before moving in. I managed to live among open framing, wiring & plumbing, for far too long. But that was by myself (the dogs never seemed to mind). Kids & a wife would change all that. I'm glad my house is mostly finished, now that a girl friend is around, I'm not sure she would have endured all this.

Our progress has been huge but project creep is in full effect. We have pretty much gutted the house and only a kept load bearing walls. Even those were molested so that we could open things up. My learning curve has been hard and fast. Until we got into this I was not familiar with "Ballon framing" AKA Chicago Framing . Basically, I have 2x4's that run all the way from the basement to the attic in the load bearing walls. Its pretty impressive actually. Roll into home depot today and ask them for a 30 foot 2x4 and see what they have to offer! I actually love doing the work but there just are not enough hours in the day. I go to work for about 10 hours every day then grab a quick bite to eat and put in another 5 at the house. I am fortunate that I have my uncle working pretty much full time on it. So far we have about 95% of the demolition done and 90% of the new framing done. The previous owner did a god awful job with the plumbing so we scrapped almost all of it. Plumbing sucks by the way. Running the drains and vents properly has taken twice as long as expected. We have that mostly completed and have started running the new water lines in Pex Tubing. I have removed literally thousands of dollars in copper pipe Even the drain and vents were copper. What do you think a stick of 3" copper pipe would cost now? Electrical is next and with a little luck drywall will start in a couple weeks.

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Above , you can see the Demolition and new construction drawings. It won't all be complete when we move in but about 80 will be done including everything upstairs. The boys will have to bunk together for a little while until we finish the downstairs bedroom and bath. Also the moving of the rear door won't happen until we have some consistent warm weather. Once we are in. I will be starting the garage / shop project.

I'm either having sympathy pains or a horrible flashback.

Keep up the work, it'll look great!

At least the copper will allow you to recoup some of the costs!! When my FIL fell off a roof and shattered both his heels, we stripped what seemed like a mile of big wire to pay for some medical expenses.

It's been a while since I have updated and even longer since I have done anything with the Broncos. Since the last update, electrical and plumbing have been completed. Drywall and texture as well as paint are all done. Currently, trim work and tile are what we are concentrating on. A few more weeks and we will be moving in!


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You are making great progress and it looks really nice! Maybe you and your crew should think about house flipping!

Looks great!

Nice! I like the french doors and herringbone wood floor.

I'm not sure what's harder double payments or living in the chaos.


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One thing about living in it; you have plenty of motivation to finish it.

well, Im almost ready to make the move over to the new casadejohnson. While I'm out delivering packages in the rain Friday, some nice carpet installers will be doing there thing at the house. That's the good part. The bad part is the guys that were doing my hardwood floors turned out to suck at what they do. As a result, the hardwood that should have been finished by now, will be getting sanded down again and we will try again with a different hardwood guy. If I don't find an acceptable new hardwood guy that can fit this in fast, I might be doing it on my own like everything else. I have to be out of my current homestead at the end of the month so my motivation to get it done is officially at Def Con 1. I can't wait to get back to the Broncos and the F350. I miss Metal.

I spy with my little eye, A big pile of Bronco parts going for a ride.


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You know how on hoarders its revealed that the hoarder has multiple storage units and garages to keep all of their stuff...