6ixString's Home Improvement and Mindless Ramblings Thread....
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Monday, May 9, 2016 00:48
VIEWED: 54567
PAGE 11 of 21
I got about 7/8ths of the dirt area where bushes belong on the left side of the front door done today. Shop vacced the helicopters, pulled the weeds and tilled it even. I've got just about as much work to do tomorrow before I can start planting the Hostas tomorrow evening (HOPEFULLY!!!!). Like everything else, this is taking MUCH longer than I thought it would.
I can't believe how many neighbors you meet when you're living in a friendly neighborhood and you spend all day outside working.
One of my neighbors is moving and she's taking a lot of her shrubery before she leaves. I guess her own Hosta situation has gotten out of control as they're just taking over her back yard where she planted them. Just today, she brought over a small green and white one like I got from Grams yesterday, but she asked me if I wanted to come over and see the first of six large plain green ones she dug up. It was HUGE!!!! I could split that thing up 15 times. That one plant alone is 5 times as much as I got yesterday and there are 5 more of them. She also has quite a few other varieties of plants she is willing to part with (one of them smells like Fruity Pebbles), so between all of that, I think I can easily transform the look of the front of my house absolutely free and with only 2 or 3 days worth of work!
She says I can also take three small trees that bloom purple flowers that would go well in my back yard along the fence.
I told her that I'd happily take anything she's getting rid of. 
Too bad she's taking off. Neighbors like that are keepers. I'll have to get her a gift card somewhere. I'll see if there is a nursery around where she's moving to since she's got such a green thumb.
Looking forward to showing pics of this unexpected development very soon!
Oh yeah... and for the first time since I planted the grass seed, I finally see grass popping up in the pool! The shoots I saw before were definately weeds though (likely crabgrass). The grass that just started coming up this afternoon grows in small patches and is only about 1/4" long. Yay! I didn't kill the baby grass!
I never thought yard work was fun before, and really, DOING the work still isn't, but since I'm on the verge of such amazing changes happening within the next week or so, it's really exciting.
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Don't mind the guy posting to himself
Got the entire front area cleared of weeds and helicopters and planted one single giant green Hosta plant yesterday. It looks a little abused after the move. I'm hoping that it gets healthier looking after the roots take hold and a little sunlight and water, but if it doesn't this year, it should look great next year when it comes back up. These tough SOBs don't die. If they didn't look so pretty, we'd call them weeds.
I saw my neighbor across the street yesterday for the first time since snow was falling too. I had to thank her for saying how nice it is to see somebody finally taking care of that house since the long time owners split about 6 years ago. I told her about all the work I'd done over the winter inside and that I can't wait until I get more of the inside presentable and she can come and see how different it looks. She says she knows a lot of people, particularly "little old ladies" that would love to have somebody they could call do to all sorts of small stuff for them. She said that most times they never get any call backs because the jobs are too small and contractors today are mostly looking for large jobs. I told her that when I get the bulk of my lawn stuff out of the way and I finish an outdoor painting project for somebody else that I'll make some business cards and they can call me for any work I'm capable of doing from gardening and mowing the lawn to refinishing floors and fixing and painting walls.
Maybe there really is a market for that sort of thing. I was thinking maybe I'd call myself "No Job2Small" or "Affordable Jack" (as in Jack of all trades, not the 6string variety).
I figure I can charge a whole lot less than most people could because I have a ton of tools already, I'd have basically ZERO overhead costs and since I don't have rent or a mortgage, I don't have basic needs to cover that many other folk do. At least until I build up my name, I'm confident I can underbid anybody else in the area for non-permit-requiring jobs within my ability. (I'd be worried that kids could underbid me on lawn mowing, gardening and snow shoveling services, but let's be honest, most suburbanite kids today are 10 times as lazy as I was back in the early 90s)
Nearly done with the Crabbage Patch too. Just a little over 1/8th left to go. It's hard to tell yet if I'll need to buy extra dirt, but here's hoping that I don't have to. I've removed at least 1 ton of rocks from the area so far, but there were definatiely some high spots that kept water pooling between my garage and my neighbors yard before (which is why there were mushrooms growing there too). It should all look pretty even when I'm done. Too bad I have to go back and remove about a billion hellicopters by hand over the tilled dirt before planting grass seed!!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
And BOY, when that baby grass starts coming up, it really starts making progress fast. After 10-12 days of no action, the first tiny patches started making headway 2 days ago. Now I have little patches like that in about 10 times the sq footage. If this keeps up, I should have little baby grass growing in every inch of that 29 foot radius crop circle within a week!
Pulling weeds, especially to this degree is not fun.... especially when my self diagnosed early onset arthritis is in overdrive. When I see the first of many future plants in the front of the house though, and grass that I grew from scratch coming up in what was a 6 inch deep crater in my backyard that required 15 tons of dirt to fill, it really starts to feel like it was all worth it.
I can't wait until my only lawn duties are mowing, fertilizing, grub-killing and raking leaves and hellicopters.
Feel free to share your own lawn and gardening stories or tips. I'm a flat out novice at this stuff, but if you put in the hours and the effort yourself, you really can make a huge improv
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Good luck with your side enterprizes of people's yard and repair work.
I had this hip pain issue for about 8 months, it would come and go and I could barely walk when it was really bad, it was really scary and I thought I might have some sort of early onset arthritis. I wasn't willing to admit how scary this whole thing was, but in eight months I had gone from normal to barely able to move. Believe it or not physical therapy has basically fixed me, even though the whole thing wasn't caused by an accident or anything, it happened by nature, but doing those excercises each day really helped once we found the right ones for me. Now I'm basically cured as long as I do them once or twice a week, I think pretty soon I won't even have to do them that often. Its bizarre. It still pisses me off that no one could tell me what exactly was the problem, I like it when things have names, so I still don't know why this happened and hope to goodness it won't happen again.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
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Hey Riona,
Funny you mentioned physical therapy. I was talking to my friend tonight about how my grandpa had several surgeries on his hands to keep them from balling up over the years and he could barely move his fingers before he died. I said that surgery has come a million miles since then and he said that more importantly the physical therapy aspect has evolved.
I'm too young to have pain like this, and you're definitely too young for it. I'm glad to hear that the exercises worked. I'll have to look into what I should do to fix this without taking pills for it.
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11 yirz ago wen I wuz creating the Nooalf Talking Picturez CD and the website, I'd be in my office chair 14 owrz a day almost nonstop. I started getting back pain, felt like my hip joints were grinding, neez, anklz and neck often hurt.
I got up to get a drink wun day thinking 'No suprize. I'm 41 now. This iz just wut getting old iz.'
I wuz thinking like that for a week or so.
Then I thout 'waitaminit! I felt fine before I started this project!!!'
I immediately dropped and did 40 pushups, 50 situps, 20 squats. Pretty much immediately, the old geezer wuz gon!
I developed a habit uv doing a quick round uv calisthenics wenever i get up since then.
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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Hey JO,
Yeah... I need to start doing.... something. I'm sure that's all there is too it.
I guess I just finally reached that age where I NEED to excercise regularly to keep from having those dull aches all day long. It's just weird for me because I've never had to do that before. The only reason I ever worked out before was to put on muscle mass.
I've lost nearly 50lbs since 1 1/2 years ago doing nothing but home improvement stuff on my own house and my Mom's before I moved here, but without regular cardo I don't think I'm ever going to lose the last 10-15lbs I need to lose to have my six pack back without flexing it and sucking in the gut. (It was nice to see that it was still there waiting for me to shed all that beer fat though )
I'm as strong as an Ox still, but if I get into a fight I better win in about 2 minutes or I'm going to suffer a heart attack while I get pummeled....
I've only got 1/8th of the crabbage patch left to do. I'm hoping that on Sunday I can get all the plants from my neighbor and plant them as well. It's going to be raining tomorrow, so maybe I'll finally get to changing the oil on my car and doing some minor paint touchups where the edge sander scuffed the walls finally. Hopefully by late next week I'll have all the grass seed planted where the crabbage patch used to be and I can finally take it easy and just mow the lawn when it needs it and water my new grass seed 3 times a day.
Then I can FINALLY focus exclusively on trying to get a better job than that hospital security gig coming up in June!
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HAS ANYBODY HERE HAD ANY EXPERIENCE WITH PROPERTY TAX EVALUATIONS!!!!!!!
(Ahem!... Sorry for yelling )
I have done some research and I've found out that I can request a copy of my Property Tax Card, and I have a right to dispute it if there are things included that are not there, or if things are claimed that just aren't true. (Unfortunately, if I pursue this course of action down the road, the assessor will be noting all of the improvements I've made, and will also likely make note of the fact that I will be rehabbing the basement in the future and will want to do another walk through down the road.... not good if they have the upstairs marked as "carpeted" with the refinished hardwood floors, and especially not good to let them see how illegal the previous owners wired up the outlets in the basement)
My BIGGEST question is, how would one determine what constitutes taxable "living space"? My house (for both tax and insurance purposes) is listed as 2,090 sq. ft. This is OUTRAGEOUSLY wrong. The only way I can figure such a large living space is that they include every square inch of the finished attic (even though unless a short guy like me at 5'7" is standing right in the middle of it, I have to "duck" to not hit my head), and they include the 3-season room as taxable living space. I was under the impression, from other towns that I'd done research on homes in, that you could not include a room as a bedroom when you're selling the house, nor could you rent it out as a bedroom unless it a) had at least 7' clearance in ALL dimensions, and B) it had a closet. As a side note, this house WAS listed as a 4 bedroom house. The only way I can figure that is that they included the 2 legitimate bedrooms on the 2nd floor, and the two 5'x 4' rooms in the finished crawl, and didn't include the bedroom in the basement since it had been half gutted from the floods.
Not being able to call the tiny rooms in the finished attic bedrooms is a bummer if you're looking to make your house look better on paper and is even worse if you're legally unable to rent your house out to 3 people to help pay the bills, but at the same time, rooms under 7' in diameter (except for bathrooms) are not taxed as livable space.
I know that these requirements and codes change everywhere from place to place, but I really think my township is burning my candle at both ends. I know my land is the size of both of my neighbors' properties across the street, but my neighbor who has a true 2-story BRICK house pays $400 bucks less a year than I do and I have a tri-level house with 1/3rd of it in the basement and it's got abused vinyl siding.
I really think that if I were to let the assessor into my house today without having done any more improvements I could seriously reduce my tax bill, but only if I know what I'm doing going into the fight.
Any information that anybody could give me based off of their previous fights on property tax insurance would be a BIG help. I just don't know where to look.
Thanks,
~6
To keep it not so serious.....
It's no secret I've always loved Simon and Garfunkle...
But seriously, in this economy....
Isn't this an awesome song......??????
v
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Yay, the site is back up!
The good news is, I can actually get money back for up to 3 years if my property was over-assessed in my county. (Unheard of, in Crook County, IL). I know for a fact from a conversation I had months ago with somebody from my township that they still had 2 A/C units listed that they're currently taxing me for those, although they're no longer taxing me for the pool that doesn't exist. I'm going to get my tax card sometime next week and try to figure where they're coming from. If all it takes to remove the sq footage of the attic is to remove the carpeting, I'll gladly do it just to reduce the taxes. It's only a glorified storage area and my smoking room. I'll put down a 20 dollar rug from Aldi in the smoking area if it means I could potentially save hundereds per year with a smaller living space.
I got all the weeds out of the crabbage patch today!!!!!! I measured it, and it's 910 sq feet. Much less than I thought, but it still took me 9 days of work to remove it! (At least I only have to buy one more bag of grass seed since it covers 1,000 sq feet) If all goes well tomorrow, I'm going to remove all the helicopters, rocks and stray weeds that have popped up and get my seeds planted there by tomorrow night. After 2 or so weeks, the grass is really starting to sprout up in the pool. Maybe by the weekend I can have all of the plants and shrubs planted in the front area as well, and I'll only be on the hook for mowing the lawn and watering the new lawn and I can focus on employment oppurtunites then.
I think it's high time I had a party here too. No stink in the basement anymore, a lawn well on its way to being better homes and garden worthy and a nearly finished 2nd floor. Not bad for 8 months of work from one guy when the house was in the piss poor shape it was in when I bought it. 
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I can't resist...
(Cue: hammy-smarmy announcer voice)
NEXT UP, On lifestyles of the poor and shameless, how to disqualify rooms as living space!
hehehehehe.
Still, amazingly satisfying to reclaim something, be it a forlorn house, car, even a dollhouse, innit ?
-Frem
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Hehe Frem...
They got no business calling this livable space anyways. There were kids using these rooms as bedrooms in the past, I've heard from neighbors, but if there were ever a fire in the house they'd burn alive since there is no windows up here.
It really is cool reclaiming this place and making it my own. It's really nice being able to make such huge changes with the outdoor work with very little cost except for the ridiculous amount of time it takes to get 'er done.
That being said..... PICS!!!!
That's what the pool looked like last year before any dirt was put in (It's a REAL shame I didn't take pictures of it before I removed a lot of stones and about 300lbs of weeds!!!). in the back, you can see the neatly trimmed crabbage patch next to the crappy privacy fence my neighbor has.
Here's what it looks like after about 20 days of watering after the seeds were put down!
Yeah... I got some damn weeds in there, but I'm not going to deal with them until the grass is mature. I don't want to go pulling weeds and ruining baby grass, and I can't put down fertilizer for at least a few months or I could kill the grass off with it too......
As for the crabbage patch.....?
Here was the before pic I posted in mid-april....
And here's a few pics of what it looks like today, after I seeded and tilled it!
I talked with my neighbor for a few minutes today. He said he noticed the grass coming up in the pool and says it will look awesome if it all takes soon. He can't believe how I can plug away at this crap day in and day out either. I said it's easy when you're not working a paying gig. I need to get as much done as possible until I'm working a real job. I'm sure I won't be so enthusiastic about the work when I'm putting in 40 a week for somebody else.
I hope to hear from Wish now that I've finally got some more pics up. I miss having her around here :(
I hope to have pics of the front of the house and the new shrubbery planted there by the end of the weekend!
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