So what was supposed to be a simple task has turned into a remodlers nightmare.
Over this past winter our 4 season porch had a little damage from the ice storms and 10 feet of snow that built up all around this porch, we did all we could do to keep the roof cleared off after having another part of the house collaps and crush my first layout, so during the last half of the winter I rebuilt a new layout in the guest room with plans to move it onto the porch when the paneling was replaced and the two 6’ bay windows replaced.
Well when my brother inlaw came up for the week to help me and we removed the paneling we found so much hidden water damage to the window frames, window header, masonary block wall on the bottom of building , the ceiling and so on, to the tune of $5,000.00 worth of damages.
Now of course I have to rebuild the interior, exterior walls and replace the bay windows as well as some of the roof and ceiling and to think that I’ll be moving my layout in its new home in a week is just kidding myself.
I can not believe what a horror show this has turned out to be and if my wife didn’t want the guest room back for our occasional guest I’d leave the darn layout right where it is, but thats not an option so I’ll be putting in 18 hour days on all my days off until this is done.
The up side is that I can get to the root of the water problem and fix it so that it will not continue to degrade my walls and the mold we found growing inside the walls has to be handled very carefully using masks, gloves and the whole bit.
I know when it is done it will be nice because now that all the walls and ceilings have been opened I’ll be doing some extra wiering for my trains power needs , better lighting for the layout and an extra window for natural light on my layout, I have 14’X11’ of space to put in a 5’X8’ layout so this gives me some extra room for rolling stock shelves and some nice under the layout shelving and draws.
Ugh, what a headache. I work on vehciles for a living, mostly custom work on off road vehicles. While I havent had much expeirence of home preojects (one joy of renting) I do know the feeling of thinking you got a grip on a project, only to haveit go backwards in a hurry with finding of rust or cracks, etc.
Look at this way, you will be MUCH happier when it is all over. I have a good sized garage layout in the home we are renting, meaning, i cant really do much in the way of upgrades or improvements. While it was a instant 20x20 room, all to myself, heat and dust are biggest enemys. Always fighting for clean track and clean looking layout. Otherwsie, the dust can do more “natral weathering” than I care for.
Best of luck with the project and bonus points for the Cafe’ your building. Should keep her happy!
I don’t envy your line of work, I worked for an auto body man summers when I was a teen and what would start off as a simple little rust spot would some how grow after the top color was sanded off, as a rule of thumb what we could see for rust was usually only 1/3 of the actual damages, I learned enough over those summer jobs to know that I didn’t want to be a body and paint man for a living.
Your right about having the advantage of renting when it comes to home repair projects but that dust problem you have to deal with makes me happy that I bought this time.
There is not alot you can do in some one elses property when it comes too putting in permanent dust barriers, have you tried one of those ion dust collecting gagets, they don’t even need electricity to operate, the panels in them are positively charged and the dust sticks to them like a magnent, my Mother in law had a few because she was a doll coloector and they worked great, just have to clean the rods now and then.
What is all that dust doing to your locomotives???
Well, I’m comming to the end of a 24 hr shift and must go home to see what my brother in law has managed to get done while I was away?
Well, you’re doing the right thing, by attacking the problem head on, and just “gittin’ 'er done.” Upgrading the electrical work in the wall will pay off in the long run, too. All of this will make the final reward of a bigger, better layout room all that much better.
I am not sure what to do but its a catch 22. I could button the garage up but the heat is wicked. I have a brick wall house and the door has been insulated. he trick, I have a fan in the attic door that comes on with a timer. I adjust ti accordingly so that comes in during the cool hours of the night. It works great becuase it will suck in cooler air, cooling down the garage everynight. All in all, it keeps the temps down my as much 10-15 degress on average. Only problem? Sucking in outside unfiltered air. I
have some small vent holes that are cut into the brick andI have instaled air filter materail over them, that did help a little, but the rest of the air comes in around the seal of the garage door. One hand, I could seal the door, but then I would elminate the source of freshair. Its an evil game. I really want to figure out way to seal it and keep it cool so I am to really rack my brain. I have looked at the small portabel AC units but I just cant afford to spend the money on something like that. All though the window ac units are much more economical, I have to figure out where it would as it needs to be vented etc…
Ah, if this was easy Red, everybody would be doing it.
Having encountered my own share of home remodeling nightmares, I feel for you! I learned getting in the right mind set to do the work is half the battle. Just realize your life’s gonna suck till it’s done and it seems to go quicker.[swg]
What happened to getting rid of the biker club house and moving out West?
JESS: Sorry to hear of your plight,and I certainly know what you are talking about with all that snow this past Winter. We go up to Attitash in Bartlett every February, and we usually come in from I-93 onto route 25 to West Ossipee and then north onto rt 16. I have been through your town however when we went to Wolfeboro to the MRR shop. I have never seen so much snow in northern NH as I did this past year and we have been going up there for 25 years. I hope you use 2x6’s for your walls, that will give you more space for insulation, and, a stronger wall to hold the heavy snow loads. All new home construction is now 2x6 for exterior walls instead of 2x4’s.
I noticed that you are from the Blackfeet nation, they are not native to New England, so welcome to New England!!
I hope you are running trains soon. BTW, it only took me 5 years for my wife to allow me to use the spare guest room in the lower level of the split entry ranch.
Use the spare time you have to fine-tune and get everything ready for when you can move back out and set the layout back up, my MR friend.
Certainly not as complex as your problem, but last Fall I decided to re-roof the garage over the Yuba River Sub. The people came out, I had the layout all protected under drop-cloths, went to school, spent the day teaching, came back and the Yuba River Sub looked as if a tornado had hit it. I just blinked, the foreman grinned at me and said, "Well, we decided to take your drop-cloth and hang it from the rafters so that it would catch more debris. It did. Unfortunately, they didn’t hang it correctly, so drop-cloth, debris and all came crashing down on the layout from the roof-top. Luckily, I’d moved all of the buildings, but I am STILL finding debris in the ‘forest’, LOL. One upside–some of the ‘debris’ actually looked like slash-pile from logging one one mountainside, so I left it where it was. I couldn’t have done that kind of detail if I’d TRIED, LOL!
So, while I was resuscitating the MR, I moved onto the kitchen table and started fine-tuning some locos and detailing some cars–the stuff you do to keep yourself both occupied and CONNECTED to the hobby. When the MR was cleaned off, I found that I had some locos that I’d ‘let go’ over several years were working better than they EVER had.
Sometimes God slams a door shut only to open a window. It’s all good. When you get the building problems taken care of and rebuild that layout, it’ll have been done for a PURPOSE. And it’ll be even better than you thought it would.