New House!!?

[JR 137]

Congratulations. Do you have the bag spot all picked out and roped off yet?

[singularity6]

Congratulations. Do you have the bag spot all picked out and roped off yet?

For the most part! Money's tight for now... so the bag will come later.

[MatsuShinshii]

You could always take the scrap 2x4's left from the build and use it for a Makiwara.

[singularity6]

You could always take the scrap 2x4's left from the build and use it for a Makiwara.

I might be able to nab some from some friends. The house is 80 years old, and aside from plumbing and ungrounded outlets, not much needs to be done. It's actually in great shape! Brick, hardwood floors, plaster walls, partially finished basement, all with lots of attention to detail.

[singularity6]

The basement ceiling is about 6.5' high. While I have enough floor space to do my forms, the ceiling height poses a bit of a problem with the way we execute some of our blocks during forms. Double knife-hand blocks during Sa Jang and our scissor block in Oh Jang come from a standing position, and require our hands to go pretty high over our heads (our knife-hand blocks admittedly look strange when compared to most other TKD and karate schools.)

I was able to fix this a little by getting rid of the huge florescent light boxes and installing some flush-mount LED lights. This was harder than it should be, however. The person who did the previous work didn't use junction boxes. They probably avoided it because of the way the ceiling was installed in the finished side of the basement: Drywall over lath and plaster... Yeah, you have to go through about 2 inches total to get to the floor joists. The best part: Nothing was installed parallel to the floor joists!

[MatsuShinshii]

You could always take the scrap 2x4's left from the build and use it for a Makiwara.

I might be able to nab some from some friends. The house is 80 years old, and aside from plumbing and ungrounded outlets, not much needs to be done. It's actually in great shape! Brick, hardwood floors, plaster walls, partially finished basement, all with lots of attention to detail.

If you have un-grounded receptacles that means you probably have either the old cloth type wiring or knob and tube. Both are a pain. Good luck.

[singularity6]

We have tar-impregnated cloth wires. The ceilings and the walls are all lath and plaster; floor joists on the first floor go in a different direction than they second; the architecture of the house has a lot of character, which kind of makes it difficult to run wire.

The plumbing was also an issue - copper in the basement, galvanized through the house (no proper connectors, either!) That was $2700 to fix...

[MatsuShinshii]

We have tar-impregnated cloth wires. The ceilings and the walls are all lath and plaster; floor joists on the first floor go in a different direction than they second; the architecture of the house has a lot of character, which kind of makes it difficult to run wire.

The plumbing was also an issue - copper in the basement, galvanized through the house (no proper connectors, either!) That was $2700 to fix...

I hear you. I live in a house that was built in the early 1800's. Ton of character and a ton of head aches fixing all of the issues. However I do appreciate the architecture throughout. We have actual tree's that were hand hewned. The three main beams are joined with actual wooden pegs. Pretty cool but the old style lead pipes and cloth wiring were a real bite to replace.

I feel your pain but the thing to remember is after the head aches are over and the jobs are done the wife will find more to occupy your time with.

I don't think I've had a moments rest in 30 years.

[Patrick]

Congrats singularity6! Enjoy the move.

Patrick

[singularity6]

So, the house we bought was essentially "move-in-ready" in the sense that we liked everything about it, cosmetically. We did know that the plumbing (galvanized) and electrical (most of it is original at 80 years old) needed some work.

Well, $2100 got all the plumbing in the basement and kitchen replaced. Redoing the bathrooms pose more of a challenge, as that would involve getting through walls without damage... that'll be another $1k when we can afford it.

The electrical is getting done now - a friend and I are doing it ourselves. He's really handy with a drill, and so far, we're not having to do anything to any of the plaster walls or hardwood floors! The major drawback there is that we've spent about 20 hours so far, and have only grounded 3.5 outlets, installed 2 light fixtures and an additional outlet. During this process, we found out that my refrigerator is on the same circuit as the garage, and parts of several rooms... Ugh. We'll be running at least 3 new 20 amp circuits (bathroom, fridge, garage) as well as updating outlets as we go.