Hello everyone!

[RedCowboy]

cowboy, I have a similar setup lol

That's the great thing about living in a free country, we can follow our own path, we don't all have to fit the same cookie cutter standard.

Now I have worked in some million dollar homes in golf communities and those people have cleaning services come in and clean everything.

They have to go out and buy artsy crap to put on a shelf just to have something to look at, and everyone is expected to live a certain way.

Every living room has a piano, every foyer a chandelier, every backyard a swimming pool...it's looks like a bunch of show houses, people living for what others will see and think. It seems so .....sterile. They have to call someone to fix anything.

But hey, if that's what you like, go for it, keep up with the joneses and fit in.

I'm ready to move out onto as many acres as I can get, I don't want to see any neighbors from my front door, hear their music or smell their food.

I never felt that way when I was younger, I suppose I was just horny and wanted to be around lots of people and girls.

Now I just want to be free and left the hell alone to do as I please.
But until then my junk pile is my junk pile and I'm happy in it, I live for me.
What if I get married again you may ask? That's why every old man who's been married 50 years has a workshop out back, a place away from the dressed up house to beat stuff with a hammer if he's in the mood.

 

[Ricker]

That's the great thing about living in a free country, we can follow our own path, we don't all have to fit the same cookie cutter standard.

Now I have worked in some million dollar homes in golf communities and those people have cleaning services come in and clean everything.

They have to go out and buy artsy crap to put on a shelf just to have something to look at, and everyone is expected to live a certain way.

Every living room has a piano, every foyer a chandelier, every backyard a swimming pool...it's looks like a bunch of show houses, people living for what others will see and think. It seems so .....sterile. They have to call someone to fix anything.

But hey, if that's what you like, go for it, keep up with the joneses and fit in.

I'm ready to move out onto as many acres as I can get, I don't want to see any neighbors from my front door, hear their music or smell their food.

I never felt that way when I was younger, I suppose I was just horny and wanted to be around lots of people and girls.

Now I just want to be free and left the hell alone to do as I please.
But until then my junk pile is my junk pile and I'm happy in it, I live for me.
What if I get married again you may ask? That's why every old man who's been married 50 years has a workshop out back, a place away from the dressed up house to beat stuff with a hammer if you're in the mood.

Come move up here, bud! Land is everywhere, and is fairly cheap. If I hear a car, I know it's at my house. A huge field in front of my place to shoot beams into infinity. Plus I've worked 7 years carpentry, building complete houses and apartments, with a journeymen in plumbing and oil heating, fixing things aren't a problem I couldn't even imagine living that way! :/ :can:

 

[RedCowboy]

That sounds great.
I used to frame houses myself, walk the walls, drag up trusses.
I have done the chopped up roofs with dormers too, but down here we get very little snow and there's a lot of cheaper houses with 4/12 truss roofs, I used to put one on before lunch with 2 helpers.

I know up north you have to have steep roofs to keep the snow off.
But what kills me are those silent floor joyce. I can't see that plywood center holding up for 50 years, especially when the HVAC guys chop the centers out for running flex through.
But I haven't built houses in a long time now, do they still use those silent floor joyce?

 

[Ricker]

We never did. And you wouldn't believe (well, you probably do) all the plumbers and HVAC cutting all but a quarter of the truss or floor main joists just to get their damn PVC or flex in there, some of them seem to think of faster, not safer. One cool thing we (the company I worked for) did was built apartment buildings with foam-panels. They are two pieces of 7/16th OSB with Styrofoam in the middle, and you wouldn't believe the structural integrity these things have! No exterior framing, or insulating. Simply put them up on 2X6 pt, nail them down, run your wires (the worst part) and plumbing through, then fill the holes with spray foam, put a 2X6 on the top of them to connect them, square the walls, and start laying trusses or floor joists (depending on how many floors) on the top where the 2X6 is, and boom you're ready for sheathing and interior framing! I believed it was way faster than traditional framing, but to each's own! In Georgia the insulation doesn't have to be nearly as good right? I mean I'm sure it's great to keep the cold in during the summer, right?

 

[RedCowboy]

Yea we don't have to do earthquake strap, or super heavy insulation, just paper backed fiberglass stapled in and that foam board outside under the siding.
But it hardly ever gets below 0 Fahrenheit here in the winter and rarely hits 100 in the summer.

Things may have changed some, it's been 20 years since I framed houses and apartments. There's a lot more stucco these days, that may change what's needed.

I like brick, it will stop the stray pistol bullet from getting through.

 

[Ricker]

So, paradise basically? Have an extra room for a few weeks?

 

[RedCowboy]

I wouldn't call it paradise, the socio economics of this area has changed and although it's not terrible it is called by those north of here the hood.
But the bad part is south of the city, this is a working class neighborhood, it's just most of my neighbors are not my ethnicity, but that is not a problem for me or them, we all want to get along.
It's the young kids who are killing each other, my cop friend was telling me the other day how bad the young kids are.
We used to punch and kick each other when we were kids, I was the king of the headlock, but we never tried to cripple or maim each other, and we never used weapons in a fight. The young ones around here kill each other, it's lack of upbringing and single parent families.
That and they get into drugs and the gangsta mentality.
We are working towards a big family property 75-100 miles north of here, near the base of the blue ridge mountains, we have property in Colorado, but it's going to get sold.

 

[APEX1]

Amen cowboy.