Here's the timeline so far:
Garage summer/fall of '10
Deck spring/summer '11,

That brings us to Spring '12, time to tear up the backyard.  The PO that did the addition/foundation work on the house were cheap. Instead of hauling off trash and concrete, they just buried it, then spread what they excavated over the top. I found a CARPET buried in the back yard.

I found a guy on Craigslist in Graham (Out near you Kyle) that needed fill dirt, so the plan was to haul it out to him.

Here is what I started with: weeds, rocks, and general 'crap'.
 






Had 20 yards of topsoil delivered and dumped in the neighbor's backyard (with their permission of course). ;)  No way was a dump truck going to make it into my backyard now that I have a fence up, and they didn't care about the yard anyway.

The day started out early, nice cool spring morning. Went and picked up the bobcat and trailer with the neighbor, had to use his van because they won't let a 1/2 ton tow larger trailers - insurance/liability/etc. I get it. Didn't stop me from towing them with my truck later though ;)

Get the bobcat off the trailer and around to the back yard, stop for a bit, take some pics of the kid and I in the Bobcat (that I can't seem to find) and then... bobcat won't start. Tried everything. Call rental place, troubleshoot it with a mechanic over the phone and then we determine that it might be the starter. He's onsite half an hour later with a starter off another unit, slaps it in and 20 minutes later we're up and running again!



I started by scraping off the top couple of inches and working on the patio area... in the process hit the corner of the deck and ripped off a corner of the outer Trex board... oops.  Glued it back down with a screw and you couldn't really tell (behind a post anyway).

So I scraped and dumped everything into a big pile and then I was able to back the truck and trailer into the neighbor's yard and load that pile into the dump trailer 2.5 yards at a time, over the 4' chain link fence.  Made 7 or 8 trips I think. Took most of the afternoon Saturday and Sunday to get it moved. In the mean-time, the neighbor who happened to have a fair amount of bobcat experience, moved that 20 yards of fresh topsoil into my yard for me.

Bobcat snug in the garage for the night next to the wife's Sorento (gasp! a Kia!)



On one of my trips back from offloading the dirt, I pull up behind this guy. He has grass growing in the bed of his truck! Looks like he put down sod and with it being so wet it just kept growing! Some kind of emission-offset program? It is Washington after all...



So I get one load out to the guy in Graham and take a break for lunch. Go back out to the truck and start toward the alley and one of the brakes on the dump trailer locks up! Big plume of smoke behind me. So I eventually get it free and drive around the block a little more and it locks up again.  So I say the heck with this and call the rental place - bring the trailer back and get another one tomorrow (Sunday) morning at their Puyallup location. Ok fine... So that set me behind a bit, but made another 6-7 trips with my little silvy on Sunday. Is it amazing that I never had any transmission problems in that thing?

This is Monday morning I believe as I was getting ready to take stuff back.



This is what the guy had to move the dirt around at his place. Just pushed/pulled it with the blade on this Ford 2N (I believe). My uncle has two of them.



And at the end of the weekend this is what the yard looked like.

So next up, thought I'd post up a few pics of some landscaping. Grass went all the way to the sidewalk and fence, and my plan eventually was do do a white picket fence (it just fits the house), so I tilled and cleaned all of that up (picking out the big rocks).



Digging around to find the main water line to the house. Pressure test and rate calculation so I can size my irrigation zones appropriately.



The after:





A couple little roses



So while the pad for the garage was curing for a few days, not much I could do, so I rented a trencher and went to town...







"The valve vault"



My wife and daughter watching daddy work :)



Two grass zones and a drip zone for the perimeter flower beds.



And a couple more 'finished' shots. Main irrigation and garage shutoff. I have a separate irrigation-only shutoff so water can be on to garage all the time... (more on that later).



Bluebell bulbs EVERYWHERE!

Figuring out locations for posts and notching the Trex. Cutting that stuff is tough since its plastic. You almost 'melt' through it.



Posts are through-bolted both through the rim joist AND a joist. Not notched around the rim jousts. Notice how some are boxed in completely! They're Super sturdy!











Got the trex notched around the posts.



Figuring out the short pieces and angles...



North end wrapped up



South end by stairs. Something weird with the camera lens...

The ledger boards were just bolted on top of the T1-11, so I decided it would be best if I cut away the T1-11 (if it ever needed replaced) and put some Z-flashing in to protect against this:









This being the west side of the house, and Puget Sound being due west, it gets a lot of rain.


So now I have everything dialed in at the right height, I can start hanging joists. There is a 1' cantilever past the outer beam.












20' sticks of trex that the lumberyard had on clearance. I bought almost all of what they had left I think. That stuff is HEAVY and awkward! The cab-over isuzu they delivered it on though was able to back it right into the backyard, making the 90* turn off the alley.



Did a nice 45* angle on both ends of the deck. More aesthetically pleasing.



"The thinker"



All new 2x6's on the 8' run. Used what I could from the old deck wherever possible.

Moving on to the interior. It was always my plan, since I had put the radiant heat PEX in the floor, to insulate and drywall the inside, so here's that process.









Eave vent baffles installed. Found them in the crawlspace under the house, figured I'd use them rather than buy plastic/styrofoam ones. Free is a good price.




And a pull-down attic ladder. Had to cut the trusses and frame in the opening. Amazing how much crap I shoved up there that I had to pull out when we moved...



And then I got some cabinets from my uncle who had removed them from a business because he built new cabinets for them. Along with a reclaimed counter top from one of our customers that was moving (I found it on the trash pile - 9' + long). Cabinets just needed a little TLC (crappy particle board).



Added leveling feet



And a 'sub top' to hold them all together and raise the top enough so drawers would open.





And now I have some semblance of organization :) Along with two big Hitachi speakers with 12" woofers up on top.




And that's about it. I don't seem to have any pics of the ceiling drywall/insulation process, probably because by that time I was just OVER IT. Renting the drywall hoist was a life saver. I installed the insulation from below (R21 IIRC), then with the drywall hoist got all the ceiling panels up over a weekend.

Me on the roof, working on decking.




Fascia up, drip edge flashing going on.


Hauling shingles up the ladder is fun... not.



Buddy's dad is a long-time roofer, so dad, buddy and I banged out the roof in not even a day and a half.




Another of my favorite pics - Mt. Rainier.



And the backside of our house with the crappy deck...



Roof done!


Sink plumbing.

Borrowed a co-worker's tractor to excavate the pad and back-fill around the perimeter.  No in-progress pics, but did have the wife snap a few of me loading it back onto the uhaul trailer to take it back to him. Wheel base was a little narrow for the trailer but it worked.




Prepping for the pad. Gravel spread and compacted. Checking level/grade.




Now here is something I regret doing, seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted to be able to work in the garage during the winter and be able to keep it warm. I thought why not spend a little bit now to put radiant heat in the floor. I NEVER got it hooked up.




Getting the pad poured. This is the only part of the project that I had someone else do, besides the garage door installation.

The site:




Digging out for the footings. I did a full footing rather than slab on grade. It just seemed like a better way to do it, even if it did cost more.



Supplies... trailer has 4x8 sheets of OSB in it. Had to do some creating maneuvering...




And here is how you unload OSB... I put some forethought into it. Since the axle was situated dead-center, I knew I'd be able to lift the tongue easily, so when I picked up the sheets, I first put down some wooden dowels as rollers so the pile would slide right out.

http://vid264.photobucket.com/albums/ii196/rpar42/House%20Projects/Tacoma/Garage/MOV05943.mp4
http://vid264.photobucket.com/albums/ii196/rpar42/House%20Projects/Tacoma/Garage/MOV05944.mp4


Prepping for forms.






1.5" Electrical conduit. 100amp service to garage.




2" drain line for sink. 3-4' down to the sewer line, that was fun. Look at all that rock. ROCK EVERYWHERE in this yard.



Forms up. Luckily my uncle has a buddy that stores forms out at his farm, so I was able to borrow those. 2'x8', perfect height for what I needed. Only needed to buy one sheet of 1-1/8" to cut down to size to make some custom panels.






Plenty of conduit sleeves:
1-1/2" Main power
3/4" line back to house for a three-way switch if I ever elected to do it (never did).
3/4" for power to yard/patio
two 3/4" for irrigation wire (two separate directions)
1" for low-voltage to house. CATV and Cat5e.



1" conduit sleeve for PEX line for sink and the sink drain with clean-out on outside.

I could deal (painfully) with him bein a coug.... But nobody in this fine group of fellas deserves the shame of being a duck fan


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

CAN'T STAND THE DUCKS!  Bunch of over-paid (paid in the sense that they get all that Nike stuff from Phil Knight) pompous a**es...  I typically root for the underdog anyway, so that's OSU for me (Oregon that is, not Ohio or OK).

To add to what Norm said... (going into physics mode here...).  Reading this Wikipedia article will make your head hurt even more Ken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli's_principle

This is Bernoulli's principle: As the speed of fluid increases, the pressure decreases. Too much speed (like Norm mentioned 4.2ft/sec) will lower the pressure. So the smaller line will result in more pressure from the lift pump to the injection pump. Of course Don knows all about Bernoulli and how lift is generated by an airfoil :)




I'm not a physics expert, so please excuse me if I said something incorrect. I just remember reading about this when designing an irrigation system at the last house :)

Kyle, Looking great!  Family room fireplace/TV/cabinets (I'm assuming) looks like mine. I built all that earlier this year. Just need a bigger TV now... That's a 46", need a 60-70".




Nov 15... that's my b-day ;)

Thanks Ken. I was trying to be very patient throughout this whole ordeal and it took all I had to not lash out at the guy at the dealership when he answered the phone LOL

Pretty sure the idiots in shipping were to blame for folding them to get them in the box.

Excellent!
Love that cut up roofline look.
I'll bet the roofers don't like it though!

I'm sure the roofers are OK with it...they probably charge more $$$!  :)

I guess today is day 300 (9/2), not tomorrow (9/3).

Spent some time with Sophie last night. She's grown 1.5" since October and is big enough for her big girl bike now. Not only big enough, but races the thing up and down the street, has fallen twice but no tears. She's "almost ready to get rid of her trike, but not just yet daddy. I still like it". Ran inside afterwards to tell her mom that "Daddy taught me how to ride my big bike!". Melted.

We have that exact same bike. Took the carriage off the handle bars though because we didn't think the kid needed the distraction...

Though I gotta say...where's her helmet!? (probably a posed picture  ;) )

Quote from: rpar86 on August 27, 2015, 06:05:17 PM

Bobby,

Instead of using the 'insert pic' link, attach them instead. If you scroll up a few posts, Ken posted a pic of a swivel socket but it has a little paper clip icon. When you click on the pic, it opens up in a new window, and if the window isn't large enough for the full size image, a magnifying glass icon appears and you can click the pic to make it FULL size. Yours look to be inserted into the body of the post and that's why when you click on them they open up full size.

If you're posting from your phone you may be limited in the method you can use to attach pics.

Hope that helps...

Does that still work when using imgur?

No, because attaching a file saves it on the RMT&S server. Using a 3rd party hosting site just uses a pointer to the file over on imgur's servers ([IMG] HTML tag), therefore whatever size the pic is on Imgur, it will be the same here. So, before you upload to imgur you'd need to resize the pic. The easiest way to resize is to turn down the resolution that your camera (I'm assuming your phone) takes pics at... if that's even possible?  Other than that, there are 3rd party apps for the phone or even MS Paint on the PC that can resize the pic.

I hear ya on the Linux aspect. If you don't use it every day you forget the commands.

I'm looking at Synology's NAS products right now, seem to be nice units. Kinda spendy for not including any drives though. The RAID capabilities (Software-based, I'm sure) are important to me so if I have a drive die I don't lose all my data, as is the ability to back it up to another unit or out to the cloud.

I have a tower PC with two 1TB drives in a RAID1 and an SSD for the OS, but it has a quad core proc and 8GB RAM, would be a pretty big power hog just for a media server. (Used it as a virtualization server, but could never really do much with only 8GB ram) :(

Bobby,

Instead of using the 'insert pic' link, attach them instead. If you scroll up a few posts, Ken posted a pic of a swivel socket but it has a little paper clip icon. When you click on the pic, it opens up in a new window, and if the window isn't large enough for the full size image, a magnifying glass icon appears and you can click the pic to make it FULL size. Yours look to be inserted into the body of the post and that's why when you click on them they open up full size.

If you're posting from your phone you may be limited in the method that you can use to attach pics.

Hope that helps...

A few of my favorite IT acronyms...

PICNIC - Problem In Chair Not In Computer
PEBKAC - Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
and of course... an ID10T error (Pronounced ID-Ten-T). Most folks probably wouldn't know what you're talking about if you say it around them...but write it down and it all makes sense ;D

Pretty much describes much of my day to a tee.

I second the ethernet comment! 
Also, do 'home runs' of your COAX back to a smart panel in a closet/garage/utility room and bring 3 or 4 lines in from the outside DMARC point so you don't have Comcast/Dish wanting to punch holes through your siding! COAX is cheap, run extras!

Run a minimum of 2 inch "smurf tube" anywhere you might want to fish wires (HDMI, COAX, etc) at a later date.

Wish I were still close, I'd help ya with all of that. Seriously considering a change of career so I can do hands-on stuff like this.

I've always been pretty lucky with curtain rods right at the edge of the windows since there is usually at least 3" of material there (jack and king studs). Looks like there is 4.5" on yours, so even mo' better! :)

Just don't try to tow with it... right Don?  :-\

Well, a little update... eBay seller has offered to return them and pay for the shipping. Thing is, at $200 this whole set is a steal. List price according to invoice is $336, aftermarket without all the clamps/mounting brackets is $350, but comes in two sections with quick disconnects. So I replied back to them (paraphrased):

"Rather than spend money on return shipping and more on shipping for a replacement, just refund me part of the purchase price, the amount that you'd spend on the return shipping, and I'll have them fixed locally".

Still waiting on a response.

In the meantime, took them down to a local hydraulic/pneumatic hose and line shop to get their opinion. Guy down there, Scott, didn't seem to think the kink in the hose was that bad, but I'm still wary of it. He said it would probably cost about $60-70 to re-do that flexible line if that's what I end up wanting to do. AN fittings would cost a lot more.

At this point I'm just waiting to see what the seller has to say before I ship them back.

The fuel lines on my '06 LBZ are pretty far gone having come from Wisconsin. I bought new ones via a dealer on eBay, I couldn't beat the price! $203 w/ free shipping vs $350 for aftermarket.

Anyway, received them yesterday and a quick glance inside the box before FedEx left they looked OK, but upon further review today...





They had to bend them at the flex/rubber section to fit them in the box. That kink is no bueno.

So, I have two options -- contact the seller/dealer and send them back (probably $50 or more in shipping costs, plus a possible restocking fee), or try to come up with a way to make it work.  The first thought that comes to mind is some AN fittings with flexible hose.

Now, I don't know a thing about AN fittings or how they're measured or what I would need to get this to work.  I'm thinking that I'd need to treat this like brake lines and use a compression nut on the hard-line side and flare the line, the compression nut would then connect to an AN fitting that is compression to a flexible line. Thing is, I don't know where to begin with pieces and parts. I know the supply line is 1/2" OD (.510" according to calipers) and the return line is 3/8" OD (.385").

So, what do I need to get?

JR, your cat could be twins with ours. He lives outside PERMANENTLY now since he wouldn't stop peeing on things and is not much liking this 100* heat. Oh well, his own fault.