Guest House Construction: Part 32

Guest House Construction: Part 32

Now that we have AC in the guest house I'm willing to tackle some projects myself. One that I had a small window for was decking the attic spaces. I was waiting for electricity and AC, but wanted to get it done before carpet went in. I bought 15 sheets of 8x4 plywood and set up shop in the "No Lady Lounge". There's nothing tricky about it really, it's just work. There's a lot of measuring and cutting...and measuring. The hardest part really is lugging the plywood upstairs by yourself. I'm glad we did it though because this place has tons of door-access attic space that is perfect for storage.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It may not look like much, but the spaces are bigger than they look in the pictures and I should be able to store virtually everything we have that doesn't require climate controlled status...like 10 Christmas trees.  This is a job that's tricky to do when a house is finished or occupied but simple during the build. If you build, do it. You'll thank me later.

The crew that patches holes and fixes all the walls came out and did all that. It was a pleasant surprise to see them. They went through the place with a fine toothed comb and fixed every little imperfection, many of which I had never, and probably would never have, noticed.

The walls get damaged a lot during the build process. It's usually on purpose, such as cutting holes for the under cabinet lighting.

 
Some of the damage is accidental, like from some idiot carrying giant sheets of plywood up a tight stairwell all day long.

On Wednesday morning some guys showed up and installed the front door. This is huge, as now the house is, theoretically at least, sealed up. It still needs to be finished, but we can address that later.

I spent a couple of late nights out there installing all the pulls. The singles pictured here are easy, but the double drawer pulls take some thought and effort. We have 80-something pulls!...but they're all on now.

The carpet guys showed up on Monday morning and went to work. It took them all day, but they got every piece of carpet installed. 

We went with a pretty thick pad (don't skimp on the pad people) and a neutral carpet that won't show dirt much - I hope.

The stairs take them some time as you can imagine. The trim guy had come and framed out the stairway prior to carpet, which was necessary. It would have been better to have it all painted first as well, but I am frustrated to the point of not turning any work away so close to the end, even if it's out of sequence. 

We're really close now. We need the painters to come and make everything fresh and shiny again and we need a clean up crew to really scrub the place. The gas won't be hooked up until the pool is finished and the new driveways won't get poured until that happens as well. I'm hopeful that the pool will get plastered this week. Fingers crossed.

Mecum Denver 2017 Report

Mecum Denver 2017 Report

We always head up to Minnesota at least once every summer to visit my wife's family and escape the Texas heat. This year we decided to fly to Denver to visit Branelle's sister and her husband and then road trip across South Dakota. I'd never seen Mount Rushmore and we thought we'd try a car trip with our 2-year-old, Samantha. I "accidentally" planned it to coincide with the Denver Mecum Auction.

I'll get to the cars in a minute, but first a few notes. This was my first time at Mecum Denver, and I believe the 2nd year they've held an event here.  The Colorado Convention Center is a great facility for this kind of event.  It was a little tricky to find and park for, primarily because they don't offer any help or signs, but once you figured it out it was pretty simple.  The center is in downtown Denver but the traffic was light - as long as you have a Toll Pass.  

It was also the first time we've taken Samantha to an auction.  She loves to help me inspect the cars. She was actually pretty good with the "look but no touching" rule.  I would never suggest taking a two-year-old to a car auction, but she was with us so if Nel wanted to go Sammy Cat was going as well.  

We got her headphones for the noise, but they weren't really necessary.  It wasn't as loud a venue as some can be.  In fact, the place really was great. The noise was minimal and they had plenty of room. The temp was even perfect.

Samantha was a trooper...and then a napper!  It was a three day auction but Thursday didn't go off without issue.  We got there at 8:00am to inspect cars before the 10:00am start.  Unfortunately Mecum hadn't updated the website to reflect the 1:00pm start time change so we had plenty of time to kill. We actually went to the downtown aquarium to entertain Sam.  I think they were short cars so they just decided to start later.  It made for a long day.

With regard to pricing, the Denver auction seemed to be geared to the lower end of the collector car market - which is great by me.  I enjoy cheaper fun cars you can drive more than the high end pieces of art that I have to cover in my own garage.  I focused my attention on a number of very affordable classics and came home with a couple new additions to the family that we can certainly enjoy this winter.

Things We Didn't Buy:

1975 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible

I've always wanted one of these big Eldos, and there were three in Denver. None of them were particularly nice though. The pricing reflected the condition and none went for unreasonable money, but I just couldn't pull the trigger on one. I still want one but I want a really nice one.

1979 Datsun 280ZX

Similar to the Eldorado's, there were three decent old Z cars.  I've wanted one of these for some time now as well, and this blue example was my favorite of the three.  I thought they all went kind of cheap, and I probably should have bid on this one as it sold for only $8000.

1979 Dodge Li'l Red Express

I certainly wasn't looking for a Li'l Red Express Truck, but I loved this one and it was in great shape. It was literally the 2nd car sold at the entire auction and I bid on it but it's a little hard to buy a car right away (which is why you can get great deals early).  I almost went home with this quirky Dodge - and I really wish I had.

1985 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z

This generation of Camaros and Trans Ams has really been on my radar lately. For one thing, they're fun to drive. For another, they're kind of from my high school days so I'm sure they appeal to my generation more than others (my wife, who's much younger than me, doesn't get these at all).  My first car was almost an IROC-Z.  

1990 Ford Bronco XLT

I fell in love with this Bronco. I should have bought this Bronco. It sold for $10K, which was right on the money, but it was better than that.  In Houston, this would have been 50-100% more than it went for in Denver.  I regret not bringing this one back.

2011 Jeep Rubicon

This was a custom Jeep, which isn't really my thing, but that doesn't tell the story. You can't see it very clearly here, but it had been built for SEMA to promote Call Of Duty and it had NINE guns mounted on it. My Jeep driving friend Michael back home said it was "overkill".  

1982 Jeep Cherokee Laredo

Sticking with the Jeep theme, this was my favorite vehicle of the entire auction...and a lot of other peoples as well unfortunately.  It brought something north of $30K, which is crazy money for one of these, but I had already bought two cars and didn't want any more so I didn't even watch it just in case.  I wouldn't have gone anywhere near $30K so I'm glad I didn't wait for it.

1984 Tucker Sno-Cat

As with most auctions, you get some local weirdness.  I'm not sure a Sno-Cat is really all that odd in Denver, but I've never seen one at an auction before.  It was in great shape too!

Anything Pink!

Since I wasn't targeting any specific cars really, I asked our daughter what she wanted. "Something Pink" was her reply (sigh). There was only one option - this Thunderbird. It didn't happen for her but I'm pretty sure she forgot what she asked for 5 minutes later anyway.

Things We DID Buy:

1973 MGB

I was actually interested in the little Alfa behind the MGB here which went right before it but no one was bidding on the little orange Brit so I snatched it up for basically nothing.  It's hard to beat a small, simple convertible for fun.  This one has been restored and looks great.

It was making a strange noise right before going across the block and that may have kept the price down.  I've already gotten it fixed - it was just a compressor switch that no one knew about on the center console.

An added bonus to going the "small & cute" route is that Nel is a big fan.  She likes just about any small car it seems, and if the top goes down that goes double.

We had to ship the cars home. They actually beat us there by about a week as we were just getting started on our travels.  I barely got a chance to look over our new toys before handing the gate releases over to the shippers. While putting the top up I noticed a little spring that could have scratched the paint so I borrowed some forceps, of all things, and removed it.  We used Mecums own shipping company for our cars and they were great, but not cheap.

1964 Ford Galaxie 500 Convertible

Our 2nd purchase came on Friday. I had met the owners of this fantastically restored Galaxie the day before - they had a little dog that caught Sam's eye. I don't know much about Galaxies, and I wasn't looking for one, but the restoration work on this car really drew me to it.  

I wasn't paying that much attention but when I noticed it was on the block I darted around the corner and bid a couple times until it was mine (I'm in the maroon shirt).  I used to think there's no way the ring men could miss a bid...until it happened to me in Houston earlier this year. I had no trouble getting their attention this time.

I haven't actually even driven the Galaxie yet, but I'm looking forward to dropping the top and heading out for a spin. I'm thrilled with our Denver purchases and I enjoyed the auction as well. It was an odd crowd. Not odd people, but odd fluctuations between being full and then kind of sparse...and then full again. It was almost like a tide - if you timed it right there wasn't much competition for cars. I'll certainly consider coming back to Mecum Denver in the future.

 
Samantha (and Bunny) were clearly excited to be here as well.

Let's Build A Pool! Part 8: Cleaning and Decking

Let's Build A Pool!

Part 8:  Cleaning and Decking

We were out of town for a few weeks and a lot happened in our backyard while we were gone.  One promising action was that the pool got drained and cleaned out. The reason it's promising is that it's usually a sign that plaster is coming soon.  

Our hole in the ground had looked like a toxic dump for months but two guys came in and drained and cleaned it out in a day.  The only thing left in there were frogs (one of the guys told me he was afraid of them - probably why they left them in there).

Nel admiring the bottom of the pool - something none of us had seen for some time.  Sadly, it's already full of black water again and not plastered.  Rain has wreaked havoc on the pool companies schedule and our backyard this week.

Some small items got taken care of as well.  The gas and electric lines for the outdoor kitchen have been run.

The plumber came out and 'plumbed' the gas line for the fire pit.  Unfortunately he had to tear part of it up to do it.  It's already been fixed and looks good as new.

The stone guys also did some work on the waterfall.  It's never looked quite right so they keep adding pieces to make it look more "natural". 

They added some rocks to both sides to soften the edges up and make it look like it's integrated into the spa.  They also added rocks to the back side so I can reach high enough to light the fire features on top.

They also grouted all the stack stone to match what they had done on the fire pit.  I think it looks much better like this.

The biggest transformation to occur during our absence was the addition of the spraydeck.  First thing they did was pressure wash everything.

It's a multi-step process.  They float what they need to and then spray on this material and trowel it to whatever texture you want.  They tape off everything very carefully to protect surfaces.

You might notice that the beds have been cleaned out.  I'll cover landscaping in the next post.

Next they come out and coat it with the color finish we selected.  We went with something called "California Smoke".  It's probably going to cost more than some other colors in the long run and everything you drop on it will roll to the left and start a protest march, but it's a good contrast to our travertine.

Coming home to the decking being finished (almost - we still have work to do in the dry seating area) was great.  The landscaping is in now and it makes a world of difference.  I'll hit that one next time.