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Darn it. Now you're making me question my plan. I was thinking of floating the entire structure. And because I want to cover the slab with tile I couldn't figure out how crack lines would work into that. Basically, I figured I'd EITHER make footings for the walls and use gravel/sand/pavers...

I just started drafting the idea in sketchup and realized that, despite the potential for a "pure" one piece pour that I could brag about it just makes sense to use blocks for the walls. I'm not good enough to take on something so complicated and going the traditional route would allow me to...

Hello, I'm planning to build a 14' x 14' patio in front of the barn using 4,000 PSI concrete. My plan is to include short (2 ft high?) x 10" or so walls around the perimeter and one or two steps (this is a ground level patio, but there might be a step up due to driveway slope). I intend to...

4 conversations starting late last summer about the bees. Yep ... we'll take care of them. This spring: they're here! Please come! Ok .. we took care of them. CHECK. The next day: ARG! They're everywhere! Come back! (I'm home this time) Oh ... we can't get up there .. we're not allowed to...

I could go on and on about the bees and Terminix' unwillingness to treat for them on our barn (despite their unsupervised claims to have been!). In the end, the woodpeckers came in and in one week's time rid of of our bee problem. Of course, in their wake was left riddled fascia boards. :(...

Nestor ... I love your answers! Very informative!

make sure you don't have carpenter ants! We discovered a huge infestation that had apparently gone untreated for too long (before us). After trying to get rid of them myself I gave up and called in a pest control who a) laid down a lot of powder and b) discovered that they were traveling up the...

My wife and I have been in a new old home now for a little over a year now. There are stretches where we are working from the crack of dawn, till past dark. Exhaustion. Soreness. Lack of a life outside the home. We do it as a labor of love, being our own home, but I can't imagine doing this full...

I just (FINALLY!) finished a three week porch painting project. The weather dragged the project out. Lots of scraping. Caulked the bottom joints on the railings to prevent water from getting between. Two coats of primer. Two coats of California 2010 for the porch structure and railings...

Obviously, this is a really old thread, but I'll give it a try... I have a single perpendicular beam on posts as an experiment in one room. I really like it for eliminating the bounce so far, but a neighbor tells me I probably shouldn't be trying to eliminate all bounce. His example was dance...

Thanks guys. I actually had searched the forum before posting. The first thing of interest was on the fourth page. The internet's great for info ... if you can find it! And so many people post with generic subjects, you can't tell what's being discussed. I'll spend some more time going through...

Hello, I have a super old home in a 4-corner layout. When we walk, there's quite a bit of bounce. You should see it when we play the Wii! Each quadrant's span is about 14' - a few inches over. The joists are 2x8 (true size), 18" O.C. One end is nailed to a beam that rests on the foundation...

What a great post. Thank you very much! My insulation is in backwards, huh? I hadn't noticed that. I'll flip 'em all. Ok, so my holes aren't big enough. Ugh. I did the math, and for 11' x 14' (154 sq ft) I need 1 sq ft total, and .5 sq ft for the soffit vents. As I only have one side to...

The picture is before I put up the fascia, so the vent strips shown are the screen for the holes. I'm going to research installing a ridge vent to see if I want to do that much work. Otherwise, I'll look into something for over the window. We have heat wires on a nearby section of the roof...

Thanks for the help! I was expecting you to say I have to insulate the roof. I'm surprised. Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily want to spend the extra time and money. I'm including three pictures: 1. The new vent holes that I drilled. 2. The inside view, showing the beams "in the...

We have section of the house that get serious ice dams. The roof in that attic is not insulated. There's also no vents. I created some vents this week at the soffit (half dozen 2" holes) that go into the attic. There's a single window near the apex, but no vents. And there are no soffit vents...

Thank you. It didn't occur to me that I could get away with just hanging the gutter in space. I went ahead and created a fascia. It was a lot of work and I made more than a couple of mistakes, but I did the best I could. Old lumber dimensions don't match current! Oh well. So now I just want a...

Hello, I'm trying a small DYI project on our new, very old home. We have a small porch in front of an office addition on the side of the house. The porch has taken a real beating from the runoff, as there is no gutter on that section. I purchased a 10' section of aluminum gutter, along with...