restoring my old farm house.

[JOHNNY WACKO]

2 years of work so far.going to be a man cave shooting range.it is about 300 feet from my house by my shooting deck.
here's were i'm at as of today.Pictures are post from another site i'm on.
I rented this house for 35 years and the guy built all these crooked add ons and cut big holes in the kitchen walls

went from this to here as of today.back all cut off to original size.now the side and front to go.






still have all this to remove yet and build a new front porch with a metal roof too.




everything that guy built was crooked to big and had a flat roof that leaked. I have more to take off then to leave. cant wait to see it off. and 28 more pieces of tin to cut and put down on the back roof after some repairs on the wood.

Its getting smaller.



Been working a few hrs a day for 2 weeks and things are looking better. Had to get the electric inspected first cash out $80 . It passed and there coming this week to hook me back up. stripped the living room.got a window from the basement that was from the kitchen that went in the living room perfectly,they were the same at 1 time. and I took the other window from a room i took off. So now i have windows and doors. have to take out the sliding door and close in the wall on the side then i can put in the kitchen counters + cupboards i have been saving in my garage for years. the upstairs just needs some paint.It has pink in 1 room.

I took my dog max for the first time in the house and he hates the steps ,but when he got up there and saw he could look rite out the windows he fell in love.He ran from window to window looking out and barking. He got 4 chew sticks barried outside already.He laid by the window and watches over them like a king.

You may think i am crazy but the view and the quietness up there is so calming and not a house in site in any direction .

















BIG DIFFERENCE




found out most guys like to shoot but don't like to work,so it's been slow. worked myself into the ground to get it closed up for winter but its there for now. 2 months of 99% alone to get here.


started again this August.
at it again,only have the wife and dog for help.all my shooting buddys are lost !!






well the basement walls are patched and pardged outside,still a bit wet from doing it yesterday but i can move on to the front base board then the porch wood is all waiting to go. But i'm about to pass out. I only do 4 to 6 hrs at a time and not every day.But 61 is older then i thought it was,I KNOW THAT!!
1200lbs of cancrete we used a mortor bag and filled every crack,hole first.. 1 spot took 2 bags till it came out in 3 different cracks full.



this side in the back was bad. we did it up nice for what we had to work with.


still at it...Have to back fill up to the second board.Have the decking boards still to clean . 10 hours so far on the deck.still using free scrap lumber.This came from a guy that replaces old or small decks for a living.I take his scraps and use them and if all goes OK i will be able to filp people off with my right finger again some day ,






Going slow but getting there.I got the materials gathered up for a 10'x13 tin roof to match the house.My pile of wood is getting smaller fast.
here's were i'm at today.



now to get this carried over ,cleaned and put down. Next week








before


I am looking for a 12" round kitchen light figture to replace that dirty think hanging there.You get a sun tan setting under it and the rest of the room is dark. ANYONE GOT A OLD 1 LAYING AROUND ?? something like in picture 4 in the living room.
I went up to finish with the wood i had drying by the fan , it was junky stuff but i made it work . only had around the window done and 3 1' boards left to go , then noticed the tv and ended up on the couch for about 3 hours,nice nap though. so i decided to put the fan on the last 3 and do it today but didn't make it.
That window is even on both sides the picture makes it look shorter in the right side it ain't.





I clean every board doth sides with a 4" grinder with a 7" grinding pad on it (soft) and they look a lot better but it takes time cleaning that old wood and hoping it will work out.
Took MAX up today first time since i put the porch floor down over the weekend. I opened the door he gave me a funny look till i said go ahead ,after that he liked it He took a nap out there while i started cleaning up the after birth. then the rifleman came on and we quit.
Git 10 sheets of 1/2 plywood to panel the rest of the living room next


I LIKE IT TOO for junk wood i', happy (it's done)
I'm moving the steps back over by the skid loader side. and moving the railing around.the other side was to high to meany steps for a old man.

got that back wall done too.

If that said's i build odd ways with odd stuff on odd angles. and it keeps you looking all around.That would be me .
OUTSIDE FRONT oct 2015


1 year laterTODAY 2016
[URL=http://s214.photobucket.com/user/jfla14 ... 0.jpg.html]

Plus almost a kitchen and living room done too.And the foundation work hardly shows but was the most cost of all year about $450 this year total.$999999.99 in labor
The old porch roof was were the black wood is on the house.I am thinking the door is 80" so if i go 9' at the house and 7' at the front rail with a 2' slant on the rf you should not be able to see in the door window from this picture from the road about at the correct magnafacition . so to have some privacy.

[Griff]

Ambitious project. But, looks to be a great one!

[gamekeeper]

Ambitious project. But, looks to be a great one!

Plus one

[Blaine]

What an undertaking! Too bad you couldn't round up some help here, and there.
So, the end use is just going to be a clubhouse/mancave? I'd move into that in a heartbeat.

[JOHNNY WACKO]

God forbid i end up alone some day i will be back up there.I lived there the first 4 years of my marriage but the wife hated the lack of closet space and bed rooms after the second kid came along.so this house was my 1/2 sisters that my dad gave her when she got married before i was burned and cut it from the farm deed.so i bought it back and moved 1 house down the road in 1977.I rented it for 30 years to a guy that added all those crappy crooked flat roof rooms on and cut holes in all the walls.Thats why i took it back to its original size that it was in 1930 when he bought it.and am replacing the board and bat stile siding. The basement is like a freezer nice to cool the house in the summer but if it's 40 out side its 20 inside in the winter.
I am going to add insulation to the floor rafters to help keep it warmer but in the summer the furnace fan works like AC if i open the cold air duck in the basement and close the 1 in the living room.no need to open a window or it worms it up not cools it down in the summer. it was a root cellar when i was a kid.we had apples and potatoes all winter long down there.

I had several shooting buddy's to help but the dropped like fly's on raid the first 2 weeks of beno. work. but i will let them come back because i shoot there ammo since i own the range and they don't have a gun i don't have the same caliber. I have sold them there guns and built every ar they have and maintain all there fire arms too.I am known in a 40 mile circle from me as the wizard when it comes to fixing old keepsake guns and hard to find parts for guns.I have 2 or more guys a week with something that needs my touch on there guns and all there buddy's to.witch can be a double edge sward some times.and the first they call when they need to hock 1 for quick cash and most never come back for them.

[Bill in Oregon]

Wonderful project and it seems to have the beagle stamp of approval!

[JOHNNY WACKO]

he has never said no to helping me yet.I say lets go to the dog house and he is at the door and runs to the truck.IF HE HEARS ME ON THE PHONE TALKING ABOUT SHOOTING THAT DAY HE IS AT THE DOOR WAITING.OR IF I SAY LEST GO HOLD YOUR EARS HE IS READY.i GOT HIM TRAINED TO BARK AS SOON AS SOME 1 SHOULDERS THERE GUN TO SHOOT to help give me the edge on them but sometimes it backfires and he dose it to me too. heres a post from this summer

Today was Maxwell's day. took him up the farm house to watch us work. HE GOT ALL DIRTY BUT LOVED IT. THOUGHT HE GOT HURT JUMPING OUT THE FRONT DOOR TO THE CONCRETE BELOW.BUT HE WAS OK.


he jumped from the door and almost cleared the footer but landed on the edge of it. The wife and i were inside at the table + he seen a chipmunk and dove out the door. we about died.


and at 3 when the rifleman comes on and were up there i yell man with rifle is on he knows it's time to take a brake and we nap for about the hole hour.

[mark]

The best of luck. You certainly have a project on your hands.

Your canine helper is beautiful, mine is sleeping under the computer desk having had an arduous day in the pool.

All the best, Mark.

[JOHNNY WACKO]

How unfair is it that we only get 15 years or so to love them,I guess thats because god can't wait no longer than that to have them back with him.they are are gift from heaven in the first place.
my girl lady is 16 and i have been charring her up and down the steps 5 times a day to put her out to pee.But in all that time she has never once give a reason to be mad at her so now it's my turn to return the favor. She is not in pain just slow in the hips on the steps.How painful to think i will be loosing her 1 day. would trade every gun i own to have her with me forever.

[Tycer]

Looks like a fun project! I do see a couple of areas that need some attention to proper flashing technique. I can't tell whether you've done it correctly or not, particularly on the new deck addition. If you're interested in having a conversation about it PM me. A significant portion of the work I do comes from just the tiniest step being missed in proper flashing technique resulting in rot and structural damage.

[JOHNNY WACKO]

I know that there is issues with some things i have done or not done yet but i have picked up every piece of wood from a pile of scrap wood from when i took down houses for pendot 16 years age when they widened the road and i have no income and have done everything so far with out buying a single piece of wood and at 61 years old and no rib cage on 1 side and working alone and no income i have to make do with nothing and make it work or give it up. I appreciate any helpful hints on building with nothing but the will to get it better then it was .and its a cabin in the woods to go shoot and not for living in. If i had the cash i would have been done and everything in pristine shape.but i have 3 other houses that my 2 kids live in and the 1 i live in that all need work done to them too and 10 grand in taxes a year to pay so that gets what i can do when i can drag my broken body there to do it.I will be dead and it still will not be done but i can at least feel good about the fact i tried my best to do what i could.All my family wanted me to burn it down as a eye sore but the memories of my childhood would not let me do it.and my wife bitches every time i go up there and leave things on the house we live in go undone.
I have friends who work as contractors that dump off wood they tare off houses they work on to help me out but other than that building a deck with 1 hand and old junk wood thats about the best i can do.I have lost 16 pounds in 1 year working up there trying to hold a 12 foot crooked board full of nails and splinters to get were i am now and amassed i'm that far
MY wife found me up there last month setting on the couch unable to get up and had to drag me to the truck and help me to bed were i stayed for a week and think i had a mimi stroke working on that house and i did not remember how i got home or what happened the next day. She has begged me to stop before she finds me dead up there as i found my dad dead in there when i was 11.
If you got tips on making something from nothing type them rite here for me to read and i will try my best to do it and be thankful for the helpful words. I am at my braking point at this time and these post help give me the encouragement to keep trying.and with a gun monkey as big as KING KONG on my back that don't help.I just to old and set in my ways to just throw in the towel and admit its over at this point i guess.
you guys saying kind words are about the only thing keeping me going is why i share what i am doing.I don't get much from home. I don't mind being told to try something out here in the open to all to read,mite get more people talking and get me back up there.I have shut it up for the winter last month after getting sick .my wife said she walked in and was talking to me and i was lost in space and could not ever understand what she was saying so i got scared i would fall and get hurt and bleed out laying there all alone.so i have went back to playing with my guns and building ar15s to sell to pass the time and keep my mind busy not to go crazy setting around depressed. .

[2ndovc]

Great pictures!

Mine was almost as bad.
Here it is in '03


This is about a year and a half later.


jb

[JOHNNY WACKO]

That is a beautiful job you did there. nothing like the feeling of a job done well. congrats an a beautiful house. do you live there too?

[2ndovc]

Oh yeah, I made this one too nice. The Boss Lady won't let me sell this one. I used to do one every 5 to six years and move on but she likes this one too much. I just wish it was a little farther out of town. I miss shooting in the back yard.

jb

[JOHNNY WACKO]

I would have to side with her on that 1.Boy if that was out were i'm at it would be the best of both worlds. I shoot from the kitchen and my bedroom windows at my house i live in all the time when it cold or wet.
The farm house is up a block away and my sons house is a block the other way and there is not a house the hole mile 1/2 the other side of the road across from me. I own like 40' of land across the road the mile or more my land goes.And the electric poles stop at the farm house so no 1 can build across from me and no 1 can build up from the farm house with no electric .but i go 1/2 mile up past from the farm house anyways.and the owner of the land across from me is a private golf course a mile through the worst valleys and hills with swamps and clefts that Pa has.and thats like a 200 acre old farm that they log every so many years and wont sell no land for that reason.

when i was a kid the road was named dead mans hollow rd but in 1966 some *** made the decision to change it to middle rd.
upset me rite off. there is a cave were in the 30s the made shine in and a body was found in the creek covered with lime.so they dominated the cave shut.It is in a book on caves in PA. and i did a story on what i knew on it. MY day had a pool hall boarding house in the next town of Midland and story is he was part of the shins making and sold it from the pool hall.
as a kid i would set with him and my friend who stayed with us while his mom worked at Westinghouse and he would tell us story's of things that went on back then in the 30s.He was borne in 1888 or 1900 no 1 was sure.he was 55 when i was borne .he had so many stories of those days when law was far apart and corrupt.
Thats why you could not trade me 2 of your nice houses for that old run down house.I set up there and can still see us sitting at the piano him banging away at the keys us all singing by by blackbird and old songs like that. or him drawing horses on the kitchen table or of things in the mill and telling us stories.He worked for E W Bliss then it was crusibil steel from 13 to 66.and never missed a day of work or was late 1 time in all those years.and was a alcoholic for many years too.

a water glass of whiskey for briefest was the story i herd. he quit colt turkey the year my mom got preginet with me.
we had a big house down town a big peach orchard with fields were he planted corn+hay at the end of the road.the house my granny lived thats were my daughter lives now beside my son this house my 1/2 sister owned were i live now and his s/s checks i still have some were only $77 a month.His x wife lived in the pool hall + boarding house in town thats gone now a cyber school is there.the orchard is all houses now.But i still have all the rest.I gave my mom the big house in town when i turned 18 for keeping everything for me when he died.my sister sold it and i was upset big time.we had cows,chickens , ducks hoses,pones pigs a donkey geese.you name it.
well i could go on for ever so ill cut it off here before i start drawing things on the table and singing songs too.
when i die i want to be put in that house and burn it down but they say thats not legal to do.But i could take all those memories with me that way. my family don't care about back them only me.
They see a old run down house i see me.

[Tycer]

I know that there is issues with some things i have done or not done yet but i have picked up every piece of wood from a pile of scrap wood from when i took down houses for pendot 16 years age when they widened the road and i have no income and have done everything so far with out buying a single piece of wood and at 61 years old and no rib cage on 1 side and working alone and no income i have to make do with nothing and make it work or give it up. I appreciate any helpful hints on building with nothing but the will to get it better then it was .and its a cabin in the woods to go shoot and not for living in. If i had the cash i would have been done and everything in pristine shape.but i have 3 other houses that my 2 kids live in and the 1 i live in that all need work done to them too and 10 grand in taxes a year to pay so that gets what i can do when i can drag my broken body there to do it.I will be dead and it still will not be done but i can at least feel good about the fact i tried my best to do what i could.All my family wanted me to burn it down as a eye sore but the memories of my childhood would not let me do it.and my wife bitches every time i go up there and leave things on the house we live in go undone.
I have friends who work as contractors that dump off wood they tare off houses they work on to help me out but other than that building a deck with 1 hand and old junk wood thats about the best i can do.I have lost 16 pounds in 1 year working up there trying to hold a 12 foot crooked board full of nails and splinters to get were i am now and amassed i'm that far
MY wife found me up there last month setting on the couch unable to get up and had to drag me to the truck and help me to bed were i stayed for a week and think i had a mimi stroke working on that house and i did not remember how i got home or what happened the next day. She has begged me to stop before she finds me dead up there as i found my dad dead in there when i was 11.
If you got tips on making something from nothing type them rite here for me to read and i will try my best to do it and be thankful for the helpful words. I am at my braking point at this time and these post help give me the encouragement to keep trying.and with a gun monkey as big as KING KONG on my back that don't help.I just to old and set in my ways to just throw in the towel and admit its over at this point i guess.
you guys saying kind words are about the only thing keeping me going is why i share what i am doing.I don't get much from home. I don't mind being told to try something out here in the open to all to read,mite get more people talking and get me back up there.I have shut it up for the winter last month after getting sick .my wife said she walked in and was talking to me and i was lost in space and could not ever understand what she was saying so i got scared i would fall and get hurt and bleed out laying there all alone.so i have went back to playing with my guns and building ar15s to sell to pass the time and keep my mind busy not to go crazy setting around depressed. .

absolutely you can do it for no money. PM me.