Saturday, July 18, 2015

move return

I need to be more creative with blog titles. This is also going to be a long entry, but there's a lot going on to be fair. I moved from the UK back to the US, moved from temporary living to a house, picked up belongings from another state, and received my container and crate shipments. More importantly, yes, I began my first venture in home ownership.




Yay! Back to the States. 

To fill in the gaps, I bought a Datsun 620 truck as a stop-gap. Both my vehicles were not only on a boat, but also sans motors. I was going to be doing enough moving in the next few months that a truck seemed to fit the bill. Also, it's a Datsun.



Avocado green, I believe. Within the first few months of ownership I replaced the rear drum brakes, which caused the front drums (yes, you read that correctly) to blow out instantly. Then the clutch failed in front of Home Depot. Between a complete brake and clutch system, it was the better part of 1200$. At this point she's got a new battery, plugs, and other bits as well, for a total investment including purchase of about three grand over what has almost been two years.

I have refused to do any work on this truck except what is needed to keep it going right now, which has only included getting a tire plugged and wiring a temporary ignition. The remainder has been done by others. Cheers.




You never realize how small cars from the 70's were until you park next to ones not from the 70's. Regardless, she was extremely useful and upon moving to my permanent abode, I kept her to use as a house truck for weekend trips to the hardware store and parts runs. I can't count the number of times I've needed a truck, and it's paid for itself many fold, not to mention I've used her as my daily for about 6 months, most while my other vehicles were in transit. Comparatively, a rental car for this period of time would have been much more, which was the relocation company's alternative, the end result of which would have netted me one less Datsun and many subsequent Uhaul rentals.



I spent about a month in a friends spare room, which was well, but I was very excited to get into my own place.

It has a large garage. The story I like to tell people of when I found my first house was as the realtor explained, "95% of what most people base their purchase on, they only use 5% of the time. You have all these house wives that want an amazing kitchen and they never cook. Do you really need a garage space?" I politely informed him, "Yes. I'm an engineer. I work, and come home to play in my garage. I actually don't need a kitchen."


It would take a few weekends, but between the neighbor, his handyman, and mates, the garage was cleared. 

Inside was relatively spacious as well, about triple the size of my flat in London.


But back to the detached garage, it is approximately 17x43 feet, depth being the longer dimension which is strange, but very useful nonetheless. I can fit Datsun's side by side for storage, or single file for shop time. It is only wide enough for a single entry door, but has ample room for activities once inside.

Once vehicles are moving under their own power and sealed, plans include leveling the poll barn type building above the pad, extending the concrete to 30x60, and erecting an A-frame structure, finished, possibly with a small apartment.



The crates had arrived at my friend's house earlier in the month, but the cars and contents of the main container were delivered directly to my house, literally day's after signing the papers.

I got my hoist from storage in town and unloaded the engines into the truck to transport them to the house. Can you imagine? A Datsun truck driving around town with a CA and SR strapped down in the back. It was pretty amazing, just saying.



I had to take several more trips in the truck to get the crates, transmissions, and remainder of goods, but garage was beginning to fill.












I bought a new Tempurpedic, bed frame, kitchen table, and chairs, as well as flatware and silverware.







The view from the rear bedroom made my decision.




The views from the kitchen and dining room aren't that bad either.





I really dig the minimal bathroom with oversized mirror, sink, and shower.




At this point, I made a trip to Florida to pick up the remainder of my things, including stereo, spare Tempurpedic, and cats.





Now the front room was filling up.







The table isn't this clear often, and you can see the s14a captain's chair in the corner awaiting it's installation back to daily life. 



As any homeowner will tell you, there are surprises. I had many before even moving in, in fact I walked away from the deal at least 3 times. The first issue I had to contend with was stacking the washer and dryer that came with the house. Part of this included running a dryer duct into the hole in the wall, which to this day I can't confirm where it terminates.


As you can see, I had a lot of trouble, and after the knob broke off the antiquated unit I decided to buy new. The house was built in the 1950's, which is amazing, and is made completely out of concrete, which is also amazing. This means two things, however, one that the rooms are not easily re-configurable, and two that the wash room is to older size standards. Thankfully, companies still make some smaller units, and in stackable configurations. You can also buy one unit that does both, either in one or separate bins, but these are usually extremely small and it was more economical to buy two stackable, not to mention able to wash a queen size comforter.





I apologize for so many cat photos, but I hadn't seen them in a year. Get over it.


Another issue was the air conditioning.

This gets a little hard to recite because of how risky it really was, but quickly, I almost died. Basically the house had a furnace, air handler, and exterior exchanger which were all well past their prescribed life. I was OK with this and knew going in that I would need to purchase something soon. I didn't know how soon that was to be.

My neighbor, who knows more about the house than anyone, and I tried to start the furnace a few days prior moving in. It was late November at this point and I would need heat. We could not get it started so I broke down and called a professional who came and easily started it. The issue was that the furnace was apparently cracked and emitting enough monoxide to kill any occupants multiple times over.

If I had started the furnace, I would have moved in and died in my sleep that evening.  


Either way, after informing me of this, the ghost white technician went on to say that he locked out the furnace and that I would have to get a new one. Two weeks and 7500$ later I was able to move in.











Almost as impressive as it is doing this work over Thanksgiving, it was also snowing.





Everything was replaced, down to the concrete pad outside.




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