My Most Expensive Mistake, to date; the Smithton house

House looks like you'll have fun making it what you want. I wish you well with it.

If the mortgage is with Wells Fargo, refinance it and get away from them ASAP. It is a corporation that will steal money from its customers over and over, just paying the fines every time it gets sued and then finding other ways to steal from customers.

Quoting myself from the rant thread in an effort to warn other members here who may not have seen it there.

Congrats on the new house! 

I love the idea of doors on both ends of the garage. I built a shed recently the same way with doors at both ends. The intent was that nothing is farther than 1/2 the shed away from the door. It works great. 

On the wall oven, it sounds very similar to the old one that came with my house. It had very thick walls, and was tiny inside. New ones are much better, with thin walls and are much bigger inside for the same size. I replaced mine with a double and love it. While shopping for it, I initially got sticker shock. But they seemed to randomly go on crazy deals for a short time with no rhyme or reason. Different brands, different stores, I learned to just wait until one I liked popped up somewhere at a huge discount.

dculberson (Forum Supporter) said:

Dang that's cool. I love the look of the detached garage. Also does the house have the worlds tallest house chimney or am I seeing that wrong? One tall and skinny, one short and fat? Neat. Does the fat chimney go through the attached garage or is it behind it?

One chimney for the faux(*) fireplace in the living room, I believe the tall one, then the other is from the combination oil burner/wood and coal fired boiler for hot water baseboards, which lives in the attached garage. There's a wood burner in the detached garage, but they just shoved some duct through a hole in the wall for it. 

I need to get an education on that stuff sooner rather than later, now that I think of it.

@NOT A TA

We're 3 years of watching every statement and doublechecking every payment away. I need income records (which current situation is making even more difficult) and to fix SWMBOs credit. Her dad has his investments with Wells, and since he consigned for us, I had to do it his way. I've made it known I don't care if I lose a whole percentage point, I want to get away from them ASAGDMFP. As recently as 4 days ago, I was ready to call the whole thing off, eat everything I paid so far and the potential breech of contract lawsuit from the seller just to be done with them. 

After 6 weeks of what should be criminal incompetence on behalf of Wells, I have to wonder if it was revenge for the first time we met. At 1 in the morning the day my daughter was born, and he had to come babysit the older child. 

* I have no idea about the fireplace. According to the disclosures, the chimneys (plural) were last serviced in 2014. I thought it was a real fireplace in the living room, certainly looks it, but today I saw a lightbulb in the stack of logs in it. No switches, that I've found yet, and the house doesn't have gas, so I'm not really sure. The wall it is against used to be an outside wall, until 91, when they turned the porch into a pretty big bedroom with laundry hookups. So maybe it used to be real?

 low quality cropped screenshot from the listing. 

I'll never use a wood burner again, so dirty, so labor intensive, so hard trying to keep a supply of wood ready to burn, but removing it is also far far beyond my skill set, so it's probably going to hold a TV or something. maybe some lights inside.

Keep the wall oven.  Having 2 ovens is awesome and feels very luxurious.

Keep the drive through option in the garage.  It'll be super handy at some point.

Replacing ceiling tiles is BY FAR the fastest way to refresh the ceiling and while it may not be your favorite thing, it makes fixing stuff later 1,000% easier than drywall.

It sounds like you got a very cool (and quirky) house.  Some deep cleaning, paint, and flooring will make it feel much more "yours".  Congrats!

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

Replacing ceiling tiles is BY FAR the fastest way to refresh the ceiling and while it may not be your favorite thing, it makes fixing stuff later 1,000% easier than drywall.

+ Eleventy billion.

We had a horrid dropped ceiling in our kitchen. Painting the grid, new tiles and different lighting changed the room in a day. And there are some REALLY cool options for tiles that look like pressed tin, etc if that's your thing. It doesn't all have to be flat dirty white tiles in a brown grid.

Misread the title.

As in, the most expensive mistake was to go on a date.

Have fun!

RevRico said:

I'd leave the garage door in and put in a man door somewhere else if possible. Being able to drive all the way through with a trailer or something would be super nice for unloading. 

In reply to RevRico :

Earlier in this posting you also mention that you are not a fan of the electric coil cooktop.  In previous threads I have extolled the virtues of induction cooktops.  Pulling out that electric coil and dropping in an induction cooktop is literally just plug and play. 

• Kill the power at the breaker  
• Undo some wire nuts  
• Lift out coil unit
• Drop in induction unit
• Redo some wire nuts 
• Reset the breaker  

I dunno if anyone has mentioned it yet, but removing the Muntins from the windows would be a huge improvement on the curb appeal of the house. 

Also painting the exterior more neutral colors. 

wawazat said:

Congratulations! 

Think hard on the double overhead door situation in the garage.  That configuration can be really handy. 

Congratulations on the purchase!.  X2 on wawazat's comment, being able to drive right through can be a huge advantage.   If you're worried about losing heat, maybe an easily removed inner wall with a passage door that doesnt interfere with the roll up door?   Take a good look at the roll up door as well, a lot of the newer ones are internally insulated and with a little touch up on the weatherstripping can actually seal pretty decently.

Congrats on your new purchase! Friends of Mrs. DX bought a house here in PA recently and signed the the paperwork from the confines of their car. 

Also, you are preaching to the choir about the evil levels that are Wells Fargo. Ill refrain from going on in detail regarding them. 

Congrats!

But don't be surprised to see your local CU sell your loan to Wells Fargo in a month or so.

FuzzWuzzy said:

Congrats!

But don't be surprised to see your local CU sell your loan to Wells Fargo in a month or so.

Happened to me.  Fortunately, nothing bad to report in the 2 years since it was sold.

Pictures first cause they're on my phone. I'll add words after I eat breakfast from my computer.

Cedar lined closet in the master bedroom. The hall (foyer?entry?) closet at the back door is also cedar lined.

Stupid and DIM bathroom light fan combo. I'm going to try replacing the bulb with an LED, but it's the only light in the bathroom and the shower is DARK. So something is going to change. Any good, relatively inexpensive, waterproof LEDs on the market?

 random double railing. May go away may not. It's one of the few pieces of handicap accessible the previous owners left. I feel like the top half can go away, but it's also not really hurting anything where it is. 

 downstairs laundry room, which is basically just where the water tank lives at this point. We might use it again if we can't get the washer and dryer upstairs to the 12 year olds room, which is where the POs were doing laundry

 it's got one of these. Never saw one before. Not sure I like it. Ihave it set to always on currently. but I'm thinking about maybe using this thing to shut it off at night? not really sure if its worth it.

 was the previous owners woods shop in the basement. it's 9x7 feet and right off the garage. 

Storage in the hall between basement and garage. 32"deep, 12 feet long, 3 doors made out of plywood. The top shelf runs the length. This I really like. 

 heating solution Oil burner and coal/wood stove for the boiler

This is behind the heater stuff, and also behind the rooms in the basement pictured in the post above. Dry storage, maybe a grow tent with some citrus plants in it will go here down the road. 

 homer bucket for scale. Looked the compressor up last night, found zero information except that Buckeye compressors broke off from Buckeye Boilers after this was made. 

 through the garage. I know everybody loves the pass through, but I know me. If I leave it like that, that grass will go away, to get covered in gravel and cars. While that sounds good, I'm trying to save myself headache and expense down the road by preventing that from happening. 

 the shed door does not like staying on that track. I'm going to need to figure it out.the door catches on that horizontal piece towards the top and pushes the opposite way. Really frustrating. 

 there's the shed in all its messy glory.

 from the shed. I think you can see the terraces from some other pictures, well this is the very top. I'be been told I'm not allowed to mount a slide to it. 

 from beside the detached garage. PO had 2 trailers parked on the right, and still had garage access. So much parking. 

 nice patio, shame they took the swing. The railings and banisters need to be redone, but they're not in terrible shape. I'm going to be looking for some good waterproof storage for out here for my grill stuff. 

Dogwood tree?

I did some checking today. The comically tall brick chimney is for the heating solutions, the shorter one used to be for the fireplace that isn't a fireplace anymore in the living room.

My most expensive mistake to date was a forklift error which punctured a tote and spilled 200 gallons of chemical. Cleanup cost was $380K. 
 

Carry on...

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Ouch. I managed to bounce our pettybone one day at the site. 

I took one single stone off the wall with the fork. Couldn't screw up that "safely" again if I tried. 

This building had one of our most expensive repairs though. What was to be the back left corner, we found shale, so we had to dig it out. 110 yards of concrete later, we were able to pour the other 90 yards we needed for the footer. 

I can't talk about the most expensive mistake. I had no part of it, the decision makers are dead, but people are still working to fix it, according to the date stamp 12 years later. 

In reply to RevRico :

That electric timer was likely installed as part of a utility rebate program to help control electrical demand (water heater timed to be off during typical times of high demand).  It doesn't look new and wouldn't be hard to replace with a junction box to bypass if it fails.  Find the breaker for the water heater and test to verify it's off first of course...  I see the likely breaker panel right there, could just re-feed and clean up the wiring too.

Looks cool. Congratulations! The outbuildings rock. Is the roof good enough that you can tear out the drop ceilings? I hate drop ceilings (but I do understand the utility).

Is there a driveway to the garage out back?

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Drop ceiling is only on the ground floor and one bedroom upstairs, thankfully. I could probably do drywall on the ground floor, but I think I'd rather sit and cut tile than try to hold drywall up and screw it in at the same time. 

The asphalt road at the end of the gravel in the post above is my access to the detached garage. There's some agreement that's on the title that as long as I don't block the road, I should always have access. I don't think you can see it in the other pictures, and street view hasn't been down the road, but there's a triangle of grass between the house driveway and the private road. I'll get a picture of it when I'm out there tomorrow. 

Nice score Rev, and Congrats

What area yunz in now?

Nice score!  I like how the garage/shed area is separated from the back yard area.

Let me know if you're looking to get rid of the wood boiler, I may be interested.

In reply to fasted58 :

Just outside Smithton proper, bout a mile off 70. Smack in the middle of the Uniontown and Washington Rural Kings. 

@dead sled

Once I get the connections and stuff figured out I'll let you know. 

Still doesn't look like a mistake to me, yet! Forget about removing the fireplace, just use it like it's a decoration. Removing those things is way more trouble than it's worth unless you have the house to the studs already and are already replacing the roof.

Amount of garages I’ve had in my life, either in my parents house growing up, or places I’ve rented or owned: 7. Amount of garages I’ve wished had a pull through 2nd garage door: 7. 

Ok, it is actually only 5. 2 of them wouldn’t work that way. But you get the point.