251 replies to this topic

[Rial]

I am fairly certain you can't grow hops. Plus where do I get hops seeds, and peanut seeds adn tobacco seeds?

Good luck for anyone waiting on a short sale, and fuck companies that deal in money. (like money is there product) just kick in the doors adn live there til they kick you out or sell you the damn house.

[Tony]

I am fairly certain you can't grow hops. Plus where do I get hops seeds, and peanut seeds adn tobacco seeds?

there are some hops distributors in washington and oregon that will ship rhizomes to you, but they're not available until the spring. hops generally grow in the summer, which means they're probably going to die here. plus, they get HUGE.

i'm inclined to trust the info on the phx permaculture guild link in that url you sent. they're a local group of gardeners/growers and that site gives tons of info on growing in phoenix - vs. other sites that give information that is not climate specific. yes, i'm a gardening geek now and i'm a member of the permaculture guild - it's free on the website, and they have classes/blogs/a message board (although not nearly as badass as the shizz!) if you need to get more info.

http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/

and here's a local planting calendar (sorry, no hops): http://www.urbanfarm...ng_Calendar.pdf

i'd recommend both of those resources if you're a homeowner (or not) who tries to grow shit in the desert.

[Rial]

I am fairly certain you can't grow hops. Plus where do I get hops seeds, and peanut seeds adn tobacco seeds?

there are some hops distributors in washington and oregon that will ship rhizomes to you, but they're not available until the spring. hops generally grow in the summer, which means they're probably going to die here. plus, they get HUGE.

i'm inclined to trust the info on the phx permaculture guild link in that url you sent. they're a local group of gardeners/growers and that site gives tons of info on growing in phoenix - vs. other sites that give information that is not climate specific. yes, i'm a gardening geek now and i'm a member of the permaculture guild - it's free on the website, and they have classes/blogs/a message board (although not nearly as badass as the shizz!) if you need to get more info.

http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/

and here's a local planting calendar (sorry, no hops): http://www.urbanfarm...ng_Calendar.pdf

i'd recommend both of those resources if you're a homeowner (or not) who tries to grow shit in the desert.

I grow shit in the desert daily, sometimes twice.
thanks for the links

[jeremx]

but most of those links are about failing at growing hops in phoenix

yeah.. i was too quick to be a smart ass and didn't really look into it much. but tony's got the good info there. my gf is constantly looking at the permaculture site and looking at taking classes and buying books and magazines and whatnot. it's the magazines that get all these ideas in my head. they're not az specific.

[John MFer]

Good luck for anyone waiting on a short sale,

I know I'm totally the debbie downer in this thread. But this statement is true.

My mother in law found a short sale house she liked. It was advertised as "bank already accepted short sale price, deal fell through, quick answer, blah blah blah". She put in an offer, same price as the bank supposedly accepted previously. Waits a month. Bank comes back 20 grand higher.

Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing insulting?

Meanwhile, the house she's renting? The owner didn't mention it, but it's being foreclosed on. She found out when a real estate attorney left a notice on her door.

[BatMan]

I still live in my parents house.

[Jacki O.]

Good luck for anyone waiting on a short sale,

I know I'm totally the debbie downer in this thread. But this statement is true.

My mother in law found a short sale house she liked. It was advertised as "bank already accepted short sale price, deal fell through, quick answer, blah blah blah". She put in an offer, same price as the bank supposedly accepted previously. Waits a month. Bank comes back 20 grand higher.

Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing insulting?

Meanwhile, the house she's renting? The owner didn't mention it, but it's being foreclosed on. She found out when a real estate attorney left a notice on her door.

ugh fucking lame

banks are holding onto their foreclosed properties and doing that sort of shit to try and raise the marked because they have so many homes in foreclosure. it's just another way to try and squeeze more money out of the dried-up turd that is the american dream

[The Real Jeffrey Lebowski]

I still live in my parents house.

Ha! Thanks to Wells Fargo, so do I!

[glitterbot]

Good luck for anyone waiting on a short sale,

I know I'm totally the debbie downer in this thread. But this statement is true.

My mother in law found a short sale house she liked. It was advertised as "bank already accepted short sale price, deal fell through, quick answer, blah blah blah". She put in an offer, same price as the bank supposedly accepted previously. Waits a month. Bank comes back 20 grand higher.

Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing insulting?

Pretty much the same thing happened to us on one house. But the house we ended up buying was a short sale, with TWO mortgages on it! We put in an offer at Thanksgiving, it was accepted by the homeowner in about 3-4 days, and then we closed on like March 1st or something. It felt like a miracle. (Still does, actually.)

[John MFer]

What sort of home improvement has anyone taken on?

Our hallway bathroom shower was looking pretty rough. Original tile from 30 years ago in the shower, cracked in places, grout missing, tiles not flat with each other. It really needed to be redone. We got with a contractor and are doing it partially ourselves, namely all the demolition, some of the plumbing. It's small enough we decided to retile the floor as well to match the shower.

Getting the tile off the walls was no problem, it was actually pretty fun. Place hammer in hand, swing at wall as hard as you can. The floor tile, what a bitch! Not to mention, the tile had been laid over the original 1980 linoleum floor. So, we had to pull that up too. I will never, ever try to pull up a linoleum floor again. At least I can skip the gym this weekend, a couple hours of scraping inch by inch has been a good cardio workout.

[Danosaur]

What sort of home improvement has anyone taken on?

Our hallway bathroom shower was looking pretty rough. Original tile from 30 years ago in the shower, cracked in places, grout missing, tiles not flat with each other. It really needed to be redone. We got with a contractor and are doing it partially ourselves, namely all the demolition, some of the plumbing. It's small enough we decided to retile the floor as well to match the shower.

Getting the tile off the walls was no problem, it was actually pretty fun. Place hammer in hand, swing at wall as hard as you can. The floor tile, what a bitch! Not to mention, the tile had been laid over the original 1980 linoleum floor. So, we had to pull that up too. I will never, ever try to pull up a linoleum floor again. At least I can skip the gym this weekend, a couple hours of scraping inch by inch has been a good cardio workout.

My wife and moved into our current home in 2006 and spent the first three months removing two walls, putting up two new beams, re-drywalling, adding new wood flooring, and re-ordering the kitchen including tile, cabinetry and relocating gas and electrical. My brother and I also put in four new down lights across the furred beam that we installed. In 2008, I re did the roof completely and added a vaulted patio cover. This is still not totally completed in that it just needs some finish work and we kinda ran low on funds. We had thought about making it into an addition, but then realized it would have taken about 20K more to complete. Then the market went to shit and I had a hard time convincing my wife to let us upgrade the house any more with our mortgage being so completely underwater. However, I recently installed to new windows in the front room one being a good 8ft picture window. The house is 50+ years old so were talking plaster, concrete and chicken wire that looks like something from a prison camp.

The good news is...we may have found a home we want and have been approved for so me may end up buying that and shortselling this one (or walking away).

I hear you John on that linoleum flooring...best thing I found to use was one of those super large tile scrapper.

[Tony]

What sort of home improvement has anyone taken on?

Our hallway bathroom shower was looking pretty rough. Original tile from 30 years ago in the shower, cracked in places, grout missing, tiles not flat with each other. It really needed to be redone. We got with a contractor and are doing it partially ourselves, namely all the demolition, some of the plumbing. It's small enough we decided to retile the floor as well to match the shower.

Getting the tile off the walls was no problem, it was actually pretty fun. Place hammer in hand, swing at wall as hard as you can. The floor tile, what a bitch! Not to mention, the tile had been laid over the original 1980 linoleum floor. So, we had to pull that up too. I will never, ever try to pull up a linoleum floor again. At least I can skip the gym this weekend, a couple hours of scraping inch by inch has been a good cardio workout.

My wife and moved into our current home in 2006 and spent the first three months removing two walls, putting up two new beams, re-drywalling, adding new wood flooring, and re-ordering the kitchen including tile, cabinetry and relocating gas and electrical. My brother and I also put in four new down lights across the furred beam that we installed. In 2008, I re did the roof completely and added a vaulted patio cover. This is still not totally completed in that it just needs some finish work and we kinda ran low on funds. We had thought about making it into an addition, but then realized it would have taken about 20K more to complete. Then the market went to shit and I had a hard time convincing my wife to let us upgrade the house any more with our mortgage being so completely underwater. However, I recently installed to new windows in the front room one being a good 8ft picture window. The house is 50+ years old so were talking plaster, concrete and chicken wire that looks like something from a prison camp.

The good news is...we may have found a home we want and have been approved for so me may end up buying that and shortselling this one (or walking away).

I hear you John on that linoleum flooring...best thing I found to use was one of those super large tile scrapper.

holy shit, dan. you're like bob vila.

when we moved in i painted. and i even sucked at that.

[chadk]

when we bought our house and moved in we painted every room except the family and half the kitchen. we have had to repair the bath tub drain pipe, half the water was going into the pipe half was making a pool of water under the tub, causing the wall to grow, kitchen drain line repair, basically the same thing, except the previous owner put in a wash / dryer stack the connected to the drain line, via sleeved, which means he didn't physically connect them just used a smaller pipe that was slid into the existing one, real smart. our electrical box and conduit fell off the roof, so we upgraded to a 210 instead of the 160 that was there, i think those numbers are right, that's so if we want to run electricity to the barn later. i had the hot tube motor replaced, but still have to have it wired to the electrical box right. it plugs into the wall and melts the extension chords, so we don't use it. i fixed a leak in the pond out back that is basically a bird pooping station, don't put ponds under palm trees, we had the bed rooms and dinning room tiled. and new insulation blown into the attic, added a new hanging porch light, and had some minor electrical work done, mostly housing exposed wires. my neighbor had a few extra tons of landscape rock which he graciously dumped in my driveway and back in the alley so i could shovel it around the lawn area. oh and we had a new counter tops put in and added a dish washer. we have also had to replace the washer dryer stack. this last year we have not done anything as the economy has hurt us financially which sucks because there is a lot more that i want done. like getting the sprinkler system fixed, we need a new roof, i want the fireplace fixed, i want to get the giant trees one of those deep root fertilizer things done, would like to extend the block wall higher, have a metal gate put in the back to replace the chain link fence gate, have the barn converted to half studio half garage.

[Jacki O.]

i havent done too much since moving in in 2006
i painted all the rooms except for the kitchen and hallway
had to have the plumbing to the shower in the bathroom fixed.

and i redid the plumbing equipment to the sink in the bathroom myself last year.
i re-did the walls in the bathroom bc they were all bubbly from the last owner not closing the shower curtain when he showered

i got a new pool pump for the pool and had the pool replastered and re-tiled and i got a new filter valve for the pool as well. this year i got the sand replaced. the pool was put in in the 1960s and nothing had been done to it since then. the original pump was still being used and everything.

i have gotten an new washer and dryer and a new dishwasher
i installed a new disposal and fixed up the plumbing in the kitchen


i had some dead palm trees removed and have planted some stuff in the yard but i need to redo the landscaping completely and get the sprinkler system fixed up. i also need to get a block wall built and a new carport awning.

at the end of 2008 i found termite tunnels in the house and had to have those sprayed for and also discovered some roof rats had decided to move into my attic so i had to get those guys out as well.

i need to re-tile the bathroom and get new shower and sink hardware and new lighting. and i need to redo the kitchen completely because it's full of fun 1980s particle board cabinets.

[Rial]

I am currently staining the concrete in my master bath (well not really, looking for a scraper to take up the linolium from 1963) and putting subway tiles in the shower, new toilet, new vanity (pedastal, its a tiny bath room) and adding power outlets (there aren't any) I also bought new washer and dryer (those front load Energy efficient kind)

But the people I bought my house from had just recently put in recycled hardwood floors thru out the house except for new tile in the kitchen and the hall bath. New double panned windows thru out, new doors and new sliding glass door in my bedroom (why not a french door I have no idea, but its a new door so i am in no rush to replace) New roof, new insulation in the attick, new electrical box to handle the 250sgft shed they built (insulated with AC and a concrete slab) new dishwasher and fridge, and replaced the kitchen cabinets on half the kitchen (the other half is an island with a stackable oven and an old as stove top, which seems like it all needs to go, thus the not replacing) Painted the whole inside of the house in colors I would paint that shit anyway, painted the outside as well. New copper plumming, new wires, and a new AC/furnace.

So I didn't have much to do but tear out a huge dying pine tree and replace with some drought tolerant mesquites. Fix the master bath, and generally eff the place up with my neglect to home up keep. Oh they put in a new wood fence which they didn't stain, and I didn't stain and my sprinklers are fucking that shit up, but I want something more interesting then a gray block fence, so letting that one simmer til I get a good idea.