Bud's Clueless Remodel and Projects Thread

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• A Bit of History on the Building
• Removing the Stage (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• Polyurethaning the Floor (Part 1, Part 2)
• Refurbishing the Highway Sign (Part 1, Part 2)
• Upgrading the Shower Hardware
• 3D Modeling the Apartment (Part 1, Part 2)
• Refurbishing the Dairy Queen Sign (Part 1)
• Restomodding a Scoreboard Into an Alarm Clock (Part 1)
• I Got a Dog!
• Restoring an Old Firestone Sign (Part 1)

INTRO

While I'm sitting here waiting on the cable guy to ever show up, it seems like a good time to kick off this thread with some initial pictures of the workshop space before anything is moved in or built out.

The back half of this apartment is a ~1,200sqft workshop/studio space that's been subdivided into three rooms. Later today I'll bust out a tape measure and get some dimensions so the space can be accurately modeled in SketchUp, but for now let's say it is two smaller rooms of about 200sqft each and one larger room of about 800sqft.

My current plan is to use the larger room as the main workshop area, with the more finished of the two smaller rooms serving as a studio/office/crafts room, and finally the unfinished room used as storage.

There is also quite a lot of work necessary in the apartment space to un-build some of the tacky installations done by the previous tennant, upgrading the bathroom area, and refinishing a not insubstantial portion of the floors; but that's for a later post.

For now, some pictures of the blank canvas that is the future workshop.

Looking East into the workshop from the apartment:


Looking South in the workshop:


Looking North in the workshop:


Looking West out of the workshop into the apartment:


Unfinished workshop room, slated for storage:


Slightly more finished workshop room, slated for office/finishing:


There's a lot to do here, starting with the addition of tons of power outlets around the main workshop area, as well as rewiring some questionably laid out light switches...

Next steps after that would be the start of a dust collection scheme and installation of some much needed work benches.

But for the immediate future I've gotta get some measurements taken and get this modeled in SketchUp so the real planning can begin.

 

That's a rental?
Wow!
Or do you own it?

 

REMOVING THE STAGE (Part 1)

Here are some shots of the tacky diamond plated "stage"... things (or whatever) the previous tenant built.



These need removed because they split up the open space into goofy, unusable chunks.

The floor underneath is filthy and looks unfinished, so it's gonna take some doing to rehab the area.

 

It's a rental but I plan to live here quite some time and the lease is cheap cheap, so I don't mind doing a bit of rehab to make things more suitable.

 

REMOVING THE STAGE (Part 2)

Lots more "progress" yesterday. Despite multiple friends voting to keep the nicer portion of the stage intact, I opted to start removing it in order to have more uninterrupted floor space.



Not looking forward to having to refinish ~300sqft of completely boned wood floors that were tucked under this structure...



Heading back after work today with the Sawzall to remove the cross members and base. Then I'll have a final assessment of the floor beneath and know just how much work I signed myself up for.

 

HaHHAHAHAHAAHA ASS CRACK COVERED!

Yeah I would have torn it out as well. I mean what time is the joker band and when are the metal strippers arriving?

Good news, the floor remains. Awesome.

 

The removed lumber IS GOLD BTW, Mr Neighbor

 

Hell yeah man, there's some stuff in here that really surprised me. Some of the dimensional lumber is nicer than I ever knew could exist -- it's Irving brand and is so straight and knot-free it's insane.

I definitely did my best to salvage as much of the Irving dimensional as possible by removing all hardware and being meticulous. I was also able to save ~25% of the "stage" flooring to use for patches in a couple rougher spots on the original floor -- one spot in particular has a very sketchy bit of plywood right now that needs replaced.

No solid plans on how to re-use the dimensional stuff right now beyond a small bit going to building a rolling frame for the highway chevron sign (prior to rewiring, which I'll document here.)

 

REMOVING THE STAGE (Part 3)

The teardown continues. Man did the Sawzall come in clutch tonight, screw careful removal of this junky salvage wood they used to frame the stage up.

Getting someone out Friday for an estimate on sanding down the floors beneath the old stage and refinishing them. It doesn't need to be perfect, I really like distressed old factory floors so imperfections are fine by me.



The moving truck gets here Friday and is unloaded Saturday, so the place will start to take a bit more shape and I'll have my tools to get some actual work done.

 

Looks like it should be a fun project!

How bad are the floors that they need to be redone?

 

POLYURETHANING THE FLOOR (Part 1)

The floors are actually in decent physical shape save for one area of concern.

There's a guy coming early morning tomorrow to sand and refinish about 300sqft of the floor in the area where the stages were. Unfortunately my salvaged floorboards are too thick to use, but luckily he has actual matching boards to use so the plywood patch job will also get fixed up. He's charging $300 for the refinish and patch-up which seems more than fair.

It'll be messy, but worthwhile for the finished product (plus I don't have to do it myself!)

 

POLYURETHANING THE FLOOR (Part 2)

Floor refinish started today. The guys offered to re-coat the additional ~1,000sqft that was already poly'd to freshen it up for another $200.

Can't argue with those prices, so come Tuesday the floors'll be looking sweeeeeeet!

 

Cool project!
What was the original use of the building?
What is the curved brick wall, silo?

 

Not really sure what the building used to be. There are a couple big freight elevators, about big enough to park a Crown Vic.

The curved wall is an old smoke stack, not sure if it goes to a boiler/incinerator or some decommissioned equipment.

The floors being fully refreshed will be really nice. The movers unloaded the trailer today into the workshop (tools, house stuff, and all); this week will be really busy with unpacking. After that I can start planning out the workshop and getting it built out.

 

Precious cargo made it intact!

 

Welp... instead of being a responsible adult and saving my money --or using it for tools/remodeling materials-- I bought a toy. It looks like the net is a bit messed up, but KS makes a very cool "wing" net that I'll pick up after the table arrives.

Pics aren't great because I pulled them from the eBay listing.

 

Well you did say that your rent was super cheap -- just chalk this up to a one month rent hike and move on without guilt. Carrying guilt around isn't healthy after all...

 

Y'know... for a big place it sure fills up quick!

Between this high striker and the ping pong table the apartment is starting to get squeezed for space.

 

REFURBISHING THE HIGHWAY SIGN (Part 1)

Bought this sign to use as a night light eventually.



There are two major milestones until its fully usable:

• Build/buy a lighting controller (preferably programmable) to sequence the lights
• Build a (rolling) base to support the... "lamp"
• Bonus: clean up and refurbish the sign itself and light housings

Today I was able to locate what seems like a perfect solution to be used as a lighting controller. It's an Arduino controlled unit that can handle up to six channels and is fully programmable. The only hiccup is that (at least out of the box) it cannot cycle through pre-programmed routines, and so you would have to reprogram it every time you wanted to change how the lights functioned. Maybe eventually I will try and get a little more fancy with the scripting and an external controller of some kind to cycle programs, but loading a single program will do for now.



Amazon link to the controller purchased:

Traffic Light Signal Controller Compatible With Arduino Sequencer AC Voltage 6 Channel Solid Sate Relay SSR Programmable 100V-240VAC 50HZ-60HZ Crosswalk & Arrows RED GREEN YELLOW Built-in Leds

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JCJP1L1?ref=ppx_pt2_dt_b_prod_image

The workshop is still a hell of a mess with all sorts of boxes and non-workshop shit strewn everywhere. Hopefully by the weekend I'll be able to get it cleared out so actual workshop work can be done without covering all kinds of home goods and electronics in sawdust. Knocking out a simple base for the sign should be a nice easy project for a single afternoon using wood salvaged from various structures that were taken down shortly after moving in.

 

Finally making decent progress clearing all the household stuff from the workshop area. So much so I was finally able to set up the shelving and some temporary work benches.

Eventually these benches will be replaced with 2-3x their linear footage in similar (but all matching) heavy-duty benches from Menard's. Maybe mid next month, if I stop buying other stupid stuff...



Here's a link to the steel component shelving at Menard's that will replace the current work benches (I couldn't abide mismatched benching...): https://www.menards.com/main/storag...ing-units/steel-component-shelving/c-9540.htm

Instead of a kit, I'll opt to buy the pieces-parts and assemble something a little more customized to the specific needs of this shop. Namely lots of contiguous linear footage so I never am left wanting for counter space.