PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

It’s not just Oregon. Whole West Coast has gone bonkers. Look at homes in Bozeman, MT for laughs.

 

Also its Oregon

 

@ColoradoTJ
@daveeasa
@Just_A_Guy
@shakerhood

We made a lot of fun stops on that cross-country move, including to Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone Park. We spent a few days in the Yellowstone area and stayed at a hotel in Montana. My parents had a brand new GMC conversion van which they purchased for two reasons. The primary reason they bought that van was because it had a TV and VCR in the back for me to watch movies on long trips, and the other reason was because it had an impressive towing capacity. We were towing a UHAUL with my dad's Harley and a bunch of other stuff inside. When we went to Yellowstone, my dad unhitched the trailer from the van and chained it to a tree in the hotel parking lot. On the day we left, we obviously had to hook the trailer back up to the van. This was before backup cameras and parking sensors, and my dad was having a lot trouble lining things up just right. My mom was checking us out of the hotel if I remember correctly; I was just an 11-year old kid and my dad didn't want me to get hurt.

I was in the back of the van sorting through my VHS tapes, and unbeknownst to me, a waitress from a restaurant where we had just eaten (and which shared a parking lot with the hotel) come out to see if we needed help. This was a different time (specifically the summer of 2000), and my dad asked this woman if she could get in the van and back it up while he lined up the tongue of the trailer with the hitch ball. If I had to guess, I'd say this woman was in her 30s or 40s, so she obviously had a driver's license. That's not the point though; I guarantee you that if my dad found himself in the same situation today, he would not let a stranger behind the wheel of his brand new vehicle. Small-town Montana is probably still a much friendlier place than the Philly suburbs more than two decades later, but still...

Anyway, I was in the back of the van when this unfamiliar woman hopped behind the wheel, and for a brief moment I thought that she was actually stealing the van. Luckily, before I could freak out, she looked out the window and asked my dad exactly what he wanted her to do.

 

The whole West Coast has definitely gone bonkers; I was born in California, and I would never live their again based purely on the fact that they draconian emissions testing laws and are absolute nazis to car enthusiasts!

 

I just did a trip with my pops to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Devils Tower as well as Jewel cave. Nice to see those parts of the country. Everyone talks about how cold it gets with the wind chill.

 

Ive been to Mt Rushmore a couple times. Its changed a lot. Last time i went was 98 i think. I guess you can get a lot closer to monument than before.

 

Yes...the walk-in closet is off the bathroom. And yes, we have a large garden tub and a separate shower stall. I think I've been in that tub twice in 17 years. However, I have seen my lovely wife soaking in it many times. That's worth the having right there. Dual sinks too.

 

@Plain Jane Taco

Now you'll find this adorable. My grandma owned this huge condo from 1994 to 1999, and it had the same setup, with the whirpool tub and separate shower. It was really only considered a "condo" from a legal standpoint. My grandma owned the space inside and responsible for replacing things like the heat pump and windows. However, she did not own the land or the exterior walls, and everything outside including the back deck was maintained by the condo association.

Anyway, that house had a hot tub built into the back deck that my cousins and I loved to play in. On rainy, and/or snowy, and/or cold days using the hot tub was out of the question. This didn't stop us. On days when using the hot tub was not an option, my cousins (both girls) and I would put on our swimsuits and play in the master bathroom jacuzzi tub! My grandma had told us the story of Noah's Ark around the time she bought that house (approximately the summer of 1994), and my cousins and I nicknamed the bathroom jacuzzi "The Ark."

I was not formally diagnosed with Aspergers until November 1998, so I was undiagnosed at the time. Whenever I was at my grandma's house and in a bad mood, my grandma let me use the tub as my calming down area (when it was empty and I was in my regular clothes).

 

There were ten 3-unit buildings in that development, built in 1993-1994, for a total of 30 residences. There were three floorplans, and the first house my grandma owned in that development was a middle unit, with an end unit on each side. My grandma bought the first place from the original owner in 1994 after moving from Arizona, and it was her primary residence until 1999. She and my grandma also owned homes in Florida and Maine. The lakehouse in Maine was almost exclusively used in the summer, and my great grandma lived in the Florida house. When my grandma sold the first house in Pennsylvania, she bought another house across the street from the place in Florida where her mom lived. She lived in Maine in the summer, and Florida in the winter. She bought another lakefront property in Maine in 1999-2000, and sold one of the Florida places in like 2005-2006. She bought another house in the same condo development in 2006 and lived there until 2019, finally selling that house in 2020. She sold the other Florida house well over a decade ago, and is now living in yet another house in another part of Florida that she bought in 2019.

 

I've got to say Bill that I really like your house based on your description of it! I believe you told me that it is like 1,900-2,000 square feet? What amazes me the most is that your house was built from the ground up with dual-zone central A/C. From 2002-2005, my parents owned a house in Northern Virginia that was almsot double the size of your house, and it only had one central A/C unit. Unlike your house, it had a gas furnace and not a heat pump, but my parents' bedroom was located above the garage and it got miserably hot in the summer even with the A/C cranked!

 

Just a tick over 2000 sq ft

 

Did you buy that house new?

 

Yes

 

And you didn't have to pay any extra for the dual-zone?!?!

 

No. This particular builder as done duals on 2 story homes since the beginning of time

 

My parents' townhouse was built in 2007 and would have come standard with a single 3.5-ton unit. My parents went in the decorated model of the house they ended up buying and found the upstairs to be much hotter, so they paid $6,000 extra to get a second system for the upstairs. That house was just under 2,300 square feet not including the finished basement, if I remember correctly, and it had dual 2-ton Carrier A/C units with two Carrier 40,000 BTU 90% efficiency gas furnaces.

 

Needs stripper poles..

Living home has its annoyances of course, but free/real cheap versus spending that much on rent..I'll deal with the annoyances..

 

More sensible roof line than usual. That big honking deck is going to take a lot of time and expense to keep it in good condition.

 

I'd go with Trex or some other simulated wood for the actual deck...