Building a new house and shop (5 Viewers)

[1911]

Ubiquiti?

That stuff is addictive! I keep looking at adding things/changing out things to increase the speed or functionality of our network.

Good stuff though!

And nice work.

Thanks.

Yes, all the network and WiFi equipment is Ubiquiti. I'm not a big tech guy, and the choices from online reviews and recommendations were bewildering. Fortunately, I have a local friend who is a much younger guy, and the IT director for a civil engineering firm, and he designed the system for me. The Ubiquiti stuff is mostly commercial-grade equipment, but their lower end overlaps the high-end consumer market. It's 2-3x more expensive than other popular home options, but scalable and expandable. It's also made for hard-wired (ethernet) cabling. I decided the extra cost was worth it since I work from home 95% of the time, and depend on the internet for it.

 

[SmoothLC]

Understand. I converted over to Ubiquiti a number of years ago. When we built our home, I had the home wired with Cat 5e, but for the first number of years just mostly settled for retail wireless routers. I got tired of the shortcomings of wireless, and finally went through and changed all the phone jacks over to Ethernet keystone jacks, installed a Unifi Dream Machine Pro and never looked back. I too work mostly from home and depend on Internet service. We recently got Google Fiber in our neighborhood and now I'm looking to upgrade the equipment to handle 2.5 Gb or above. Anyway, nice build.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

Hail Mary just in case? Brother from another mother?

 

[1911]

Hail Mary just in case? Brother from another mother?

View attachment 3823111

That looks like the one on Hwy 180 on the way to Mineral Wells. Might be built with the same form system that our contractor uses, but not built by them, if it’s the house I’m thinking of.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Hail Mary just in case? Brother from another mother?

View attachment 3823111

Wow. That’s 1,176,120 ft2. Doesn’t look that big.

 

[Michael B]

It may not be real wide, but it sure is deep!!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

It may not be real wide, but it sure is deep!!

That's what she said

 

[1911]

Work on the house continues; painting doors and door frames, baseboards, etc. We did get all of the counter tops in and all sinks and faucets installed last week. I converted the Wolf gas range from natural gas to Propane, and it is hooked up and functional now. That was a pain in the ass to do! Besides making changes to the internal regulator, each of the six burners has four different orifices (jets to us carburetor guys ) that have to be changed - two under each burner, and two in each of the burner valves behind the knobs. The Wolf company does not want you to do your own work on their appliances, and a service manual was very hard to find but I eventually gained back-door access to one on the interwebs.

The counters still need backsplashes.

The other big news is, I declared my office finished, and I moved all the important stuff in and I'm working in it (i.e. paid consulting) every morning. Still some more pieces of furniture to go in later, that are currently buried under other household furniture and stuff stored in the shop.

 

[Michael B]

Very nice! Is that a map in the corner of your office?

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Coming along nicely. Pretty sure we have that same Wolf Range running on propane. We changed the knobs to black but otherwise the same. I don't see any ventilation or is there a hood planned? We have a fairly hefty vent that powers up from behind when in use. Comes up around 16". It has a pretty good draw with the fan on high but we still manage to set the smoke detector off on occasion. Here's a photo of it in the up position running.

 

[Waorani]

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Love the old school green drafting table mat!

 

[1911]

Very nice! Is that a map in the corner of your office?

Yes, though it's not one of mine; it's a commercial product, a producing zone map of the Permian Basin. It shows the geologic age of oil and gas reservoirs in west Texas and southeast New Mexico. It's plastic-laminated paper, and has never completely unrolled from the cardboard shipping tube.

 

[1911]

Coming along nicely. Pretty sure we have that same Wolf Range running on propane. We changed the knobs to black but otherwise the same. I don't see any ventilation or is there a hood planned? We have a fairly hefty vent that powers up from behind when in use. Comes up around 16". It has a pretty good draw with the fan on high but we still manage to set the smoke detector off on occasion. Here's a photo of it in the up position running.

View attachment 3836480

Yep, looks exactly the same! It came with another set of knobs; don't remember if they're silver or black, but the mrs. likes the red. If you ever need to tear yours apart, let me know and I can save you some time trying to figure out how.

There is an overhead suspended vent hood that is being delivered today as a matter of fact. There is a 12" diameter vent stack through the ceiling/dome for that purpose.

 

[1911]

Love the old school green drafting table mat!

I'd guess that there are few people younger than us that even know what linoleum is, never mind what a drafting table is or how it is used. This one is mostly just sentimental value for me, but for the first 15 years of my career, I made all of my maps and cross sections with paper, pencil, and an eraser. Now it just lays flat and is a workspace for my computer. It has more real estate than most desks.

 

[knuckle47]

@1911 I just love that kitchen… in fact the entire house is a marvel to me. I come from a boring traditional east coast zone with little imagination other than some really cool houses in northern Vermont when we lived there. Problem then was we were in our early 20’s no money and big ideas. Houses in the 1970’s were $25k? Paid $82k for the house we live in now and we have a lot of land so its value is high now. We get calls from agents monthly about selling …But where are we going to go?

Raised the fam in the same house now for 47 years and while we could afford to bail out and move almost anywhere, we’re just too old and tired to do so. And I did mention somewhere when something happens to one of us, the other one is essentially stranded (my wife) …I don’t plan on fading away anytime soon…but even in 10 years, we’re up there in ages. NO… my land cruisers are not for sale …..yet!!

If we really do get antsy and move to Michigan or Vermont, I’ll need them.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I'd guess that there are few people younger than us that even know what linoleum is, never mind what a drafting table is or how it is used. This one is mostly just sentimental value for me, but for the first 15 years of my career, I made all of my maps and cross sections with paper, pencil, and an eraser. Now it just lays flat and is a workspace for my computer. It has more real estate than most desks.

We have it's twin, oddly enough. When KBR was getting rid of all their tables they offered me one for a nominal price. Wife is a CE so of course she said, yes; please.

 

[LDowney]

Work on the house continues; painting doors and door frames, baseboards, etc. We did get all of the counter tops in and all sinks and faucets installed last week. I converted the Wolf gas range from natural gas to Propane, and it is hooked up and functional now. That was a pain in the ass to do! Besides making changes to the internal regulator, each of the six burners has four different orifices (jets to us carburetor guys ) that have to be changed - two under each burner, and two in each of the burner valves behind the knobs. The Wolf company does not want you to do your own work on their appliances, and a service manual was very hard to find but I eventually gained back-door access to one on the interwebs.

The counters still need backsplashes.

...

View attachment 3836426

Worked at drafting tables just like that where I designed aircraft for GD. The table I picked at a surplus sale was the same size but metal. I would have preferred a wood one like yours, but the metal one just unbolts which makes moving it reasonable. Probably why I still have it 40 years later after 4 cross country moves.

Congratulations on having such a nice one.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

Work on the house continues; painting doors and door frames, baseboards, etc. We did get all of the counter tops in and all sinks and faucets installed last week. I converted the Wolf gas range from natural gas to Propane, and it is hooked up and functional now. That was a pain in the ass to do! Besides making changes to the internal regulator, each of the six burners has four different orifices (jets to us carburetor guys ) that have to be changed - two under each burner, and two in each of the burner valves behind the knobs. The Wolf company does not want you to do your own work on their appliances, and a service manual was very hard to find but I eventually gained back-door access to one on the interwebs.

The counters still need backsplashes.


View attachment 3836419

View attachment 3836421

View attachment 3836423

The other big news is, I declared my office finished, and I moved all the important stuff in and I'm working in it (i.e. paid consulting) every morning. Still some more pieces of furniture to go in later, that are currently buried under other household furniture and stuff stored in the shop.

View attachment 3836426

Loving it Lee! Love the HP calculator.

 

[1911]

Worked at drafting tables just like that where I designed aircraft for GD. The table I picked at a surplus sale was the same size but metal. I would have preferred a wood one like yours, but the metal one just unbolts which makes moving it reasonable. Probably why I still have it 40 years later after 4 cross country moves.

Congratulations on having such a nice one.

Thanks!

Yeah, I have had the metal-base ones in the past too, and they are sturdy and functional if not as beautiful. I was able to get several drafting tables from former employers; in the late 90's the advent of large-format color plotters made draftsmen obsolete and oil companies either converted their draftsmen to computer-based geotechs or just let them retire and didn't replace them. I was able to get several for either free or very cheap. I gave them all away to children and others except this one. It is solid oak, no veneer, and weighs a ton. The table top is laminated (I think that is the right word? - a bunch of strips or blocks of wood glued together) so that it won't ever warp and is always flat and level. Six feet long and three feet wide.

It's ironic in a way, but the 42" HP color plotter that I bought years ago (and a 36" before that) is now pretty much obsolete also. It still works just fine, but all of my clients now prefer digital formats for my output, either PDF, DXF, or CGM. So I'm not even going to move the big plotter into my office, even though I designed a space for it.

 

[1911]

Loving it Lee! Love the HP calculator.

Thanks CD.

I still use that HP11C every day. Bought it new in 1982, if I remember correctly. Got pretty good at programming it too. It doesn't have many bytes of memory and limited storage registers, so the code had to be super efficient. I wrote a program to do well log analysis that used pretty much last byte and resource.

A friend/former co-worker gave me another one exactly like it, in the original vinyl case that still looks brand new, so I have a backup if mine ever dies - but it's like the Toyota Hilux of calculators; can't destroy it and it just keeps on working. I'm sort of surprised that you can still buy batteries to fit it, at least last time I needed some - the batteries last like a decade, LOL.