just curious what the weirdest job you’ve done is.
I just started this very interesting and what I think will end up looking very cool job but not typical. We are installing 4′ x 4′ sheets of 1/2″ hardi board spaced 1/2″ apart on all sides over a gridwork of galvanized sheet stock all riveted to steel hat channel that has been scewed to icf concrete forms where the walls go betweeen 2 and 3 stories high. I think it will end up looking like a modern art museum when it is done.
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I piped in a "beagle grinder" once does that count?
Do you look to the government for an entitlement, or to GOD for empowerment. BDW
Got a call from a GC who had the amish frame a house for him and he wanted some "punchlist stuff" done.
Turns out the framers had scabbed an entire wall together 30 ft tall transom window wall facing a lake. The wall would move just leaning on it. An engineer spec'ed a tubesteel frame to hold this nightmare up. The tube steel was 3"x10" and went from floor to ceiling.
I spent the next 4 days reframing this wall with 250- 2x12's to cover the steel frame up. Around arched windows, sliding glass doors and fixed window units.
Without a doubt one of the weirdest jobs I've done, never framed a 3 story wall with 2x12's before and not looking forward to it again.
This house had 3 floors facing this wall with a balcony over the living room below. This HO wanted to practice skydiving or something off the 3rd floor balcony into the living room so we had to bolt a 14"LVL to the bottom of the scissor trusses the length of living room so he could mount his harness. Yeah right no problem 40' LVL x14" 30' in the freakin air.
That job was full of weird sh!t I was happy to get paid and get out of there before he came up with something else I'd never heard of before.
"Sometimes I even freak myself out." Dimebag Darrell
I briefly had a job in Yellowknife NWT digging and blasting through permafrost under an existing house to pour piers on the bedrock to hold the house up with.
The house was melting itself into a mud puddle which would have been about 30 feet deep before it found bottom.
You can't build a northern house with southern techniques.
Another weird one: I built two 40 foot diameter wooden tanks in St John's Newfoundland for the Marine Sciences Research Lab to keep seals in. I built them barrel fashion with 3/4" wire and turnbuckles for banding and staves of 5 1/2" x 2 7/8" PT T&G with a very small bevel on the groove edge. It was actually very easy.
Ron
A woman called out of the blue and said," I've got this picture clipped from a magazine years ago of a headboard I want for my bed - so-and-so said you could probably build it . . ."
So I go see her - what she has a pic of is a real avant garde queen-size headboard, seven feet high, with four twisted / intertwined shapes (all in the plane of the wall, luckily) wrapped in artfully padded and frayed burlap. I figure, sure, and agree.
I scanned the magazine photo, traced it in AutoCAD, and printed it on lots of sheets of paper I taped together - I wanted the curves to match exactly, and I wasn't sure scaling from a grid would be accurate.
I cut the shapes from 3/4" MDF, rounded over the edges 1/2" radius, then used quilt padding to bulk up the giant "fingers" and some decorator quality burlap to wrap them in - I even got the artfully placed seams in the same places.
Because of the weight and awkwardness of this thing, it wouldn't fit through a door. I mounted in T-nuts on the back of the front pieces where there were overlaps, and matching sleeved holes. I carried all the pieces in, bolted them together from the back, then mounted the subframe that attached to the existing metal bedframe.
It looked exactly like the photo, the client was ecstatic, and her cats loved to climb it. I thought it would snag pillows and hair, but she says it doesn't.
I'll post a picture tomorrow - it's surely the oddest thing I've build for a client!
Forrest
Edited 4/8/2006 7:26 am by McDesign
I turned a master bedroom walk in closet into a "sitting room". Complete with a 3' wide x 5' tall two way mirror. Just so happens the bed was in plain view when sitting on a Lazy boy recliner, and looking through the mirror.
The customer stressed discretion at any price.
"I always say they should make killing people legal. Of course, if they did, I would probably be the first one killed."- Barry Bonds
I musta worked for the same people that dustin did, or at least their friends.
Early eighties I was doing electrical work...... older couple maybe in their 60's. Woman wearing leopard print cat outfit, stilletos and big puffed hair. We wired up lights and a disco ball in a bedroom that had mirrored ceilings, round bed that spun.
it wasn't the work on this one, but the customer that was weird.
We added a small bathroom for this woman who's dad was a acquaintance of my dad's.
the first day, i get there about 8 or 8:30, ring the doorbell, knock a bunch of times, until finally she answers the door.
Turns out she's an exotic dancer, and doesn't get home 'til about 4 in the morning.
And she certainly didn't want us there at 8 AM.
So we did this bathroom, starting after lunch and working until 4:30 or 5. It took forever, and the whole time I felt like she was on the edge, ready to kill.
And she had a whole bunch of women's lib books around.
I was SO glad to finish that job.
I worked on Pif's house......
does that count????Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
LOL!!
I got sent with another guy to trench in some onderground cable to an old root celler that was about 100 foot away from the house.. and also to build a new custom cellar door.
lets just say there was some freaky whips and bondage stuff down there-- and from the looks of it the stuff was kept in frequent use
Yikes, man we were supposed to do this one morning and the guy was supposed to come home and give us a check before we left... But we got that sucker done in record time and got the heck out... Sent him a bill
Edited 4/8/2006 1:31 pm ET by custombuilt
So that was a job you didn't want to get tied up too long on, eh?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
LOL yep!When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!
Not sure if this applies or not but I looked at buying a vacant fixer upper house and the interior door to the basement was nailed shut.This was a small older home in poor condition built in the early 1900's. At no time in the past was it ever fancy, well to do, or a show home. It was just small and plain. I think it was what you would call a small two bedroom cottage.In the back yard about 10 yards from the house was a cellar door. I opened in and walked down the stairs and walked into a very well made concrete tunnel with lights and electricity.The tunnel led from the basement of the house to the alley. The tunnel was spotless clean and very well made of concrete. It was professionally built.Why was the tunnel there? I do not know. I asked around and no one else knew what the story was either.^^^^^^
"The Older We Get, The Better We Were"
Why was the tunnel there? I do not know. I asked around and no one else knew what the story was either.
Given the year built and location, of the various choices my bet would be on speakeasy.
On one street in my town where I've been in most of the basements, seems more houses were at one time connected by underground tunnels than not. The arched tunnels still exist under the sidewalks (stop at where the street is now) and I know of one with an intact tunnel under the back yard areas to the neighboring house's basement. Was only closed in the middle with cement block to isolate the two houses in the past few years.
Some say underground railroad; some say speakeasy.
"Let's get crack-a-lackin" --- Adam Carolla
Did a spy room for the CIA last year.
Once remodeled the cadaver room at a dental school.
Rocked a house for two gay guys that built their own house, thier names were "Frankie and Johnny"
Just what comes to mind...
Mike
Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
I guess htere's only one realy weird thing that sticks in my mind.I installed a fireplace insert to a rock fireplace in a restaurant that used to be a pony express and stage stop in Colorado. To make it fit, I had to knock loose one stone along the leg face of the opennning, insert the unit, and then replace the stone. behind that stone was a long bone - about like an upper arm bone from a human. I'm supposing I should have been required to call the sheriff, but the statute of limitations having likely expired and all, I just finished up and got paid...I mean - it could have been from a deer or a...
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I built a house for an architect that was "U" shaped. The inside of the "U" was a "solar furnace" with a roof that lifted exposing a mirrored surface underneath the roof - which focused the sun into the greenhouse.
The wall covering the outside wall of the "U" tilted out, also with a mirrored surface. (In the summer the pins could be switched and the wall would raise up for a patio cover.)
Air was taken from this "solar furnace" into the house.
There was a lot of adjusting involved in its "limited success".
sounds like the architect is off his meds. Jim Devier
It wasnt a job I did but a few years ago where I live a family remodeling their house found a seled crawlspace with a 55 gallon drum in it. When they removed it and opened it there was a body in it. No joke this really happened on Long Island in Jericho. Anyway the police traced the former owners who now were living in Florida and confronted the old man who used to own the house. Of course he denied knowing anything about it, but the next day he commited suicide. Turns out he owned some factory and had an affair with one of his workers, who got pregnant and was gonna spill it to everybody so he wacked her and stuffed her in this barrel. It was filled with some kind of sand or chemical to keep any smells away but all it did was preserve the body. Pretty weird thing to find so whats in YOUR Basement?
U sure it wasn't Jimmy Hoffa?
"Let's get crack-a-lackin" --- Adam Carolla
I just finished a fairly significant remodel of a two story floating yacht club in Seattle. The club is a barge documented with the Coast Guard so there were no building permits or inspections except for the Health Dept's kitchen inspection at he end. The structure is stick framed on a 40' by 60' steel barge. The mud sill on the perimeter and girders every 6 feet or so are bolted to angle iron which is welded to the barge deck. Then a wood deck of 2x12 joists and 5/8"ply.
Our work was on the lower level and consisted of moving a kitchen across the room, remodeling the locker rooms, and changing some exterior doors/windows.
Funny thing was although I grew up sailing at the club and know most of the Board I ended up working on the project by answering a help wanted ad off Craig's List. Still it will be a good way to explain to folks who have known me since I was a kid that I have changed careers and would love to remodel their house.
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Edited 4/9/2006 3:35 am by Renoun
Thanks for the info and I think you're absolutely correct. The house had an unfinished basement and the entrance to the tunnel was hidden. There was a large built in cabinet hiding the entrance to the tunnel.Alcohol must have been a high priority. Had they put that money they used for the tunnel into the home, they would have had a nice place.^^^^^^
"The Older We Get, The Better We Were"
The person that owned it probably did put the money into his home and it was probably more than just nice.
I'm thinking that the bartender lived in the house you were looking at. -- ??
Remodeling Contractor just on the other side of the Glass City
For me was when the co. I was working for got bought out.
The new co. shortly after the buy out needed a room built for
file storage in the Denver office. And I'm the one and only
carpenter working now for this new co. So they fly me from
memphis to Denver for a week. I thought it was pretty neat,
just wished they had flown me on the co. jet. instead of commercial.