I belong to a Work Party and I’m wondering how many others do the same thing.
A friend invited my family to join a work party we have four families, two carpenters a plumber and an electrical engineer, our families get together four times a year and tackle a large project on each others home.
Painting the house stripping sidewall shingles gutting a room, installing hardware you get the picture.
We work hard then party , saves a ton of money its fun our kids help and learn a bit too.
Any one else work party??
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i have been trying to get a group like that together, but no takers. we're not pros, just friends and neighbors who have various interior projects that are never resolved.
2 weeks ago i resorted to helping a young friend get her home cleaned up and organized, and she'lll come over and help me. some fixit projects are too big to do well alone, but i have lost steam in the past few years and find i just lose focus on even the small ones unless i'm working with someone.
Good for you!
When I began contracting, the first job was a handsome old farm house which the owners wanted to remodel. I took it on as a T&M project, planning on hiring experts to take care of the many things I didn't know how to do.
Hiring pros by the hour allowed me to hang with each of them, help them with their work and ask all the questions which came to mind. As a result I learned a great deal about many subjects which come up in remodeling quite often. I made a decent wage and I didn't have to take the usual #### which goes with being the expert's apprentice.
Don't pay with beer, especially during the course of the work.
I went to a lot of work partys but no one showed up for mine.
I went to a lot of work partys but no one showed up for mine
Bet there are many more here than you an' me with that experience, not to hijack the thread in a negative manner.
Maybe worst was volunteering to do a 100K addition to the church in 1980. 1st weekend there were about 20 people, hard to assign jobs to that many unskilled.
By the 3rd weekend, it was just me and Ken and his teenage son. That way for next 3 months of weekends. We did finish, spent $4K on job archy est. would be $120K or so. Did I say the archy quit 'cause I critiqued his plans to severly? Guess who got to draw the plans, get permits, etc. besides building the thing?
Did I learn a lesson?
Yep, Socialism sucks, and so does trying to save money for other people.
Did I learn a lesson?
Yep, Socialism sucks, and so does trying to save money for other people.
And religious idealism doesn't usually sustain much of an effort, when it comes to the kind of job you're talking about.
As a friend of mine once said, commenting on older man's efforts to obtain free help to move a piano for a free concert, "If you wanna be an idealist, you should have plenty of money".
I wan't talking about volunteering my services. We have a core group four families, four houses with projects that need to get done. it is done in the nature of the trades. if you are a maladroit you wouldn't be invited to join.
I have been snookered into helping friends with "hey can you show me how to install my Kitchen cabinets, or can i borrow your tools."
Those requests usually end up with me installing a kitchen for free or replacing broken tools.
The beauty of the work party is we all are on the same page. One major manageable project that can be completed by sixteen people in one 8-10 hour day. Good food good friends, sharing the work and rewards, it helps when your wife is nagging that the cobblers children have no shoes.
I like the concept of four tradespeople who are all simultaneously involved in building new homes working co-operatively to accomplish that goal. I just think it would take a carefully selected, well organized group to do it successfully.
Is part of your deal that you always work together for a full day on one of the project houses? That would seem to be one good practical rule for a successful group effort.
Yes we all heave ho together on one project at each house. Our homes are not new construction, one is an old shingled barn built in early 1800's and two old farmhouses 1900's and a 1950's cape. It isn't just the guys but the wives and kids help too. We have dug foundations, planted gardens, rebuilt barn doors, painted, stripped shingles, gutted rooms down to the studs, spruced up a yard for a garden wedding etc.. we all tried to figure out how much money it has saved us over the years its a bunch.
I appreciate you talking about how you've done it and how well that's worked out for you. I'm going to keep it in mind for future dealings with a couple of other carpenters and plumbers I've known and worked with over the years.
I think it's really a great idea for younger families who are adding on or building larger homes as they grow. Getting more closely involved in each other's growth and being supportive of that is a great way to bond as lifelong friends.
A friend's son in COlumbia, MO does this. I think 4 familys, but not sure.He is an RE agent, but has built (GC) some homes and does a lot of repairs on this rental. Have no idea about the other's skill level.The one project that I know that they did was building a retaining wall and landscaping..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Our family used to have these on a semi regular basis when I was a kid.
All my uncles turned out to be carpenters, all my aunts married guys who weren't. Grandpa was the maestro behing the orchestra of workers.
Whenever something needed to be done the party was scheduled and everyone would show up.
Roofs, new house frames, concrete, what ever it might have been the family got together to do it. A family reunion for the most part.
Good food, good times. Woods favorite carpenter
Did the same as a kid, my dad and uncles would get together for family builds. Did the same in the early 70's with the bunch of hippies I hung out with. Always a good time and a lot got done. built barns, houses, cleared hay fields, built fences etc. Tried it with a crew I had, did one whole frame for 1 guy, he promptly quit the company and never came back around to help anybody else.
He always did have capitalistic leanings, came out of the closet after that screwing over of all his friends.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I have alot of good memories from our "family reunions".
About 10 men working, at least that many women cooking and cleaning up.
And double that in kids.
Woods favorite carpenter
We've had a couple of work parties here at Chez Neumansky and without the help of our friends we never coulda done it.
Here's a shot of the 'gang' taking a pizza break after filling that dumpster completely and well stacked full of $hit...no beer either just coke and pizza.
View Image
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Edited 1/6/2008 7:47 pm by madmadscientist
Man, you have REALLY good friends!
well, you've got the good karma in your court, and he's got the bad. i'm wondering how many times he's told that story, thinking himself awfully clever, only to disgust his listeners.daniel, and matt, that is SO cool. an Eagle Scout troop built a nice 6' tall privacy fence approx 150' along the edge of a church for a community service project. Lucky us, we have the adjacent property and got ourselves a nice fence that was definitely not in the budget, for free! i figured the least i could do was send over $130 worth of pizza when they were wrapping up the project. made them happy, and it was all the fence cost me.
BTW daniel, any chance you can convince the neighbors to paint their homes something besides white? when the sun hits those things, it's downright blinding!
Edited 1/8/2008 2:47 am ET by msm-s
Send me a RT ticket and meet me at the airport.
Got beer?
Those sound really fun, kinda like the fests, without the work :)
It takes studs to build a house
My good friends are all white-collar types, with little ability and low standards when it comes to renovations work.
Used to do it quite a lot. Usually framing, roofing, sheetrocking, and concrete pours. If the weather was good, we'd usually camp out and burn some meat and swill beer AFTER the work day was done. This is in the sticks, so I don't think it'd be appropriate for urban dwellers to be peeing in others yards...
More than thirty years ago, I had a big party to frame my house. It lasted all weekend and the cast ranged from talented carpenters to people who wouldn't recognize a hammer. We had a grill going, lots of food, no beer until the end of the day, kids, dogs, all my friends and some complete strangers showed up. After the first day, when my wife got home from work, she was stupefied at how much we got done. It was one of the best experiences ever.
Back in the late 70's I was building a large workshop for myself (I'd kill to have it now) and I needed a hand to lift the trusses and other heavy stuff. We decided to have a barn raising bee. Lots of people came and it was a beautiful day and all you had to bring was a hammer. This was long before screws.
BBQ chicken pieces and lots of salad and my piece d'resistance was my homemade chilli. With that chilli we produced so much methane gas, my property was almost deemed a natural resource.
Anyways a good time was had by all and I even think we put the trusses up.
I just remembered something. About 6 months after the party I was rummaging around the bottom of our chest freezer and lo and behold I found some left over chilli. It had sort of a pulsating green glow eminating from it. It was even better tasting 6 months after the party;)
Great memories.
roger
Edited 1/4/2008 11:19 am ET by roger g
how the heck old are you?from a google search:
In 1797, Englishmen, Henry Maudslay (1771-1831) invented a large screw-cutting lathe that made it possible to mass-produce accurately sized screws. In 1798, American David Wilkinson also invented machinery for the mass production of threaded metal screws.
-------you must have meant, before cordless drills? lol
Well, I am sort of getting up there and you are right cordless drills were just starting to come out. Heck! variable speed and reversible corded stuff hadn't been out that long.
I had my first pizza when I was 18! I had heard of pizza parlors but they weren't in my town. Mac Donalds burgers were 19cents if you could even find a Mac Donalds.
If I remember my history, screws were first invented for holding suits of armour together.but screws used in any sort of building construction came many many years after I built my workshop. It would be interesting to know when it started and it probably revolved around heavy duty cordless drills. Screws to my knowledge were only used in cabinet making and furniture making. Again, until the cordless screwdriver came out a Yankee screwdriver was space age technology.
You gave me a good laugh.
Roger
we did this for 15 yeas in So. Cal. Great way to go..loved it.
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