Buddy of mine just built a house, a couple of thing I thought were nice: Reinforced safe room - Basically a large, walk-in, fire-resistant closet with a reinforced door. Kept valuables, guns and ammo in there. i'm not sure exactly what materials were used but I remember cinder block and plate metal of some sort. Walk-in attic - House is basically 1 story save for a loft over the garage (game room) that had a door leading into a very well lit attic space. no bullshit ladders to climb Motorized outdoor porch screens Outdoor kitchen adjacent to swimming pool I find having a mud room very useful, as well as a central shop vacuum system. One thing I'd really like to have is a gas stove but that is way down the list of things to get done.
I started step one of our kitchen remodel. Took down cabinets on one half of kitchen. Will be taking that wall down to the studs this weekend. Having it removed and a beam put in for support.
Yard question... Do you guys put down any grub prevention type spread this time of year? Is this something that’s OK to do yearly just to stay on top of it or can it mess my yard up if there’s no grubs.
Speak to me on grasses. marcus I believe you know your shit here. We have Bermuda at our current house, and while my fertilizer guy has it looking pretty good, I feel like there are better options. I've always heard Zoysia is good, but if my limit d reararch, I've discoveres that there are about eleventy three different zoysias. We're planning on keeping a few big hardwoods() that are on the lot, so there will be some shade.
I'm not sure grass in Ohio would be the best for the south (you live in GA right?). I'd ask double RL , dude has a badass lawn.
Zoysia and St Augustine are better than Bermuda if you have shade. El Toro is the best zoysia for shade.
As others have said, Bermuda loves and needs a ton of sun, for shady areas you will see it die off and that’s where the zoysia and St Aug will do better. However keep the trees trimmed as a lot of shade will hinder growth of any of them.
Know where you want TVs to go, while the walls are open put it in place, run all the wires back to a central place for your router. Really isn't hard, you could do it yourself. I paid someone to do it a few months ago because I have tall ceilings (humble brag) with a fire block and didn't want to mess with it. The only downside is I always used my wifi connection as a reason I sucked at PUBG, but I don't have that to fall back on and I just generally suck. Also a good time to run electrical outlets where you need them for hanging TVs, same if you do Sonos Surround sound, or if you go other surround run speaker wires.
I've already got someone coming in to do most of the work in the house so I asked for a quote on this as well. If it's more then a couple hundred bucks, I'll do it myself. Pretty much know where all the TVs are going which is good. A lot of the houses I toured that were being built had the router mounted on the ceiling in the center of the house. If I can find a way to do it where it doesn't look like shit, I'll probably do that. know this feel well.
Running electrical outlets is very simple. Just make sure you tighten your connections. I always like taping the edges in electrical tape, because Im overkill on a lot of shit.
Just for reference, my guy charged about $75 per 'drop' and it wasn't during a reno so it's harder. It's south Louisiana, so it was probably cheaper than what you'll find there. You can also go with a mesh wifi network since you'll have ethernet run throughout the house it'll work well also. You can either do an ethernet jack, it's simple - just a few small wires - or do a little box that allows the wire to just run straight through
Same theory, hardest part is just terminating your RJ-45 connectors. You need patience, a crimping tool and a tester. Edit: Just search RJ-45 tester on amazon, there is one for $8 that will do the trick. Also you will see RJ-45 crimping tools. You can probably get away with the cheapest one. Lowes and HD will rip you on that shit. Spoiler: Pin Out for your cabling
I haven’t either. I just rewired new outlets in a room I added shiplap to. Replaced the fan and ended up going into the attic to see what the dumb fuck that lived here before had done. For starters he ran a 2x4 to connect the light box to, but he didn’t even drive the screws completely in to the 2x4 that he crossed so it rocked which explained the noisy ass fan. He also added a dimmer switch to the fan, which truthfully is a fire hazard. It’s no surprise that light would occasionally turn itself on. I changed to a normal switch and added a new box to a 2x4 cross secured with four T25 screws. The dude that owned this house and did projects was a total dumbfuck.
Well, I'm a huge zoysia fan. I have an older type, Z-52 or Meyer's zoysia, but my buddy just removed his entire lawn two years ago and put down Zeon Zoysia. It's the fucking tits. He's got several big trees and plenty of shade, as well as some full sun areas and it's immaculate. It's a new variation that's very shade tolerant and requires very little water in comparison to most other varieties. They did the golf course at the Rio Games with it and it was amazing. I'm very seriously considering redoing my lawn with it. My back yard has become a giant piece of shit and is overwhelmed by Bermuda and I am very seriously considering killing it off and sodding zeon. It will kick ass anywhere in Georgia. It's truly a masterpiece of cultivation. http://www.bladerunnerfarms.com/bladerunner-farms-grass-varieties/zeon-zoysia/
zoysia usually turns brown suuuper quick my front yard has some issues growing grass so I thought about growing some ground cover and doing some landscaping instead
If you are in Nebraska, I'd think zoysia would be pretty terrible because of how quickly it goes into dormancy. The further south you go, the longer it stays green. Growing fescue would be amazing to me, but I can't do it here, so it's just part of the unfairness of life. Lol
yes that’s what I’d do. Want to move away from using chemicals in the yard and want to grow things that can handle not being watered
For real though, living in the fastest growing metro in the nation that already regularly faces drought conditions and wanting to landscape in a way that drastically reduces or eliminates the need for watering is not only not mental but also very environmentally responsible.
lechnerd swears by them, I think he actually gets money from Big Tankless. It is a running joke in this thread, go back a page or 2 and it was refreshed.
So is it not something I should get in my house? I legit know nothing about them other than there not being a tank.
an endless on-demand system if there’s only one or two of you and you don’t use hot water doing more than one thing at a time
Yeah I saw that. I figured its not a big deal to add into the cost of a home build if they're worth it.
If you ever re-sod, give Empire Zoysia a shot. It looks fairly similar to St Augustine, but, is much easier to maintain. It loves sandy areas too. I bought some for a project that I did on my side yard and I absolutely love it.
the 5 year old that lives in my house would have those rocks all over the driveway and the part that I would be trying to mow
This last post is nonsense. We have 6 *highly* Americanized humans in our household and we’ve even had all 4 showers running at the same time and have never had a problem with having enough hot water. I take hot showers so long my wrinkles get wrinkles. We never run out of hot water. Ever. My electric bill is much lower than if I had a regular water heater with a tank. I don’t have to worry about coming home to a flood in my house. This I have minimal anxiety. I place my yoga mat where I would’ve had to put my tank if I didn’t have a tankless. Lifespan of my tankless is 25 years. A mosquito has a longer lifespan than a regular water heater with a tank. Two big downsides... Cost - tankless can run over double the initial cost of a regular water heater but this doesn’t factor what you save down the road in lower electricity, no flooding of the house when your tank ruptures and replacing your regular water heater every 8 years of you choose not to go tankless Time - takes 5 to 15 seconds to have hot water after turning on the faucet