DWB

Tapcons are great, but I thought code was the ½" anchor bolts pertruding thru the concrete. Ramsets work great too. Much easier to install IMO. Just bustin' your chops Rico on the "building inspector". As much DIY stuff as you do, I had no doubt you had every base covered ! (but I was kind of hoping you'd ask "What's a building permit?") lol

Building inspector here.... Uh-oh...I don't see any anchor bolts coming up from the concrete pad to secure your bottom plate. That will be a $1000 fine. And where is your building permit? It doesn't appear to be posted. That's another $1000 fine. (I take cash only)

Just heard a report from the CDC where they admitted that only 6% of the deaths attributed to corona virus were actually the sole cause of death. 94% of the "labeled" corona virus deaths were from people with multiple pre-existing conditions, and very old. So of the 160,000 deaths attributed to corona virus, over 150,000 were actually from people with severe health issues prior to contracting the virus. "Only" 9600 were from the virus itself. That's ¼-th the amount of a flu season. So why are we still in lock down? Hmmm?

Wish my wife only had 10 pairs of shoes by the back door....

And it looks like...."No parts left over !!" Get a chance to crank 'er up yet?

You're doing a great job, so don't get discouraged, especially if you're doing it as a "one man band". You've got most of the hard stuff out of the way. All the cut outs for your mechanicals, and the trim pieces are up. You're probably already doing this, but if not, you might want to snap 2-3 rows of chalk line to make it easier to line up the siding, as you go up. Looks like about 36'+ run. Wood grain Hardy Board?

Sure hope you had an engine puller, or hoist of some sort. My back is sore just looking at this ! Did you ever get it started?

Sure hope you had a front loader to move those around. They are HEAVY !! Looks good though. Just don't kill yourself lugging those around...

Hey Boy...don't rain on us old farts that are 70 or so. My mind is still in as good a shape as when I was 40. (My body?...not so much) But the doc says I got another 15+ years ahead of me, and both of my parents lived to 90. So take it easy on us. We're not as feeble as you might think!! And I'm still a pretty good shot...so is the wife.

FUBAR

Are you going to tear 'er down, and rebuild/refurb it a piece at a time? Parts should be a challenge. Does it run now?

Wonder if Penske will cancel the race. He said "No fans...no race" before. Guess we'll see.

A little bit of trivia and good music... All the music ever written, played, sung, and enjoyed consists of only 12 notes. Go figure!

When I was young (like 7) I went to the basement and my Dad was working on Mom's old wringer washing machine. I ask him, "why don't you just call a repair guy to fix it?" He replied: "Son, I might as well try to fix it and save myself some money, cause the repair guy isn't gonna charge me anymore if I F-it up, than if I called him in the first place." That sage advice, has saved me Thousands of dollars over the years.

You cheated! You used the loader in the background. Don't you know you're supposed to do this by hand !!! 😀

Wife wanted me to replace the fencing in our back yard (country setting). Can't imagine why...the only thing I did was run the tractor thru it. Anyway I'm tearing off the cattle, woven wire fencing (lg squares pic) and replacing it with what they call "no climb". (2nd pic) Trying to do it in the mornings, as it's 100* here right now @ 5 pm. If you don't get your work done by 11 am, you're at risk for heat exhaustion. Have about 400 linear feet to replace, and then once that's done, I have to cut all the posts to the same height to install a 2x6 rail all around the top (which wasn't in the original "plan"...but is now) I'm too old to be doing this stuff by myself, but the job is too small for the fencing contractors to do it. So I'm doing a little bit everyday. Hope to be done by the end of the weekend. I'll post a finish pic when I'm done (if I'm not dead!)

Glad to hear Jeff is doing well after his surgery, and sorry that Billingsley99 is in a lot of pain. FWIW, I would strongly advise against getting both knees done at the same time. (not sure if you're considering it) Many people do, but it took me a year to recover from just one knee replacement surgery. Did my PT, and still had a ton of pain, and limited motion for the better part of the year. Still have many painful nights, although not every night. Had my hip replaced 8 months earlier and that was a piece of cake. Was ready to play golf again in 4 weeks, but the knee kept me sidelined. Now I can't play at all (not that I was that good in the first place). Have you tried replacing your insurance coverage with a different carrier? Might be worth a try if the injections helped so much. Just my 2¢.

SteveS. Looks like you did all the right things for the fix. Turned out looking really good! Can't tell from the pics, not sure how much slope you have between the house and drive. You might want to get a couple of the flexible downspout extensions to make sure the roof water gets all the way to the driveway. Last thing you need is to get any back wash up against the house in a heavy rain.

Unfortunately, there aren't very many "quality" sub-contractors out there anymore. 45 years ago when I built our first house, the quality control on a $40,000 house was outstanding. Things were "done right" Now days, the motto among the workers (usually) is "Hell, it's better than my house, so it's good enough", or my all time favorite..."just caulk it". Sad. That's why I was on site every day, every hour that I had subs working on any of our houses we built. Didn't yell, or scream, just being there let them know I was watching. Very few problems. And once you find a good contractor (I know a lot of you guys are doing your own work which is great, but for future reference) ask him for references of other contractors you might need. Most of the good ones, tend to work together on larger projects.

What he said ▲

Kind of surprised no one referenced this Luke Combs song. Just a feel good, kick ass, fun song.

Holy crap Rico !! Did you laminate two 2x10's (or 12's) together for those seats? You could put a blue whale on top of those and they wouldn't break ! (Exactly, how much do you weigh?) Nice job though!