Working In The Land Of Pleasant Living

[KrazyRay]

The other day I was just down the street from you on Hwy 50...Only 3,000 miles away! I should have stopped by to say Hi.

[special-K]

Hah! This is funny. I got on You Tube earlier and must have fallen asleep. I wake up and it's VW Bugs drag racing. Looks real familiar when I read the title and it was last year's VW Nationals at Mason-Dixon Dragway. I never knew about the event till now. Pretty neat. I knew there was a Bug-in of some sort in Hagerstown from a guy at the alloy wheel restoration shop where I got a wheel fixed.

Here it is:

4th Annual Vw Nationals at Mason Dixon 2018 -...

[dieseldawg142]

nice job on the steps and reg.
come across a lot of "pic #1" in my yrs...

[special-K]

Originally Posted by KrazyRay

The other day I was just down the street from you on Hwy 50...Only 3,000 miles away! I should have stopped by to say Hi.

You posted while I was snozzing. Yeah Ray, I wish I had known. You were a long way from home and close to me. Rt 40 is a southern alternative route to or from up home. Since Friendsville where my mom lives, and was born, is in the very NW tip of the state I use !-70 or US40, then I-68 or US40. US50 just catched the SW tip of the state for a short distance, but very beautiful stretch that passes over Backbone Mt, the ridge that our highest point is on. You pass through Washington, DC and on the Eastern side you come back into MD, across the Chesapeake Bay to Ocean City, MD at 50's eastern terminus. 50 is called "The Lonesome Hiway" and the say that stretch across WVA/MD/VA in the mountains is the only place east of the Mississippi that is true. That job I started this thread about, on the Severn R. is in Arnold, which is just above US50 not even a mile. Were you on 50 going to OC? Hopefully not DC. Not that it isn't a cool city in it's own right... as far as cities go

Originally Posted by dieseldawg142

nice job on the steps and reg.
come across a lot of "pic #1" in my yrs...

Hey thanks. Years ago an old guy showed me how to flash a skylight and I got it. It's unbelievable how so many just don't understand flashing. Just slop more tar on it . I tell people a proper roof just requires little to no tar. I can only recall places where by fault in design where it was necessary. I did have to seal the counter-flashing of course. But even that situation relies on the cut and bend with the sealant assuring the seal. That's a tri-polimer urethane I use. Do you guys have Geocel up that way? If that fake stone had flashing up under it no sealer would be needed. But you know all this. Just general talk here.

How about this deal on this old historic place? This house was altered years ago by an addition out back. The transition on one side was never done right, so it held water. Then came all the halfass repairs. Not saying I did the best job possible. But did what I could using trim coil stock

[special-K]

Of course this required a slathering of tar on the whole top to carry on with the original plan. This whole town is a historic district controlled by the state. So I snuck the aluminum in, no prior approval, just treated as a leak repair as far as they were concerned. Everything was hemmed & locked, then slathered the aluminized coating so it matched the other side. I also redid the chimney flashing and scraped, sealed, and coated all the built-in tin gutter

[GOPAPA]

Good Reading Tim and with pictures too.. I miss this type of work like you do that I used to do ..and that lifting cement bags is way to much for me these days .. nice looking country all green with trees by the river..thats the way it looks back in Western Oregon where I moved from.. You could write a book about all them adventures you have done

[special-K]

Yeah, if we could sit down and write out all we've been through we could all write a book called "The Life Of A Regular Guy" and it would be interesting, as long as it was written in an interesting way. Not just, First I did this, Then I did that, After that I... Later that day I

I really enjoy fixing up old houses. Mine needs plenty. Been here long enough that all my new work is old. I'm sprucing it up all I can so it's ready to sell when the time comes. All the things I've looked at and said, "I need to take care of that, but I'll wait" because of this or that. Mostly it's wait until I'm ready to sell, so it's fresh. I will still wait to do all inside painting, but everything outside it's do it while we have the weather. It's hard to leave for work. I just want to stay home all day and tool around. That is how I want my retirement. I hope to get another old place after this, no mortgage, fix that up, and go to the next. This is how I had expected to be making a living the last 20 or so years of my career anyway. When I say old I mean 100 years or more, 19th century. And I'm not talking this house flipper crap like on TV. I mean use my 50 years experience and creativity to transform, without great expense, a home into something to fall in love with. Like an art form. Like doing these old trucks that Kelly Blue Book is lost in rating. The same with realtors on the old places. It's more than square footage and how many bathrooms. It's about charm and moving a buyer with emotion.

That place above is in Brookeville, MD. The whole town is under historic guidelines by the state. It was the capitol of the United States for a day when the Brits came back in 1812 and burned the capitol in Washington, DC. This house was built by the town founder's daughter. It's been added onto and remodeled several times. There is a plaque out front about it's history. That iron fence has been around a while I'd say