The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey
7 years ago
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- 7 years agolast modified: 7 years ago
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to young to build a home? ideas please!
Comments (23)howiroll I think the younger the better, for a number of reasons. I am 47 and just finished a custom build in the mountains of VA. My dream. I grew up on the streets of Jersey - loud trucks and stenches that will singe your nostrils. I vacationed as a kid in upper NY state - loved to fish & camp. And I really enjoy nature. Going through a custom build is stressing and takes a lot of your time and energy. I did a lot of work on my home (not the original plan) to save our bacon when we started running over budget. Dear Wife poured in many many hours on the interior design and selections - it takes a ton of time. My hero is Jack LaLane - so I know what seniors can do. But I think if I were even 10 years older, I would have been unable to do a lot of the projects I took on myself. I suggest you follow the method that George Washington used when he built Mt. Vernon (my favorite house on the planet). He started with a main structure that was small - then added over the years. If you do that - you can finish the main structure and get in for as low a cost as possible - but have thought through the enitre long term plan roughing in for the expansions. As a youngster you might not have a large budget - I don't know your financial situation. And land prices keep escalating, so it's hard to keep up. If you can find the nice piece of land and get a structure on it to live in, then you have a great base and can add over time. Here are my answers to your questions. 1) From your experiences, if you were going to build a house what are the "must haves" or things you would without a doubt do? - energy efficient building is a must. - first floor master (love it!) - screened in and covered decks integrated into the house design. Our pergola with witch hat ceiling and wood burning fireplace is by far my favorite room in the house. - a great kitchen that the wife loves. - covered porch (we call it the dog room) with pebbled floor so that doggies can take care of business when it rains or snows. This is my second favorite room in the house - because the dogs love it and I don't have to shovel a path for them. 2) More importantly what was a waste of money? - we did not watse any money - we were very careful on what we put into the house. But we sure got charged more than we needed to on a few items (like excavation). Make sure you know your subs and make sure your aren't getting ripped by getting multiple bids. 3) My wife and I, along with both our families, are pretty handy. Given that how much would you have done when building a house and what is not worth the time/money savings to do yourself? I did a lot of the electrical, A/V , voice/data, security and I am glad I did. If I had the time, I would have done all of the electrical myslef because I did not like how the sub worked and what they charged (but this is just me - and I love doing this type of work). The master electrician was great - but his workers weren't. 4) Anything unique that you'd do/install if you were building a house? I planned out ahead of time what our backup approach would be for winter power outages and summer power outages. I did install a small standby generator to make sure the absolute essentials have backup power. When you live in the sticks, you need to think about being stranded for a few days and just make sure you have a plan. 5) Were any of you ever the general contractor for your house build? Nope. But the wife and I spend a ton of time going over the work the subs were doing. The builder should have paid us a management fee - we found a lot of things that needed to be addressed. 6) What are some money saving tips? Use the internet to check & verify pricies. When you do - make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Any commodities can ususally be found on-line cheaper - but you need to think about returns. Sometimes it might be worth paying a little more if service/returns could be an issue. Use the GW forums to check pricing too. 7) Since we will hopefully be living at this place for the rest of our life, energy saving ideas will definitely benefit us in the long run. Which ones do you suggest? Prices? Which ones are a waste? Tax breaks on using green materials? The tax breaks for energy efficient building are a joke (but that doesn't mean you should build an EE house). Look on the Renewable Energy Forum and search on "Energy Efficient Building". Loads of good info on that forum. 8) How many square feet? (We plan on having 2 kids and don't need a mansion) Just plan on the kids growing up and needing more space. This one is so subjective. One thing for sure - make your garages and storage space are bigger than what they normally show on internet house plans. I have two 2 car garages and love em. The main garage is 25 x 25. The other one (where all of my toys are) has an extra 3 feet or so in width so I can have a work shop in there (I have 2 workshops - another idea I love. One inside in the basement and one outside in the Man Toy Garage). 9) Since it is in the country and it is not uncommon to lose power for a few hours to a few days, anyone have pictures or ideas on a generator shed/hook up and how they disconnected from the grid? Look on the Electrical Forum - tons of posts on this. I decided that it was too costly to backup my entire house. I just did not want to have a 30 kilowatt generator (I have electric heat pumps - lot's of amperage needed to start compressors). So - I layed out that backup plan. Decided that in a winter outage, I would use fireplaces as the backup heat. I upgraded the fireplaces to direct vent inserts (2 gas, one wood burning) that are rated as heaters. I supply back power to the conrols (low voltage) and fireplace blower fans. I also backed up water, hot water, 2 refrig's, SATV, Sat Internet, and some lights. Much smaller genny - but all the comforts we need to ride out a 2 or 3 day outage. When you do the electrical in your home, plan for the gennny. Have the electrician put in a sub-panel and run all backup circuits from there. Make sure sub panel is on the side of house nearest weher genny will be and try to keep the LP gas tank near there too - this minimizes trenching and there are limits on the length of gas line runs. Use propane as you cooking source and then run genny off that tank. You can run for days without ever needing to fill a tank. 10) I plan on building a shop on the property eventually as well. Any considerations I need to make when building the house that will later effect the building of a shop? Electrical, plumbing etc? Get the biggest electrical service you can. I have a 600 amp main service run (3 x 200 amp service panels) - and that cost me nothing extra to get that to the house. Power company ran the line 700 feet from the main road, they just needed a bigger wire gauage to carry 600 amps. With that kind of power you can add on just about whatever you need for the shop later. 11) Any good way to calculate the costs? My wife and I have found some plans on eplans and houseplans.com. We were really just looking at the styles and layouts to find what we want. Should buy something like that or how do we move forward once we have an idea of what we want? It is hard to ball park costs. So many variables. Do a search on "How to Estimate Building Costs" on this forum - tons of posts on that subject. I do suggest looking on line for floor plans you like (and plan to look and look and look). You can always change the exterior of a house plan to get the look you want - focus on floorplan. If you find something you like, you can typically buy review copies for a smaller fee before you make the purchase of the copiable plans. Make little cut outs of your furniture to the same scale as the plans and lay them onto the review copy of the plans - just to get a better idea of the space and how things fit (or don't). It is very hard to visualize how a room will look from a 2D piece of paper drawn to a small scale. Last suggestion. Don't forget about including in the budget all of the toys you will need to maintain that property. Since Jan - I have purchased: a 4x4 SUV, utility trailer, snow blower, garden tractor with 50 inch mower plus attachments, heavy duty chainsaw ..... If you don't plan on this, then you will be forced to outsource it. It is great having land - but there are a lot of extra chores and you need the right type of toys to handle them. The first time I tried to cut a tree that fell on my property with a 14 inch chainsaw - the tree laughed at me. Watch out for the larger scale on house chores - when you go from a small lot in the burbs to acreage in the sticks, it is a very different world. Have fun!...See MoreI'm just going write SUCKER across my forehead!!!
Comments (63)I agree with you Ellendi, when you borrow money, it should be paid back based on the agreement but a lot of lenders have changed the terms of those agreements and made it almost impossible for people to repay making the banks even richer. It's a vicious cycle. Some, not all but some of the scenarios we're seeing today involve a lot of good money conscious people, who had every intention of paying their debts and because of circumstances beyond their control, are now forced to make a choice between housing and feeding their family or paying debt. Which would any of us choose in those circumstances? I personally, feel the banks are responsible for a large part of what's going on economically and they should be willing to help those deserving of it by any means they can, but they're not. Instead they are calling loans due, forging foreclosure documents, making more risky transactions, raising rates on people, charging grossly exorbitant fees and the list goes on, so it's very hard to have much empathy, KWIM? BTW, when I say deserving of it, I mean those who are not spend alcoholics abusing a system. With a shortage of jobs and change in the working climate many qualified people can't find work in their own fields and are taking jobs at whatever pay then can get just to keep afloat. If you live in an area that isn't in decline or working in a field where you see a lot more of these scenarios on a daily basis, it's hard to relate but I do and let me tell you, good, hard working people are finding themselves in situations they never dreamed they'd be in and it happened quick. It's horrible and it's scary. In addition to the above, debt Collectors are obligated to follow certain procedures and will often times have no problem breaking the laws to collect because they're betting the person they're contacting isn't aware of their rights. I suspect that that is the case with the caller in the Dave Ramsey conversation....See MoreJonBenet Ramsey case being reopened...
Comments (10)I never thought the family had anything to do with it. I think the police could have tied them to it by now if they had; plus the male DNA they found on the panties didn't match them. I kind of thought it may have been a stranger who did one of their open house Christmas tours just a few weeks before. Or, possibly some pedopile linked with the beauty pageants. I really wish they would solve it once and for all! Hopefully conducting this new round of interviews will help....See MoreMy thoughts, prayers and support to go Dallas
Comments (62)"Lukk, care to share what's really going on with you? You know someone in law enforcement? You think they walk on water? Sorry, they're human like the rest of us. They make mistakes like the rest of us. I saw 2 videos of Alton Sterling's murder. One was a brutal close up. I didn't hear any "exploiting news reports" ... and I have many questions." Cindy, I don't know anyone in law enforcement and have actually had both good and bad experiences, certainly a lot more good than bad, but all the same. What I have a problem with is that everyone is so angry and committed to the idea that the officers shot those men with racial and murderous intent when we really don't know that. I also feel very strongly that the guns were a big contributing factor. Everyone is so focused on race, that they aren't even considering that. I remember back in the early 90's I once got pulled over for speeding by a Sheriff's Deputy. My purse was in the trunk of my car so I pulled over, unlocked the trunk and got out to get my purse. My back was to him as I reached into the trunk and the next thing I know the deputy who was standing behind his car door, had his gun drawn on me and was yelling for me to stand back from the car. All I was doing was getting my license and to see him yelling and pointing a gun at me like that was shocking, but later he explained how they never know who's in the car and always prepare for the worst case scenario. That experience and our conversation afterwards has always stuck with me. Sure the videos show what happened from one angle but they really don't tell the whole story. To have many questions is a fair response; to say they are murderers and bigots isn't. The news media exploits all stories like this because that's how they get their $$ you know as well as I do that they report misinformation all the time. On the kitchen forum there is a post about how reporters use so many adjectives in their stories that it often creates biases (in almost a subliminal way maybe?). I found it to be an interesting take. Here's the link if you're interested: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4017120/think-on-this?n=25...See More- 7 years agolast modified: 7 years ago
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