Building a new house... any ideas/tips for the garage?

[bikedad]

Not long, 35-40'

Any thing in the front of the Mustang to mount a block and tackle? Doesn't even have to be directly in front of the car. You can have a vehicle with a trailer hitch backed in the garage next to it and use the trailer hitch ball as your block and tackle
Run a rope through it/around it and attach to an anchor car at the bottom of the driveway. slowly back the anchor car up the driveway as you push (let gravity take) the Mustang down the driveway onto the trailer?

[gc3]

Not long, 35-40'

Any thing in the front of the Mustang to mount a block and tackle? Doesn't even have to be directly in front of the car. You can have a vehicle with a trailer hitch backed in the garage next to it and use the trailer hitch ball as your block and tackle
Run a rope through it/around it and attach to an anchor car at the bottom of the driveway. slowly back the anchor car up the driveway as you push (let gravity take) the Mustang down the driveway onto the trailer?

that sounds like a much better plan than a quad

[digitalsolo]

I think if I can get it down the driveway a little bit and put it against blocks, I can just hook a tow strap to an S10 or something in front of it and do it that way.    I may have been overthinking it.

BTW, my new house, flat driveway, fo shizzle.    This driveway SUCKS, haha.

[digitalsolo]

Signed the paperwork tonight and I drop off the down payment tomorrow.   Have to meet with the mortgage people next week to finish it out and get the commitment (if for some reason it doesn't work, the builder will cancel my down payment check).    That locks down the lot and the house price.

We did add a few things:

Garage ceiling now has a cathedral behind the door.   The front area above the door is 9' and will have attic storage above it.    The rear will cathedral up high for max lift clearance (should have PLENTY of height for a TALL lift now).

We changed to solid core doors, redid some bedroom closets and changed to dual zone HVAC to take care of the second floor better.   There are 2x 220 volt outlets in the garage, and a gas line that will be in place for a heater in the third bay.  Also added one to the back of the house for the grill (no more propane fills!).

Pretty excited, just one more step and it will all be sewed up.   After that I need to finish a few details on my house and get it ready to sell.   That will be less fun, haha.

[KCDAN]

We changed to solid core doors,

People don't put enough thought into their doors... tragic. I would always recommend going with a 1 3/4" thick, stile and rail solid core door. Quiets EVERYTHING down. But, I am a super duper door nerd, so...

[digitalsolo]

LOL, I'm not a door nerd, but I like a solid feeling door and I know that solid doors shut more nicely and deaden sound a lot.   I'm big on sound control.

[KCDAN]

Buy a roll of Pemko S44 fire/smoke gasketing to seal the doors when they close. It's main purpose is for smoke control, but does a really nice job of quieting things down.
And a 1 3/8" thick typical residential door will never be as solid, or quiet, as a 1 3/4" thick door. Worth the money.

I'll stop there.. you'll go crosseyed with my banter on the subject.

[digitalsolo]

Should have some progress on this soon, probably make a new thread then though.   Footers are supposed to be poured a week from Friday.

[frijolee]

Just a thought but if you're not moving far is it worth hanging onto your current house as a rental property?

[digitalsolo]

It probably would be, but I lack the time to deal with it, honestly.

[wickedrx7]

Just a thought but if you're not moving far is it worth hanging onto your current house as a rental property?

This is what we did... it is worth it just for the write-offs...

[digitalsolo]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind it, but there is a lot of liability and potential work and to be blunt, my day job requires a lot of work, but doesn't pay badly and has a lot of upward mobility available, so that's where I'm apt to put my time right now. 

[Mad Ra88it]

We ended up hiring a property management company.

1/2 of first month's rent upon their finding a tenant
6% each month there after
10$/hr all repairs 24/7

They even came in and quoted the "repairs"/cost to get property ready for rental. It worked out great and we plan on doing the same in the near future, with another property.

Like others have said, the writeoffs made it well worth sitting back and collecting a monthly check.

We changed the insurance on the property to reflect it being a rental, and the property management requires the tenant to carry their own renters policy as well. Liability, in our case, should be minimized... I think?

[digitalsolo]

My liability concerns are more:  Hey, it needs a new roof, that's 5k.   Hey, it needs a new furnace/AC unit, that's 3-4k, etc.     It's a 10 year old house now, built with "builder grade" stuff when I had it built in '05.   There is probably 5-8 years before stuff starts needing replaced with relatively large amounts of zeroes.   Right now I'd rather have the equity from it.    If I had another 20k in the bank, it'd be a slam dunk to keep it, but as it is, getting hit with a 5k dollar tab for something in the next year or so would hurt.    I'm less than daring with my finances, so if I don't have the cash to do what I want, when I want, I tend to shy away from it.