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Failures

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I trimmed a house once that sat on the corner of the entrance to the addition and a main road. There was an island to separate traffic in front of the house. The plan should have been reversed on the lot and have a right loading garage vs the left so that the owner could exit the main road and drive past the island to access the drive. As it was built, the owner would have to either choose the wrong lane to get into the drive or do a u-turn beyond the island and approach the drive from the other direction.
 
olbriar said:
I trimmed a house once that sat on the corner of the entrance to the addition and a main road. There was an island to separate traffic in front of the house. The plan should have been reversed on the lot and have a right loading garage vs the left so that the owner could exit the main road and drive past the island to access the drive. As it was built, the owner would have to either choose the wrong lane to get into the drive or do a u-turn beyond the island and approach the drive from the other direction.
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Perhaps the architect should have been a southpaw and therefore in his right mind.
Or could there have been a "blonde" factor involved?
 
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BrickHouse said:
Perhaps the architect should have been a southpaw and therefore in his right mind.
Or could there have been a "blonde" factor involved?
Click to expand...
I trimmed most all of the homes the builder mentioned built. He was not known for his cleverness. He built a lot of homes and the money flow always looked good. The problem was he wasn't pulling a profit and he went broke. It didn't stop there... He torched one of his completed homes to gain the insurance money and was prosecuted for insurance fraud and went to prison. He was a nice guy and built quality homes and with a slow down of the economy went broke and desperate. Amazingly, he owed most all subcontractors and suppliers big bucks but owed me nothing. I got lucky.
 
I got a gig doing the wood trim out of a motel when it was built. (multiple rooms/all the same)

I really like them kinda projects !

Me and a buddy bid and got a contract to do the trim in a new Shoneys restaurant.

It was all oak and the walls had wainscoting with chair rail, really cool project.

The framers had just begun when we got the bid and after a few weeks we went by to see where it was at. The roof trusses were only half way up and they were taking them down with a crane.

The general contractor said he had to fire the framing crew because they put half of the roof trusses up backwards ! The problem was they did not know which half were the wrong direction ....

laughinghard
 
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Admittedly, I go way back in the industry. Back in the old stick built roofs days I saw a roof go up and come down and then a couple of weeks later up by another framing crew. I guess the roof was just beyond the first framing crew. I saw a framed house that blew over for lack of boxing. Back before they used a backhoe to dig the basements, they used tractors and dug a ramp into the space to be excavated. After a big rain, I saw that ramp fill with water and the fill dirt and push the basement wall in filling the basement with mud and destroying a section of the back wall and floor joists.
All that back in the good old days. :)
 
There are areas here in Kansas that the water table is too high for a basement. It's a shame. Basements make a cheaper per square foot living space by sharing the floor above for a ceiling and the roof of the home. Years ago, a local builder and his excavator formed a partnership and went to Oklahoma to build an addition of homes with basements. Their efforts fell flat. People just one state South had no desire to add a full sized tater cellar to their new homes. 🤣 Basements have been popular around here for sixty years. They likely weren't well received to start with.
 
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