Do you use your home efficiency?

[riva]

I use all 1600. Storage of cool stuff is still efficient use.

[Abscate]

I think the answer is yes, but it’s inefficiency to ask twice.
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.ssS!

[Cusser]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[oprn]

When we moved here 28 years ago farming, the oil industry and power generation were the major movers in the economy and very healthy. Now the oil industry is in free fall, coal power plants have converted to less labor intensive natural gas and farming is turning offshore corporate. Homes are not selling as people are migrating out of this area. Most towns around here have about 20% or higher rate of homes for sale. Empty farm houses abound.

There is a lot involved in "investing in real estate" that is beyond the control of the individual. To put out a blanket statement that buying a home is a major step in building wealth is just wishful thinking at best - an illusion propagated by those without real life experience. Local, regional and world economic conditions, job markets, local zoning changes, health and family issues can and does change all that in a heartbeat!

You make choices based on what looks best at the time and that is the best you can do. I am just thankful to have reached retirement without a huge mortgage hanging over my head. That is worth all the rice in China to me even though there is very little to no equity in this property.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[modok]

Win some and lose some.
I'm sure being more rural areas changes things too.
Less diversity in who would like to live there.

[oprn]

House #1 was a yes, 900 sq ft, 2 bedrooms on the ground level, basement suite rented out, added 600 sq ft with living room bedroom & bath to accommodate the wife's aging parents. There was 10 of us living there all totaled. Lost my health from work environment. Had to sell the house & restart a career in a different part of the country. Lost our shirts on that sale due to it all happening when the housing market was in free fall from high interest rates. Went back to renting for a few years.

You can't always choose the outcomes in life!

This house was being used to the full when we had 4 kids at home now it's too big for us with them gone.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[modok]

I'm paying too much for this place.
But if things get bad enough I can live in the basement and rent out the top for enough to entirely pay the mortgage.
That's basically like plan C, but the fact it works proves the point.
one 2500 square foot house does not cost twice as much as two 1200 houses.

[Cusser]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

^^^^^^
well, you did it wrong.

it's like the people that trade in a car that they owe on, roll that into the next one and end up backwards

i will give you this...

if you're not really educated in home sales/values you can get porked, like the person who pimps out or "overbuilds" in a neighborhood that isn't going to reflect the asking price at the time of sale.

basically, it would be like building a 500k house in Bridgeport. it's so fucking bad, it even made Family Guy




Link

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[oprn]

[Abscate]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[NJ John]

How do some people live without a baseball. It’s a place to put all your stuff.
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1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
https://www.youtube.com/@AirSpooledGarage

[Abscate]

If you go to Maria Kondo it gets Conde Nasty

EVs still suck
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.ssS!

[steve244]

Don't go all Marie Kondo on your stuff. That show makes my eyes bleed.

House hording makes me happy.

Kidding. Although my basement doesn't lie.
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82 AC vanagon approx 200K miles (3K are mine).
DD is a 2015 Leaf
Road Trip to Hell (FL 2023)
The Vanagon's drivetrain and chassis restomod thread. Best sung to the tune of I Did It My Way...

[TDCTDI]

Link



Why does it matter? It’s MY stuff, in MY house.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[oprn]

I find that any unused space just collects "stuff" that is also unused for the most part. That goes for the shop as well as the house.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[modok]

Hmmm, I think I see were you want to go with this.
Just space utilization.
Should ask everybody about our SHOP space, probably far more dense.
Or..... how much empty space is in YOUR spice cabinet? if any


I'll battle you all for most usable tools and inventory per square foot in the shop.
But it certainly CAN approach the contents being far more valuable than the walls they are in, or suffering from being packed too tight. For sure.... you can go too far. End up planning yourself into a corner, no space left for the unexpected, which always happens anyway.
I'm more up against the PROBLEM of simply not having enough airspace in the shop, have been WORKING on ventilation schemes but not much to look at for inspiration, it's far more practical to just build a better shop really, tho I will experiment a bit more yet.
I'm certainly AGAINST the idea we should all live in khrushchevka apartments, where there is no EXTRA space at all and each unit is the same.
the life of a GOOD quality home is LONG and what is wasted space now may be necessary at some time soon. A good diversity strategy to have more rather than not enough.
One reason prices are UP these days is generally there are no little "starter homes" anymore, and that's good. Nobody wants to live in an OLD tiny drafty house, nor should they. I was at one time quite interested in energy efficient designs and eliminating wasted space but I now think of that stuff more as a gimmick. Rather, building a HOME with enough space and infrastructure in the walls that it COULD be a duplex might be far more efficient long term strategy than any fancy design.
So now I think.....more like what everybody says about machine tools......always buy one size larger than you think you need.
But I'm no expert on it, change my mind.
In any case quality over quantity. There are LOTs of terrible little shacks and appartments in this town I'm very glad NOt to be living in.

[chrisflstf]

Switching to all Led lighting made a big diff for me. I dont have to change the floodlight bulbs every 7 months any more either on the garage