Live on Less a Month – Pt 2 – Housing
Most rent’s from indivuaials can be negosubale, you can either work off some of the rent by fixing up the place, or work as a maintence person for the landlords other property’s, if he/she has any. Pick a house that looks like it could use some fixing up. The house’s that looks like if you even touch them, they’d fall down are TOO far gone anyway.
Next, is where to get the materials you need. Start in the nicer weather when you can work outside on the house, so everybody can see what you’re doing. This will help, because if you are on a busy street, or even a semi-busy street people are going see that somebody is working on their house. You might get some free material this way. Other do-it-yourselfers always have some scraps left over and might see your doing the same, and give them to you. This happened to us when we was working on our place. You might also check out any houses due to be torn down from neglect or whatever, you might be able to get some stuff from there if you ask around.
If your starting on the siding, it does not matter what color you get it in at first, just put it up, you are going to paint over the whole house later, in one color anyways. Just watch for any power lines, phone lines and such going into the house. We started in the front of the house first, then the sides, leaving the back for last. This is because you may not get all of the material needed al at once. It took us all summer and early autum to finish our house, simply because we couldn’t get all of the siding at one time.
If you’re working on the inside of the house and if you can work with drywall, you can put big pieces of it together. Just square off the big broken pieces before putting it up. If by chance you find a piece that was somwhat broken, but still connected by the paper holding it together, try and see if you can nail it up, making sure the 2 pieces are a tight fit to each other. You want to just barely be able to feel the broken line.
It must be said, this is not a recommened way of hanging drywall (getting broken pieces to hang) , but if 1 sheet has been broken, but still together by the paper on it, this can be done if there’s no way to start with a whole piece. However, if the paper is torn, I would not consider trying it this way.
After the drywall is hung, the mudding compound spread into the ‘seam’ (the tiny space in between 2 pieces.) and the tape on it, then cover that with more while smoothing it out to make a even surface with the dry way itself. Do not cover the entire drywall…only where the seams are. Give it a couple day’s to dry, then sand it to a smooth feel, then paint over the whole thing.
The house we now live in, was empty for nearly 2 years. There was, and still is work to be done on it. There is material out there, if you ask around, and look for it. Your not going to get it all at once, but keep looking, keep asking… but what you need, you can get for pennies, or nothing at all.
