Future IHPA Headquarters

[ihpartsjeff]

Some of you May have noticed that I have been spending little time on the website lately. Well its been for good reason. Aside from dealing with the usual overbooked shop work, filling orders and dealing with the daily bs of owning and running a small business norma and I had finally cashed in enough aluminum cans and beer bottles to afford a down payment on our first home. With the housing market being where its at we figured it was now or never. So about three months ago we started house shopping and settled on a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath modular home on almost 4 acres in Grass Valley. I won't go into details on what hell we had to go thru in order to complete the deal on this place but if anyone ever needs a real estate attorney I will gladly refer you to mine who happens to be a IH nut like the rest of us here.

So lets begin the tour!


We start with the inside dining area.

And then the master bedroom and bath.

The kitchen.

The living room.

Pantry and laundry room.

The back yard.

More back yard.

Next three pictures are the back of the house.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

This is the only piece of green grass on the property. For some weird reason I am obsessed with keeping this lawn perfect.

Moving on to my favorite part - the garage.

First thing I did was hang a IH banner, move in some farm equipment and fire up the 1951 IH reefer in order to keep the suds ice cold. Since moving in we have been relying on this old fridge to keep our food cold as well since we haven't bought a new fridge yet.

Front of the house.

And this is our driveway out to the main road.

Another few views of the front of the house.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

We now move on to the old barn.

The barn has a sliding door, electricity and a chicken coop.

A nice sized loft to house all the used parts. It even had a farm implement left in it.

This is the secondary driveway that will be used for the business side of things. Its fairly over grown now but after a few trips up and down it it has started to clear itself(sort of).

Leaving the barn and moving across the secondary driveway we now are at the old house.

Its pretty much in rambles but this will be renovated into the future office and show room for the business.

Found this snake skin on the back side of the old house. Hope its not a rattler!

From this point it goes down quite aways - about an acres worth or more. Its pretty overgrown and of this writing still unexplored territory.

And a view back at the house.

This now concludes our tour. Lets begin the remodel!

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Before moving our stuff into the house three things needed to get done - fresh paint, new carpet, and tile in the master bathroom to replace the carpet that was in it. I didn't get any pictures of the paint party we had here except for the end which was a picture of the painted doors. Regardless I want to say thanks to all who came by and helped - Chad, dennis, Mike and rusty, Darren and steph.

Pieces of the master bath were stored in the bedroom.

Linoleum pulled out.

This area by the front door will receive tile as well.

The tile layout in the bathroom begins.

Dennis hard at it getting the tile down.

The kids are having so much fun here that they easily drift off into some serious nap time.

 

[Michael Mayben]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Sheeet man! That's far nicer than ya been bullshittin' me about! I was feelin' sorry for yawl...but now I know where I'm bringin' tha trailerhouse ta live when kathy runs my azz off the next time!

Dam we're happy for yawl! I'm bringin' plenty gray water fertilizer for that yard when we come down in October!

Mom and pop should have the nursery moved in there by thanksgiving??? I can see them palms planted in the rockcrawl!

 

[Matt Main]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Looks like some mighty fine digs man, congrats! I great friend of mine grew up in gv (I like it a lot up there) off lime kiln rd. Looks like a lot of fun to me, good luck with the new place!

 

[RobertC]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Nice house / place...

I do not want you to be alarmed, but you should take care / use some caution. Based on the vegetation, I think you are still in the "habitat" for rattlesnakes. I think they can live as high as 5000 ft.

Of course, you will also have other snakes around, also. Gopher snakes, king snakes, garter snakes and others.

On first glance (panic), a gopher snake looks a lot like a rattlesnake, but has no rattles.

All the snakes are benefical from the point of rodent control. It is just that the rattlesnake can cause harm to humans -- and their pets (cats / dogs).

Rattlesnakes really do not want to be surprised.

They will try to get away if they can.

You should ask around / talk to your neighbors.

I would exercise some caution going into the overgrown area of your property -- don't just blunder in / through.

I would also be a little careful around / under the secondary house if no one has lived there for a time. You could also find a skunk.

And, if you are cleaning up in the "outer areas", do not put your hands where you cannot see -- moving rocks / dead, downed wood.

You May not see a rattlesnake for years or ever, but they still May be around.

We live next to a small natural area in the east bay hills -- oaks, laurel, madrone, eucalyptus, poison oak, and some grass. I still consider it a small possibility that rattlesnakes could live in that area (even though small and used by people) -- even though I have never seen (or heard of) one in the 19 years we have lived here.

This "ramble" is probably a result of my youth hiking / camping in the san gabriel mtns above la -- up there many times; came across a rattlesnake a couple times. And, years of desert camping.

 

[Craig]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Wow, nice place Jeff!! Congrats for sure. Glad you could swing the deal and buy your first "compound" (been watching the news, that's what they call place's with more than one house )

I really like the look and layout of the grounds, should keep the wife happy too. As for the snakes, get a couple cats to keep the mice under control and the snakes will move on. I see a trip to the auction in your future for a goat a buddy of mine uses a goat to keep his place looking like he has a full time gardener pruning the place.
Anyway can't wait to see the place one day. If you need help on a weekend just let me know.

Craig

 

[ih-air]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Excellent house Jeff congratulations looks like you can fit lots of trucks in and around the barn too
good luck ed

 

[Matt Main]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Ya know, im sure youre already aware of this living up there, but id be more concerned with the vegetation as a fuel to fire, than a home to snakes. Not that they arent dangerous, snakes, but having formal training in wildland fires, I just could not keep from typing. Excellent idea about a goat being landscapers, better yet, get 2, they are cheap fuel management tools. Anyway, sorry to ramlbe, im just programed that way. Carry on men!

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Thanks guys for the compliments. As for snakes pop's raised us with good knowledge of the great outdoors and took us hunting all the time so snakes are nothing new to us. And I'm way ahead of you guys on the goat thing. Soon as we move in full time I plan on getting at least two goats and filling the chicken coupe with with at least a half dozen cholesterol makers!

 

[Joe V]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Looks like a great place to raise your kids and run your business. Congrats jeffs!

 

[scoutdude80]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Major score Jeff. Congrats

 

[Lou]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Hey Jeff, congrats on the American dream. Nice family, nice home and lotsa room for the kids to play hide & seek among the binders.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Thanks for all your compliments guys. We finally got the interior finished up and furniture moved in a few weeks ago. Here are some pics before carpet and of the almost finished interior.

 

[Lyle Wiese]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Hey Jeff, nice looking place. I remember hearing about it about Binder Bee time and finally found this thread. Home ownership is great! Lots of work, but well worth it. Linda and I are just about ready to start another round of painting and other stuff here in our house now that all the kids are out.

Your kids will really enjoy it. We had chickens when our kids were growing up. I remember there were times when linda would take one of them outside and just watch the birds run around. A great way form of cheap entertainment!

Hope to see it next year when we come down for the rallye.

Lyle

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Well a lot has been going on lately so I thought I would update this thread. The new shop construction started up last January and has slowly started to come up to speed as of late. Lets start with where we started with the clean up of the area that the new shop will be located.

It doesn't look like much but mixed in with the grass was a huge pile of old rotting wood.

Some initial tree trimming was performed. Notice the red stake which is the location of one of the corners of the future shop.

Brush was hauled out and piled for future burning and marshmallow cooking.

The shops trailer was piled up with rotting wood. Since the local dump in my area wanted way to much to dispose of rotten wood we later burned this whole pile up.

With the area cleared it was time to schedule in some tractor time.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Of course we had to have a ceremony for the digging to start so dennis aka "willy" and Chad tossed a shovel of dirt over their shoulders.

With the ceremony over the actual work began.

It wasn't long before it was determined that this beautiful and majestic oak was simply in the way.

A few cuts later and one half of the big tree was felled in two swipes and then bucked up for firewood.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

The other half of the tree was leaning over this old structure so the Scout was called in to winch the tree over in the right direction.

It doesn't look like much but it was a fairly large tree.

I have to put in a plug for stihl products. Since I was a teenager I have used stihl products and have to say that the quality of their power equipment is second to none.

Here is where the burning of brush and the cutting of firewood was taking place. This area I named the "logging grounds".

Lots of firewood to buck up.

Next willy dug out the big root ball.

After a long hard day it was rolling rock time!

With the root ball out of the way willy cleaned up the area.

Just to give an idea here is what the view from the future shop will look like.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

Re: Future IHO North Headquarters

Being the end of March winter was not quite over so a little snow fell.

Moving into April we came to the conclusion that a lot more dirt needed to be moved so a 5 yard bobtail dumptruck was rented to move some dirt.

Here's a shot of the future driveway for the shop. A fence that bordered the driveway was removed.

The soil around here is clay. I thought the different colors of the clay looked pretty cool so I took a picture of it.

With a bunch more dirt removed the pad was starting to take shape.

As you can see a lot of firewood has been harvested thus far.