Ten techie homeowner tips for Jason's new house
Summary: Ten bits of wisdom earned the hard way: from making mistakes and learning from them.
All projects: DIY-IT Project Guide
This project: Small business tips
Jason Perlow, our very own TechBroiler, has been telling us recently about his preparations to move from New Jersey to Florida.
Since I've already done that once, and since I recently moved into a fixer-upper and fixer'd it up, I figured I had some wisdom I could share with Jason about how to make the process run more smoothly.
Here then, are ten tips on the occasion of Jason's new house.
Tip 1. Buy a magical measuring machine
Without a doubt, the single most valuable tool I had in my most recent move was the Bosch DLR130K Digital Distance Measurer. I used it to develop a very carefully put-together floor plan in the new house, and everything fit to the centimeter.
There's a difference between this device (which is about a hundred bucks) and the measuring devices that say they use laser. Most cheaper measuring devices use a laser LED as a pointer, to tell you where you're measuring to, but use sonar (i.e., sound) to render the actual measurement. Sound can be easily distorted in a home, and so the measurements, if accurate at all, could be off by an inch or two.
This device measures through the actual refraction of the laser beam, and I found it to be astonishingly accurate. The proof was when five moving people had to unload a very tightly positioned set of shelves that turned a corner, and every single piece fit.
Tip 2. Visio for floor plans
Speaking of floor plans, I found Microsoft's Visio to be just the right tool for preparing floor plans.
Visio is a lesser-known component of Microsoft's Office suite, and while it's not a CAD system in its own right, it proved to be perfect for floor planning. You can define objects, set dimensions to them, use layering, and more.
What I did was create a layer for the outer walls, another layer for the inner walls (we moved some of these), another layer showing where each wall socket and (eventually) CAT5 drop would be, a carpet layer, and then a furniture layer. This allowed me to independently move things around, until we found layouts we liked.
As it turned out, this was hugely valuable, because while we thought we'd want the gym in one room, once we put together the floor plan, we realized it wouldn't work. So I moved it to another location, and then relocated the office, and after a few rounds of this, we wound up with a floor plan on "paper" that we could use to direct the movers.
This proved doubly important because setting up the gym is not a simple task. Putting together the universal machine is a full-day operation, and if we'd put it together and hated it, we'd have had a huge effort on our hands to change it up.
As it is, we've been in the space for a year now, and love it. A good part of that is because of careful floor planning. Which leads me to Tip #3...
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
I like you David...
Most people just move and go "Well crap, how do I fit this stuff in here". Despite that, it's still probably quicker than taking measurements of every little thing and drawing mockups for every room, unless maybe you're moving into a mansion with a mansion worth of stuff.
And well, some people actually use their garages for, you know, cars.
About the only thing I can really agree with is ethernet everywhere.
And I like you, too!
We moved the contents of her entire home, my entire home, and our office (which was it's own space) into one house here in Florida -- and it was a big'n, one of those kind of ugly McMansions that seem to dot the landscape.
We picked the big beast because we really didn't know what our living-together lifestyle would be, and I also had to sustain a fully-operating business with all its space requirements.
But, after being married for quite a while now, we got into our rhythms and discovered we really didn't like the big house and didn't use it the way we thought we would when we moved down to Florida. So the challenge was to get rid of about 70% of our belongings (we donated a tremendous amount) and fit in a much smaller space, but utilize it well.
We also couldn't just move in and then see how things worked because I have a very demanding job(s) and work from home, so everything had to be set up to make sure I didn't miss a day of work or delay my deliverables by even a day. By planning before doing (a project management mantra if there ever was one), it all worked out quite well.
Remember, measure twice, cut once.
Big house for two house "conversion"...
I am wondering: Is your issue with the moving company common (since your neighbor had the same problem with a different mover)? My wife and I have only ever moved within the same area, not across country. It seems to me that if I have a contract with the mover, I would want it to state IN THE CONTRACT what date the stuff being moved is supposed to arrive. They don't get to pick the time that is most convenient for them. I wonder if any investigative journalist has ever taken on that study.
I also agree with Ron_007: Overlapping occupancy is the way to go. We sold my wife's house in June, she moved in with me in July (while most of her stuff went into storage). We set the move out date for my house with the buyer after we got our firm move-in date from our new house's builder and set it for the weekend after our new house was ready. Moving from a rental (or two) to an owned home would have been even easier.
Moving contracts
I can't tell you if it's unique to us, or unique to moving to Florida (could be). I don't recall broken promises on earlier moves, but I also (a) never had a move as complex and (b) always was moving to a major metropolitan area.
I disagree...
Wal-mart is only controversial to
I shop at Wal-mart without guilt. I also drive a gasoline powered car without guilt, and use incandescent light bulbs without guilt and eat twinkies and meat without guilt and drink sugared sodas without guilt. Because, and here's the truth you need to internalize: You (speaking to the guilt-police) are NOT better than me because you drive a hybrid, or boycott wal-mart, or wear a pink ribbon on your lapel, etc. etc.
Twinkies?
guilt
Thx for an entertaining read
Seems like
The South and the West are too weird for me. Once you leave NJ and the tri-state area really, every other state seems like a foreign country. I was in Florida for a few days before my Cruise Ship departed and I saw a gas station with a big sign on it that simply said "Pecans & Fireworks". WTF?
I do miss NJ
deleted
From my buying experience ...
#1 Overlap your occupancy. You touched on this in one of your points, but I like to make it a separate one. Take possession of your new home well before you vacate your current residence. At the very least give yourself 2 weeks, at the most, you may want to allow months. Taking possession in the middle of the month allows you to avoid the "end of month" moving rush when it is hard to get movers. Painting, floor replacement, electrical / networking work like you mention is all 1000's of times easier if you don't have to work around furniture, and people.
#2 Hire a home inspector. Provide him with a list of your concerns. Also make sure you are there when he does the inspection. I had one specific concern, but my guy didn't check the attic because it was "too hard". Too bad for me, because the claim that the attic was insulated was a bad joke on me requiring an additional $1000 I hadn't planned on.
#3 Plan (ie budget time and money!) on doing expensive repairs so you can take advantage of the benefits for longest time. For example, installing insulation and replacing windows before you move it will save on heating and cooling costs immediately.
24-Port "Router"?
You think right
DIY?
In this case, my wife was.
Although neither my wife nor I had ever owned a home, she "manned up" and learned to run this project. I was tied up with work the whole time, so almost all the GC responsibility fell on her shoulders. I think she got to know the permitting office on a first name basis.
But, from a bigger picture perspective, that's what this column, DIY-IT is all about: learning to do things yourself, either because you don't want to spend on them, or they've never been done, or no one in their right mind will do them for you, or you want it just right.
We tweaked out this house exactly right for our lifestyle. People who visit don't understand and we get pushback on it, because it's not a traditional layout. But it's absolutely perfect for us, 24/7. Gotta keep to your own vision and have faith in yourself. And in your wife (if you're as lucky as I am to have one as wonderful and resourceful as mine is).
Your Mother really brought you up better than this.
She tried, she really tried...
As for the site feature issues, none of the columnists here control any of that (although we certainly share our opinions). This beast hit 3000 words and had to be paginated. Sometimes hard-earned wisdom can't be shared in a single tweet. Well, no, that's not fully true: "don't eat yellow snow" fits in a tweet. So, there you go.
Really?