What home improvement work did you do today?

You asked: Handhelds are never the main shower head. Valve should be out of the spray head with that kind of door.

 

Got the slide built for our pool project tonight.

 

Main job tackled today was all new quarter turn valves and adding water line valve for new fridge. I think the sheet rock took longer than the plumbing.

 

FYI 6-8” perimeter 12” in field screwing schedule. And it’s going to take few days for the mud to dry…lol. Great work and tight fit on the rock.

 

Plan for tomorrow, water is eroding the earth between foundation and the sidewalk. you can see the problem, I got something in mind, wondering what you guys would do.

 

I would dig down a ways and set a new galvanized vent well, throw weed block down and bring in some nice rock.
Should be a fun little project

 

Damn fine precise work for Behind the cabinets. Good job. Always nice to see someone who gives a shit about their work, even when it won't be seen.

 

Spread topsoil sand mix 1 yard, in back n front yard for all the ankle busters and low spots where rain sits

 

Bingo. I didn't think about the weed block. And thanks for that name! Vent Well, I was trying to figure out what that was called. I was going to try and piece the brick work back together but I'm no mason.
I'm going to dig down then a layer of sand then rock on top of that, but the weed block would be good addition. Might help hold things in place also.

 

Yeah buddy! Post up some after pics

 

When it rains hard how does that strip handle it? Does it drain/leach away quickly? The sill of that vent looks lower than the sidewalk.
Whatever you do I'd keep it draining really well, esp if you don't have gutters.

 

Yes, the vent seal is a bit lower than the sidewalk. I'm unsure which came first. The house is 135 years old, the foundation walls do not meet the seal of the house, we have solid granite pylons for the foundation, the foundation wall just acts as an underpinning to use a phrase. I don't know why they did it this way but I remember the house I grew up in was the same.

The erosion you see is years of damage. This section is under a gable so no gutters directly overhead. We have gutters elsewhere that I've redirected to move the water away from the foundation. Previous owners have taken effort to divert water at other locations, we have a brick path down the side with a concrete apron on the foundation.

 

A little then and now of my kitchen/breakfast nook expansion.


Also found this gem in the ceiling. I really hope the previous owner didn’t pay any money for this lol

 

Probably a flipper from the real estate agent did those. We have tons of them houses on market here. All of them look good on outside and code violation on inside.

 

You would be correct, I bought the house from Open Door, who owned it for like five months after purchasing it from the original owner. We knew we were going to remodel anyways, so it didn’t really bother me. And the market hit a big slow down, so I bought it at the same price Open Door bought it from the original owner at, sucks for them lol

 

Here's the results of one trip to Ace to get a proper concrete drill bit and screws and 2 more trips to Lowes to get the vent well and 3 more bags of rock. Yeah I could have measured and calculated but it probably would have been wrong and I'd have to take another trip.


the old well vent just crumbled coming out.



Found old grounding rod buried in there, There are others on the back and side, they must have had multiple lightening rod runs on the roof.



Granite corner foot for the foundation. I couldn't tell if that was one stone with a foot cut in it or two stones. There are other foundation stones out in the yard, unsure what structure that one would have been because we know where the barn and mule stable was.



actually used 5 bags



I only regret not getting stone that was more consistent, this stuff just looks random. But if it does it's job I'll be happy.

 

Gotta love a flying splice....

 

Took advantage of the great weather today and a duel project today!
The previous owners had an outside shower with no flipping drain,God only knows for how long,anyhow the shower was roughly 5' from the bulkhead and it undermined the right side of it to the point the steel separated from the foundation. Yaaaaa!
F ing dopes!
So needless to say while ripping all of that away I'm going to replace the stairs that were 30" wide to 9'.
Should be done by tomorrow.

 

“Huh, the more I use the outside shower the bigger the crack in the stair well gets, I’m sure it’s fine” - Probably your pervious homeowners

 

I'd bet that you'll be good,hopefully it was done right.

As for my knuckle heads...they hacked and butched it 100% the soldered joints looked like Helen Keller "on a bad day" did it,the shower floor was a 32"x32" soap stone base which was nice and all but they never attached a drain to it
Brain surgeons for sure.
The shower was about 2.5' away...

 

Wow! Good job catching it!

 

Meh, they put electrical tape on it, shit's good to go.

 

Spent the afternoon looking at new flooring…after spending the morning kicking around ideas to refinish the stairs.

looks likely it’s going to end up being a complete main floor re-floor job plus the stairs up and down and the landings both ways… about 1700SF with.

 

That'll teach ya!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4NjZj32wnA

 

…more fertilizer and more mulch.

Beer time!

 

Got some trees planted. Finished out my RF cabling terminations and wire cleanup in data closet. Then I installed one of these doohickeys on our front gate, hoping it'd correct our sag, but it didn't do much of shit. Ultimately, I think I need to re-mount my hinge in the upper right corner, forward about 5/8" - 3/4", and it'll compensate for 15 years of sag. Better yet, maybe I should just go steel with it. I thought when I originally insallted this I was doing right with the cross.

Next on the list, it's looking for new garage door springs (extension), and new all-wood panels, lower seals.

​

 

Genuine question here: MDF subfloor in a high-water area? I realize a lot of counters these days are just MDF veneered. I think they require OSB or plywood inside the city over here. Aren't you concerned about swell, if and when something inevitably leaks?

 

Fixed the undermined bulkhead, removed the 30" steps and rotting 6x6,removed/ expanded the width for new 9' two steps.
During the winter my billboard fence that I made last fall took from the winter wind and had a serious bow in three sections, the Cape is basically a sand bar so 4x4 post two feet down doesn't hold shit especially a 7' by 50' billboard.
So I re dug down 4' and lag bolted 4x4 to the existing ones and poured 80# cement in each.
F ing done with that one!
So next week put down 6 tons of 1/2" pea stone and steps to be done with those projects.
I can't wait to go to work tomorrow so I can rest WTF!

 

As of today, the project is now:

• Replacing all laminate flooring in the entire house (currently three different flavors of laminate from years of eliminating all carpeting)
• Stairs will be hardwood treads, painted black with satin poly top coat
• Risers will match the laminate flooring
• Stair handrails and newel posts will be matching black with satin poly topcoat
• Repainting walls and ceilings in the up and down stairwells
• Reworking all trim in the two stairwells
• Secondary base shoe molding throughout the entire house