Home Improvement: My dad is fired from painting |
- My dad is fired from painting
- Vacuum your intake vents!
- What inexpensive top 5 things are invaluable to purchase as a homeowner?
- Mysterious Night Lights
- Corrosion on circuit breakers at the main panel.
- Possible to remove shower door/frame completely?
- Dual shower heads off single valve?
- Are my walls Plaster or Drywall
- Grout cracking in new bathroom remodel
- Need help. How to remove this faucet with no nut
- Highway noise
- Termite or Ant Droppings?
- Any kitchen range 29 3/4 wide? (Wanting to replace a Whirlpool 30-inch set-in range)
- Dishwasher drains into garbage disposal. Home inspector told me this was wrong, how to fix?
- I need a new bathroom exhaust fan
- PVC Decking: Timbertek Azek Vintage or Fiberon Paramount?
- What material can I use to fill in walls that will deter rodents and other pests?
- I'm Bad At This - Installing Dimmer
- Please help me determine what this opening is!
- Ideas for weird strip near walkway?
- Question about garage floor drains
- Board & Batten Siding for garage
- Kitchen linoleum adhesive vs me.
- Flickering LED Light In Fixture
| Posted: 01 Mar 2020 12:56 PM PST Edit: Thanks for the gold, kind stranger. I love my dad, but he frustrates the hell out of me. When I was growing up, my dad worked to support the family and my mom stayed home to raise the kids. Anything that happened in the house was "woman's work". This division of labor meant that my my mom can fix anything and used to ask for power tools for mother's day presents, and my dad could usually identify a hammer nine times out of ten—but couldn't actually use one. Dad semi-retired a couple of years ago. He saw a couple of shows on HGTV, and now he thinks he's the love child of Bob Vila and Joanna Gaines—he can fix anything and will paint it grey. When I bought a house this summer, he was thrilled. He had a new project to work on. (Dad: you should paint it grey. Me: I refuse to live in a grey house. Dad: my real estate agent says grey sells. Me: that's nice. I'm buying, not selling. Dad: I painted our condo grey. It's nice. Me: I'm not changing my mind. The purple paint is over there) My grandfather's first rule for projects like this was "no clutter". So Dad refused to paint any room that wasn't completely empty. Fine, whatever, I hadn't moved my stuff in yet; I just had a drop cloth with my paint can and tools on it. That was completely unacceptable to him—the room needs to be completely empty. The paint can should stay in the garage. Screw that—my first rule is work smarter not harder, and I refused to walk down to the garage every time I needed a refill. The irresistible force met the unmovable object and came to a compromise—we agreed to paint different rooms. My new living room has a two story tall vaulted ceiling. It looks nice, but it's an absolute nightmare to paint. I had every intention of hiring painters. Dad wouldn't hear of it. He borrowed a tall ladder, had a quick tantrum about the 20 gallon tote boxes tucked in the corner, and got started. A couple of days later, I was up a ladder of my own touching up the ceiling line in my bedroom when I heard a crash from downstairs. Dad didn't answer when I yelled. I had a mini panic attack and practically flew down the ladder and down stairs and I found him laying on the living room floor, stunned. He had pulled one of my boxes out of the corner to the middle of the room—directly behind the ladder—and was using it as a table. From what I could tell, he was coming down the ladder, missed the bottom rung, stumbled backwards, tripped over the box, landed on his back, and hit his head hard enough to for his glasses to fly off of his face. He was okay, just stunned (and probably mildly concussed, but try telling him that), and he took a couple weeks off. Unfortunately, it did not manage to knock sense into his head. He did eventually come back, and he got the living room finished. (Small crash. Much cursing. Dad: I could be dying down here! Nobody gives half a damn about me!" Me: not even a quarter of a damn! As long as you're swearing I figure you're fine!) When he was pulling the painters tape down from the ceiling, it left a ragged edge, so he went up the ladder to fix it. With the box still directly behind the ladder. He came back down, missed the bottom rung, managed to stagger sideways instead of backwards, and crashed into the picture window. Thankfully it did not break. (Dad: I should have listened to my father. No clutter. Me: yeah. It turns out that Grandpa knew his audience. ) So he was officially fired from ladders. He could paint ceilings. All he needed was a roller on a stick and a step stool for the edges. In the kitchen he made a point of showing me how he carefully taped off the ugly wallpaper that I'm going to replace ASAP, because he didn't want to mess it up with paint. Sure, he got paint all over my nice oak cabinets, but the fugly wallpaper is safe. Through all of this, he did zero prep work. (Except for putting down painters tape. He really likes painters tape for some reason.) He pulled me away from whatever I was working on to remove switch plates and vents from wherever he decided to paint next, but that's it. He blithely painted over nails, screws, and cobwebs. I had to go around after him and fix the mess he left. Now he's on my case to pick out a color for the spare bedroom so he can roll the walls in there. It's been six months, what the hell is taking so long? I have picked a color. I picked a color months ago. But I'm not telling him what it is until I get a chance to prep the room. (Reading back through this, I realize I come across as kind of a bitch. I really do love and respect my dad and appreciate his help. He just has an unfortunate habit of running over anyone who won't stand up to him. His ego is roughly the size of a small planet; I consider it my duty as his daughter to swing the occasional metaphorical baseball bat at it. It doesn't change his attitude, but it makes me feel better.) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:29 PM PST I joined this group a while back after purchasing our first home. Recently I read a post asking if it's worth it getting your ducts cleaned and someone replied saying that using a shop vac on your intake vents is the way to go instead. Whoever you are, THANK YOU. I opened ours up today and couldn't believe the amount of dust and dog hair, no wonder we've been sneezing so much lately! House was built in '87, and it honestly looks like they were cleaned maybe once this whole time. I even found some old film negatives and a ping pong paddle down there. Vacuum those vents! [link] [comments] |
| What inexpensive top 5 things are invaluable to purchase as a homeowner? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 12:42 PM PST I am curious what are the top 5 things you have purchased that don't cost much money, but prove to be an either useful thing that you use often - or dramatically improves your living experience from day-to-day? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:14 PM PST Hey All, My house has 7 weird vent panels going up the stairs and through the hall to the master bedroom, and I always thought they were part of HVAC or something. My girlfriend who co-owns the house and I just got back from vacation, and our rental property had the same panels, which we found out were LED night lights that activated after dark. She put two and two together, and when we got back we decided to investigate ours, and found that sure enough there were filament bulbs behind ours. We've replaced a few bulbs but can't get them to turn on and can't find an obvious circuit that's controlling them. We've tried the three-way light switch that controls overhead lighting for the stair/hallway area and that doesn't seem to be affecting them. We've contacted the previous owner and he had no idea they were even there. Any idea how to proceed? House was built in ~2000. [link] [comments] |
| Corrosion on circuit breakers at the main panel. Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:13 PM PST I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend. Should I go ahead and just replace all of the breakers that have corrosion? Will replacing corroded breakers be sufficient or should the whole sub panel be replaced as well? https://imgur.com/gallery/fUjHPVQ I want to prevent this in the future. [link] [comments] |
| Possible to remove shower door/frame completely? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 08:17 PM PST The small (approx 36"x36") shower in my bathroom is, as far as I know, original contractor-grade from when the house was built in 1999. The shower itself is fine, just a standard fiberglass (I think) shower. My problem is with the door. It's a glass door on a metal frame with so many nooks and crannies that it is seemingly impossible to keep clean. My preference would be to just remove the entire door+frame setup and just use a shower curtain, but I'm afraid that removing it would a) be difficult and b) leave a lot of nasty screw holes and caulk residue behind. Is there any reasonable way to do this that doesn't involve replacing the entire shower stall? [link] [comments] |
| Dual shower heads off single valve? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:02 PM PST Looking to use exposed 1/2 inch galvanized pipe out of the current shower head fitting up and above the shower, dropping off two separate heads equally spaced apart above the tub. Planning on using a shutoff valve between the two just so in case I only want to use one. I'm going to use 3/8 threaded rod with minerelacs attached to the ceiling to support it. Any advice or issues I may run into? Thanks in advance! Edit: here is a Pic of what I'm going for http://imgur.com/5YUtsFV [link] [comments] |
| Are my walls Plaster or Drywall Posted: 01 Mar 2020 10:08 PM PST Can someone help me with figuring out if i have plaster or drywall in my walls?. Here's a picture: https://imgur.com/a/5drdy0I [link] [comments] |
| Grout cracking in new bathroom remodel Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:46 PM PST We had our bathroom remodeled 4 months ago. The shower has floor to ceiling porcelain "marble look" 1' x 2' tile. The grout in both of the top corners in the shower is cracking. The contractor offered to come back an fix the grout. I asked him if it isn't just going to crack again. Now he wants to "use grout colored silicone" to fix the cracks. I'm wondering, if this is the right way to fix this, or if the cracking is caused by improper installation. I'm not sure silicone will look great. Any help, advice, or reassurance you can provide is appreciated! (Otherwise, we love the look of our new bathroom.) [link] [comments] |
| Need help. How to remove this faucet with no nut Posted: 01 Mar 2020 09:10 PM PST I'm trying to remove combi faucet 6310 series to install a new Moen motionsense faucet. I've turned off the water main and disconnected the hot and cold water connections however I am stuck at trying to remove the faucet as there doesn't seem to be a way for me to remove bottom cover that holds the sink in place. There were two screws that I've removed but I'm at a loss of what to do next. Has anyone encountered this before? Link to pictures: https://imgur.com/a/VGKXrGK [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Mar 2020 08:22 PM PST Love pretty much everything about a house I'm considering putting an offer on, only issue is that there's a very slight noise from a highway thats down a hill about 800 ft away. I am seeing the house in winter and judging by all the trees, the property and the surrounding area will be very leafy in the summer. Will there be a difference in sound in the summer when the trees all grow their leaves? Can placing thick evergreens along the side of the property (2.2 acres) help with noise reduction? Or will the sound come over the top? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:23 PM PST Husband and I bought a house year and half ago. Located in Florida. House has a termite bond and recent inspection. We haven't had termite issues but we did have a window treated for wood beetles. We've had ant problems before but have resolved it I found this pile of droppings in a closet. Looks very much like termite droppings. Any knowledge or advice would be appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Any kitchen range 29 3/4 wide? (Wanting to replace a Whirlpool 30-inch set-in range) Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:27 PM PST My wife decided that we need a new range for our kitchen. We assumed that the opening was the standard 30" - as the manual for the old range say "Whirlpool 30-inch set-in continuous-cleaning electric range (Model RS6300XK)" So we picked out a new range that she liked and placed an order (Frigidaire LFEH3054UF). When we got home, I decided to go ahead and pull the old range out. When I got it away from the cabinet, I measured the opening to determine what we would have to modify to get the new slide-in range to work. What I found is that if we remove the vertical side trim from the front left and right sides, then measure all the way from cabinet to cabinet, the opening is about 29 3/4" wide - definitely NOT 30". So, does anyone know if there a "30-inch" range that will fit in to this opening? [link] [comments] |
| Dishwasher drains into garbage disposal. Home inspector told me this was wrong, how to fix? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:31 PM PST |
| I need a new bathroom exhaust fan Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:28 PM PST The exhaust fan in the guest bathroom hasn't really worked well ever since we bought the house a couple of years ago. It makes a horrible noise. My toddler is starting to potty train and he accidentally turned the fan on last week and the noise scared him. Now he's to scared to go to the bathroom if the light is off because he doesn't want to accidentally turn the fan on. For now, I've disconnected the switch and capped off the wire. I want to replace it before it starts getting to hot to work in the attic. My biggest priority is energy consumption. Even though I'm sure a bathroom exhaust fan doesn't turn on very often or consume a ton of power, I know it's something that will be used consistently for many years. I've just been casually browsing the web and I see some that claim to use only 6.5W and some that use up to 100W. That's a big difference. Over the course of the next however many years, that could turn into a lot of kWh. According to what I've read online, to be effective it should be able to exhaust the whole room's worth of air 8 time in an hour. For this room, that comes out to 52 CFM. I'm wondering if anyone has any feedback about exhaust fans in regards to
Also… I know pretty much nothing about motors. What should I look for? What should I avoid? [link] [comments] |
| PVC Decking: Timbertek Azek Vintage or Fiberon Paramount? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:14 PM PST Hey all, Read through a bunch of the threads here, but couldn't really find anything on the Fiberon Paramount line. I have decided on going with a PVC deck, but am trying to decide between these two. I've read on here good things about the Azek, but has anyone had any experience with Fiberon's Paramount line? Is it comparable quality to Azek? Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| What material can I use to fill in walls that will deter rodents and other pests? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:00 PM PST Redoing my kitchen and I'm replacing rodent damaged walls and insulation and want to fill with expanding foam and material that can deter these little shits without leaving poison. [link] [comments] |
| I'm Bad At This - Installing Dimmer Posted: 01 Mar 2020 12:02 PM PST Hey, I am trying to install a dimmer in the new baby's room so that we can have it be less obnoxious to her at night. Seems simple, figure I'd do it myself so I go to Walmart and buy a simple single pole dimmer switch. When I remove the old light switch I notice it's got two bundles of wires connected to it, one at the top and one at the bottom. Each has 1 bare ground, 1 white neutral and 1 black hot. When wiring in the new dimmer I connect the two blacks and a black from the dimmer, all the grounds and the green from the dimmer and both the whites and the other black from the dimmer. I'm using the provided wire nuts to do this. I turn the breaker back on and the light comes on but when I go to turn the dimmer it loudly and visibly sparks. What did I do wrong? Pictures of how I had it setup. I tried each bundle separately too and it doesn't work that way (maybe I fried it, Idk). [link] [comments] |
| Please help me determine what this opening is! Posted: 01 Mar 2020 06:40 PM PST The opening is about the size of a doggy door, but is located below a window along the floor on the side of the home. The inside opening has a metal panel with side latches, and the outside opening is covered with a board with insulation inside. Doesn't appear to have any plumbing, pipes, or wiring inside. What could this be?? As far as I can tell, this isn't a transom window or a ice/milk door. Thanks for your input! [link] [comments] |
| Ideas for weird strip near walkway? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 06:18 PM PST Hope this is the right place. If there's a better sub please let me know. Our builder made this odd strip of nothingness between our home and the walkway. I tried grass and sod but the nearby concrete just didn't work and it looked strange. I tried mulch but it looks like crap after almost no time. Now considering landscaping rock of some sort. Any thoughts on what to do with this space? It's about 15' long, 6" wide, and about 2" deep [link] [comments] |
| Question about garage floor drains Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:52 PM PST Hello, I am located in the Midwest, USA. Recently with all of the snow melting, one side of my garage has been puddling up water as snow melts from my car. Looking at the drain, one side of the garage looks like a drain with a busted grate - the other looks like its been capped. Is the capped side a cap or a weird drain? Why would it be done this way? My intuition is to start ripping it up, but I don't know if that is a good idea - so I'm asking here for advice. [link] [comments] |
| Board & Batten Siding for garage Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:50 PM PST Howdy good neighbors, I'm running on a lean budget these days, I was going to put cedar lap siding on my garage to match my house but I'm quickly running out of time, money, and patience with a year's worth of s@$*ty weather. Since this building is not attached to the house (25 yards distant) I thought I could sheath with an inexpensive exterior plywood with cedar battens. I'd like feedback on what material to use and if you all think this a viable option. Background: 3-car garage, 2nd story apartment, 1/2 Zip siding, taped and sealed, 16" center stud framing, truss-joists for upstairs floor, clear span. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Kitchen linoleum adhesive vs me. Posted: 01 Mar 2020 09:37 PM PST Hello so I am tearing up this linoleum off the kitchen floor upon which I hope to install Home Depots lifeproof vinyl plank flooring and this adhesive is very tough and time consuming trying to scrape off so I was thinking it is pretty smooth on top will I be okay laying it on top of the adhesive as long as I get most of the loose pieces off or is it really important I get it off? Thank you for reading [link] [comments] |
| Flickering LED Light In Fixture Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:37 PM PST The light fixture above our door has been good to us for the past few years we've owned the house, but bulbs have been a bit of a pain. We've had to change it every 8 months or so. It's about 10 ft from the floor, and we live in Western Canada, so I know the extreme temperatures from the door opening make the bulbs burn our faster. That being said, the LED that's currently in it has been doing something new. After the light is on for a few minutes with no problems, it starts flickering. Random intervals. The bulb is about 6 months old. Is there anything I can do, aside from changing the bulb again, to troubleshoot what's going on with it? (Any bulbs you'd recommend for entryways as well?) I'm guessing the current is fine because the bulb isn't flickering all the time, but again I'm not great with this stuff. We've been leaving the light off just in case it is something weird with the wiring. I'm not comfortable with messing with electrical that much, so if it's anything intense I'd call an electrician. It's also an original fixture to the house so if we have to replace it it's no big deal. Sorry if this is a really obvious question, but this sub has given me such good advice in the past! [link] [comments] |
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