Home Improvement: A little warning lesson about chainsaw carelessness |
- A little warning lesson about chainsaw carelessness
- 1890's home with "unique" shower plumbing with not a whole lot of options
- Is it customary for plumbers to act like car salesmen? Your quote is $16,000, but wait let me call my manager....ok he says we can do it for $12,000
- Can HOA stop our project even after the town approval ?
- Why do kitchen cabinets often have the ceiling lowered to meet them, even if there's no HVAC?
- I (an idiot) bought a 130 year old house with 4-5 layers of wallpaper over the original plaster. Any advice on removing it without destroying the plaster?
- Pressure treated does not mean waterproof
- Including av considerations in remodel is easier than you might think.
- Hardwood vs Engineered Hardwood "Hardness"
- Extra charge for removing carpet with pet stains?
- Recommendation for Whole-House Water Filtration
- Bathtub corner holding standing water
- Painting Up, Falling Down
- Found bugs and possible mold under the bathtub of new construction build.
- Ok for roof drip edge to be behind leaf guard gutter?
- Metal privacy screen recommendations for backyard fence
- pls help! my contractor butchered my bathroom
- Replace gutters before or after winter?
- Long Butcher Block Desk - Stability over time?
- I'm scared to drill into wall and hit a pipe (photos inside)
- Do all showers have tile edge trims?
- Door frame rot - replace or repair
- Need some help
- Can I swap these sockets for new ones with USB?
| A little warning lesson about chainsaw carelessness Posted: 05 Nov 2020 01:43 PM PST I've been doing a lot of brush clearing on my property since stuck home during COVID, and got a little careless with the chainsaw yesterday. Don't even know exactly how it happened, but I ran it full speed into my knee. Gruesome injury to my knee I think the lesson here is don't get complacent about safety while working with tools. [link] [comments] |
| 1890's home with "unique" shower plumbing with not a whole lot of options Posted: 05 Nov 2020 05:37 AM PST I have an awkward 2nd floor bathroom where the shower head is about eye level and on the side of the tub. This means every shower is a struggle of crouching and yoga poses. Exhibit A: https://i.imgur.com/Hfh7g7U.jpg I can sorta understand why it was made like this. To the right is the roof line / exterior wall where the water lines would certainly freeze in the New England winter. To the left is a 3" thick interior wall (minus drywall the cavity is closer 2"). That wall can't move / be any thicker due to the door being in the way. Exhibit B: https://i.imgur.com/dTiURzj.jpg Also here's the space on the other side of the tiny wall. https://i.imgur.com/dtgUxC1.jpg Full Album: We really want to keep a tub in the house so some options we're currently considering:
What would you do in this situation? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:12 PM PST |
| Can HOA stop our project even after the town approval ? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:56 AM PST We are removing our existing deck of 10x12 and putting on new 16X16 enclosed deck. Our town approved with our own drawings on google map's plot of our property and it is with in the ratio of how much land must be left out relative to the construction. It was also a builder's upgrade when we were building the house and hence some of the houses have them already . I am wondering if I am wrong in disputing it. I find it is unnecessary to spend $600 on the survey. I wish I did not even apply for the approval. Btw, our neighbors signed the approval form and have no objection. [link] [comments] |
| Why do kitchen cabinets often have the ceiling lowered to meet them, even if there's no HVAC? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 12:34 PM PST So looking at this modest-sized kitchen: https://photos.zolo.ca/467-jane-street-toronto-W4952845-9.jpg Why is it that right above the cabinets, it looks like there's frame and drywall installed simply to lower the cabinets? I know there's no vent behind them, and there's maybe 1 channel for a single 110V line for some old over-the-sink fluorescent lights. Wouldn't it make more sense to not do that, and either have taller cabinets, or a shelf available on top of them? There's not a ton of space to begin with so it seems like a waste when it could be storage for seasonal items like giant roast pans, cups with jack-o-lanterns, witches and bats on them, fondue sets, etc. Am I missing something, and it's actually important somehow? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Nov 2020 06:14 PM PST I've been watching videos where people are using a tool to score the wallpaper and then wetting it down which looks great but generally there is only one layer. I tried to peel some of it off with a drywall knife today and the bottom layer is pretty well stuck on there. I'm living in the house while renovating so a full gut of the walls seems incomprehensible. The majority of the 1500 square foot house is wallpapered. Any hints or advice would be welcome! [link] [comments] |
| Pressure treated does not mean waterproof Posted: 05 Nov 2020 10:05 AM PST Inherited a less than 5 year old deck. It was built woth 1x1 hangers for the struts and sandwiched 2x8 as beams. No air gaps or proper drainage under a step. Most of the boards had some level of dry rot with some being unusable. [link] [comments] |
| Including av considerations in remodel is easier than you might think. Posted: 05 Nov 2020 10:10 PM PST Let me start off by saying I am not well versed in modern av technology. If it weren't for my wife's insistence I would still be watching my CRT tv. So everyone may already know about what I am about to say, but I am still so impressed and pleased with the outcome that I want to share it anyways. Next off, let me say that one of the smart things I did while remodeling my home was wire the whole thing for Cat6. I have a whole structured wiring set up in basement that I did years ago, and truthfully I have no idea how I did it, but somehow I did, and it's is nice to have. That is just the preamble. The meat of the story is this: while doing my kitchen remodel I decided to put speakers in the ceiling so I can listen to the radio while I cook. The plan was to get a receiver/amp, put it on top of the fridge, boom, I have got music. I also put a Cat6 connection above the fridge, just in case. What ended up happening was just incredible. I bought around a $300 Yamaha amp and when I plugged it into my home network all the devices could see each other. So now I can get terrestrial radio in the kitchen like I wanted, but I can also send internet radio to the receiver from the Mac when the reception is bad, as well as play all the music on the Mac. I can also send my Spotify playlists from my iPad to the receiver, and I have no clue how that happens, and don't even get me started on the pure witchcraft of how The iPad can also send them to my car. It's completely mental. In short, I have arrived in the future and it has been terrific, but the most remarkable thing is how effortless it was. There was no endless fucking around with settings, and passwords, and frequencies - I just turned everything on and it worked, probably because it was all on the same wired network. I had almost no idea what I was doing but had everything going in about 5 minutes. [link] [comments] |
| Hardwood vs Engineered Hardwood "Hardness" Posted: 05 Nov 2020 09:58 AM PST Currently renovating a house and deciding upon traditional hardwood flooring and engineered hardwood flooring. I am strongly leaning towards traditional hardwood as I find that all the engineered floors I've walked on are extremely 'tough'/hard on my feet and I am forced to walk around with socks on. With traditional hardwood it feels great to walk on. I've been told this doesn't make any sense and it's in my head. I googled it and couldn't find anything. Is traditional hardwood softer to walk on than engineered hardwood? [link] [comments] |
| Extra charge for removing carpet with pet stains? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 10:32 AM PST We are getting our carpets replaced today and just got a call from the company saying they are charging us an extra 150 because there are pee stains on the old carpet. Is this legit? [link] [comments] |
| Recommendation for Whole-House Water Filtration Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:41 AM PST I'm looking for a recommendation for a whole-house water filtration system. I live in the Great Lakes region of the US. My water source is surface water (pond). I currently have a very old taste and odor filter and a separate very old iron removal filter. There is a separate UV light that is only 2 years old. The water has high iron content and this time of year starts to smell like, well...a pond. We are 2 adults living in a 2-bedroom home that relies upon a septic system. I've changed the charcoal in the T&O filter and it is a royal pain. I'd like to replace the old system with something better and easier to maintain. Do I need a system that backwashes? Would that be a problem for the septic system? Are there brands or features I should look for? All the plumbing is easily accessible in the basement and I'd like to install it myself. What do you recommend? [link] [comments] |
| Bathtub corner holding standing water Posted: 05 Nov 2020 11:16 AM PST One of the corners of my new place's shower seems to be reverse-graded (is that a thing?) so when water hits there, it sits against the wall and floats off the bathtub onto the ground. It is a manageable problem if we pull the curtain all the way and hold it there, but it's still noticeably wet 24h after. Is there anything anyone can think of that I could put on top of that corner to make water flow back onto the tub rather than the wall? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Nov 2020 09:53 AM PST So I've successfully removed every inch of wallpaper in this house and painted every room we have. I've painted the kitchen. I've painted the bathrooms. I've painted the bedrooms, office, and living room. You name it, I've smeared some paint on it. The last unpainted domain-- the Unprimed Territories-- looms large and ahead. The upstairs hallway and ceiling. Only problem is, y'know, there's stairs in the way. I have no idea how to paint high walls and a ceiling with any accuracy while standing on a ladder on a staircase and fearing for my life. Hubby thinks I should just paint the walls and ceiling the same color, which is starting to look more and more appealing as the thought of falling to my untimely death while edging in sinks in. Has anyone gone this route? Anyone have a different battle strategy to this? TL;dr: How do you paint your upstairs walls/ceiling without falling and dying from a ladder? Edit: ordering a telescoping pole and one of those pads! You are the greatest hive mind since the borg. ❤️ [link] [comments] |
| Found bugs and possible mold under the bathtub of new construction build. Posted: 05 Nov 2020 09:27 AM PST Wife and I just moved into our new construction home one month ago and last night I decided to take a peek under our bathtub through the removable service window. We have one of those trendy walk through showers. I was shocked to see what looked like mold spores and little bugs roaming around on the removable service window. I attached pictures and videos of what I saw and of our bathtub/shower setup. I also noticed that it smelled/felt a little humid under there; not sure if that it expected or not. As a new homeowner Im not sure why this is occurring or what Im suppose to do. Should I go straight to builder and open warranty claim or is this no big deal and can take care of it myself? Any advice or knowledge would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Ok for roof drip edge to be behind leaf guard gutter? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:13 PM PST We had our roof and siding replaced/painted and they put back up our leaf guard gutters. It looks good overall but I noticed that the roof's drip edge is behind the gutter. I'm reading about normal gutters it seems the drip edge should go in front of the gutter rim. Not sure if this is needed also for leaf guard gutters (see pictures below). pictures of the current drip edge and gutter Does it matter? Would it be even possible to put the drip edge over these gutters since the 2in. Drip edge wouldn't even fit over the small gutter rim? Thank you! [link] [comments] |
| Metal privacy screen recommendations for backyard fence Posted: 05 Nov 2020 08:37 PM PST We have an iron fence in our backyard that we'd like to make more private by adding a metal mesh screen to it throughout our backyard. I'm having trouble finding what this would be called. I've only been able to find the fabric mesh that has grommets and requires you to zip tie it on which looks tacky. I'm looking for metal mesh that I can screw onto the fence. Does anyone know of something I can use for this? I've seen it used in apartment complex gates to prevent you from reaching your hand through and opening gates from the outside. I'd need to cover about 200' of fence so the cheaper the better. It doesn't need to be thick material just something metal, thin, and perforated. We're just looking for more privacy. TIA! [link] [comments] |
| pls help! my contractor butchered my bathroom Posted: 05 Nov 2020 08:01 PM PST I'm at the very tail end of a bathroom remodel and I was appalled to see the finished work today. The contractor is coming back tomorrow for the "final touches". Instead of being overjoyed that I'll have a nice new bathroom to use soon, I'm disappointed and in shock at the state of the bathroom. The main issue is the tile work. The floor and wall tiles were installed extremely poorly. I've never seen such bad craftsmanship. They make the bathroom renovation looks so shoddy and cheaply done despite the fact that my husband and I decided to invest in higher quality/nicer finishes and paid a good amount of money for materials. I feel like I wasted all the money I spent on materials. The contractor also came recommended, seemed to be able to do better work than what we got, and isn't cheap. He also claimed to have great attention to detail and seemed to be pretty meticulous with the work needed behind the walls so this is a major case of reality not meeting expectations. Although, I'm questioning whether there are issues with the work behind the walls too now...Mainly I'm concerned about the finished look of the bathroom though. I'm at a loss as to what I should do now and how to discuss the situation with my contractor. I'm not happy at all with the work the contractor did, but we would basically have to redo the tile work and reinstall the vanity etc so it's not like it'll be an easy fix. A friend suggested that I withhold payment until the contractor does everything properly, which will be a difficult conversation that I hope I don't have to have....The contractor is coming to the house around 10am tomorrow so I plan to talk to him then. Please help redditors! What should I do? What kind of recourse do I have? Photos & my commentary: https://imgur.com/a/GKDaBjL (I assume if you're a professional contractor that does a lot of home remodels, it seems fairly straightforward to be able to set tiles straight and make sure they're all flush or else subcontract the work to a tile guy) / https://imgur.com/a/Or520jk (my in laws installed a similar floor tile and theirs came out gorgeous so not sure what happened w/ my project) [link] [comments] |
| Replace gutters before or after winter? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 06:20 PM PST We just moved into our new house in Illinois and the gutters are trashed and need to be completely replaced. The only company available for the rest of the season is a well recommended company and quoted us about 4,000. Is it better to replace the gutters before or after winter? We worry that if an emergency comes up in the winter and we've paid for the gutters we would be financially tight, but we could afford to do it now and not be completely broke, too. [link] [comments] |
| Long Butcher Block Desk - Stability over time? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:40 PM PST Hi folks, I'd been wanting to build a new computer desk for a while and was leaning towards something like butcher block for aesthetic reasons plus long term durability. I'm trying to move past the Ikea phase of life and start getting a little more serious. I picked up a 98" X 25" X 1.5" slab tonight of butcher block counter tonight (See story below if interested) which will fit the bill perfectly for the desk that I want to build. Obviously a stout slab of wood, but its long. I was going to construct some pipe legs for it then since its going directly against a wall, screw a support 2X4 into the wall under it to provide extra support to the back edge. Legs will probably go about 1 foot inwards from the outside edges. Over the long run, is there much risk of something like this bowing in the center? Its going to have a decent amount of stuff on it: Old mac pro, 6-8 spaces worth of rack gear, speakers, multiple monitors, 61 key keyboard etc. Most of the weight will be out towards the sides, but still. I've had crappy particle board desks do this before and while this is a much better material, its still a concern. I've considered adding a piece of 1" angle aluminum across the front but it won't look as nice having it there, as much as I like the industrial look. Also, any suggestions on a good smooth, durable stain? I'll do some googling on staining a butcher block to sort the how part, but if anybody has made a desk of one of these before (seems reasonably likely to assume a few have) I'm curious what your experience has been. Story time: As it would happen, I walked into Home Depot tonight and leaning against the customer service desk was a 98" X 25" X 1.5" piece of butcher block with a note taped to it saying "throw in compactor" and that made me raise an eyebrow, that's not normally the type of thing you'd throw out. I looked over both sides and couldn't see anything physically wrong with it at all. Checked with some people, I guess a guy returned it and apparently its an item they can't return to corporate for credit if its returned so they just toss them if they get returned. Seems like a horrible waste of a nice chunk of wood, so I asked if we could make a deal on it. Surprisingly they said yes, their standard practice is to sell returned items for 50% off, so I said sold. Wasn't taking any risk on haggling and blowing it. Score! [link] [comments] |
| I'm scared to drill into wall and hit a pipe (photos inside) Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:28 PM PST I'm a scardy cat. I'm replacing a pedestal bathroom sink with a bathroom vanity with cupboards, and will need to drill the backing of it into the wall for stability. I am worried that there is a small chance I'll hit a pipe, since I'll need to drill about 1 foot above where the hot and cold shut off's are in the photo. There's 1 stud a bit to the right which I plan to drill into, and I might drill another hole with an anchor to the left as well. This is on the lower level of the house. How do I know if there might be a pipe behind there? What about a pipe behind a stud? If pipes go behind studs, and I'm drilling into a stud, isn't there a chance of me hitting a pipe? As you can tell, I'm pretty terrified of hitting a pipe :) House was built in 2007 if that helps. Similarly, in the 2nd photo, there's a hole where behind where one end of my over-the-toilet stand-up shelf is supposed to screw into the wall. There was a screw in there originally, but it eventually made a bigger hole and got loose and fell out. I cannot put a big anchor in there because immediately behind the drywall is a stud. And I'd drill into the stud, but, yes, I am scared of drilling into the stud for fear of a pipe. I've drilled into studs before, but in a bathroom I'm really terrified to! Advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Do all showers have tile edge trims? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 07:27 PM PST We're in the process of renovating our master bathroom and our contractor mentioned that we still needed to pick out "tile edge trims" for the shower. I've googled remodeled bathrooms and seen a mix of showers that have the tile edge trims and others that just use grout. My parents shower that was remodeled by the same company also doesn't have tile edge trims. My main concern is that if we pick something like "brushed nickel" it will be harder to change our fixture finishes in the future if we want to do another update. I won't lie, I like the esthetic more of bathrooms that don't use tile edge trims because of all of the harsh lines. I had never heard of these before and I'm wondering if we really need them? Any benefits or cons to having them? [link] [comments] |
| Door frame rot - replace or repair Posted: 05 Nov 2020 05:34 PM PST My french door opening to the deck is rotting away at the bottom of the frame. The wood is pine and the brickmold is finger jointed pine. Here is how bad it looks https://imgur.com/57YdO0B And here is a close up of the rotten part https://imgur.com/qygJjTQ Looks like the builder didn't use any foam to seal the gaps. I think the brickmold needs to be ripped out and replaced entirely. Maybe use PVC to prevent future rot? Can I cut off the rotten part of the jamb and then glue in a piece of wood? Or should I replace the whole jamb while I can and seal the gaps with foam as well? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Nov 2020 05:31 PM PST Looking for recommendations on how to make this look less... bad lol. It was built by previous owner to protect our well equipment. Link attached. https://ibb.co/vsbvP83 [link] [comments] |
| Can I swap these sockets for new ones with USB? Posted: 05 Nov 2020 12:31 PM PST Hi, I have two sockets for lights (on a 10 A circuit, and 1.5mm2 cables), I don't use them for lamps, but for charging my phone. It's the same in all 3 bedrooms in my house. The rooms also have the normal looking sockets on a 16 A circuit, so I can also pull cables from there and replace the current cables, but it's harder as there's already power/ground/netural going into the light switches (3 way switch). Can I switch them to these USB ones instead, and with a normal looking plug? The sockets have ground, but don't have the same look as the typical grounded sockets on the 16 A circuit for 'general use'. See pics here: https://imgur.com/a/kVDrA62 and pic of similar sockets I'd like to change to https://qmadis.com/211-bjc-viva?iD=224944&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8sjLr5zs7AIVg8vVCh1fjQUGEAQYASABEgKNuPD_BwE&page=1 I guess it will work, but is it a good idea, since they look different. I'm from Spain btw. Thanks. [link] [comments] |
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