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Home-owners...What are your current projects? (3 Viewers)

Fan installed. Was going to document more via video but was too wrapped up in getting it done.

Unboxing

Initial prep.

Getting that fan head up into the attic and into position was rough.  No room to get it up the attic entrance with my 7 foot step ladder underneath it, so had to use an old wobbly 4 four foot one and carry it up over my head while balancing my way up the ladder.  Thing was maybe 70 pounds and barely fit in the hole.  

Fan head installed, wiring good.  

At this point, I figured the worst was over.  Not by a long shot.  It was a huge mistake taking that duct off the fan head, because trying to reattach the duct and tape it in place was a freaking nightmare.  It was in the 90's today so no idea how hot my attic was, probably unsafe conditions.  But worse was trying to maneuver through that small space and ensure I was always on a joist.  My attic is 48" high, and with those angled struts I was using muscles I didn't know existed.  I could only be up there for maybe 3 minutes at a time before I had to come down.  Installation would be pretty easy in an attic you can stand in, but in a typical attic, this is not a job for a 45 year old fat guy.

This was pretty close to the point I gave up.  

Finally got the duct on, and then installed the damper. 

Finished product.

Overall, no major injuries (only a few cuts), and no major mishaps.  Did have a close one.  When I was installing the wiring up there, at one point I entered the attic through the hole I made for the damper.  As I was climbing through I started to lose balance, and leaned back and started sitting on the drywall.  Have a small crack at a seam, but it could have been way worse.  

Took about 7 hours total.  This included a trip to Lowe's and all cleanup.

 
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Nice work Shuke. That’s a decent job. You’re right, primary installation issue for you is clearance up in the attic. Bet your lower back is feeling it. 

What is the temp at night (you said 90 during day). Time to do a performance qualification 

 
wilked said:
Nice work Shuke. That’s a decent job. You’re right, primary installation issue for you is clearance up in the attic. Bet your lower back is feeling it. 

What is the temp at night (you said 90 during day). Time to do a performance qualification 
Every muscle in my body is sore.  

We usually don’t turn the air off unless it’s it’s mid-sixties by early evening.   I’ll try this once it gets down to 70 by 8 pm.  

Also, not comfortable letting this run when I go to bed until I do the relay thing with the smoke detectors.  But I’m not getting back up in that attic until it’s much colder.  

 
When we bought the house the basement was "finished".   Horribly (crap wiring, drop ceilings, etc).   I gutted the largest room for my theater and it is really finished now.   new wiring, insulation, wired speakers, recessed lighting, drywall / paint etc.  

The theater and a half bath (which is still completely undone, all I have is plumbing stampouts, framing and wiring in place) are my main concerns for heating.   it's on a concrete foundation now with carpeting that I'm ok keeping but also completely fine with ripping up and putting something else down if need be.   

One upside is that when we moved in I had a subpanel put in off the breaker box and that's only about 8 feet away from the theater -- so additional capacity for breakers and wiring is easily doable (and even moreso before the bathroom is done -- the bathroom is between the breaker box and the theater so I can run wiring through unfinished bathroom ceiling joists to get the theater.)

furnace is in attic, No existing ductwork in the basement at all.   Heating and AC is only going to the main level (it's a ranch-style).   If I decide to go with a not-floor installed heating plan, I'll probably put one of those 240V / 5KW Cadet wall heaters (something like this one, not settled exactly on which model yet)  in and have a new breaker installed and have it hardwired.   But the idea of warm feet and distributed floor radiating heat sounds nice.  

Also, I my question above , if I wasn't clear -- wasn't talking about baseboard heaters -- I was talking about actual flooring heat.  Like here.  
I know you were all on the edge of your seats for an update here. 

I went way more budget friendly and less ambitious and went with option B mentioned above.  New dedicated 30A breaker put on my box and got a 4500 watt in-wall electric heater.   It should have ~3x the output of a normal plug in space heater.   Parts and labor were in ballpark of $650.   I still like the idea of warm flooring, but I also like the idea of not spending dropping 5 stacks to do it.  

 
I have a nice fence but there is space underneath where I have seen holes dug from some animals. On the other side of this portion of fence are flowers (so, not cement or grass). On the drive way side of the fence is about a foot of grass, probably less. This morning in my back yard is a disemboweled bunny, probably a couple months old. I left it in the grass today thinking the animal might come back tonight.

I'd like to put something on the grass to keep a hole from being dug, essentially, probably killing the grass since I'd be covering it up. Would white stones or some other type of barrier work to keep an animal from digging a hole under this portion of the fence? One other side of my fence already has stones on it however I should add more next year once I trim trees, clean up, and replace the current stones. Could easily add more but there have been holes over there to, just not as many.

Should I add the stones on the grass or just put massive amounts of stone in the flowery side? Or, would that not do anything?

 
I have a nice fence but there is space underneath where I have seen holes dug from some animals. On the other side of this portion of fence are flowers (so, not cement or grass). On the drive way side of the fence is about a foot of grass, probably less. This morning in my back yard is a disemboweled bunny, probably a couple months old. I left it in the grass today thinking the animal might come back tonight.

I'd like to put something on the grass to keep a hole from being dug, essentially, probably killing the grass since I'd be covering it up. Would white stones or some other type of barrier work to keep an animal from digging a hole under this portion of the fence? One other side of my fence already has stones on it however I should add more next year once I trim trees, clean up, and replace the current stones. Could easily add more but there have been holes over there to, just not as many.

Should I add the stones on the grass or just put massive amounts of stone in the flowery side? Or, would that not do anything?
I've got similar (wooden fence, grass, rabbits that like to explore)

What I want to do (haven't yet) is to dig down and basically add this to 'extend' the fence downward about 6-8 inches

https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTI2WDEwMjQ=/z/RwAAAOSwk6dbniAx/$_86.JPG

Make sure it's galvanized

 
have any you doityourselfmigos ever made a outdoor pizza oven i sort of want to make one just to have my pizza smells ruin my neighbors diets that would rule take that to the bank bromigos 

 
have any you doityourselfmigos ever made a outdoor pizza oven i sort of want to make one just to have my pizza smells ruin my neighbors diets that would rule take that to the bank bromigos 
Buy a used kamado and get pizza stone insert. If I’m 2-3 years you are still making pizzas often and have the itch to upgrade, build it then. You’ll gain a lot of experience in the meantime and may find out the kamado is all you need. Worst case you resell your kamado, and likely sell it for exactly what you bought it for 

 
have any you doityourselfmigos ever made a outdoor pizza oven i sort of want to make one just to have my pizza smells ruin my neighbors diets that would rule take that to the bank bromigos 
My uncle made one when he built his house about 20 years ago.  It looks like an outdoor kitchen before those were really popular.  Stucco on outside, tile surface.  Anyways, first time he tried using it at a New Year's Day party, the top of the chiminee caught fire.  I guess he framed it with wood and thought it would be good, lol. Hasn't used it since.  He has a bunch of plants around it now.

 
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Time to do a performance qualification 
We've been using it since I installed it but today was the best test.  We were camping this weekend and got home today about 4:00.  It was 81 at the time, the A/C wasn't on, and the house had been closed up all weekend.  There is no way I would normally not turn the A/C on in these conditions.  But instead we tried the fan.  Worked like a charm.  

Interesting enough, I asked my son to open up some windows upstairs for this, but he doesn't quite get the concept of the fan, and opened up every window upstairs and down.  With 10 open windows upstairs, it was considerably cooler upstairs than down, since that is where it was pulling most of the air from.  

This thing is awesome.

 
nothing beats finishing up a project except when that project really works like a bell good job shukehan take that to the bank bromigo

 
I guess I shouldn't have come on here to brag maybe that was the problem?  No more victory laps unless everything works for a week or two from now.  So last month I replaced the shower door and the fan in our master bathroom.  Everything was was fine with the shower door installation until a couple of weeks ago.  I cannot see sugar honey iced tea without my glasses on but I dropped the soap in the shower, I looked down and I see white around the base of the shower door.  I assume this is shampoo or soap and I honestly don't think twice about it thinking the shower water will wash it away.  A day or two later I look again (again I'm in the shower no glasses) and it looks like rope or something so I go and inspect it closer and it's the caulking, it's turned white and it's pulling away from the base of the shower door.  Grrr.

I do a little bit of research and I found that I used a latex caulk (the label clearly says it's for kitchens and bathrooms) and I don't know if I applied it incorrectly or what happened but I shut down the shower for a while until I had time to deal with it.  So, I revisited the master bathroom, sigh.  I went ahead and dug out all the old caulking, scraped it up and then I let it all dry out a few days and I researched silicone caulking making sure I bought what I think is the correct caulk this time.  This one went on clear and it seemed to set up pretty quickly, I was a lot more careful with it this time around.  The last tube of caulking went on white, turned clear eventually and seemed to take forever to set up.

And while I was at it, I made some adjustments to the shower door, added some extra screws to account for some slight give and because I looked at the instructions and I found I inserted some screws incorrectly as I had mis-read the diagram.  The owner's/installation manual mentioned that all the screws "may" be pre-drilled, they were not which isn't a big deal unless you mis-read the diagram.  I also adjusted a seal on the door that looked like it wanted to pull itself loose, again, in the fine print it reads "you may want to add a dab of caulk" but it's not necessary.   Apparently it actually is necessary since it was about to come loose, hopefully it will stay in place from now on.

 I did all of this over the weekend, the bottle of caulk indicated you need 12 hours to fully cure, I'm thinking I still may give a day or two more just be safe.  I noticed last month it still felt tacky after 3 days whereas this stuff felt like it was fully cured to the touch 12 hours later, again, I'm not in a hurry to redo this (again) so I may give it a couple more days before I use it again.  Ah well, fingers crossed I'm done with this project for a while!

 
The rubber on casters for our coffee table was starting to break (20 years old I think) so I replaced all four.  Drilled two new holes for each caster and good as new.  It’s now time for a vacation.

 
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My neighbor got one of THESE little tractors a few months ago and I borrowed it for a few hours last weekend.  The amount of time savings from having a backhoe is immeasurable.  In a few hours, I dug out 6 pine tree stumps, and took out the stump for the dying 20' maple tree in my front yard.  The Maple would've been flat out impossible by hand, and the pines would've taken at least an hour a piece (not to mention a max of 2/day b/c I'd be exhausted)  With that thing, I took them all out, and hauled them into the brush without much effort.  I also managed to re-grade the are behind my shed, so for the first time since I moved in, it's flat enough for me to mow back there and keep the weeds down.

 
anyone ever change the spring on their garage door? the ones that run over the track, not in the center above the door. 

something i can do myself?
I've had multiple break on me while I was in the garage.  I wouldn't touch it.  Depending on the size of the spring, it's about $100 in our area to get one replaced.  It's worth the money IMO.  You have to know what you're doing to make sure tension is correct....seems like a hassle to me.

ETA:  I can't read....this is not the spring you're talking about...sorry GB.

 
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I used to use the inground border but a landscaper convinced me into just digging an edge.  Basically you dig and angle down into the grown so the grassline becomes the edge
Or you could rent a border edger and have at it.  Costs about $40 a day to rent and you do it once a year.

 
Otis covered patio finally nearing completion.

Since those pics the columns have been installed, just need backyard debris to be removed this week, paint next weekend, and then the electrician in to install the lights, fan, heaters and wall controls, and we're good to roll.  I'll need to install the TV then too. 

Took forever, but coming out pretty freaking great. Sucks that it's nearly going to be winter before it's done, but hopefully with the heaters we'll be able to still get some meaningful use out of it in the next month or so.

Ordered like $10k worth of nice outdoor furniture from Frontgate, will be here in a couple weeks.

After the inspector comes through, we're going to add the outdoor kitchen out on the lower (uncovered) patio, though I'm guessing now that won't happen till Spring.

Also need to have the landscaper in during the coming weeks to regrade the yard and bring in a bunch of soil.  For some reason they made the lower patio only one step down, even though the rest of our yard is TWO steps below the house.  So there is a slight slope up to the uncovered patio.  Maybe they did that on purpose so the rain runs off?  Anyway, weird, but hopefully our landscaper can make it work.  He's also going to have his irrigation guy in to fix up the sprinkler system and we'll plant grass and then in spring get a bunch of nice plantings done all around the yard.

Getting there...

We also took the opportunity to redo much of the rest of our first floor.  Had the stupid putting green torn out of the basement, ran some carpeting and painted, hung a nice big TV down there, and moved down a monster sectional from our living room; all new furniture ordered for the living room and tore out the carpet there to show the nice old wood floors; repainted the den (leading out to the covered porch), tore out the carpeting and old dark colored blinds.  Place is going to look fantastic once all the furniture shows in the coming weeks.

 
The Commish said:
Or you could rent a border edger and have at it.  Costs about $40 a day to rent and you do it once a year.
Do this before you mulch, it makes a bit of a mess. I used to work in a botanical garden, we would use a regular edger. Spray paint the line you want and cut it in with the edger, and just pull out the line of sod you get. Lot easier than doing it all by hand, not as messy and more likely to have in your garage than a border edger. 

If you have a lot of edging, pay the money for the border edger. 

 
Put new countertops in the kitchen, new backsplash, repainted, new sink, new stove, new breakfast bar, etc. 

Pretty much all started because i dropped a cast iron pan and shattered the glass cooktop. Screw the cast iron thread.

 
"Working" from home without the wife or kids around for the first time in like 8 months.  It's so peaceful.

I ripped out a small patch of drywall to repair some water damage around our shower (already fixed the leaking issue, just need to repair wall and trim)

Now I'm looking at our guest bath tub.  It's a cast-iron tub with a baked-on paint.  When it was almost brand new my wife dropped a metal-handled squeegie on it and it chipped the paint.  We had a guy come out and repair it.  Cost us like $100.  His repair, bluntly, sucked.  For $100, you better fix it permanently.  His covering chipped off a few weeks ago.  Now I've got a penny-sized section of the tub exposed.  Any thoughts on how to repair it?  I've read that cast-iron tubs with these tub finishes need special coatings, but I'm honestly close to just masking it off and spraying it with some Lacquer.  It's gloss white, so it can't be THAT hard to match can it?

 
"Working" from home without the wife or kids around for the first time in like 8 months.  It's so peaceful.

I ripped out a small patch of drywall to repair some water damage around our shower (already fixed the leaking issue, just need to repair wall and trim)

Now I'm looking at our guest bath tub.  It's a cast-iron tub with a baked-on paint.  When it was almost brand new my wife dropped a metal-handled squeegie on it and it chipped the paint.  We had a guy come out and repair it.  Cost us like $100.  His repair, bluntly, sucked.  For $100, you better fix it permanently.  His covering chipped off a few weeks ago.  Now I've got a penny-sized section of the tub exposed.  Any thoughts on how to repair it?  I've read that cast-iron tubs with these tub finishes need special coatings, but I'm honestly close to just masking it off and spraying it with some Lacquer.  It's gloss white, so it can't be THAT hard to match can it?
Ha.  White never matches...

 
it looks nice otis you have a swell looking pad take that to the bank which you appear to do quite oftenhan

 
white is so hard to match that you are better off just melting the tub down with a huge smelter and then installing a new tub in the crater where your house used to be before the smelter burned it down take that to the bank brohan

 
Fat Nick said:
"Working" from home without the wife or kids around for the first time in like 8 months.  It's so peaceful.

I ripped out a small patch of drywall to repair some water damage around our shower (already fixed the leaking issue, just need to repair wall and trim)

Now I'm looking at our guest bath tub.  It's a cast-iron tub with a baked-on paint.  When it was almost brand new my wife dropped a metal-handled squeegie on it and it chipped the paint.  We had a guy come out and repair it.  Cost us like $100.  His repair, bluntly, sucked.  For $100, you better fix it permanently.  His covering chipped off a few weeks ago.  Now I've got a penny-sized section of the tub exposed.  Any thoughts on how to repair it?  I've read that cast-iron tubs with these tub finishes need special coatings, but I'm honestly close to just masking it off and spraying it with some Lacquer.  It's gloss white, so it can't be THAT hard to match can it?
Make sure it is epoxy.  Prime it well before painting it.  A good appliance paint should work

 
My current project, severely curtailed this fall by it raining seemingly every other day, involves firewood. 

Every 3-5 years or so I get 6-8 cords worth of log-length hardwood delivered. I then buck it up into 16” rounds, split it with my log splitter and then stack the firewood. 

LOTS of hard, heavy work but very satisfying. And I save money too...I think. 

 
Otis covered patio finally completed. It’s in the 40s here in NY right now, and I’m still comfortably sitting in my yard barefoot and with just a long sleeve shirt on, rocking some tunes through the in ceiling Triad speakers over the Sonos. Best thing we ever did here.  

https://imgur.com/gallery/h29Dsa7

 
Looks crowded, but nice
Agree.  I’d return one of the couches and place the 2 chairs across from the couch with a little table to set drinks between those two chairs.   Then underneath all that get an outdoor rug to define the sitting space and add in some color.

 
Agree.  I’d return one of the couches and place the 2 chairs across from the couch with a little table to set drinks between those two chairs.   Then underneath all that get an outdoor rug to define the sitting space and add in some color.
Outdoor rug is in the works, along with a cofeee table. The space is actually about 14x15. Fits the furniture easily, and we wanted to maximize seating. 

 
its great otis you could show us a picture of a castle and the scale guy would tell you how to change a few of the flags on the towers leave it alone dont worry about the nobs and enjoy enjoyng it with your family congrats bromigo take that to the bank 

 
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its great otis you could show us a picture of a castle and the scale guy would tell you how to change a few of the flags on the towers leave it alone dont worry about the nobs and enjoy enjoyng it with your family congrats bromigo take that to the bank 
:lmao:  

 
Think i want to redo the mudroom.  On one side is washer/dryer with cabinets over both.  On the other is sink and countertop with cabinets underneath and above with the exception of over the sink.  I can't remember the last time the sink was used.  The countertops aren't used either.  I think i want to rip them out and put a small bench and open adjustable shelves everywhere else.  Anyone have something similar or have recommendations?

 
House is moving along nicely. Drywall and mud was completed last week. Primer was going up over the weekend. Probably going to start the tile flooring next week.

Need to finalize the interior doors and get them scheduled for delivery along with the front door. Doors are frigging expensive. Hell just the front door alone is going to over $5k. Sheesh.

Still hoping for a late January move-in date. Appliances need to be ordered. Kitchen cabinets should be coming in sometime around the beginning of January. 

Need to look at some window shades and determine the fence we want surrounding the property. Going with cable railings along the 3rd floor patio and 2nd floor balconies. The stairs will be steel rod.

Money is really flowing out now! 

 
House is moving along nicely. Drywall and mud was completed last week. Primer was going up over the weekend. Probably going to start the tile flooring next week.

Need to finalize the interior doors and get them scheduled for delivery along with the front door. Doors are frigging expensive. Hell just the front door alone is going to over $5k. Sheesh.

Still hoping for a late January move-in date. Appliances need to be ordered. Kitchen cabinets should be coming in sometime around the beginning of January. 

Need to look at some window shades and determine the fence we want surrounding the property. Going with cable railings along the 3rd floor patio and 2nd floor balconies. The stairs will be steel rod.

Money is really flowing out now! 
What door did you get?

 
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rascal said:
What door did you get?
It's going to be similar to this one. We have a 72" opening so it's going to be a 48'" door with a 24" sidelight. Solid Mahogany. 

Front Door

It's actually closer to $7200 but if we get two (we are building a two unit townhome) , they will "only" be $6500 each.

 
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I've been trying to finish up repairing some water damage to the drywall around our shower...trying to match paint color when you don't know the color, brand, or sheen is a #####.  I'm going to remove a painted wall plate and take it to Benjamin Moore and pray they can match it based on that.  I'd like to find my old contractor and kick him in the nuts.  First for the crap job he did sealing the sill plate around the shower that allowed the water to leak in the first place, and second for not using the exact color and brand of paint we specified.  We like the color he ended up using, but we have NO CLUE what it is.  

 

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