What have you done to your house today

[skwerl]

Yes, the copper color spot was the manufacturer's logo. I took the hinges back today and the lady immediately began grilling me on whether I had installed them yet, what had I used to clean them, etc. I just took them out of the box and handed them to her and she immediately changed her tone. She got on the phone with the distributor and then she had to go through the same 20 questions with him.

Once she finally convinced him I had a legit claim, they worked it out for me to drive to the distributor's warehouse and swap them out. I got there and immediately got hit with the 20 questions game again until they looked at the hinges. The manager ended up going through their entire stock of that item and all of them were spotted. He found the best two and gave them to me and said he was returning the rest to the manufacturer.

I also decided that I may not want to hang this glass myself and will instead pay for a pro to do it. It's definitely a unique skill set and I've never done it before. The cost of paying an experienced pro is a lot less than one fuckup by me so I'm better off hiring a pro.

 

[5.0 Probie]

Good plan!

 

[Shaggy]

Yes, the copper color spot was the manufacturer's logo. I took the hinges back today and the lady immediately began grilling me on whether I had installed them yet, what had I used to clean them, etc. I just took them out of the box and handed them to her and she immediately changed her tone. She got on the phone with the distributor and then she had to go through the same 20 questions with him.

Once she finally convinced him I had a legit claim, they worked it out for me to drive to the distributor's warehouse and swap them out. I got there and immediately got hit with the 20 questions game again until they looked at the hinges. The manager ended up going through their entire stock of that item and all of them were spotted. He found the best two and gave them to me and said he was returning the rest to the manufacturer.

I also decided that I may not want to hang this glass myself and will instead pay for a pro to do it. It's definitely a unique skill set and I've never done it before. The cost of paying an experienced pro is a lot less than one fuckup by me so I'm better off hiring a pro.

Yea, when they were putting mine in, I was thinking I could never do that and they had like 3 people doing it, so its not a one man job.

 

[Gabe]

Yesterday, but we finally started the hardwood install:

 

[GoneFord]

Yesterday, but we finally started the hardwood install:

That looks really good, Gabe.

 

[skwerl]

Today I found an electrical short that has haunted me since I moved in. I kept getting intermittent power outages in the dining room/office which would shut off my computer as well as the lights. The breakers and panel are all new so I suspected a bad breaker, but swapping it with another did nothing. 30 minutes ago it went out again and wasn't coming back on.

I went up in the attic with my pocket voltage tester to see if I could find the break. None of the electrical work in this house is legal, dozens of wires laying all over the place in the attic with connections wrapped in electrical tape. I found the wire from the ceiling fan and began tracing it back. It led me to an illegal connection with power on one side but not the other. I opened it up to discover the wires were broken right where the insulation had been stripped, so they obviously used wire cutters instead of wire strippers to strip the wire.

Stripped it back another half inch, put the wire nut on and rewrapped the old electrical tape on it and I'm good to go. One day I'll address rewiring the house with all compliant wiring and connections but it's not going to be today. I'm guessing several thousand dollars to have everything run fresh with new wire and all connections inside junction boxes.

 

[Gabe]

That looks really good, Gabe.

Thanks buddy ... my bro-in-law is a very resourceful man, the guy knows his stuff ... he got a lot more trimming done today, and the hardwood is gonna get restarted on Monday or Tuesday since the current nailing gun is broken.
He'll come back with his, and we'll have this one repaired by Wednesday or so, so at one point we'll probably have 2 of us nailing at the same time.

Slowly but surely it's coming together just as we once envisioned

 

[Gabe]

Today I found an electrical short that has haunted me since I moved in. I kept getting intermittent power outages in the dining room/office which would shut off my computer as well as the lights. The breakers and panel are all new so I suspected a bad breaker, but swapping it with another did nothing. 30 minutes ago it went out again and wasn't coming back on.

I went up in the attic with my pocket voltage tester to see if I could find the break. None of the electrical work in this house is legal, dozens of wires laying all over the place in the attic with connections wrapped in electrical tape. I found the wire from the ceiling fan and began tracing it back. It led me to an illegal connection with power on one side but not the other. I opened it up to discover the wires were broken right where the insulation had been stripped, so they obviously used wire cutters instead of wire strippers to strip the wire.

Stripped it back another half inch, put the wire nut on and rewrapped the old electrical tape on it and I'm good to go. One day I'll address rewiring the house with all compliant wiring and connections but it's not going to be today. I'm guessing several thousand dollars to have everything run fresh with new wire and all connections inside junction boxes.

A few thousand sounds about right, like about $6-8k to totally rewire the whole house

 

[Shotokan1509]

Like I'm not busy enough working on my parents house, yesterday I had carpenter ants pouring out of my shingle siding, had to start pulling it and I think I have to pull more

 

[Gabe]

The kitchen sink drain just about completely stopped draining today.
It was always a bit slow but today it became almost completely clogged.
Barely any flow.

So I went to Home Depot, got a metal pipe for in-between the sink and the p-trap (the plastic one I was using, seen in the pic below, shrunk down the neck on the inside for the dishwasher pipe, it had a small "shield" that directed water flow downward).

The metal pipe was the same diameter all the way through,
Didn't fix the super-slow drain.

While at HD, I also bought a 1/4" 15-foot snake to see if that would fix the issue.
I got about 8-10' of it into the drain pipe and it wouldn't go no more.
I either hit a huge clog or a 90-degree corner that the snake got stuck in, and no amount of twisting the snake got it to go any further.

Now contemplating replacing the black PVC pipe that's original to the house, 1972-built.

I replaced some of it already and it had a shit ton of "cholesterol" on the inside.
Just wish I replaced the rest of it then.

The other thing I'm thinking is that the vent pipe might be clogged...

When I cut open the drain pipe under the sink in the basement I should be able to get a good look at the vent pipe.

 

[Shotokan1509]

Everything takes longer when it's not your house to make decisions on but "home" stretch for being ready for move in

linoleum yanked and million staples hammered flat

Cathedral ceiling being painted, fun part is over the stairs

Hardwood floors, carry 1000+ sq feet up stairs in to house in 90+ degree heat not fun, but they came out awesome

New front door, getting installed next weekend, it's apart for paint

Last room I had to paint, now just few final touchups

Reinstalling baseboards

Plus been taking car loads of stuff over before the main move

 

[AndrewNagle]

More progress on barn/shack

 

[skwerl]

Well you certainly don't need to worry about it falling down!

 

[AndrewNagle]

Well you certainly don't need to worry about it falling down!

Yeah a little overkill

 

[JimC]

Held a garage sale - moving from a 2200 square foot house to a 1500 square foot condo. Lots of stuff we don't need. All the garden/lawn equipment was gone in a half hour, except for our garden tractor. Guess I'll have to list that elsewhere (we had a buyer who backed out because he thought it was "too big" for his 2 acres). Netted $350 from selling our stuff, moved a bunch to the street in a "free pile" at the end of the day. Other things are back in the garage and some will go to ebay.

Free pile though, some people are absolute slobs. Getting stuff for free and they toss things all over the place and leave it. Whoever took the strings of Christmas lights decided they didn't want the parts that are used to mount them outside, so pulled all of them off and just tossed them around; and in doing so they also pulled out a ton of the light covers themselves (they were the LED lights with a cover that mimics the bulb). We used to do a huge Christmas display and several of the neighbors said they are going to miss seeing that, especially since we added to it every year.

We also went over the new condo and did some measuring. We are going to put hardwood flooring throughout once we close. Also decided to remove a half wall between the kitchen and dining room. Someone else did it and it really opens the place up.

 

[AndrewNagle]

Yeah a little overkill

Decided to add a shed roof on the garden side to give some shade to the potting bench

 

[i am ryan]

Replaced the awful rusted brass lights on the front of the house and garage today and threw some nice white 1600 lumen CFL bulbs in there to match the LED flood lights I put in near the roof last week. Much better looking and nice to have matching color light out front. Our front steps look like they're illuminated by the sun at night now, which is nice since when it's dark outside the house just disappears.

 

[weather man]

Pulled up a section of pavers I laid many years ago and releveled them to the concrete pad. A pain in the ass job I am glad is out of the way. There was just enough of a lip that my wife worried about her parents tripping on it. Of course the very last paver did not fit, had to trim it with the chop saw. I'll go over it with the broom some more to work the granite sand in.

 

[skwerl]

The pavers look good but we have moles around here. That combined with the sandy soil means nothing like that will last unless you have 6-10" of compacted base underneath it. I'll get by with dirt and mulch until I can get my driveway and walkways paved with asphalt or concrete. I had the 18" square popcorn stepping stones at the old house and redid them 3 times in 17 years, still all screwed up from the moles.

 

[Deez-67]

Made a drone video... sorry no Mustangs.