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That looks pretty steep there, so gravity should really do most of the work unless the picture is playing tricks on my eyes. It would probably be best to follow that French drain and see where it stops being inundated with water, there might be something causing stoppage halfway is my guess.
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Feb 7, 2020 14:47
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I've been avoiding quartz countertops because most of them look kinda unnatural, but I found one that looks natural-ish in my opinion. Could I get some goon homeowner thoughts on it? We'd be going with maple cabinets in light stain - natural, honey, butterscotch, or whatever light stain shade goes by different manufacturers. I'm sure it's going to be different when it comes time to pick a slab but I'm wondering what people think as to how natural it looks. 
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Feb 7, 2020 14:55
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MJP posted:I've been avoiding quartz countertops because most of them look kinda unnatural, but I found one that looks natural-ish in my opinion. Could I get some goon homeowner thoughts on it? We'd be going with maple cabinets in light stain - natural, honey, butterscotch, or whatever light stain shade goes by different manufacturers. It looks like loving snot, dude.
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Feb 7, 2020 16:00
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couldcareless posted:That looks pretty steep there, so gravity should really do most of the work unless the picture is playing tricks on my eyes. It's steep, but probably not as steep as it looks. The background (by corner of the house) is way steeper so that's probably playing tricks on you. Also not a french drain, or at least not what I would typically consider a french drain. It's just 1 layer of rock on top of a woven black plastic barrier (not sure exactly what type of barrier, but it wasn't the typical fabric mesh style weed block). I'm probably going to run this by the landscaper regardless, but just trying to see if this is a "holy poo poo" thing or a "meh" thing so I know ahead of time if he's BSing me or not.
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Feb 7, 2020 16:19
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:It looks like loving snot, dude. I showed a different slab of this to a friend and she thought it looked like an ant farm. Another said it looked like spilled milk. The trifecta is complete. How's this one? 
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Feb 7, 2020 17:10
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Is it a boat? Or a bird? poo poo I was never good at these magic eye things.
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Feb 7, 2020 17:26
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obviously it's a schooner
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Feb 7, 2020 17:29
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I've never been a fan of the chaotic stone look for countertops. I want to be able to easily see if I've spilled something somewhere, so a single flat color is preferable IMO.
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Feb 7, 2020 17:40
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MJP posted:I showed a different slab of this to a friend and she thought it looked like an ant farm. Another said it looked like spilled milk. The trifecta is complete. Looks like the washed out fake stone laminate in the kitchenette at my office. If you want to go with quartz, get a solid color - I’ve personally never found the imitation stone-look varieties to be good looking or even remotely convincing.
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Feb 7, 2020 17:59
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We were gunning for granite. There's plenty of neutral enough granites that have small pops of color, but I figured I should have a look at quartz. My concern is how it'll match with a natural wood cabinet - maple with a light stain. I'm gonna order samples to see how they turn out, but we might fall back to this granite or something similar to it. My wife's got a bit of a vestibular disorder so I'm surprised she likes/can look at this and the other two without getting dizzy. 
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Feb 7, 2020 18:38
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Queen Victorian posted:Looks like the washed out fake stone laminate in the kitchenette at my office.  But you pay out the nose.
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Feb 8, 2020 02:18
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We have “fantasy brown” granite in our kitchen and it may be what you want? Our slab has less veining and mostly looks like quartz.
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Feb 8, 2020 03:41
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I have seen varieties of stone that looked like all of the examples you've shown so far, but, that doesn't mean they looked like something I'd want in my kitchen. I think maybe don't worry too much about whether they "look natural" and just focus on whether you like them.
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Feb 8, 2020 07:09
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One of my friends does counters/stone for a living and I was at his house. They have some sort of textured quartz countertops. They were very nice and I want them.
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Feb 8, 2020 08:10
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At least it’s where we want to put the coffee pot anyways
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Feb 8, 2020 13:11
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totalnewbie posted:One of my friends does counters/stone for a living and I was at his house. They have some sort of textured quartz countertops. They were very nice and I want them. I love leathered texture in theory but in practice I don't know how well it'd work as an actual countertop. It sucks because it's either super polished glossy smooth or matte leathered. Seems like if you want matte smooth countertops you're SOL.
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Feb 8, 2020 15:28
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Help, I bought a house 3 weeks ago and just today noticed that the ancient wood siding on one particular exterior wall is buried under 6" of leaf compost and there's a 2" vine underneath that's pushed a brick out of the foundation!!! In a strange coincidence, the lowest piece of the aforementioned siding is also compost now
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Feb 8, 2020 21:25
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Uh, did you have the house inspected before you bought it?
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Feb 8, 2020 21:54
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Yeah it's got other problems, but I hadn't noticed that one in particular. My favorite one is the broken interior outlet installed on the balcony. It's been painted over but it has prongs just sticking out of the broken plastic. And it's hot!
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Feb 8, 2020 22:16
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MJP posted:I love leathered texture in theory but in practice I don't know how well it'd work as an actual countertop. It sucks because it's either super polished glossy smooth or matte leathered. Seems like if you want matte smooth countertops you're SOL. I've got black leatherer (granite?) counter tops in my kitchen. I wouldn't have chosen them, but they were already there. I'm not sure I would choose them after living with it for over a year now, but they're not awful. If you like the look they are entirely workable as a good cook prep surface, are fairly easy to clean if kept properly treated/sealed and show dirt well but don't look like trash when not perfectly clean (I want my cooking surfaces to show dirt, others may have different ideas).
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Feb 8, 2020 22:53
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MJP posted:I love leathered texture in theory but in practice I don't know how well it'd work as an actual countertop. It sucks because it's either super polished glossy smooth or matte leathered. Seems like if you want matte smooth countertops you're SOL. It worked great when I used it. I suppose it may not be great if you have a habit of writing on your counter but otherwise, I liked it a lot. For the record, I asked and it was a suede countertop. Not sure how that differs, if at all, from what you're thinking about.
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Feb 8, 2020 22:56
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A concrete countertop is more on the matte finish end of the spectrum. You can make them yourself, too, if you're feeling ambitious.
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Feb 9, 2020 00:33
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couldcareless posted:That looks pretty steep there, so gravity should really do most of the work unless the picture is playing tricks on my eyes. Of course the landscaper was taking the lazy route. I think that whole section just needs to be pitched more at the top pool area and the "stream" part needs to be way deeper with actual drain rock/tubes at the bottom of the trench and then with the larger stones on top. Also the mulched needs to be sectioned off with retaining stones. Keyser_Soze fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Feb 9, 2020 |
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Feb 9, 2020 18:42
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DaveSauce posted:Anyhow, we just had a bunch of landscaping done and it looks great, except we now have some drainage issues: Personally, I would try and secure the mulch on the sides there with larger rocks, or it'll wash away. You also mentioned that they used "woven plastic", which I'm guessing you mean geotextile fabric. Actual woven geotextile isn't super porous and is usually used for keeping water out. It looks like crossed threads. Unwoven geotextile (or "weed mat") is actually porous and probably what should have been used. If the landscaper used woven (or actual plastic/rubber) you're basically making a big chute for the water rather than dissipating the energy and risk wash outs. From your photo and general info, a rain garden would have been perfect at the edge there, with the rock channel only serving as an emergency overflow. quote:As an aside, most of that was previously grass, but was landscaped over because surface tree roots made it nearly impossible to maintain. It's always had SOME drainage problems, but never this bad. Surface tree roots often means a high water table, which means poor drainage. Roots generally need oxygen and unless it's a wetland species, they don't want to be inundated, so they grow shallow roots.
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Feb 10, 2020 20:23
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My house came with faux concrete laminate counter which are passable for now but ugh they hide so much grime! Countless times I've put my hand into something I missed wiping up. ARGHH
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Feb 10, 2020 21:52
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We went slab hunting yesterday and holy crap the leathered surfaces are way, way, WAY less bumpy than the one I felt forever ago. My wife like the look as well - looks like we're leaning in that direction. Last request for any feedback on Starmark or Wellborn Forest cabinets - we order them this week. I shopped around other brands and those came out on top in terms of best pricing for 3/4" plywood, Shaker door, and all the pullouts/organizers/etc. that we'd need.
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Feb 11, 2020 14:55
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We ented up with Starmark - lots of reasons but they came out on top in terms of price by a little, plus the dealer was willing to work with us on a package deal on the countertop. They had a remnant we liked which might just do the trick Another big question series - posted this in A/T and got no traction; if there's a home decor/design thread that's a better place to post, please let me know. We're going with these doors in a honey stain, the appliances will all be slate gray (we aren't fans of stainless steel or white), and we'll be using this countertop . I have a few questions about where we should proceed on a few colors - specifically, elements of the backsplash, the floor tile, and the paint for the walls. 1. We want to do one row of this tile, with two rows each of a less vibrant color above and below. Two rows neutral, one row the blue linked tile, two rows neutral. Something like this.What sort of color should we be looking at for the neutral? 2. We were initially looking at a neutral bisque or warm white slate look porcelain tile for the floor. With the countertop, it may be too much neutral. Would a taupe tile like this be a good pick that doesn't blend too closely with the slate appliances? 3. We were thinking of a light gray paint with a mild blue tint that helps bring the blue flecks in the countertop and the backsplash tile together, while complementing the cabinet color. Is that a good idea? Or should we be thinking of some other color?
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Feb 13, 2020 19:54
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MJP posted:We ented up with Starmark - lots of reasons but they came out on top in terms of price by a little, plus the dealer was willing to work with us on a package deal on the countertop. They had a remnant we liked which might just do the trick I almost went with the Slate grey variant of my GE stove (https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-5-3-...UknQPeVw6RTY0g0) but it amounted to a $300 price difference at the time so gently caress that. Looks like it's only an extra $100 now.
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Feb 13, 2020 20:39
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:I almost went with the Slate grey variant of my GE stove (https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-5-3-...UknQPeVw6RTY0g0) but it amounted to a $300 price difference at the time so gently caress that. Looks like it's only an extra $100 now. It's really nice in person. Doubly so as a double oven because our kitchen doesn't have countertop space to space for a toaster oven. We've had our toaster and microwave with some other sundry stored things on a baker's rack, which took up a good chunk of entry space into the kitchen. I can't wait to get rid of that thing.
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Feb 13, 2020 20:57
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So we're in the middle of priming and painting my basement finished drywall walls. We did a coat of primer and it looked fine, then put up a bunch of paint swatches to pick a color. My FIL "helped us out" by priming over all the paint swatches and I don't know if it's his technique or temp/humidity or some other factor, but it looks rough as gently caress. Like crazy roller stipple and an even weirder texture over the paint swatches that is rough to the touch. That's not normal right? It's just Kilz water based primer. Can I just sand it down a little? What grits should I use?
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Feb 14, 2020 17:54
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MJP posted:I've been avoiding quartz countertops because most of them look kinda unnatural, but I found one that looks natural-ish in my opinion. Could I get some goon homeowner thoughts on it? We'd be going with maple cabinets in light stain - natural, honey, butterscotch, or whatever light stain shade goes by different manufacturers. As a geologist I think that does look pretty natural (that shade of blue looks a lot like diffuse amazonite to me). As a homeowner I'm not that big a fan of it.
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Feb 14, 2020 21:03
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We ended up finding granite that we liked - Ivory Fantasy. I wish I was a granite namer, just take a color and a noun from the pile, paychecks are every other week Got a Sketchup model made of our layout so I could futz with backsplash, paint, and floor tile. drat son, Sketchup is great for this. A little weird to get used to it if you aren't familiar with 3D modeling software but it does fun things and lets you visualize a lot of stuff. Now I just gotta avoid full-on  as I put down the deposit for the cabinets and countertop.
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Feb 18, 2020 15:56
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I have what's probably a dumb question that I most likely already know the answer to. My wife and I are closing on a house in the Chicago suburbs in like 3 weeks. One of the things we're getting sales calls about is home security. I've lived in the city of Chicago for 10 years as renter and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. I can't fathom the need for any kind of home security system beyond maybe some cameras for the front and back. Under what circumstances does any kind of serious home security system ever make sense? All of our gold dubloons are properly buried beneath the Pirate's X already.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:10
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Hoodwinker posted:I have what's probably a dumb question that I most likely already know the answer to. Do your neighbors all have the little signs? If so, get some on ebay. You don't want to look like a mark.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:24
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H110Hawk posted:Do your neighbors all have the little signs? If so, get some on ebay. You don't want to look like a mark.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:25
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Hoodwinker posted:I like this solution. Do you get a homeowner's insurance discount? Burglar maybe, fire probably. You can self install something like Abode or Simplisafe and get the discount which should be more than the monitoring fee.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:59
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Motronic posted:Do you get a homeowner's insurance discount? Burglar maybe, fire probably. You can self install something like Abode or Simplisafe and get the discount which should be more than the monitoring fee.
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Feb 19, 2020 22:08
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my pro strat is to have the third-shabbiest house on the block. The shabbiest house gets all the complaints, but nobody who wants to rob a house is going to assume mine is the one to rob. this approach also saves thousands and thousands of dollars on maintenance costs, which you can use to buy all those nice TVs and jewelry and stuff that you would otherwise have to worry about being burgled
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Feb 19, 2020 23:08
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I personally rather invest in good cameras so I can also spy on my dogs at random times and if someone breaks into my house I have 4K video of them.
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Feb 19, 2020 23:22
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Leperflesh posted:my pro strat is to have the third-shabbiest house on the block. The shabbiest house gets all the complaints, but nobody who wants to rob a house is going to assume mine is the one to rob. My house is the 2nd shabbiest of the 3 on my little block. Our neighbors got burgled one day. I consider this a great approach. I'm worried that once I fix the paint and put a new roof on it we're going to become the target.
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Feb 19, 2020 23:24
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