knox_harrington posted:

It's in the mountains in Switzerland but I wouldn't say anywhere seriously remote. I guess it is a bit away from the road.



Looking off the terrace, there are other villages around the place

Sirotan posted:

Sherwin-Williams Sleepy Hollow: https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/SW9145-sleepy-hollow

Edit: Going to use the same color in the hallway that connects to the bedroom I painted Naval:


And the current front runner for my living room is Thermal Spring:


tho I was also considering Poseidon:

actionjackson posted:

This is the most monochromatic house ever. I'm surprised the flowers aren't white. At least paint the door bright yellow or some poo poo. I love the actual shape of it though.

All the houses on this street are in the 600k+ range (median house price where I live is like 270k, and it's been a pretty hot market)

Sirotan posted:

Adopt some possums imho

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Have you tried weed and feed? Seems an obvious first step.

devmd01 posted:

For lawn stuff you might be better served over here!

Hubis posted:

Welcome, fellow lawn-owner!

1.) DoMyOwn.com has become my main stop for lawn and insect chemicals and equipment. They also have great guides to help get you started on figuring out what you want your approach to be. For example: Ticks (it's a multi-step guide, so make sure you click through to the "Treat" and "Prevent" stages). They have a combo kit that includes an insecticide and an IGR.

You mentioned wanting to find something less "toxic", so I am guessing that picking up a sprayer and putting on some gloves and boots might be outside your comfort zone. If so, totally understandable. However, one cool thing about using an Insect Growth Regulator (IGR) is that they operate by interrupting a specific stage of the insect's lifecycle rather than just poisoning them outright. This lets them be much more specific in what creatures they affect, and thus have very low environmental toxicity. So in the long run using an IGR to control the population, while more hands-on, would probably be more environmentally friendly than something like the broadcast lawn granules.


2.) Where are you located? Or more to the point, do you have a "warm season" (Bermuda, St. Augustine, Zoysia) or "cool season" (Rye, Fescue, Bluegrass) lawn? This will inform the best fertilization and weed treatment cycle for you.

The most important thing to pay attention to is overall good cultural practices regarding mowing height/frequency, watering, and fertilization. This will vary based on location and grass type, but grass is a pretty good competitor and can make it hard for weeds to become established. Meanwhile, all the herbicides in the world aren't going to improve the lawn if you don't have healthy grass to grow in over it.

If it's getting taken over with weeds, you have two complementary options: Preventative preventative pre-emergent herbicides and selective post-emergent herbicides. The pre-emergents are put down before the optimal growing seasons (late-winter and late-summer to stop spring-sprouting and fall-sprouting weeds, respectively) basically prevent weeds seeds from establishing themselves in the first place, reducing the need to resort to post-emergents. Selective post-emergents can then be used to knock down whatever comes through without harming the grass around it. Then you can let the grass grow and fill in, or possibly overseed it in the appropriate season. The specific herbicides you will want to use will vary with the weeds you are seeing, but 2-4,D and Triclopyr should cover a huge amount of your common problems. Tenacity is also a really cool-and-good option, but it can be trickier to apply properly.

Anyways, follow up with some details about what you've got and I will see if I can provide any advice.

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Listen to Felder Rushing on the Gestalt Gardener on MS public radio. Also available as a podcast. He's funny and a huge font of knowledge, and very responsive to emails and has a masters degree in turf grass management from MS State or something ridiculous.

For this summer, fertilize with a high nitrogen fertilizer now, and set your mower to mow at it's highest height and mow every week during the summer. You probably don't need to water unless it really gets dry, but that depends on your soil.

You can use a weed and feed fertilizer, but I'd wait until next year- spend this year getting the grass good and healthy so when you do do battle with the weeds, the grass is ready to take over. Getting the grass healthier may be enough to deal with the weeds on its own. You want to make sure your grass is good and healthy first so you don't kill all the weeds and find out that 75% of the green stuff in your yard was actually weeds and now you have a sad brown yard. My neighbor just did this to himself, lol. What kind of grass you have makes a big difference as to what kind of chemicals you can use for weeds-St. Augustine in particular is pretty sensitive to 2-4, D, and it can do as much damage to the grass as it does the weeds. After years fighting with creeping charlie, I finally went chemical and used scott's weed and feed with atrazine and it has worked wonders in my little test patch.

Motronic posted:

I know it's because of my profession, but every time i see those I'm just thinking early 80s Cray-1 (the very first "supercomputer").

Slugworth posted:

Also in the Chicagoland area, and have no problem whatsoever believing that your basement just suffered from seepage last night. We've had a crazy amount of rain, the ground is saturated, and then we got hit with that nonsense last night. Everybody's basement is wet. My sump was struggling all night, so I threw a spare pump in the pit to help it out, and I still ended up getting some seepage in the corner of my crawlspace (I'm in a split level, so half crawlspace, half finished basement).

The cornfield at the end of my block also flooded, sending a wave of rotting corn stalks and husks into the surrounding streets, clogging up all the gutters. My block is thankfully apparently on sliiightly higher ground, and I was spared from having to stand in knee deep water shoveling rotting corn away from storm drains.

Hubis posted:

Welcome, fellow lawn-owner!

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Listen to Felder Rushing on the Gestalt Gardener on MS public radio.

Hubis posted:

I'm phone posting so I'll try and follow up more when I have a real keyboard, but:

Steve French posted:

For reference, this is the sort of monstrosity we ordered

https://www.backyarddiscovery.com/collections/swing-sets-playsets/products/skyfort-ii

Steve French posted:

They'll be turning three in September. For the near future for sure they won't be using it without supervision anyway

falz posted:

Sorry, but in no way would i cyberstalk the gently caress out of my neighbors to determine what profession they have, get a bunch of ammo and whatnot, before just saying "hi neighbor of two years, how are you? I'm good too. How about that 'rona! Oh, can we talk about this wall?"

Skipping a friendly "hello" and jumping right to an attorney ensures everyone will be using an attorney.

Imagine having a project you've been meaning to work on, maybe you're going to fix it up next year. In the meantime, a neighbor who moved in 2 years ago and never bothered to say hello sends a threatening legal letter thing telling you to do it. This would make me upset when I wouldn't have been over a conversation and maybe a beer.

Spring Heeled Jack posted:

Love 2 spend to get this drat tree removed.

The trunk is less than a foot from the roof there. Previous owner planted it and apparently couldn’t be assed to do gently caress all about it in the time they lived here.

knox_harrington posted:

Thanks!


Went with stone in the end. Looking at peoples' wooden decks they seem get old really fast. It's going to be the same as this, 30cm wide Luserna stone flags of variable length:

Fallom posted:

Lowes just told us our pickup order we placed 3 days ago wasn't ready because they take 7 days to fill them

Home Depot has taken at most 4 hours all year

peanut posted:

after

(mirror re-set after this photo)

B-Nasty posted:

I live in Southeast PA, and I pulled a deer tick out of my stomach last week. This is even with my spraying of the brush line with bifenthrin, showering immediately after yard work, and generally staying out of woods/tall grasses.

Our deer population is completely out of control; Daily I'll see herds of a half-dozen or more chillin in my suburban (though 1.5 acre) backyard.

Partial Octopus posted:

No HOA so nothing to worry about there. I'm in Colorado. I found some lease generators online but I don't really know how legit they are. I just want to cover my rear end in case I get some shithead roommate who destroys the place.

His Divine Shadow posted:

Huh? How do you know how fast this one mixes? This one is a lot better than any of the cheapos you can buy in the stores today, bigger and sturdier and three phase motor, not a consumer unit. This was an old pro model and made in Finland.

If this is a cat joke I think I missed it.

HycoCam posted:

It isn't super bad and typically way nastier looking than a health issue. Look in your toilet tank and it will probably be covered in the black slime. Magnesium in your water is the most likely cause, or more specifically bacteria living off the magnesium. There are few other items that can cause the slime growth, like older galvanized pipes.

The most likely fix would be to install a water softening system. Before installing any system a quick test for water hardness and iron would be a good idea.

Mega64 posted:

Sirotan posted:

Please, for the love of god, do not texture your your friend's ceiling.

Nevets posted:

If you think textured ceilings are bad, you should see my laundry / master closet. They thought it would be a good idea to continue the popcorn down the walls. They also didn't bother to remove or cover up the lightswitch before they did it. I've scrapped my knuckles more than once in the dark, surprised I haven't left any blood behind yet.

Motronic posted:

And to be fair, I'm talking about the kinds of electrics I'm assuming people are talking about here. We've got a 240v 30A one at the fire house that flows like 8 GPM at 6500 PSI and has a diesel water heater that will make steam. It's a beast. But it's also a like 8 or 9 grand and weighs enough that you need a fork truck to get it into the bed of a pickup.

D-Pad posted:

I got a little sunjoe electric pressure washer on sale for $130 for small jobs like the patio and it works great. I wasn't expecting much and it has exceeded my expectations

FCKGW posted:

Do they take care of everything that doesn’t sell as well?

Slugworth posted:

On some brands, especially cheaper ones, it can sometimes take a bit of force to get the tongue and groove on the end of each board to lock in. My guess is he was afraid to put enough oomph into it, figured he must be doing something wrong, and came up with..... This.

Some Guy From NY posted:

I had my cabinets painted this past July by CertaPro. I got 3 estimates; the other 2 from local companies, and all were in the low $5k range.

CertaPro sprayed my cabinets and set up a make shift paint booth in my basement and sprayed the doors there, front and back. They did not paint the inside of the cabinets - only up to and including the lip of the doors. The other 2 companies would have done the same. I also had new hardware installed.

It was a tremendous undertaking, but the quality is very good, especially since it was sprayed. They painted and then clear-coated with a satin finish.

Before and After:





Walls painted in this photo (ignore the mess)



Certa Pro also painted my entire 2300 sqft house. The painting alone was $5k. So to put it into perspective, painting the entire house was the same as just the cabinets.

Some Guy From NY posted:

Wow, I was afraid of something like that happening, but thankfully they did a great job. It was 3 guys, yes they are contractors (that's how CertaPro works) but they did come wearing CertaPro gear/ truck said CertaPro. It took the 3 guys only 6 days to spackle/sand/paint my entire house and kitchen cabinets. Very friendly guys who even gave me their personal phone number in case there were issues I found later (there weren't). CertaPro was 1k more expensive than a 1 of the local companies and almost 7k less than the other local company.

I guess the best thing to do is read reviews and see if you can get references for any contractor.