peanut posted:

This is the final floorplan, but you can still criticize it. Our jewels and cash will be in my desk in the master bedroom.

Edit: the front door is missing and the kitchen door is cutoff, whatever. Sliding doors are arrows.

kid sinister posted:

Isn't that exactly what radiant floor heating is?

Hambilderberglar posted:

Do wallpaper steamers not exist in the united states? I helped my friend remove the wallpaper from his old-people-inhabited house and we rented a steamer for €20, filled it with water and the whole thing came off like soft butter. Fill the tiny air holes in the underlying concrete and the surface was good to go. No tearing, no leftovers, no glue.

Zero VGS posted:

That's literally my entire loving house apparently... guess they didn't have drywall in 1910.

Southern Heel posted:

Home inspection is a thing, and I paid top dollar - however they explicitly do not cover electrical work (in the UK) other than a visual inspection of sockets. Anything more requires a separate specialist, so I spoke to a number of firms all within the area and they advised they would be able to perform an ECR (electrical condition report) which is exactly the same process (visual only), and any further assessment would require floorboards to be pulled/etc. Seems backwards as all hell to me, but we went into negotiations budgeting for the worst (i.e. total rewire) so it's not all bad.

ElCondemn posted:

Agreed, I upgraded to a tankless water heater and it’s one of the best upgrades I’ve ever made. However, even though there were rebates and tax deductions it hasn’t paid for itself yet, but totally worth it.

Jaded Burnout posted:

Is there enough space to cut them? Depending on exactly how the door fits I don't think you'd be able to take it out even if you removed the hinges; mine at least have metal latches on the hinge side which are passive, they just slot into holders when the door closes, but mean you have to swing the door open, you can't pull it out laterally.

Also, the way those things work (as I'm sure you know by this point) is some travelling metal bars pushed and pulled by the gearbox to activate the hooks and latches, so if the gearbox is seized and/or deadlocked, if you could cut those bars between the hooks and the gearbox you'd be able to push them manually and at least disengage the top and bottom hooks, then maybe force or cut the main latch and bolt.

I'm guessing you've already sprayed the gearbox full of WD40?

Tomarse posted:

I am trying to sort out a problem with a UPVC door in a conservatory with a single double glazed glass unit it. It looks like this:

Jaded Burnout posted:

Let's talk paint.

I did a test painting of a room a while ago, 1 layer Leyland latex-based primer, 2 layers Dulux silk.

It needs sanding back and repainting anyway, but an issue I have is that the finish has a rubbery characteristic that I don't like. You can feel it as a bit of give and resistance when you run your nails over it, and peeling a small amount away results in a slightly plasticy stretch in the paint.

Is this a normal effect of any gloss or part-gloss paint? Is it an issue of application? I thought it might be the latex undercoat but that was fairly thin and is staying on the wall when I peel away paint.

TheMightyHandful posted:

Do other places apart from America use shingles. Are they the imperial measurement system of roofing?

peanut posted:

Second house for your descendants, or ancestors. Vegetable garden (or sunflower field!) Pumpkin patch!!

beep-beep car is go posted:

I've found that quite a few Europeans don't realize what a variation in temperatures the US gets even in the same region over a year. In my area (northeast) the summers can be up in the 90s F (30s C) and the winters can get down to below 0f (-17 C) and that's not counting the highs and lows I've seen in my area. There have been over 100F (38C) for highs and I've seen -20F (-29C) for lows. That doesn't even begin to account for humidity. Summers in the northeast are humid.

Hubis posted:

Eh I was half joking. You did good.

Tamping down soil like you would prepping for pavers is exactly what you don't want to do -- freshly spread soil is as ideally non-compacted as it gets, and so going through and packing it down is kind of a silly "own goal" in the war against soil compaction.

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Ivy's fine.

Just plant some strawberries and dill, too.

surf rock posted:

Considering another round of home improvement projects for the next year or two. Here's what I'm interested in deciding:

1.) Should I replace the vertical blinds in front of my living room's sliding door? If so, with what? The blinds remind me of apartment life, but I don't know what the classy thing to do with a sliding door would be.

Friend posted:

Huh? The tiny town in oklahoma where my grandmother lives used to have really soft water and the only reason I know they've started to fix it is because I don't have to spend ages trying to rinse off the slimy "there is still soap on me" feeling. What does hard water do?

Nevets posted:

That is total overkill. All you need is a few 2 by's attached with Simpson ties. Put one every 16 in between the joists, do your wiring, and then the fill the cavity with expanding foam and cover the top with 2 layers of plywood.

His Divine Shadow posted:

I've not even known of the concept of a recirculating vent until a few years ago.

Fallom posted:

Not sure what the question is. They’re flush mount lights with integrated LEDs you can’t change. That’s it.

His Divine Shadow posted:

So that means even smoke detectors like ours which use the mains instead of batteries, only last 10 years?

HycoCam posted:

Think having grocery bags in your hand and need to unlock the door. Going with option #2 lets you get inside without lots of hassle. Swapping hinges on an inside/existing door could be more work than you'd want to do.

To mitigate the bugs--maybe add a brighter light farther away? Or lay waste to the area. I use 1.5oz of SuspendSC to a gallon of water in a dedicated sprayer every 30 to 45 days depending on the rain to keep bugs and spiders away from our outdoor living spaces. Spray the area--webs and all, wait a few days, then sweep away the webs/bug debris, apply one more time, and in a month or so when webs start to show up--bust out the sprayer.

Motronic is the guy whose advice on bugs is going to be way better than mine. My sample size is pretty small.


Our area has leeches and ticks---I'll take a few dozen leeches on me over a tick. Hate ticks.

For fleas and ticks and ants I use diatomaceous earth and good ol' 20 Mule Team Borax spread around the yard and perimeter of the house. On the inside we use Borax in the rugs, dog beds, and sometimes on the animals themselves. And when the sugar ants show up in the warmer months--Terro ant bait, which is basically borax and corn syrup. We live in a wicked area for ticks. Dogs without treatment that run through the woods for an afternoon will come back with thousands of deer ticks. (Like you treat them and can sweep up enough pin head sized dead ticks to hold in two hands!)

Jaded Burnout posted:

Does anyone have thoughts on garden fencing? The main goal is to be fairly tall and opaque, but other than that I'm open to ideas. The obvious choices are generic wood panels or hedges.

Jaded Burnout posted:

classier or novel solutions.

The Dave posted:

Reminds me of cheap rail station landscaping, not sure I would ever call it modern.

cakesmith handyman posted:

They're called gravel boards and they've been around longer than I have

Sirotan posted:

Neighbor's yards:

tater_salad posted:

sup covid home repair buddy...

HVAC guy is here getting rid of the 62 year old furnace form the house I just bought. Have had the furnace off since day 1 of ownership since it's got no safety for the pilot so if it's out it'll just pump gas into the house for ? days until I came back to drop off more boxes. It's exciting to finally get something moving so I can move in at some point!!

Spring Heeled Jack posted:

Just put the lids in the drawer that’s built into your oven??

Steve French posted:

I love living in California where all the entitled boomers think their property taxes are super high despite having owned their houses for decades and paying a fraction of what I do. And what I pay is still less as a percentage of my property value than people in most states pay. Blows my mind.

Jaded Burnout posted:

You could also argue, debatably, that the value of a home is not truly known until it's sold, on account of that's how value works.

You can definitely estimate values but it's a valid argument nonetheless.

Slugworth posted:

Jaded Burnout posted:

Buses are a thing unto themselves, but the wealthy areas definitely get better trains and stations.

socketwrencher posted:

This video is so inspiring I had to share it- it's about a couple who built an off-grid compound in a CA redwood forest 50 years ago.

I'm trying to figure out how the parabolic roof was framed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcsWajivnI

The Wonder Weapon posted:

A landscaping service just left after evaluating my property, and while I don't have a quote yet, I'm anticipating it's going to land between $4,000 and $6,000. That's a chunk of change that I'm not eager to spend, especially when it's all demo work - ripping up weeds, assorted bushes, random plants, and turning it all into seeded topsoil. It's gotta be possible to do this sort of thing DIY, since other people have multiple acres they keep under control.

Below are a few pictures of the type of overgrowth I'm looking to remove, as well as one of a handful of bushes. These images represent maybe 30 to 50% of the surface area I want to clean up. If one wanted to just wipe all this off the map, what tools would you use to go about it? (I presume I'd need to rent one or two things.)

The Wonder Weapon posted:

For the time being the plan is to make as much of my property lawnmower-capable as possible, which means converting a good bit to turf. The PO spent 40 hours a week cultivating the various flora, which I'm sure was nice when it was maintained, but we don't want to commit to that. If I can't ride over it in a lawnmower, it means it requires special attention, and I just know that we'll fail at that eventually, at least for now. I don't disagree that a planter area alongside the chainlink fence would be quite pretty, but only if it's not packed to brim with weeds, you know? Since I made that original post, a bunch more of those weeds have already started to sprout in the turf adjacent to the overrun planter.

I ended up talking with a friend that's an avid gardener, and I feel like I've got a battle plan.
For now:
-Spray roundup or some other weed-killing chemical generously on areas overrun with weeds, and areas where weeds are encroaching
-Chainsaw any large bushes down to the ground level
-Begin treating bush stumps with Epsom salts

In the fall:
-Rent a brush cutter (a higher octane string trimmer, basically) to clear out all the overgrown areas
-Rent a tiller and till all the soil where the weeds, etc are growing
-Spread landscape tarp over the tilled areas, then cover with mulch. Idea being, all the leftover organic matter will die and break down over the fall and winter, then in the spring the soil will be ready for grass seed

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with the pile of bushes and weed stalks that I end up cutting down. I'm tempted to just pile them up in a corner of my lawn, and then in the spring burn it all. As for the dirt, I'll have pseudo-trench from all the small bushes I'm going to end up digging out, so any extra dirt can go there.

I may end up getting a second opinion from a landscaper if I can get one to come to the house, but nobody seems to be hurting for business at the moment, so getting someone out for an evaluation has proven difficult.

This looks great

devmd01 posted:

Siding got repaired along with a section of decking that was probably the source of the leak I was experiencing. The company I went with is well known in the area for good work, I’m glad I went with them. Completely professional process the entire way through with people who clearly knew what they were doing.

HycoCam posted:

Hilarious tales of flippers getting screwed.

AFewBricksShy posted:

a hot water line

Wallet posted:

5000k everywhere for everything, as is proper. I don't understand how people can stand everything being yellow all the time.

stealie72 posted:

Ask me about owning a home where a PO built an interior wall in front of a second storey window to install tile and a bathtub because they were either rejected or never bothered to try to get the architectural review board to give them a permit to remove the window. N

stealie72 posted:

Hopeful they don't do a bunch of rich people bullshit but I'm not holding my breath. They need to do another normal house season again, like Detroit.

B-Nasty posted:

TOH has been crap recently. Even when they do the segments on a specific fix/install (like adding an overhead light + switch), the information density is very low. It always seems like they choose or pre-plan the easiest possible install, and they don't show or gloss over critical steps.

DaveSauce posted:

Is there any downside to a solid core interior door?

Some Guy From NY posted:

Rockwool is awesome. In 2013 I moved into a brick house that had NO insulation in the walls. And it was directly next to overhead subway tracks in Brooklyn NY. Renovated the whole house, using (Roxul) Rockwool comfortbatt in the walls and rockwool safe'n sound in the floor joists.

His Divine Shadow posted:

I'm worried about the potential for moisture and mold issues, insulation can be a tricky subject and over many years it can go wrong even if you believe you thought of everytihng.