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Ball Tazeman posted:I’m also still getting used to the train right behind our neighborhood. It’s very loud initially and I’m super sensitive to it, but the cars following it are fairly quiet and I kind of enjoy them. It shakes the house and that sometimes scares me. I grew up under the departure path of a major airport (the planes are technically high up but sure doesn't look/feel/sound that way sometimes) and not far from the local train station. Like the poster wrote earlier you actually get used to it. At some point you'll keep time with the train. "Oh the express trains are running it's the afternoon commute." Very helpful if you're at a place where you can't see a clock.
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Jun 17, 2021 17:21
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This is a very good post, thank you. Also, I believe the trains will stop in the next five years since the mine that they run from is set to close in 2025, they are so infrequent that I didn't even think they were running until my boss switched me to night shift. Now, I know that they typically on run at 11am. Sometimes, they will wake me up at 9am-ish if they are running early, but I'm already mostly used to them. I just get sensory overload sometimes. We're having some friends stay with us next week, so I'm mostly doing just a lot of cleaning this week. Getting any stray boxes put away, shoving anything unsightly (tools) in to closets. So, I think I can safely say that we are um, moved in. I also contacted the mayor today because my friend notified me that there was an open position on the Parks and Rec board. It was pretty ironic timing because the day before we went to the disc golf course and, despite it being a beautiful course at a well-maintained rec park, the tees and markers basically didn't exist. I made a comment to my partner about how to get tee markers up and my friend hit me up about that opening the next day. I'm going to get involved until I make myself love this little town.
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Jun 18, 2021 04:51
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I have discovered contact paper.
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Jun 19, 2021 03:52
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I’m about to cheaply resurface everything with stickers.
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Jun 19, 2021 05:01
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It can get extremely Pinterest, but I am a fan of the bookcase back walls covered in contact paper- it can make an old beat up chipboard piece look clean and interesting for not much $. Bonus is that with books and stuff in front of it, most application errors are hidden!
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Jun 19, 2021 17:21
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Update: I’m bad at applying contact paper
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Jun 19, 2021 22:29
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Ball Tazeman posted:I have discovered contact paper. Ball Tazeman posted:Update: I’m bad at applying contact paper  if this does not sum up DIY in a nutshell I don't know what does. I just saw your thread and sort of skimmed it almost. I saw you had a list of projects that all seem too expensive / big to tackle in the immediate term. Ugly but functional will last until you have the money to do it the way you want it. Remember that this house stood for years/decades before you got it, and it will stand tomorrow as long as you can keep water where you intend it to be. Tarps keep water from coming into a roof, pumps keep it out of the basement. Keep on keeping on.
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Jun 20, 2021 21:10
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Today was not a good house day. I’m feeling really trapped. Found out there are still mice and they have been hanging out, making GBS threads and leaving seed husks in my vanity. We were woke up by the sound of them in the bedroom the other night and optimistically wrote it off as house sounds. Nah they’re in the office and bedroom now. I’m just tired of it. I was just starting to get comfortable, but at this point I’m just exhausted. I switched to working nights and it sucks. My coworkers have constant outward disdain for me. I turned 30 a few days ago and it was just really really sad.
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Jun 20, 2021 23:44
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Ball Tazeman posted:Today was not a good house day. I’m feeling really trapped. Found out there are still mice and they have been hanging out, making GBS threads and leaving seed husks in my vanity. We were woke up by the sound of them in the bedroom the other night and optimistically wrote it off as house sounds. Nah they’re in the office and bedroom now. I’m just tired of it. I was just starting to get comfortable, but at this point I’m just exhausted. I switched to working nights and it sucks. My coworkers have constant outward disdain for me. I turned 30 a few days ago and it was just really really sad. Every home I've ever owned had mice at one time or another, including the current one that we moved into in March. While we spend a few hours on keeping them out, they spend a life time getting in. Mouse traps + peanut butter are a winning combo. My most recent mouse adventure found them eating my crackers in the pantry. All it took was two nights of fresh mouse traps and we've been mouse free. Night shift can be a bummer, I'll bounce onto 2nd shift occasionally and it's always a different groove. Keep your chin up, you got this.
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Jun 21, 2021 01:24
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Voted 5 and following. I know what it's like to move into a house that needs work and then discover just how much more work it needs once there's no take-backsies. The panic is real and you're doing the best you can. 
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Jun 21, 2021 12:27
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Been meaning to post in here - always love a new house thread. Definitely rooting for you. I've lived/stayed in many a house with varmint problems, and the best way to deal with it is to mitigate as needed and otherwise not let it get to you. Varmints are a fact of life and having them doesn't reflect badly on you or mean you're bad at houses. In the three years since we've bought our house, we've had a squirrel inside the roof of the back porch (fucker tore out a rotten section of soffit to get in), a possum in the kitchen, a possum in the basement (probably the same possum - I named him Dickweed), rabbits eating our vegetable garden, neighborhood cats making GBS threads in our vegetable garden, birds and squirrels decimating our cherry harvest (which was 1.5 cherries), and recently our indoor cats killed two mice out of the blue despite us having never seen any evidence whatsoever of mice in the house. Agree with getting traps and baiting them with peanut butter. Also might be a good idea to grab some cheap large Tupperwares/sealable storage vessels from TJ Maxx to protect vulnerable pantry goods and give you some peace of mind about keeping your foodstuffs sanitary. Overall your house looks wonderful - you've done a great job spiffing it up inside (lol just looking around my own crusty-rear end old house) and you've done way better settling in and making it nice than we have over a much longer period. You should feel proud and good.
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Jun 23, 2021 01:06
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Critters are like herpes, a lot of people have it but fewer people talk about it and there are two types of critters and one is mostly associated with the kitchen and the other with the bathroom and you can pass critters from house to house by sharing lip balm. I was gut renovating a house at one point and we found a rat nest built using a 1950's pin-up calendar.
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Jun 23, 2021 16:27
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One time my wife and I were both mad with each other because each thought the other was eating all our secret stash of chocolate and it turned out a huge rat was climbing up the inside of our fitted cupboards and gnawing on it all
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Jun 23, 2021 19:18
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I really appreciate all the support and pest solidarity, it really does make me feel less alone in this experience. My mental health has gone back to where is was when we moved, so I’m putting some things on hold to deal with that. I’m having work and some money issues, I’m kind feeling like a prisoner in my own mind at the moment. I’m incredibly anxious to the point of being unable to eat again. I’m trying to make my projects a little smaller so that I at least get something done. This week is just getting the weed whacker to work and replacing a door knob to the basement. The door is currently being held closed by some duct tape. I meant to get the storm windows we found in the basement cleaned and put up before a major thunderstorm but it looks like that’s not happening. Tomorrow is supposed to be terrible weather.
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Jun 24, 2021 03:06
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If you want I can tell you about the time it took me a year to completely get rid of a flea infestation. Pests suck and everyone's had to deal with them at some point.Ball Tazeman posted:I’m trying to make my projects a little smaller so that I at least get something done. This week is just getting the weed whacker to work and replacing a door knob to the basement. That sounds like a great plan. Is it a gas weed whacker? I know we have some small engine people around here who could help out with advice/ideas if you hit any roadblocks.
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Jun 24, 2021 03:24
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Despite the name, storm windows are really mostly for in the winter to act as simplified and less effective double glazing. You don’t really need to worry about them until it gets cold! If you have horizontal hail smashing your regular window panes, you probably have bigger problems. Baby steps is definitely how things happen in houses. That duct tape has been doing fine!
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Jun 24, 2021 03:40
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corgski posted:If you want I can tell you about the time it took me a year to completely get rid of a flea infestation. Do tell. corgski posted:That sounds like a great plan. Is it a gas weed whacker? I know we have some small engine people around here who could help out with advice/ideas if you hit any roadblocks. Yeah it’s gas. I think it’s just finicky about starting. Whenever I try to start it I accidentally flood the thing.
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Jun 24, 2021 03:48
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Ball Tazeman posted:Yeah it’s gas. I think it’s just finicky about starting. Whenever I try to start it I accidentally flood the thing. That sounds like it's working as intended. I've never been able to just pull start a whacker without babying the thing. In an unrelated note, I don't think I've ever used a weed whacker less than fifteen years old.
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Jun 24, 2021 23:23
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I have a weed whacker that i had a lot of trouble starting, turns out the starting instructions were not very well done and i was flooding it by following those instructions which told me to press the priming bulb multiple times. My dad figured out that you should only do that if its been sitting around for a long time or you run out of gas, i stopped pressing the bulb and now it starts much easier.
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Jun 25, 2021 01:51
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Yooper posted:Every home I've ever owned had mice at one time or another, including the current one that we moved into in March. While we spend a few hours on keeping them out, they spend a life time getting in. Mouse traps + peanut butter are a winning combo. My most recent mouse adventure found them eating my crackers in the pantry. All it took was two nights of fresh mouse traps and we've been mouse free. Yea, we've had mice a couple times as well. It sucks, but it's not your fault they decided to move in. We ended up using some live traps because my wife didn't want to kill them.. honestly the live traps worked better then the kill ones, we had the mice caught within 24h of putting them out, and just drove them several miles away to an open field. The trick with homeownership is learning what sounds your house normally makes, and then investigating anything that's abnormal. We managed to find a leak in the plumbing under the concrete slab by noticing the sound of running water when it shouldn't be.
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Jun 26, 2021 00:13
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Ball Tazeman posted:Do tell. Well it all started with the mice. I was a poor punk with somehow decent credit and my friends and I needed a new place to live. I had the number of a slumlord I had rented from previously and knew he stayed out of my poo poo so I gave him a call and sure enough, $540/mo, 5 bedrooms, one bathroom, 2700 square feet and it was sandwiched between a church and a row of condemned properties with a 24 hour bodega right across the street. I showed up at his office with a money order and picked up the keys that day. Me and my best friend John, this short squat dude with a curly mop of hair, went over to check it out and figure out what needed to happen to make it livable. We went in and it was pristine. Stunk of old house but the paint was fresh and the linoleum in the bathroom wasn't peeling up and poo poo it even had the largest living room we'd ever seen in a row house. It was going to be perfect, we were going to host house shows and let our friends squat there and live the punk dream. And as we went out the back door, from across the alleyway our neighbor there shouted "don't rent that place, it's got mice." Mind you I'd been living in slums since my parents divorced a decade earlier and mice didn't scare me, so I said "thanks for the heads up, I can deal with them." And I did, it was a month-long rodent genocide with spring traps and peanut butter and a couple cats and at the end there were no more mice and our cats were acting kinda weird. Like, scratching themselves a lot and leaving this trail of black dust everywhere they hung out. Also my ankles itched, a lot. It turns out the mice had given our cats fleas as a parting gift. And from there it took a goddamn year of flea treatments on the cats and washing everything soft in the house and eventually sending the cats to live with my dad so I could fog the entire house multiple times before the timing worked out just right and all the fleas were excised for good, and when it was all said and done I had met my fiance and so a couple weeks after I was victorious I said gently caress it and left that punk house for good. Moral of the story: punks have fleas and go straight to the foggers to get rid of them. corgski fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 03:00
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That is a strangely comforting story. Today we caught a mouse in the basement. Also our groundhog friend is back. That or it actually did have babies and they just came out of the nest.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:10
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I was going to suggest a cat if possible. I adopted a little jungle cat when I lived in the caribbean and he was a rat/centipede blender. I wound up bringing him back with me when I moved to the mainland and he is now my parents chief mouser. Home ownership is a heck of a ride. Keep your head up and stash money away if you can. We just replaced a furnace in November and then had to take on another 6k~ in home utility replacements as a bunch of other stuff decided to all fail at once.
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Jul 1, 2021 02:50
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I think I’ve mentioned it a few times in this thread and the home ownership thread but I literally don’t have the money to care for a cat right now. My father is also our main help for renovations and he is horribly allergic to the point where he can’t be in the same room as a cat without his face swelling up. Thank you all for the positive messages though. I’ve been kind of taking a break for a few reasons. The first is that I got a new job at a tech company. The pay is better and I finally get healthcare and benefits. Secondly, my mental state has really continued to tank pretty badly. I have a week between this job and the new one and am planning on admitting myself during that time if things do not improve. It’s a very strange time right now. Honestly, my anxiety is so bad that, since I found mouse poop in my vanity, I won’t even go in to the office anymore and I keep all of my makeup in my duffel bag that I take in to town. I won’t even use the jewelry or hair accessories that were in those drawers. I don’t sleep at night because I assume every house sound is a mouse and go in to a panic attack. On a single positive note, I’ve managed to make the living room extremely cute looking and my outdoor herbs are getting massive.
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Jul 1, 2021 05:10
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Ball Tazeman posted:Also our groundhog friend is back. That or it actually did have babies and they just came out of the nest. Aww! We have a groundhog friend too, ours lives under our shed. Ball Tazeman posted:Honestly, my anxiety is so bad that, since I found mouse poop in my vanity, I won’t even go in to the office anymore and I keep all of my makeup in my duffel bag that I take in to town. I won’t even use the jewelry or hair accessories that were in those drawers. I don’t sleep at night because I assume every house sound is a mouse and go in to a panic attack. I have literally been there, I get it. It's not fun to be at that level of hypervigilance. Inpatient is a good option if it's at the point where it's seriously impacting your ability to function. Another option to look into when you get an evaluation would be intensive outpatient/day hospital - although with your panic trigger being your house that might be counterproductive for reaching a stable point quickly. I don't know if you post in E/N, but there's a wealth of knowledge there regarding the mental health system and how to advocate for yourself. (And posting these updates here in this thread is good too, this is not me saying "take it to E/N.") In any case, I hope you reach a more comfortable point soon. I know how unfun it can be.  Ball Tazeman posted:On a single positive note, I’ve managed to make the living room extremely cute looking and my outdoor herbs are getting massive. Oooh those are both awesome things! What herbs are you growing?
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Jul 1, 2021 05:41
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Show us the herbs, Ball Tazeman! I have to live vicariously through house - havers, I'm stuck with a basil and a mint in pots in front of my apartment window.
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Jul 2, 2021 18:06
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Alright so, Had a nice mental breakdown again but am slowly recovering. I can be in the home alone now, but I still struggle with hearing house noises and panicking about mice. We haven’t caught any downstairs or upstairs in a week or so but it still has me on edge. Suicidal ideation comes and goes. I had my last shift at my old job and start my new one on Monday. I’m kind of terrified. Today we did what I thought was a lot of work but it really…wasn’t. 1. Bought some new 6ft. Moveable downspouts to direct all the water away from the house. They were like $15 each so they better loving help with the basement dampness. 2. FINALLY installed the new bathroom fan and….uh….  Yeah, we need to figure out how to fix this. It sucks because the dimensions on the box were exactly the same and the same brand as the old one. I’m annoyed. 3. I went wild and ripped all the vertical slat blinds off of the picture window. I hate them and they remind me of hospitals and hotels. Now I can get a nice curtain bar and throw those up instead. They were gross and greasy and full of bugs and I’m glad they are gone. (By “gone” I mean they are angrily tossed out on the back deck.) 4. Put moldings on the back side of the closet doors, which the previous owner just never did. They were full of spiders and pretty gross. 5. Deep cleaned the house because cellulose bullshit all fell out of the ceiling everywhere. I’m exhausted and wish I had gotten more done, I plan on doing some painting tomorrow. OH! Groundhog had babies and we’ve caught and released 3 of them so far, they are very cute but it’s a pain. Here are my herbs and my giant patty pan. Don’t look at my dead tomato plant.  Last thing is this issue.   The drywall has separated from the counter and I can see in to the wall. The window definitely has moisture in it and the molding is falling off. Is there anything I can do in the meantime? How bad of an issue is this? What can I do to fix it? We are going to get an estimate for a new window soon but what about the drywall? I’m kind of afraid of what we need to do. We are already running low on our savings. Have a cat butt I saw through the hole in our fence. 
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Jul 7, 2021 03:23
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Herbs look nice! That’s frustrating about the bathroom fan, but this is a great place to learn the useful homeowner skill of patching drywall! Someone made a really good effort post about it in the fixit fast or home zone thread recently. You could also just like, paint some cardboard white and stick in the gap to keep the insulation from falling down. E: drywall patching guide: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3944478#post509075005 I don’t think the drywall or counter has moved or anything, it just looks like the caulk has shrunk which is totally normal. It doesn’t look like it was a great caulking job to begin with, so just clean off the old, put on some new and touch up the paint if you feel like it. A caulk gun and a tube or two of ALEX caulk will run you $15 maybe. Moisture between the two panes of glass just means it has a little air leak somewhere. It’s probably isn’t insulating as well as a new, tightly sealed one, but it isn’t really doing any damage to anything. I’d put that towards the bottom of the ‘it would be nice if this happened in 3-5 years’ list. If it’s driving you crazy, I’d guess new window + install is a few hundred dollars.
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Jul 7, 2021 06:01
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I'm a big fan of the "Big Stretch" brand of caulk. We see really huge swings in humidity with the bone dry winters and humid summers. I've found it can actually handle a few cycles back and forth where the cheaper stuff struggles with the elasticity. I'm pretty sure my current house has this somewhere. Edit : All that's missing is a ring on one hand. It's the construction thread goatse. Yooper fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Jul 7, 2021 |
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Jul 7, 2021 12:03
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I got my hands on a weed wacker and it was an absolute nightmare. No wonder people hire landscapers.
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Jul 7, 2021 20:09
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Ball Tazeman posted:I got my hands on a weed wacker and it was an absolute nightmare. No wonder people hire landscapers. They are a special skill. That first time you slingshot a pebble into your shin you will realize why people wear long pants even in the dead of summer.
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Jul 7, 2021 21:39
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That gap between the kitchen backsplash and window looks like a job for some $4 per tube latex caulk. Is any of the surrounding wood squishy to the touch? If not, throwing down some caulk to keep water out is all you need. That's just from water splashing on the wall a bit while you're washing dishes.
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Jul 8, 2021 20:07
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Today’s breakdown brought to you by: accidentally bumping the molding and realizing my paint job on all of the trim just…. Peels off.
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Jul 11, 2021 02:29
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Ball Tazeman posted:Today’s breakdown brought to you by: accidentally bumping the molding and realizing my paint job on all of the trim just…. Peels off. We went to paint my kids room a few years ago and was able to peel the previous owner applied paint off in a giant sheet like it was a tarp. Trim can be extra tough to paint as it can be gloss or an oil based gloss. In that case the durability that protected it also keeps anything from sticking to it. Zinnser makes some good primers, but prior to that use a cleaner like the non TSP cleaners.
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Jul 11, 2021 14:04
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It is pretty crappy when I do a job, then realise I messed up and will have to do some work to undo it, then do the job again right this time. But I can take comfort that I won't make that mistake again. The only thing I can recommend is to bring it back to square one as soon as possible. For example, I fubared some door trim and it haunts me everyday because I haven't taken it off and fixed it. It causes psychic damage every time I use that room. Other mistakes I have made (too many to list) but where I have not run from the problem and at least undone it so I can redo the job aren't as distressing. So when you feel up to it I would take a scraper to the trim, take off all the paint that doesn't stick and clean it up. It doesn't have to look great, but taking off the bad paint will mean that it isn't causing you damage, and instead of beating yourself up about it you can think about moving forward.
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Jul 15, 2021 09:47
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CancerCakes posted:It is pretty crappy when I do a job, then realise I messed up and will have to do some work to undo it, then do the job again right this time. But I can take comfort that I won't make that mistake again. This is a good post. I’ve done a lot of painting and decorating. I’ll take photos when I have the time and energy to clean up, but I’ve managed to make the living room feel like a home (mostly). I started a new job and it’s been a lot of work. Not really stressful, I do well with this type of work, but just draining. House updates. Yanked apart the washer and dryer combo upstairs to attempt to fix the washer portion. Currently washing the laundry downstairs and then drying in the combo unit. It’s not fixed yet but we kind of know what’s wrong. We did manage to lube up the dryer and it’s so much quieter!! Ran the Ethernet cable from the router in the living room to the office. I have internet now!!! (Without having to trip over a cord) Failed at weed wacking because I can’t control the drat thing or stop myself from chewing up the fence and foundation when I do it. Started dismantling the handicap ramp in the front so that we can extend the porch and make steps. Put in a new punch code deadbolt for the front door because the keys to the old deadbolt just…quit working. On the negative side, pretty much all my outdoor plants are dying and I don’t know why. Also we recently started smelling poo poo smell on and off and it turns out the drains downstairs were clogged up and would overflow whenever we did laundry. Dad took a cleaning tool and ran it all the way down to the sewer line and it seems to have fixed the problem. He also dumped water in the unused miners sink and shower down there and capped the toilet drain that does not have a toilet on it currently. Smells seems like it’s gone for now. Mice are still occasionally around but have somehow avoided the many snap traps I set up downstairs and upstairs. We decided we are open to getting a cat but it means I’d have to part with about 15 houseplants.
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Jul 16, 2021 00:36
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Very tired. Backyard update. Learned how to properly use the weed whacker so everything looks much nicer. Finally cleaned up the fire pit and had our first fire.  Made these lillies spruced up and contained   Ripped up the ramp so we can start doing a front porch remodel  Inside I made a little coffee nook in the dining area  My partner has been working OT nights and he’s usually the rodent body disposal crew, so it’s become my job now. It’s very unpleasant. This morning we caught a red squirrel, chipmunk, mouse, and shrew outside and I can’t look at them at all when I reset the traps. Yesterday one was caught right next to where I was working and I ended up seeing it struggle for a couple minutes. Absolutely awful.  : I’ve sucked it up and am taking care of it though.
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Jul 18, 2021 22:52
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Went back and did the back garden bed. I also ran the edger along the driveway. I’ve been really just going hard this weekend.
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Jul 18, 2021 23:57
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You have to co exist with nature, don't have to co habit. Hopefully the critters will get the message. Good looking garden, sweat helps the grass grow!
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Jul 19, 2021 01:25
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We went ahead and are trying out a new mouse trap.
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Jul 22, 2021 00:44
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