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Just cut the cord on cable and waiting for Spectrum to come bury their new line to the house. Once they are done with that I am going to finish grading the side of the house where the existing deck was and finish the face of the deck where I cut it off. In the mean time we decided to redo our fire pit since most of the bricks were cracked in half. I think it turned out great!
Old pit was just pavers and about 22" in diameter.
New pit consists of smaller pavers but has a steel ring insert and is 28" in diameter. The ring should save the bricks from cracking. Don't mind the pink confetti all over the place. It's a GIRL!!!
New pit looks great and so is your lawn around it.
Did that lid come with the kit or is it an add on? I believe my pit is that size and I would love to grab a lid for it.
Originally Posted by civicdrivr
Looks great! What lid and insert did you go with?
Thanks, we are happy with it. As for the grass, its a little thin back there and crab grass has overtaken most of it. I was late to put out the pre-emergent fertilizer and all the rain we are getting isn't helping any...
The ring is different than the one pictured. The one pictured shows bolt heads on the top surface, the one it comes with is flat. It is 4 pieces that are screwed together from the inside ring so the top is flat with overlap joints.
I have been too busy this summer to do some things myself. I reached out a local tree guy to cut down my Ash in the front. He gave me a great deal but I would never have him do any work in the future. He basically cut it down, got his wood and left the rest of clean up for me to do and then calls back a week later after multiple texts/calls asking him to finish the job. He wanted more money for the cleanup at a different rate as well. I told him to go f*ck himself and I did it myself since it took him longer than he said already to cut it down and clean up (3 days!!) and to top it off he kept "forgetting" fuel for his saw and blower and would ask me for some. I filled the saw once but told him he needs to supply his own gas since I am paying him. The front looks so bare now but that is ok. It opens the front up a lot and shows off the front of the house well. Now the only thing is, my soffits/facia and gutters need attention since you can see them a lot better and they look like shit! Waiting for a couple quotes to come in. Also, looking into getting the stump ground.
The guy cut one side off that was over the driveway and it took him about 4.5 hours to clean that side up. His pace was ridiculous and thankfully I called him out on it when he gave me a total for his hourly work. In the end he cut the hours in half!
2 day later he came back and dropped the rest. I kept telling the dude to cut it in the morning because there was rain coming that evening. I stop home for lunch and the tree is still up. I get home at 5pm and the tree is down and a few branches on his trailer when the skys open up and just downpours. I open my garage up so he can bring his stuff in for a little bit while this cloud passes. As I mentioned he was slow so I offered to grab my saw and help cut up. The rain stopped for a little bit and we both grabbed our saws and started cutting. Litterally had this thing cut up in 30 minutes while he stacked the branches on the trailer. I'd say 1 hr for 2 people to cut and clean up. It did start pouring again while we were cleaning up so we could only get so much done.
He didn't have enough room for the trunk so we cut it about 7/8 of the way thru so all he had to do was roll it and finish the cuts. He did let me use his Stihl MS311, which is a badass saw BTW, instead of my Poulan 18". If I did this for a living I would invest in Stihl.
He came back and grabbed the trunk and ran out of gas again so he couldn't finish cleaning up and cutting the rest of the stump to the ground. I ended up finishing it and blowing the lawn clean of the chips.
After getting what I could out of the lawn I had half of my garbage can full of chips and little branches. There was quite a bit.
Ended up cutting the grass after clean up to try and pick up the little branches and chips I missed. I really want a lawn stripping attachment for the mower.
Now my Birch needs a some trimming!
We recently cut the cable for TV and installed a new antenna for OTA channels. Was paying $230/month for TV/Internet and now just $48/month for Internet. It took 3 antennas to find one that works! The one I bought is pretty sweet. It allows you to rotate it via the converter box so I won't ever have to climb up in the attic to rotate it for better reception. The house was plumbed with co-ax cables but nothing labeled, not surprised one bit. I spent about 8 hours over the last couple days figuring out what cable goes where. The living room was quite easy, thankfully, but the upstairs was a different story. Before the basement was finished they had the splitter box screwed to the floor joist. Perfect, not a big deal then. But then they went and finished the ceilings and didn't move any of the splitters or cables. After hours of trying to locate both ends of the cables I finally found the splitter above the finished ceiling. Tried everything I could to avoid cutting a hole in the ceiling but I simply could not reach it, nor would the cables allow me to. No slack what so ever. I punched a hole in the ceiling and pulled the outlet and splitter down and relocated it. In the end, we have TV in all the rooms we want and still need to add to lines, one for kitchen and one for our workout room but those should be easy since there is a drop ceiling in those areas.
Antenna cable ran to converter box then into the splitter. This splitter feeds the living room and the other converter box that feeds the bedrooms. I still need to go thru and make better labels to attach to the co-ax.
This is where everything was before I moved it. Didn't snap a pic of that mess. If I was a tiny Asian I could have got up there.
I did disconnect the vent pipe to do a little work up there but it was the one on the right where everything was located. About 4 feet back from the face of the vent.
New spot where everything can be reached with ease.
Lovely new hole I need to patch. I still have 4 cables I don't know where they run to so I won't patch it up just yet til I figure that out.
I can’t stand bad contractors. Sucks that he took advantage like that. BBB complaint?
Silly me I should have looked into this guy a little more. I really liked his quote and couldn't really pass it up ($300 cut/haul away/clean up). Was too good to be true. Ended up being $450 total, which still isn't bad when other quotes were $500 to drop and me clean up. I asked for this guys Company name to see if there were any reviews or info on him. He was arond 25 years old and the name of his company that he gave me was his last name with "Landscaping Services" behind it. Nothing public for it, so I am assuming he just does this as a side job. He told me he works with a realtor that buys properties and he cleans up the tress around the lots.
I did however make him sign a "contract" or letter stating if he gets injured on my property he can't sue me and if he drops the tree on the house or other trees he is responsible to fix it. As he was doing that, he said no body has ever made him do that before. Told him better safe than sorry, you're not getting rich on my dime!
Originally Posted by CCColtsicehockey
That is terrible it took him that long to take that tree down. Should have been 3-4hr job total really.
Right, I feel I could have done it faster with my pole saw! I can't complain too much, it was way cheaper than most quotes I received.
LOL...
you haven't spent any time in South Florida after Hurricane Andrew, huh @svtmike
These motherfuckers will be fine with doing half the job for the half pay you paid up front with the promise of the other half upon completion
if that means they can sleep till 1pm to let the coronitas pounding wear off.
Ya gotta protect yourself right. That guy drops a limb on a passerby, or even injures himself and says he never signed any waiver, the few hundred bucks saved looks like chump change.
So that's what those were! I will have to put that back on and see if the 2 channels I lost were caused by removing them. Thanks for the suggestions. The ceiling wont need to be accessed anymore so I plan on just patching the hole and being done with it. I already moved everything.
Damn, sorry to hear about the tree guy and like RS said, sounds like South Florida. Hired a plumber, was supposed to be paid half and then come back to finish the other half. He convinced my wife to pay two thirds and since I was on a plane, I couldn't object; never showed up for the second half.
Looks great on the plus side but sketchy without insurance.
Better late than never. Have started and completed a few projects since the last check-in. November of 2019 I finished insulating and drywalling the garage. I have yet to finish mud and add texture but at least the walls are up and a little warmer in there, Need to insulate the garage door or get a new one.
Before insulating the walls, I relocated and upgraded the sub panel from a 2 space to 6 space to accommodate the added outlets and more control to turn on/off lights. A friend of mine, who is an electrician, came over and ran all the new romex and hooked up the heater.
Before I mud and finish the walls, I want to replace the side entrance door with an insulated no-window one. The current one is on its way out and I would want to reframe the door and put a new header in there. As you can see when it was done, it was done poorly.
Purchased a pack of 6 LED light bars and installed them on the ceiling controlled by a light switch. They are perfect for what I was looking for and may add another 6 for more light. I used them to detail my Wife's Explorer the other day and they were perfect for that. Can never have too much light when working on stuff!
Can really see how well the garage is lit up now to work on things below.
I do still need to figure out the ceiling and how I want to do that. Would love to drywall it but I don't think how it is constructed now would hold the weight. One day I will have a buddy of mine who builds custom homes come over and give me some ideas of how I can achieve that.
Fast forward to March of 2020, COVID hit and the world came to a dead stop. Perfect timing, not! Long story short our Wedding was in August of last year. I am glad that is over but wish we were able to postpone to a later date so everyone in our families could attend. The vendors we chose were forcing us to pay more to move the date and the Venue wanted us to treat it as a cancelation and rebook at this years prices. All in all it would have cost another $10K that we didn't have so we went ahead and had it without some family in attendance. We plan on having a party at a later date to celebrate with those who couldn't make it. But in the meantime we had to get our minds off of the wedding and keep us from freaking out as the numbers, from covid, continued to climb. We turned off the news so we didn't hear it every waking minute of our lives. Wife definitely didn't need to added stress.
So what did we do, we had a PAINTING party of 2, which then turned into 1 because my wife hates painting... We started in our Living room which led to the front entrance, then the kitchen, then the staircase, then the upstairs hall. Everything got 2 new coats of white on the ceilings and at minimum 2 coats on the walls. After all this was done I was officially sick of painting!
Here is about as far as she made it on her first wall before she got sick of painting!! It was all her idea of painting though, I thought she would have been excited to do more...
After getting all the walls finished, they look great! Next up will be a fireplace over haul, which we are currently in the process of doing. Wood is going back to white and a somewhat cheap update will be live rock peel & stick tiles. I plan to add some adhesive to the tile faces then stick the new tiles over the top for added adhesion since the surface isn't 100% smooth. Gold accents will be sprayed in with high temp semi-gloss black. For the hearth, I am building a 3/4 box to slide over it and cushion the top side so my nieces and nephew don't split their heads open if they trip and fall while playing.
Eventually we will be replacing all the main level floors to be the same so the flow is smooth thru out that level and the base board will be replaced as well with white. In the meantime painting all the baseboard seems like a lot of work and I don't want to do that at the moment.
Kitchen went from a green to a darker shade of gray than the living room. Looks a lot bigger and brighter which we were hoping for.
As we were painting the dogs thought they would lend a helping shoulder, side and tail...
After a month of recovery from painting, I had an itch to do more updates so I started with our front guest room. Again 2 coats of white on the ceiling and 3 coats of gray on the walls to cover up the blue that was in there.
We are in the process of getting some curtains up in this room to make it a little warmer and add color. Also, trying to find a rug and sheets/pillows for the bed.
Somewhere throughout the process of completing this room, I had to turn off the breakers and upon turning them back on I had shorted out my garage door opener... Was kind of annoyed I had to buy a new opener but in the end all is good. Upgraded to the super quiet, belt driven, Chamberlain with wi-fi and battery back-up. Local overhead door company came to quote the job for me and it came back at $550 for a 1/2 hp opener. I went with the 1-1/4 hp, saved $325 and installed myself. The 1-1/4 hp motor may be over kill for the door I have now but when I upgrade to a heavier insulated door, this one should handle that no problem.
Wife gave me little time to rest from this last room renovation and told me to get started on the other spare bedroom only this time make it in a NURSERY!! We are having a baby boy come October. We are super excited and scared to start this journey as parents but it will be so worth it.
I had been dreading this room since the day we moved in but it is finally gone! Was quite the project but glad it is done.
Easy part was ripping everything out. Pulling the wall paper strip off took some of the texture with it. Ending up patching those spots long with the 9 million other small nail or tack holes.
Now back to painting. Did I mention I am sick of painting at this point? 2 coats of white on the ceiling, 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of color to cover up the Jungle...
Third room of putting in floors went in perfectly. Know all the do's and dont's by now!
Updated the ceiling fan in this room as well as the front room so they match.
I still need to go around with white silicone and cover some cracks where the trim was not perfectly square due to the walls not being square.
The joys of putting together the crib and dresser. Waiting on curtains, rug and decor for the walls. Wife is having fun with this room. We do still need to finish the closet with built ins or some sort of organizer system. Not exactly sure how we are going to do that. We plan to have the door left off for the time being since we will need a rocking chair in there and a door having to open and close may get in the way without moving things around. Any suggestions are welcome for closet ideas!
As I was finishing up this bedroom, the lights for our kitchen showed up and had to put those in right away.
Currently looking for a tall square table to replace the round one we have now. Haven't found one we like just yet.
We do have a flush mount light for our front entrance and a larger 5 bulb light for the dining room table that is waiting to be installed. I need an electrician to come and install it because I want it run off a light switch. The current light above the table we need to plug in all the time or have it on a switch but that switch already controls other lights in the living/dining room. Would just be easier if it had its own switch.
Believe it or not, with how much I hate painting. The master bedroom is now going to get new ceiling paint and 3 of the 4 walls painted to match the other rooms now. The current color didn't turn out like the color swatch unfortunately. That will be completed in a couple weeks when we get back from vacation. Once that is done, I think painting will be done until we do the basement, but with a kid coming I don't think that will be done anytime soon.
Fantastic work. That jungle looked like quite the task to cover. I ended up hiring a painter to do our guest rooms. 1 was Dallas Cowboys colors & the other Denver Broncos. Multiple coats of Sherwin Super Paint wasn't getting it done, before I threw in the towel on it.
I need to add some extra lighting in the garage. Replacing the fluorescents with LED T8s helped, but extra light would be nice.
That's a lot you have gotten accomplished. Nice work. Congrats on the kid.
I am with everyone else I hate painting. I have 3 rooms I want to repaint and nothing has been done to them cause I don't want to hire someone and I don't want to do it myself
We used an Ikea Billy bookcase in the nursery closet. I grabbed a closet rod and some brackets and cut a piece of plywood for a top shelf (I threw a small trim piece on the front to cover the layers of the ply, but that's optional). All in cost was under $80.
If the closet is a walk in, you could always go with the PAX system, but the price is obviously higher.
I would love to rip out and redo the closet but it has a 28" door centered on a 60" wide closet space. I thought about getting a cubby system for both sides and then put clothes rods in the middle. But I do like what you have there Civic. I may visit that option. Seems to flow well.
Picked up a new table for the kitchen last night and assembled it right away. At first it looked too big for the area but once we put the stools under it, it seemed just fine. The wood top matches our dining room table pretty well so we were happy about that. We are looking for some new breakfast bar stools and in the process of getting quotes for a new sliding door. The current one is on its last leg and currently doesn't latch. We have a kick lock on the floor for the time being. Seeing things come together now really makes me want to get a quote for new floors and doors on the main level.
I did finish painting our master bedroom, just don't have everything hung up on the walls. I will post that when that is complete. Should be finishing that this weekend.
Tonight, the wife and I are headed to IKEA to grab a few things for the baby room and guest room. @civicdrivr , I showed her your closet and she instantly said she want's to replicate that. So thanks again for the idea! Question though, did you secure the bookshelf to the wall? If so, how did you do that?
Question though, did you secure the bookshelf to the wall? If so, how did you do that?
I did. The bookcase comes with an L bracket that you can drill into the top and then attach to the wall. IIRC Ikea includes a wall anchor, but I didn't use that - I just drilled into a stud.
@civicdrivr picture of said stud? I'd like to drill into it too.
@BreezyTL Congrats, my friend...I missed a lot. Baby life is gonna be a tough transition but nothing is more rewarding. Enjoy every minute, even the shitty ones. It goes fast (as I take my daughter to Kinder this week already).
About the house...what a great transformation...
I love open ceiling look on the garage although obviously it makes for more storage space if it has a floor up there and you don't have to look at all your shit.
I too despise painting but I can assure you that in the last 5 years and in every house before that I have painted every inside and outside wall at some point.
I'm good at it but I despise the idea of it. Once I get going though, I actually find it therapeutic instant gratification. I also hate taping and don't trust the tape not
to bleed so I'm a master at cutting with a nice 2.5 to 3" angled high end brush. Also, 5 gallon bucket with the drop in roller mesh in it is the only way for me.
07-03-2019, 03:34 PM
I really hope that you literally said "go fuck yourself" when he tried that shit.
