What home improvement work did you do today?

Bad toilet seal leaking for a while. Floor started to swell. Here’s start to nearfinish over 10 days in my spare time. Toilet and trim will goin today.

 

Chicken wire around a few raised beds yesterday to keep the peacocks from nibbling on fresh plants. Went and got 1-1/2 CY of cedar chips and spread them around a few places. Started looking at changing up the fence layout around the chicken coop.

 

We have acidic water, so today I replaced 4' of copper pipe that had 3 temporary rubber/hose clamp fixes and a fresh 4th pin hole.



PEX is in my future. Also a softener for the hot water tank.

 

Got started on repainting the rocking bench.

 

I’ve been working on installing a new cedar fence all the way around my back yard. One of my latest projects was installing this arbor over my side entry gate. Just need to stain it to match my fence.

 

Mowed the weeds today and some grass, trimmed a hedge. Typically lazy day for me. After all I am retired.

 

Got NEW Windows installed throughout the entire home ( minus the bathrooms ) Plus two NEW exterior doors

*8 new sliders & storm door for the Florida room; all tempered glass

*7 new double pane fancy as F@c& , easy to clean child proof windows PLUS an actual REAL door for entering the home

My wallet BUT we are getting the kick-back from the Electric company to take some of the $ting out..

The quietness has already snuck in and can't wait to see the R values kick my summer electric bills in the a$$

 

Never put of a picture of the fence being completed, still need to stain it but keep getting sidetracked with other projects.

This past weekend my wife said our front porch looked plain and need something, so I told her to draw up what she wanted and this was the outcome. Still have a few nail holes to fill.

 

Well that took forever by myself.
The rest should go a bit easier. Hard to pulley these up, make them square and level though.

 

I’ve been eyeballing ads for the robot mowers for awhile. I saw a live operation of the Luba and decided to give one a try. My far back yard started out to just get rid of the alders, blackberries, nettles, and various weeds. I’ve been able to mow it with my riding mower, but the slope is excessive in spots, so a slight hazard imo. Anyways, I got it running and it successfully mowed the back area (19,680 sq ft). It did not get stuck or call for help. It self parked and recharged so it was a complete hands off event. Of course, I had to watch it sometimes and did a hand mow around the islands. Overall, very pleased with its operation. Time will tell how reliable it is. Today I have to map out the other areas of the lawn, and see if my RTK signal and satellite reception work on the other side of the house. The rest of my lawn area is about 5000 sq ft, so this saves me a lot of mowing.

 

I've been curious about these. We had a company that was set up somewhere before with the Husqvarna ones and i saw it do some impressive stuff. When i get to a point where i can't do it, i'll have to get about 2 or 3 of these to do my whole yard. but it's been cool to see the new stuff coming out and what they're capable of. some of the smaller yards i've driven by i've seen them out doing it. at first i thought the roombas got lost and escaped through the doggy door and went outside haha.
yard looks good man. hope it works out for ya!

 

I found a log on a backcountry trip yesterday. I took my chainsaw to it and made a bench for our backyard firepit.

Never done this before, but it turned out nice I think.

 

Nice job! I like it!

 

I done seen it all now

 

This Luba has all wheel drive, so it can tackle some impressive slopes. Lots of video out there of people pushing this lawn mower to beyond specifications. I have about a half an acre to mow, and the Luma 5000 is rated for 1.25 acres. The difference between the models is the area of coverage, which I think is mainly the amount of memory for the map and the size of the battery.

 

I looked up the other 2 models they had. I prob would do that one too. Especially at first glance seeing the other 2 with their wheel/tire options.
I saw there's a decal kit you can get. Haha.

 

wonder how it would handle brush, big gopher holes, and all the obstacles I have...
but I also need the fucking exercise.
Not me, but this is basically what I use and the sort of stuff I'm mowing...weighs about 340lbs and is like wrestling an angry Russian bear if it wants to do something different than what I have in mind.

 

After 20+ years of living in our 1975 built home, we FINALLY redid our kitchen (moved it actually) and got rid of a couple of walls to open up some space. We had been wanting to do this for several years now but things just never panned out. Our '70's kitchen was a typical, small, galley kitchen with barely enough space for two people to be in there at the same time.

So, with some coaching/design help from one of the Mrs, VERY GENEROUS clients (He's a GC and they have 12 "house flips" going right now), and some help of his 2 best carpenter/remodel guys, we dove right in.

My plan was to do whatever work I could myself, to save some dollars. In the end, I ended up doing the flooring, scraped the popcorn ceilings, hung some sheetrock and did the texturing, painted half the house, including ceilings, with the Mrs, LOTS of trim, backsplashes, and a crap load of other things.

Anyhow, I still have a few details to wrap up but for the most part we're pretty much done so, here it is.


I pulled up the flooring I installed 15 years ago and set it aside for potential reuse. These reddish walls are now gone.



Walls are almost gone and that's basically our old kitchen over there to the left.



Plumbing/electrical trench coming from the old kitchen to the location for the new island.



New cabinets going in and that window to the left was added too.



This is pretty much how it turned out. The cab/counter to the left is our coffee bar with a 2 drawer beverage fridge under the counter. The flooring is the old stuff that I pulled out and set aside. We get a TON of traffic thru our house and, for being as old as it is, it was in remarkably good shape and reusing it saved some big $$$.



The old kitchen area was turned into a "working" pantry. I still have a bunch of shelving to build in there.



Marble tile backsplash


And a view from the other side.

 

Really nice!

 

Thanks Gents!

I had done a couple of renderings back in '19 but, honestly, my wife's clients just have great vision for this kind stuff. Like I mentioned, this is what they do for a living.

After my wife asked if they could give us some ideas on what, and how, to proceed, they just popped in, asked if I had some painters tape, and went to town.

"We're going to move this here and that there, this will be your pantry, another window here, these walls need to go, blah, blah, blah...". They were AMAZING!

Here's kinda what we had in mind a few years ago, but they went in a completely different direction, which we really liked.

 

Installed some simple Airex HVAC retrofit kits

 

I’ve been there and done that. I have a swisher brush mower, used it alt the old place, cut down blackberry and 1 inch saplings. I do t have a use for it anymore, so it’s going to the selling block.

 

I passed on tHe decal as it was racing stripes…. I want turtle decals.

 

What is the purpose of that product?

 

Looks great! Can you give us details on that refrig/ freezer?

 

Sure.

https://fornoappliances.com/product/60-rizzuto-pro-style-dual-combination-ffffd1933-60s/

We bought it thru Lowes as our GC friend gets a pretty good discount. I never do this but some of that discount went to a 5 year extended warranty since the brand is an unknown to me and I have no idea how this thing is going to work out in the long run.

BUT!! Here's the kicker. My wife HATES the thing. Even though it has more capacity than our old fridge, the fridge side doesn't have all the organization/adjustability features of the old fridge. She's convinced the designers never stepped in a kitchen, much less ever looked at a real refrigerator. Plan B is to get a 7 cubic foot upright freezer for the pantry (we have a small chest freezer in the laundry room already) and turn the freezer side of this thing into another fridge (easily done with the push of a button).

Having said all that, IT LOOKS MARVELOUS!!!

 

So one of my back porch steps needs to be replaced and I happen to have a 2x6 already. I scanned the bar code on it and it took me to item on Lowe's
website.

It claims this particular 2x6 should not be used for decks. What do you all think?

This is the part I want to replace.