What home improvement work did you do today?

The kiddos and I got our garden started a couple weeks ago. Its about 15'x60'. Started seeing sprouts on all of it minus the bell pepper.
It's far from the house (about 150' away), so until I build the shop and run the water from it, I decided to use a 55 gallon drum I had with a tap on one of the covers and I just wheel it over to the hose once it's ready. It's on a dolly I rarely use, so this will put it to good use. Plus it elevates it so my kids can put the watering can under it to fill it from the ball valve and not have to carry it far.
Hoping they can maintain this for the most part

 

Previous owners left behind a tree swing. We have moved in but we visit every other day to slowly bring stuff over and do some things . Every time we go my daughter just lays on this tree swing. So i made it more special tonight.

 

Finished the water feature/fountain...again! We had built it, then lightning struck and cooked the cheap pump. A year later, we discovered the pot we'd chosen wasn't for outdoor use, so was deteriorating. New pot, replumbed, it was too tall, so fried the pump. New stronger pump, too large, so needed to move some of the stone and dig under the lining to make the pond deep enough to submerge the pump. That made the wall at that end too steep, so small river rock just tumbling in. So, pallet of larger stone, and placed what we needed. Another easy project finished!

 

Photo of my thyme and ground cover garden. We just planted a rhododendron today. We sold our old home that had 15 ft Rhodies and I miss them. Planter with some vegetables and fruit in them.

 

Built two built-in shelves/bench seating in the mudroom. Mostly sanded plywood, the tops are butcherblock that I finished. Wife picked out all the whacky colors in this house, I am just the painter haha. I do like the retro floor, I painted over the original slate that needed some cleanup.

 

Finally got around to getting and installing a bidet toilet seat as the wife has been begging for one for a while.

A heated unit/ new toilet would have been nice but I didn't want the added expense or the trouble of fishing a new circuit to the toilet.

This one is a good value for what it is and quite the wake up in the morning if you know what I mean .
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Delta-N...Elongated-Toilet-in-White-833004-WH/322848159

 

i had one before but it did not come with the full "ass gasket" like this one. Just ordered it at HD, the wife is not a fan..

 

Thought they were stupid 5 years ago when wife wanted one. Now ide feel like a filthy animal w/o it!

 

Just spent $1,200 on these about 2 weeks ago. She already managed to pick up a roofing nail. This cut into my time to work on the truck and re-org closets in the basement. Meh.

 

Took advantage of the weather this weekend,finished beating down th concrete steps,cut the lawn & fed it,two trips to the dump then wrapped and taped the front & still waiting on the town to sign-off on the plans for the porch...

 

@Blufin, Your on a roll now...

 

Do you have instructions or materials list, I’d love to do this and don’t want to hire out for it

 

Got some real handy folks here. I’m just doing Clark Griswold updates

 

If your goal is to recreate. The goal is simple. Measuer what you want, create a material list, Always add 10-15% for waste. Every job is different.

 

Same. I got laughed @ for months when I bought one.

Then COVID hit, and suddenly people were scrambling to find bread, TP, etc. Meanwhile we were good to go, so fresh and so clean clean.

 

That’s what I need help with is materials. What is used where

 

@DrZoidberg can you do me a favor and snap some daytime pictures of your pool border/coping and deck? The wife and I are in the final stages of getting our pool installed and are looking for a similar look for our deck. Looks like flagstone and colored salted concrete right?

 

It’s overcast so I included some listing photos

 

Much appreciated! Looks like a great backyard setup!

 

We are on the home stretch, the yard is complete and most of the interior touch ups are finished. We are now trying to figure out timing for listing the house as we don't have another one were interested in yet. Kind of a scary thought.

 

Talk to your agent about a contingency clause on sale, maybe? One which affords you a grace period, where you can pay the new owner $X/month for Y# of months after closing? I'm sure this must be a thing. We had a house under contract with a contingency we could back out of we weren't able to sell, but would need to pay a fee to the seller. Then we paid a structural engineer to come out and inspect a crack down the side wall, which exposed the 60yr old house had a corner sinking, which would've cost ~$30-50k to shore up, and that allowed us to back out. The seller was pissed, but we didn't need a money pit, and we were fortunate, because our house didn't sell. Also fortunate, because our house was worth double 5 years later, and 13 years later, it's tripled. The house we were looking at is only up ~80%.

 

Added some solar lighting to our stairs from the front to back patios.

 

Lawn mower maintenance, if that counts

 

Hell yeah it does,it's the project before the project.

 

Yes we have already discussed a rent back situation. The problem is our house will sell, likely, for more than asking on the 1st or 2nd weekend. When we bought it 11 years ago it was listed and within 3 days of listing our offer had been accepted. There was somewhere around 20 offers the first day. The market in our area is even more cutthroat now. And houses are selling instantly and most times go into a bidding war.

 

Then why list before you identify your next house?

 

It's a double edged sword. The market is so hot that most won't take a contingent offer. We actually found our dream home and made a good offer but because we were contingent on the sale of our house they went with a different buyer. I'm still hoping it falls out of escrow because we submitted a better backup offer and are first in line.

 

Sounds like a good problem to have...

Then maybe what you need to be doing is buying storage, moving everything from the house into storage, then looking at a short-term furnished 1-2mo rental nearby for after-closing?

 

My dad, who lives about 20 minutes away from us, has a second 4 car garage that we have been putting all our stuff into temporarily. We just have the bare minimums at the house right now for staging purposes. There's enough room in his garage for all of our stuff if needed. Month to month rentals are really hard to come by around here unless you go into a really undesirable part of town.