What home improvement work did you do today?

crazy hoarder owned the place before us 3 homes ago, and she used old shingles to control weeds around trees and along the fence line. Dirt and weeds sucked them up within a couple of years, I come along and can shovel less than 1 inch and hit shingles.

 

At least the barbells are useful. Some of these bricks are still in good shape, so I'll go through them tomorrow and salvage what I can and reuse them later.

Yeah... the house had a new roof put on it a year ago, when no one was living in it. So the roofers left a bunch of trash that has been reclaimed by the lawn and time. There's bit's of shingles, roofing nails, some tek screws, sheet metal roof edge trimming etc.

The odd part of all this brick that I've uncovered was that they were right underneath were some grape vines were. Today's archeological excavation was where the lone and biggest grapevine was. It was also surrounded by bricks. The three smaller ones on the other side of the yard had some brick around them and underneath them.

But I got a nice tan and planted a buttload of Scotts turfbuilder seed. I swear by that stuff now. I highly recommend it.

 

Our house has been around since the 1890's - in addition to the stupid ass landscaping fabric, I've found an old sidewalk, an outline of an old garden, bricks (like you) from an old chimney that were dumped and buried, and an old glass tylenol bottle (it was broken). Next to the front brick path (that was built on an old cement sidewalk), there's a shit load of flint stones. They are buried about 2 feet under and they go the length of the sidewalk. Oh, about one and a half feet under the where there's now a garden in front of the house, there's an old tiled patio. I don't know if it rains dirt here or the house was raised at some point, shit sinks here or all of the above. It's crazy what you uncover when you do a little digging.

 

One of my favorite type of posts here is the work in progress ones. I have wife sending me update pics so I can share. If you guys get sick of them let me know. Here is the start of a shit ton of concrete I am pouring. Starting with the old weed clogged paver patio.

 

Part 2

 

That is looking amazing!

 

When a semi of Alfalfa arrives to a barn project I know I’m on the home stretch of finishing. Lots of big changes have happened over the last two weeks. I’ll try and get some new drone aerials and pictures of the project tomorrow.

 

Cut down a tree in my front yard today. The previous owners were really odd. It's almost as if they blindfolded themselves, spun around 3 times and just planted a tree wherever they stopped.

Anywho, there were two pine trees in this section and the smaller of the two was choking out the big guy. The little dude was bare on the west side because the big guy was crowding him out. It was a mess. So, I decided to get rid of the little one and get some white rock to spruce, no pun intended, the pit up.

 

I guess this is home improvement;

Noticed yesterday the hot water wasn't so hot, found the water heater was leaking.
Fortunately it has a drip pan that drains outside.
I was on the way out the door to go to work.
Shut off the supply, gas, turned it off, and went to work.
Came home 12 hours later to see the drain was still dripping outside

Had it replaced this morning.
Could I have done it myself?
Probably.

Go get one at Home Depot
Disconnect the old one
Only to figure out the shutoff valve wasn't shutting off the water heater supply and have to replace it
Remove it
Replace the pan with a bigger one
Put the new one in place
Go to Home Depot 4 times because I didn't get everything the first time
Reconnect everything
Figure out how to get rid of the old one
Probably taking me the entire day.

OR

Call a plumber and have them bring one and install it in 1 hour and haul the old one off.

I chose the latter....
They replaced everything, gas line, water lines, vent pipe, drain PVC.

 

Part 3




This is what I have to drive while those fellas are working hard in the South Carolina humidity. We both got it hard.

 

This last winter, my furnace wouldn't light and it was chilly in the house. I went to the basement to see what the problem was and noticed the water heater was leaking. I got the furnace figured out and went to Lowe's and got a 50 gallon water heater to replace the 40 gallon old one. A friend and I swapped it out in 2 hours and now we don't run out of hot water even with a pre-teen and a 7 year old taking showers.

 

In this episode of "my wife had to have this thing and I hurt my back picking it up"...

My wife said "Honey, check out this bar for sale, they want $200." I took a look and knew what was in store for me. If she could haggle a bit, we will pick it up and I will have to paint it soon. That's fine with me. My wife haggles like no other, $120 and we were on the way to get it.

We pulled up in the house and I noticed a nice 2nd gen in the driveway. Hmm. The wife of the house answers, opens the door to let us in, and I see a 225 gallon fish tank behind her. I complimented the tank and she calls her husband in, "hey he's a fish guy too!" My wife and his wife looked at each other and rolled eyes knowing a geek out was about to go down for the next ten minutes.

Her husband walks up, we have the same haircut, we are wearing practically the same outfit (t shirt, dickies shorts, sandals) but different colors, and I tell him I'm also a Tundra guy. It was like meeting another version of myself but he's 10 years older and maybe 30lbs heavier.

He helped me put the thing in my truck and noticed the bike racks. "You ride too? My bikes cost more than my car!" Felt like that moment on Step Brothers "Did we just become best friends???"

We got it into the dining area and I'm excited. Trying to decide if I will paint it antique gray or go bold with a robins egg blue. Most of our furniture downstairs is going antique white or grey, I'm planning a white and blue fish tank stand next year, so maybe I can get away with making this pop.

I still need to adjust the front right foot, it is leaning a bit. Considering installing casters instead of adjustable feet.

 

Having the friend helps.
I don't think me and my 100 lb 5' wife could have wrangled the old one down and new one up..

 

Ppsshh....hell, how do you know until you get her to hoist it up into place?

 

Will your dog eat bananas? Mine won't touch them. My brother had a Chihuahua named Poncho that FREAKED out when he got a banana. He loved them!


Now, back to home improvement.

 

Re-tiled the front landing (split level)..

had old school linoleum upon purchase..




which was covered up with some peal and stick tiles for a quick fix.




finally had the time to strip it all off and lay some legit tile..





..also built the table and honeycomb shelves a few weeks ago

 

I think he will eat anything. He loves fruit, he's okay with veggies.

 

Bathroom is done little before and after pic. New mirrors,fixtures,faucets, wood paneling, trim and decor. Still waiting on some Edison bulbs for the fixtures

 

I bet you drove through some kind of time warp and you met yourself 10 years in the future. That shit happens all of the time. Don't bother painting it because you'll just end up stripping it back to it's original color so you can resell it to yourself in 10 years... Bet @Marty McFly can give you some tips...

 

Backyard landscaping today.

The Before shots:









Removed the concrete from the side. I thought that it would have been part of the foundation, buy it was just dried slurry/slop/leftovers. Filled in the corner with a broken paver and dirt. Oddly, that's not where the foundation/footer was.
Then I sprayed the bottom with some Plasti-Dip in an effort to stop or at least slow down any more dry rot. Hopefully it works.


Then the bitch of the day. The removal of the bougainvillea stumps. This was the first and biggest one. Whoever planted them left them in the plastic planters. WTF?




An hour later, it's out. I've heard that knotted up stumps like this are valuable to wood workers who can turn them on a lathe? Does anyone know if that is true? I've kept it just in case.

Then the little one. It was right next to the shed so I could only work on it from certain angles. Only took 10 minutes though.


Keeping this one too.


Then I went to work leveling out the ground. Any excess dirt was out under the new fence to fill in the gap underneath it.



Then end result:


The shed is going to be painted red after I put a new roof on it next weekend (hopefully). So the brick next to it is just there temporarily.



All done in about 5 hours. I'm tired and need several beers to recuperate. Cheers.

 

your not suppose to interact with your past or future self lol You could alter the future lol

 

And they did it right the first time and if they didn't, they are a phone call away to come back out and make it right.
Sometimes it worth Call the Man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa1ez7yL_T4

 

I cleaned the garage

 

Man I finished that German series "Dark" a few weeks ago and now maybe I shouldn't paint it

 

That series was outstanding. ...You need to watch it a few times though to completely figure it out..

 

My wife and I are watching this. We are on season 1 episode 9 and still don't know who the hell anyone is.