What home improvement work did you do today?

Dang that’s some fantastic landscaping.

 

I plan on doing a kitchen remodel sometime next year. I would love to just paint the cabinets, but I don't think it would be a good option. The doors have a two grooves in them which would have to be filled. I would like to go with a shaker style door. Not sure what would be the way to go with this door replacement or entire cabinet replacement. I have around 25/cabinets that would need replaced. It is a custom kitchen, so they are well made. Suggestions???

 

I'm back again with another question. Love all the knowledge here. This is the deck on the house we just bought, after I pressure washed it. I can't afford to replace it right now so I want to make it look better and get a few more years out of the wood. I don't love the color the previous owners chose but since so much red is left, I'll probably have to go over it with a similar color. It also gets extremely hot.

So, paint suggestions for this? Home Depot sells a deck resurfacer, primer and sealant made by Olympic. Edit-reading the reviews on this now and they are really mixed. Definitely open to suggestions here.

 

You can order shaker doors from a cabinet maker company. Prices are pretty reasonable.

 

Thanks

 

About 5 years ago we used a rust oleum product called restore on our weathered deck. It was never painted before, only ever sealed, and it was cracking and splitting in a few of the most sun beaten places. We pressure washed, deck washed and scrubbed, and rinsed and dried (the key is always in the prep work) and applied 1 coat. In the shaded spots that one coat has held up well. In the sun I've needed to touch up a few areas that were cracked already and could have used 2 coats to begin with. Very happy with it. We pressure wash it once a year and it's help up tough even in the high trafficked areas.

On the other hand, my brother pressure washed (shoddily) and painted one coat onto his previously painted and very sun checked deck. It flaked off the next year with a pressure washer in some areas. He just touched back up and it looked decent still. I'm wondering if you'll struggle with anything in direct sun that's on top of that existing paint.

Now it doesn't look like they make that exact product anymore anyway but now they call it rock solid deck coat. You might need to do careful prep and prime to ensure it doesn't just flake off the new paint where the old paint continues to lift underneath. The stuff we got was thick and had sand in it for a nice fill on cracks and good texture. I'd do it again.

 

From this weekend: Tore down old plastic shed, poured new concrete pad on Saturday and started on a new steel building on Sunday. Will update when it’s finished

 

That's my concern too. This is all the pressure washer would remove and I'm not sure what other prep I could do. If I knew what they put on there, it would help me decide what to put over it. I'm looking at an acrylic based solid stain by Cabot. I'm reading that if I cover acrylic with another acrylic it might hold. But since I don't know what's on there now, it could go either way. It almost looks like deck paint, and not stain.

Either way, I know I need a solid stain, not a semi transparent.

 

Is that a kit building you got somewhere, or you building it from scratch? looks great!

 

Erik, this is a product I used made by Behr that is fantastic on old decks. Did mine last Spring and still looks like I did it Yesterday. Give it a look, might be just what you're looking for.

 

Which I can get with a grill plate without any issue. I don't have the issues you do with chicken on the grill. My kids won't eat hot dogs without grill marks and they roll around on their own due to the flat surface.

Cleanup is a hassle and hot oil/butter splattering isn't fun. It rusts more than it should where you can't season it. The weather is not kind where I live to this sort of thing.

Different strokes for different folks

 

Ever used a rotary scrubber? An 18" one with 100 then 120 grit screens would make pretty quick work of what's left.

 

Finally finished up this kitchen. Flooring and paint to be done by client.

 

Nice, I think the laundry chute in the kitchen is great too. !!

 

Pool finally got the pebble installed on Friday. Took 2 months start to finish when I was quoted a 10 day job, but glad it's finally done. Acid washed on Saturday and then started filling it up right after. Took a flat 48 hours to fill it up with the hose. Startup chemicals were added on Monday and then adjusted today. Pool is nice and blue now.

 

Instead of spending $1k for a post, why not use a steel beam/pole then box it in with some Cypress boards? Even if the boards rot away over time, the structural integrity would remain intact. The price of steal would probably be much cheaper.

 

Looks good!!
We got a new pool being dug in about 6 months or so.

 

From scratch using 3” c-purlins and squared tubing and lots of help from my dad who’s a pretty good welder

 

Had a large tree stump ground down. Then put in new sprinklers , 4200 SF of sod, started putting down some rock, and planted some flowers. Had a couple busy weekends.

 

Hopefully yours stays on track with their timeline. Sounds like it's hard to get materials out here.

 

we had gotten an email saying between rain, materials, and workers is the reason schedules keep getting pushed back. we get a weekly email showing when the job is located vs all the others ahead of us. hopefully it doesn't push us too far back. but then again, it'll be too cold to swim anyway...even for louisiana. as of now, we were scheduled to get ours in around late sept to late oct., but that's been pushed back already. oh well. we knew this going into it, so it's not too bad. plus the company doing it is well known for doing it right and not just getting sub-par equip/materials/people for the job.

 

Got the side poured and turf installed. Done with paying people! Now a little compacted DG and rock on the side, couple plants should be on the home stretch leaving just the pergola to build.

 

Photo showing some of the framing and a concrete pump pour of the back patio. I’ll be heading back this weekend to get more photos. I was R&R in the Newport Coast, CA this past week.

 

Made this for my puppies.

 

Started with spreading a yard of mulch between our garden boxes this morning which led to adding curb stones around it. Then I said screw it and laid a bunch of patio stones down to give us a more established grilling zone. The one outlier dark stone makes me twitch but I cleaned out the store's stock so choice wasn't great. Oh well.

I was going to build a deck this summer but we all know what happened to building material prices..

 

I have a door on the side of my garage that I think I may have opened maybe 2 times in the 20 years that I've owned the house. In fact I have my tool chest, welding tanks, a shelf, trailer hitch, etc in front of it on the inside, so just moving shit to get to it took forever. Anyways, the outside of it was looking like total shit, beat to hell by the AZ sun.
I hate hanging doors, and exterior doors are not exactly cheap, so considering I never use it I decided to just reskin it. Considering how crazy lumber prices are now, I was shocked that a 4'x'8 sheet of 2.7mm plywood was less than $13 at Home Depot, so I bought one and some contact cement a couple of days ago in preparation to do it this weekend.
Considering my house is old (1978) and built by one of the local "upper" middle class builder, I was shocked that my "solid core" exterior door was actually particle board inside, and it was starting to fall apart. Not wanting to battle the holiday weekend crowds at Home Depot, nor spend big bucks for a new door with the associated door hanging PITA, I decided that since I already had the materials I would clean it up best I could and proceed.
All in all, it turned out decent, I got to try out my new router I bought last Black Friday, and considering I never use the door, might get a few more years out of it.

 

Well my home improvement today was filled with a water leak time waster!
- Monday discovered my faucet pull out hose had a leak plenty of water damage under sink so I called the company plead my case because the hose on Amazon looked like a Chinese knockoff. So I got the hose late Friday night. Keep in mind no water in kitchen mon- Friday. My reverse osmosis and dishwasher did work. When I tried the new hose it didn’t work so I went on line ordered a new faucet on Costco and was ticked because it was $299. Charged on to figure out the hose fitting release.

so I when I decided to tackle it I shut the water off to the house when I did it don’t know why but 3 fittings started to leak they were not leaking before this ??? I’m just about to lose it because turning water off and fittings so I tried to reset fittings (shark bite) nope that didn’t work. I live 1.5 miles from menard so I flew there and why wouldn’t menards have lost power! So I’m asking flashlight boy and flashlight girl I need this _____! Deer in headlights so finally get home put on the new fittings and guess what they work! But I decided to break a plastic fitting (accident) on my drinking faucet! Run back to menards nope run to Lowe’s nope decided it was a custom fitting for that faucet!! So I go back home and see what I can find online nothing so I run BACK to menards to just do a hose and an on off so I at least have drinking water.
8 hrs later finally no leaks and we have water now. Gezzzz.

 

We had a door like that that we never used. But it had 3 brick steps on the outside. We took it out and walled it in. But you didn't need a mortgage to buy a 2x4 then.

 

Holy hell man! Sorry to hear about all the struggles! And water loss is no joke in terms of inconvenience!