What home improvement work did you do today?

That's awesome! Post up some of them Widgets!

 

Probably not quite the right thread for this but whatever I'm posting it here.

Finally putting a deck on my trailer build today. Was a camper and now its a car hauler/all purpose trailer. 19 foot deck with 6 foot tail on it, 93" wide, 8" channel frame. Open section in the front for access underneath a vehicle. Eventually i think the axles will be upgraded to 7k's. They will be moved backward and maybe cut the fenders off completely and go with a deck over.

 

I just did the same thing a few weeks ago. Simple but yet effective.

 

I started on adding wood to our rear fence to get some privacy. Mrs. Bandito went to Lowes with me to pick up the fence pickets. I was gonna go with Cedar, but at $1 more than the cheapy pressure treated ones, Mrs. Bandito said "no" and then walked a few aisles over to give some out of control kids her "KNOCK IT OFF" look. (It worked, as always).
Anyways, got them home and we were hoping to stain them right away but since we got the pressure treated ones, we have to wait. I got the look and I was behaving.
I decided to go with @Azblue 's suggestion and used some Tek brand wood to metal screws. I made a dent but I have a long ways to go.

 

Nice! Looks like it's working out OK.

 

Finished touching up paint on the trim. Can call this project officially done.

 

More fence progress. It was freaking 90 and humid as hell. I may have broke myself. I'm just about halfway done. It's gonna be nice not seeing the alley. Oh, a lady was walking down the alley and said she really liked what I was doing - then asked why I was doing it. I told her I was tired of people walking down the alley and looking into our yard. She took it well.

 

That's starting to look really nice! I'm assuming you are going to snap a line and cut off the fence tops? Although I have seen fences that are "Artsy" and go for the uneven look! I personally like the even top look. Either way looking forward to the last pic of a stained, sealed or painted finished project! Keep doing whatcher doing, looking good!!

 

Thanks - we are going for the "artsy" look. We have 4 colors of semi-solid stain (dark brown, cedar, red, and green) and each one will be randomly stained. I usually go for the "even" look but I want to some color to the backyard. It'll look something like this:

 

I think it’s a requirement to be 90+ to DIY a fence!!! At least that’s how it worked for me!

You will appreciate the privacy!

 

Continuation from 7677.
Cabinets arrived and are in the garage. They did the texture on the walls and primed the ceilings. Another framing error on the hallway to the powder room, so they tore that apart to get back to a normal door jamb. When we were there last Saturday, three guys were tiling the bathrooms. That was good to see. I found a window that was jammed open, pushed past its limit. So it was in the center. I could have fixed it but texted the program manager to get it fixed. he was on location in the development.. I didn’t want to have it get screwed up on my attempt to fix it. Some progress, but one month delay so far.



They look like the right color and style.


photo taken before texture. But still not repaired.


Basement bath prepped for tile. Walls are textured and ceilings primed. Guys were working in the other bathrooms, so I did not want to disturb them.


Walls textured. This window on left was pushed past its normal range. Rain from Cyclone in Pacific was on its way. It needed to be closed.

 

Should be much quieter with the new ones. Once you loose the vacuum you have nothing stopping the outside noise from vibrating (transferring through) the inside pane.

 

At first, I thought this was going to be the only picture when you said “I made a dent, but have a long ways to go”


Looking good.

 

Day three of the damn fence. I'm about 80% done but I'm through all of the gates. The gate latch is a little magnetic pull thing and it's on the alley side so I rigged up a little door to access it from the yard.

I also remembered that whomever had gutters put on the shed allowed the water to drop on the fence. I had some old gutter and cut off a little elbow piece, fastened it up with some metal screws.

We are supposed to have some storms in the morning and I half expect to see my work lying on it's side.

 

I'm going to do the same thing to my shed! Got to divert all that water to the runoff trench!
Otherwise, it does what it wants, which is usually to piss me off with damage to something somewhere!!
Looking good!

 

Well after doing a few hours of work yesterday to get my front and back yard clear of pine needles and leafs for the city to pickup next week it looks like I didn’t do any work at all!

 

Not today BUT a collective over a few weeks in my spare time.

10' x 27' storage shed. Hopefully the trusses will be on this weekend and it will be enclosed before winter hits

 

I'm pretty much done with the fence. I ran out of decking screws for attaching the top part of the fence to the wooden brace I put back there. I didn't feel like driving 15 miles to Lowes to get more Deck Plus screws so I went our local Ace. They only had "Grip Rites." I bought a box and got back to screwing

The star bit that it uses is smaller than the Deck Plus so that was a pain. I ended up drilling starter holes because they kept falling off of the bit. Then I had about 5 go in 3/4 of the way and just spin. I can't back them out either. I used 186 DeckMates and didn't have one issue. I put in 20 Grip Rites and the majority of them either spun when they went in or failed going all the way in and started spinning. Don't buy "Grip Rites" screws.

I'm going to try to back them out using a utility knife as leverage and go back to Lowes to get more DeckMates to replace them with.

But the fence is up! We had some pretty major wind and it's still standing, so there's that.

 

Take the bit out of your screw driver and use those three prongs and grip that exposed screw like a drill bit, get it tight and try and drive it in. You might be able to screw it in a lot further. It doesn’t always work but it sometimes works.

BTW it’s nice and straight!!

 

Thank you! I'll try that tomorrow.

 

Make sure you have the proper Torx bit. They are usually either T-20 T-25 or T-30 for these types of screws. The spinning is usually a bad sign that the screw shaft has snapped, or, but you are driving into metal, I bet the thread you cut going in has self destructed, resulting in no further movement!! You ought to be using a Impact drill to drive these types of screws! The fact you are going from the wood slat into square metal tubing is not a good thing. I would have used a sheet metal type of screw that has a tiny drill bit formed in the tip of the screw. That would have made the process easier!

 

lots of yardwork

 

Nice tractor, man's got to have the right tools to get the job done!
You seem to have enough firewood to get you through the next rough winter no problem!
Having a hydraulic splitter makes that job fun!!!

 

hung out with my barn buddy and drank beer

 

I am using a torx bit and I was using my impact driver. This part of the fence has a 2x2 backer board up against the top part where the metal doesn't reach so it's wood to wood. For the wood to metal I used special screws by Tek made for that purpose (like the sheet metal screws you are talking about).

 

I ran into my neighbor this morning when I was doing my morning "gettin' old man" walk around the block. I told him what was happening with the screws spinning. He said he had the exact same problem with them and was told by the people at Ace to try the bit that came with them. He did and said they somehow stopped spinning and worked.

I did that and every screw that was spinning dug right in. So I take back my "stay away from Grip Rites" comment and am now saying if you buy Grip Rites, make sure to use the bit that comes with them even if you have a matching bit from another company.

Fence is done for now (waiting to stain in the spring).

 

Ordered up some tiki statue things. Gotta seal them and find spots for them in my yard now. I'd like to have them kind of peaking our from the foliage. They're 4 feet tall by roughly 6" wide.