What home improvement work did you do today?

That’s not a garage, that’s a pub! Just missing the foosball table and multiple beer taps

 

Thanks! Shed in the spring… get rid of the rest of my crap then finish the other half. Megatouch (bar crack) comes this week then pinball and shuffleboard. Stock it and done!

 

Cool. I wanted to build a shuffleboard for my basement but don’t think I have the room for a full table.

 

Had concrete forms done day before yesterday for pool decking. Supposed to pour tomorrow. Can't wait to get rid of most of that mud pit and tracking it in the house. Got the drain set and ready as well for pour.


Once it's done, there will be a bit of dirt around the edges. Anyone know a good seed to put down to grow grass to knock down erosion and all? I wouldn't mind doing a hydroseed style that has a surfactant or something in it to keep it from washing away since it has a bit of slope on it. Any suggestions are welcomed.

 

Can't believe they used wire mesh instead of rebar. Did they give you a reason?

 

pretty common around here if doing 4" slabs. our driveway is the same. we've had cement trucks drive on it recently with no issues and it's about 6 years old now.

 

Thats wild, but much easier and cheaper! It would crack almost immediately here, but we also have shit for soil and constant earthquakes...

 

no earthquakes here. just hurricanes lol. but yea, a lot quicker and cheaper to do mesh vs rebar. they did rebar for the pool tho

 

Check out grotrax if you don't have a ton of grass to do. It is a mat that rolls out and acts sort of like hydroseed. Once it is down and wet it sticks pretty well. Not the cheapest but I had good success on a sloped backyard.

 

i had seen that and considered it cuz i've read reviews that it worked fairly well. but then found out it's more for small areas. i'm going to need about 5-10 of those rolls. lol. once they're done with concrete, i'm going to measure what's needed and go from there. but yea, the grotrax seems like it'll be about $300+ by the time i'm done lol

 

We are having the kitchen/bathroom/backyard and several internal patios renovated in our 30+ year old poured concrete house in Mexico.

By 2026 we will be moving back to Mexico and will have a house built so I'll post that here when it happens (I'd be doing it now if it were up to me) I'm pushing for sooner than later.

Sorry, most of these first pictures of the house as it was from 2002 -2006 were really pictures of cars.

The front of the house picture is a week before it was painted about 2004, it has been painted again since then. It is my understanding most quality constructed houses in Mexico are poured concrete and need to be painted every 10 years.





















The patios had messed up 30 year old tile, the rest are in progress.
















There was a tub, it's gone. The toilet had "saloon doors" I always hated, it's getting (I believe) fogged glass as is the shower. That's over 1k.
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The empty lot is here.


Roof needed to be recoated, & light fixtures in. Something is going to happen to the bathroom counter top & walls, I'm not sure what, wife is dealing with it.

 

New update from today, waiting for the doors to be made.







Bathroom in the garage/patio area downstairs.

 

Got concrete decking poured around the pool today. Finally not a big mud pit off our back porch to keep tracking dirt inside the house. Pretty happy with the space we got for entertaining. Supposed to rain all this weekend....so perfect timing.


Also got the Christmas tree hiked up the stairs and into the attic.

 

Leave it raw for now. May stain it or something later. We got time

 

Now it's time for $5000 worth of patio furniture to fill it.

 

Yep. Not looking forward too all the purchases coming up haha

 

I can’t wait to come visit and tea bag that hot tub…

 

Get in line. Better take your birth control before stepping on my property tho

 

Took care of that 18 years ago.

 

Alright, I have hella questions, but what in the mickey mouse bullshit is this.... I got around to probe my open hot outlet and here is some ocular pleasure for you guys.



Found the open hot, but I had no idea what the red one was for... So after research it was either 240v or a hook to a light switch, which I found.



Double ground tied to the other outlet..



Traced the red wire here, just hanging out like no big deal, had to pull the outlet below to verify, but didn't have a red wire so this light switch was it.



Terminated the outlet and the light switch similarly with a cap, now I have power to both outlets and I didn't catch the house on fire... which I feel positive about..

 

It's fairly common in "spec houses" to see the outlets in bedrooms and living rooms to be split and have one half of them run off a light switch for plugging in lamps rather than bothering to put in overhead lights.

Provided everything else was skookum, that outlet looked wired correct to me. By "everything else skookum" I mean that the switch and the standard outlet are fed off the same breaker and circuit, and then everything else is wired correct. Power would be run into the switch box via standard duplex (black hot, white neutral, bare ground). Out of the box would be 3-conductor (black hot, red second hot, white neutral, bare ground). The blacks would all be spliced together, with a pigtail to the "source" side of the switch. The red leaving the box would be landed on the "load" side of the switch. Grounds (obviously) are all spliced as well. Then, at the outlet, the little bridge tab on the HOT side is broken (separating the two outlets on the hot side). The black from the source is landed on one HOT (the second black is for then daisy-chaining downstream outlets and saves the space of another wire nut and pigtail in the box). The red from the switch is landed on the other HOT. The NEUTRAL side bridge/connector is left intact, and the white from the source hits one connector and the other one is going out to daisy-chain other outlets on the circuit. This is just more efficient for wiring as long as they are all the same circuit. If you were running separate circuits, then having a common neutral for the two circuits is no longer legal - I believe there was a time when a common ground on two 15A was allowed in code, but don't quote me on that (I've seen it done in a few places, but also know for sure it is not currently allowed).

What I'm not sure about is why there is also a black coming off the light switch, unless you also have a regular ceiling light as well. And the second red wire in the outlet box.

 

Your breakdown explains alot... Now there is 2 slots on the breaker for this room/area that turn off power to outlets and power in general, I did turn both off for safety. There is an overhead light, to which the light switch works properly. Assuming it was rewired from having a ceiling fan to no longer having a ceiling fan. I can assume some rooms were re-purposed for example the bathroom and the added laundry room, as the laundry room has an exhaust fan and the bathroom does not. Additionally the next room has a ceiling fan...

 

Got plaster in the pool and a hose dropped in it. Electrician should finish it up tomorrow.

 

Looks great, make sure you brush the pool twice a day for like 2 weeks and keep an eye on your calcium levels

 

Here are some pictures showing the progress on my latest garage project for a client of mine. We should have all the steel to the main structure up by the end of next week. This steel building is very well thought out. All of steel components are bolted together and the fasteners are all hidden. The entire building steel was powder coated in a 60’ oven.

 

Yep. I had heard, but they left us an instruction sheet that included that instruction. I think once a day for 2 weeks. I guess I'll be drinking and scraping nightly for 2 weeks

 

Yeah - sounds like Johnny Homeowner before you got tired of only having switched outlets and did some not-entirely-thorough rewiring then.