Damn leaking valves
Posted by admin
It never, ever fails. If you go to turn off a valve that has been turned on since its install, it will leak in a way that you should be prepared to replace it.
This can be especially scary for a DIY’er if it’s your main house shutoff valve, which I had an issue with some time ago. Click here to read that post.
The past couple of weekends I’ve put on my plumbing hat and been working on my Father in law’s kitchen. I also did the demo work in taking out the old appliances and cabinets (which I sold just a couple of days ago to a nice family from Eastern Colorado).
Part of taking out the old sink and dishwasher is turning off the 3 valves under the sink. 2 of them leaked. This meant that they’d have to be replaced immediately. You can’t leave a leaking valve in a house for weeks for obvious reasons.
Building Model Trains
Posted by admin
I wanted to give a pitch to my friend Mike’s blog, www.buildingmodeltrains.com. I finally made it over to his house last weekend for the first time and I was blown away with the work he had done on his model trains. About 1/4 of his basement is a big model train world complete with many train tracks and amazingly detailed scenery and mountains going back and forth. I don’t think pictures can do it justice; it’s ridiculous impressive. I don’t understand the passion for the trains, but he is a true craftsman which I can appreciate.
He’s also working on building a steam engine train from scratch, which might be the most impressive thing he’s doing in the basement. He’s only got the wheels done so far which you can see in his blog, but to actually hold one in my hand and examine the craftsmanship made me truly appreciate what he’s doing.
He’s also framing out part of his basement for non-train related activities and his work is meticulous. If he weren’t a brilliant software engineer he’d surely be well suited working with his hands and building watches.
I’m a DIY website guy too
Posted by admin
I still haven’t blogged in a while, in great part because my wife appears to have lost my camera with several months worth of DIY photography on it. I hope she finds it soon because I’ve done lots of neat stuff in my garage. Stay tuned.
Right now I’m in the middle of mudding the drywall in our garage and I just designed and launched a new website for my parents. They’re selling their farm in Australia and I thought a website would help them show it off to potential buyers around the world. Their farm is my dad’s big DIY project and he and my mom have spent the past 15+ years improving just about everything on the property.
You can see the website at www.highvalleyau.com
I worked a lot of long hard days on that farm as well. My two biggest memories are pounding about a mile of fence posts over a couple of days and another few days picking up and burning huge piles of “cotton bushes” when my parents first bought the place. Dry cotton bushes are something like narrow green tumbleweeds which seem to have a high oil content and they’re extremely flammable. The fields had been vacant for some time and these noxious weeds ad taken over. My dad had someone come out and cut them all out of the ground with a blade on a plow and we had to go around and pick up entire fields of them, put them in piles about 15 feet high, and then reach in with a lighter and set them ablaze. They burned almost instantly and you could feel the heat from about 100 yards away. And it was about 100 degrees outside already. And dusty, and dry. It was miserable and my skin, clothes, socks and shoes were completely black by the end of each day. It was a pretty interesting experience for a kid.
It’s an amazing place. The website turned out pretty well, but it doesn’t do it justice.
Adding an Electrical Outlet
Posted by admin
One of the things that bothers me most about my garage is that there is only one electrical outlet, and it’s not in a great location. As part of my built in work bench I wanted to have at least one additional electrical outlet on top of the bench. Unfortunately the entire area is already drywalled so running new wire from somewhere else isn’t really an option.
I had considered tearing down the drywall to get some more electrical outlet to the location that I wanted it, however recently I noticed that there is an outlet on the inside of the house directly on the other side of the garage wall where I wanted another outlet. I knew that with some careful planning I could tap into that circuit without doing much damage to the existing drywall in the garage.
Inside Outlet
Finishing a Garage, Part 1
Posted by admin
After a much needed (and much deserved, if you ask me) break, this past weekend I started on a new house project.
I’ve spent the past couple of months deciding on which project I wanted to tackle next. I’ve been wanting to finish off our garage just so I can have a nice place to work on the rest of the house projects. Our garage is gloomy and ugly. Some of the drywall work is the worst I’ve ever seen. The walls of the garage are covered with that “holey” material to hang tools from. There is only one electrical outlet in the garage. There is only a single light bulb in the garage. I temporarily fixed the lighting issue before we even moved into the house by adding some fluorescent lighting, but nothing is hardwired and there are cords running all over above and below the rafters above. With a little effort I can fix all the shortcomings of the garage and have a really nice place to work.
This past Saturday my friend Tito was helping me pick up our old appliances and countertops to load up in a trailer to take to the dump. While I had the trailer (borrowed from my folks) I figured I should swing by Home Depot to get some drywall and start on the project.
Before
Planting a Tree
Posted by admin
Yesterday I decided I had enough of our house being the only one in the neighborhood without a mature tree in the front yard, so I decided to plant one. I shall realize the fruits of my labor in approximately 20 years.
I have often wondered why our house had no tree in the front yard, I’m betting that there there was one there early on that died. We probably won’t be here in 20 years to see the full grown tree, but I think it will be nice for the people who live here then.
Removing a Stake or Fencepost
Posted by admin
Planting a tree yesterday made me consider how I would remove the support stakes I pounded in with a sledgehammer once they’re no longer needed. I used the steel tee fence posts, and they’re not exactly meant to be easily removed (they’re impossible to simply pull out by hand).
“Tee Fence Post”
Russian Dacha
Posted by admin
The other day at work as my colleagues and I gathered for a meeting I was describing the documentary “Alone in the Wilderness” that I had seen the previous night on PBS. I was amazed that the guy had built his house, by himself, in the middle of nowhere with no power tools.
Mike G., the Quality Assurance director at my company, who happens to be from Russia, wasn’t as amazed with the story as I was. He was impressed that the guy lived in the Alaskan wilderness for 30 odd years, but not that he had built a house by himself with no power tools. Mike tells me that growing up in Russia his father had built two houses by himself with no power tools, one for himself and one for a neighbor, and he was not a professional builder. He says in Russia it isn’t that uncommon for people to build their own houses.
Alone in the Wilderness
Posted by admin
Last night I was hypnotized by a movie on PBS called “Alone in the Wilderness”. It’s a documentary about a crusty old guy who is builds himself a log cabin next to an extremely remote Alaskan lake. He was filmed building the cabin “by himself”, but obviously there was a person there filming too. In any case, I was extremely impressed with the guy’s craftsmanship and the ease with which he built the cabin over several months to prepare for the harsh Alaskan winter.
Installing an ethernet outlet
Posted by admin
If you read the previous post about the “forearm forklifts”, you’re already aware that I had the good fortune of being given an awesome big screen TV. My father in law wanted to get one of those flat panel screens to hang on his wall instead of having his giant big-screen, so he generously gave it to us.
This rekindled my interest in my barely used XBOX 360. I previously had it hooked up to an okay sized TV, but it wasn’t great. I would really only play the XBOX on rare occasions just because our basement TV room was kind of dreary. The big screen (and awesome surround sound speaker system that came with it) pretty much changed all of this. Now it’s my favorite room in the house.
Forearm Forklifts, Thumbs Up!
Posted by admin
I think everyone should have a set of these around the house. They make lifting really heavy stuff a breeze.
They’re called “forearm forklifts”. You can see them by clicking here. I think I saw these on TV commercial and thought it was pretty dumb. Then the guys who delivered our new kitchen appliances were using them. Then my Dad got some for Christmas from someone and I’ve been using them quite a bit. I suspect you can buy them at Home Depot or any hardware store.
Most recently I used them to pick up a big screen TV which my father in law gave us. He told me to gather up about 4 guys to come and pick up the thing because that’s what it took him to get it into the house. I took these straps over to his house with my brother and we were easily able to pick it up ourselves, put it on a trailer, and then carry it about 75 yards all the way around my house to take it in through our basement. It was a piece of cake.
I have no doubt that it would take 4-5 guys to pick up the thing otherwise, and it would still be a total pain in the butt. The forearm forklifts make it easy, and I’m a believer. You should get a pair if you ever move heavy items.
Carefree Weekends
Posted by admin
I haven’t blogged for a while, and it isn’t because I’m not planning on blogging anymore. It’s been a combination of being really busy at work and not actually making any home-related improvements worth mentioning in this blog. I’m still getting about 150 visits per day from all over the world from people who are searching Google for a variety of home improvement topics which I love to see.
My weekends have been carefree and boring for quite a while now. I’ve been getting ideas in my head on which projects that I’d like to start on next. One day it is finishing the garage. The next day it is refinishing our basement. It might take a little while for me to build up the nerve to start any big projects. I think what we want to do in our basement is going to take me the better part of a year to do myself, so I’ll have plenty to write about. It will be my first chance to do a home project where I’m truly starting with a blank slate and there are no limits, so I’m kind of looking forward to it.
Finished Kitchen
Posted by admin
Kitchen Before
Kitchen After
Quite an improvement, huh?
Replaced garden window, replaced countertops, painted cabinets, new appliances, new sliding glass door, installed wood floor, new pantry door, new ceiling lights, installed undercabinet lighting, tiled backsplash, replaced outlets
Total cost: $8000 (inlcudes new appliances). Total time: about 120 hours (that’s my estimate and I’m sticking to it). Most of the work was done in random 3 hour shifts over about 5 months.
Replacing Electrical Outlets
Posted by admin
The electrical outlets above our kitchen counter were cream colored and old. Because I had installed a half inch thick backsplash around them, they were now recessed into the backsplash and I needed to extend them outwards before I could install faceplates. While I was at it, I figured I should upgrade to new outlets as well which matched our kitchen.
Before
Completing the Wood Floor
Posted by admin
We had two gaps in the wood floor that I had completed some time back. One of the gaps was between the sliding glass door and the flooring, and on the other side of the floor there was a space between the flooring and the carpet of the living room.
We had bought a matching threshold and t-molding piece to fill these gaps, but I needed to wait until the baseboard trim was in place before installing them to cut them to the right size. Once I had the baseboard trim installed cutting and applying these pieces with my nail gun was a breeze.
The nail gun left tiny holes in the top of the pieces, and I could fill them if I needed, but they aren’t noticeable so I just left them as is.
After
Kitchen Sink Plumbing Modification
Posted by admin
Installing Trim and Casing
Posted by admin
At this point in the kitchen project everything major was completed. All that was left was to install baseboard trim, casing around the sliding glass door and pantry, trim the vinyl window, cut and install the wood floor thresholds, and replace and bring out the electrical outlets to be flush with the newly installed backsplash.
Installing trim is pretty straight forward, but requires accurate measuring and great attention to detail to end up with a seamless final product.
Before I could start on the actual trim and casing work, I had to build out the sliding glass door to be flush with the interior wall.
Installing an Oven
Posted by admin
This was about as easy as a project can get. Once again, you’re probably thinking that you don’t “install” an electric oven, you just plug it in. But ours didn’t come with a plug to plug in.
When we bought the our appliances the salesman asked if we wanted a $40 cord/plug for the stove. “No,” I says to him, “I already have a cord from the old stove.” I didn’t want to get a new cord because of the cost, but also because what if the male plug I got didn’t fit into the female outlet that was already installed behind the stove location? It’s probably standard, but you never know. There are a lot of 220v plug configurations.
I removed the power cord from the old stove and connected it to the new one in about 15 minutes. Then I plugged it in and pushed it back into place.
The electric stove we picked is our only “regret” in the whole kitchen. It looks great and we’re not professional cooks so I don’t think we need the additional capabilities of a gas, but the ceramic stove top is a pain in the butt to clean. If we could do it again we’d definitely choose gas.
After
Installing a Refrigerator
Posted by admin
Okay, so you’re probably thinking that you don’t really “install” a refrigerator, you just plug it in. I had hoped it would be that easy, but it wasn’t the case.
Our new fridge has a water and ice dispenser, which means it has to be hooked up to a water line. Previous owners had already run a copper water supply line over to the fridge location, but the fridge that I removed was not connected to it. I put the end of the copper supply line into a bucket and turned on the water valve underneath the kitchen sink for a few mintues to drain the line of the water that had been sitting in it for years (I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be healthy to have that pipe right into the fridge). It was filthy and brown, but quickly turned clear.
Installing a Microwave
Posted by admin
I was not particularly excited about putting the new microwave in after the trouble I had getting the old one out. It was attached with two bolts coming in from the cabinet above and on the back with a wall mounted bracket. I removed the two bolts, and then lifted and pried from every possible angle trying to get it off of the wall bracket. I took half of the old microwave apart from the bottom because I believed there must be a hidden screw attaching it to the wall bracket somewhere, but I couldn’t find anything. I eventually just ripped it off the wall. I still cannot figure out why the old microwave was so tough to take down.