Home Improvement

Noodleface_sl said:

So, in our new home we're moving into in about a month the driveway is "graded improperly" and at the end is graded towards the house rather than away from. Ultimately I'd like to redo the driveway, but until then what are some good fixes I can do as a temp fix? I was thinking I could put some drainage system there to move the water away from the house. The area is only a few feet long. I can't get any pics yet.

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Lots of people make a water bar to divert the water. Basically a speed bump at an angle to make the water flow off to one side coming down the slope.

That's probably what I'll end up doing. By eventually re-grading and paving the driveway I meant eventually in the distant future.

Anyone ever fixed leaky pipes? I just discovered a small leak on the exterior wall where the garage waterhose pipe comes down the wall. It must be up in the wall or ceiling, since it looks like the pipe drops down from above. Weird thing is, there are no other pipes on that corner of the house at all. Nearest water source above would be the bathrooms 20 feet away.

Do you know where the leak is coming from? How big is the leak? If it's a small leak it can be fixed pretty easily without replacing the pipes if you want to go for soemthing quick and easy.

Turns out it was just above the ceiling plaster in the basement. It's not a fast leak, but it is fairly constant. I've had a basin beneath it since I posted yesterday that is about 1/3 full now.

It's an old CPVC pipe. A plumber buddy is coming by in a bit to help me replace it. I could probably do it myself, but since he offered I figured I'd take the help.

Got all the carpet pulled out of my house, tile work has started! Barely anything done so far, but looking good.

That second picture looks like the wood is good enough that you don't even have to refinish it? What's your plan?

Yeah, it's all just tile.

Lazy, tricky, tile.

Fool me once, damn, that's nice tile.

I was wondering why/how the spacers were left under the carpet.

So there is this wall that I wanted to take down that was an old exterior wall but an addition was put on. There was a single 5ft wide doorway from the kitchen into it. Then there was an old exterior window that looked into this room from the dining room (right next to the kitchen). The estimate to take down all the walls and put in a beam was about $10k.

Fuck that.

So I demo'd the window to make it a doorway this weekend. Fun. Took forever because of hiccups and doing some electrical work (moving an outlet) and when demoing the wall, I had to wrestle with some old insulation board that was never take down.

Now I just have to wrestle with a heating vent and putting in flooring where the wall was.

Home Improvement Window - Imgur

Small victory post! Went to change out our dishwasher this weekend, which is normally no big deal. Get everything unplugged, and unhooked and go to slide the old dishwasher out. Well... it's an older dishwasher that didn't have the rounded back, but square. On top of that, I find out that the granite counter tops were installed without a spacer, and straight flush with the cabinets, and our tile floors were layed on top of a thick mortar layer for strength I assume. All in all this means the damn thing won't come out!

So sit down with an ice cold Coca Cola Classic, and think on it. Come up with the idea to pop the little wheels off the back. Bam, it now can slide out easy. I was 5 minutes away from getting saw and chopping the dish washer in half!!

Nice, we've all been there.

Living room done! I had them put a Herringbone pattern in on this one, really happy with it. All thats left to do now is put baseboard back on. I'm thinking about painting the whole house first. Haven't made up my mind for sure.

Ohh, and also cleaning my insanely filthy house after 9 days of construction. There is a cement dust caking everything, it's going to be terrible.

very nice! i pulled carpet when we bought our home and put in slate tile. it looks great, but the unevenness of it makes we wish we got something flat. it makes joining carpet (one closest i left alone) a pain that i haven't dealt with yet.

i really like the look of that wood tile.

Just a quick and easy thing, I pulled out all the gross yellow recessed lights with bulbs and replaced them with white LED ones today. I took the pictures in the kitchen because of the amount of lights close together, not sure that the pictures really do them justice, but it's much nicer. I replaced all the door weatherstripping, and am planning on painting the house this weekend.

Before-



And After-