Home "Improvement"

[Chip Strokes]

20 minutes ago, Lacassem said:

Amazing the projects. Looks awsome. How did all the rest of the clearing go in the back and how much loom did you need to bring in?

Looks like some good trees there, pear?

we ended up clearing way more than i ever set out to, but the yard really needed it. 

we brought in a few tons of dirt to make the hill on one side of the house less severe so my landscapers have access. and then i can’t tell you how much topsoil - still waiting on the invoice for that one haha.  

and yea - my wife got her fruit trees. apple, pear, peach, and cherry. along with 5 blueberry bushes. 

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

7 minutes ago, Chip Strokes said:

we ended up clearing way more than i ever set out to, but the yard really needed it. 

we brought in a few tons of dirt to make the hill on one side of the house less severe so my landscapers have access. and then i can’t tell you how much topsoil - still waiting on the invoice for that one haha.  

and yea - my wife got her fruit trees. apple, pear, peach, and cherry. along with 5 blueberry bushes. 

Those will cross pollinate nicely, should get some real fruit production in the next few years.

[sirchunksalot]

6 hours ago, Chip Strokes said:

after some time away, i’m back!  

 

here’s what’s been going on at the house since i was here last. 

 

at this point, i honestly wish we would’ve bought land and built from the ground up like we originally wanted to, but we’re making due. 

 

carpet tiles/kids playroom in the basement 

 

movie theater setup on the other side of the basement. wet bar coming soon!

 

ripped off the 3 level deck in the back and had a ~2000 sqft concrete patio poured and stamped. 

we also tore up the old driveway, expanded it to add a parking area, and now we’re waiting to pour new asphalt  

along with that has been a ton of landscaping work. trees have come down, lots of grading, we leveled a 60x40 area for my wife to have a garden next year. 

more is planned for the spring, but that’s enough for now. 

Looks like the house has been keeping you busy, but the work you've put in looks good. It's good to see you back on here and I'm glad to hear everything's going good. 

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

Amazing what a door handle and color change can do 

 

 

[GolfSpy BOS]

13 hours ago, Lacassem said:

Amazing what a door handle and color change can do 

 

 

Taking credit for your wife's work now, eh?  

 

Looks great!

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

42 minutes ago, GolfSpy_BOS said:

Taking credit for your wife's work now, eh?  

 

Looks great!

Twofer I did the handle she painted lol you know I don’t paint 

[tommc23]

With temps feeling like fall I decided to detach my yard and seed heavily. Got a sprinkler on a timer to get things going because I’m sick of my dogs hauling in a ton of mud during the winter. Got the sprinkler in the perfect place so it doesn’t go over my neighbors fence and doesn’t go onto my porch. My pool is vacuumed and I’ll be throwing my cover on tonight to keep stuff out of it so I can close it tomorrow 

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

6 hours ago, tommc23 said:

With temps feeling like fall I decided to detach my yard and seed heavily. Got a sprinkler on a timer to get things going because I’m sick of my dogs hauling in a ton of mud during the winter. Got the sprinkler in the perfect place so it doesn’t go over my neighbors fence and doesn’t go onto my porch. My pool is vacuumed and I’ll be throwing my cover on tonight to keep stuff out of it so I can close it tomorrow 

Perfect time for seed. 
aerating and seeding next week, needs aeration bad.

covering the pool up Thursday as well. After a vacuum tomorrow and chemicals Wednesday 

[tommc23]

9 hours ago, Lacassem said:

Perfect time for seed. 
aerating and seeding next week, needs aeration bad.

covering the pool up Thursday as well. After a vacuum tomorrow and chemicals Wednesday 

I did the aeration in the spring. I purchased a cheap thing that I change blades on it and does a version of both. I definitely got a lot of dense dirt and compacted got roots of the weeds up as well which was part of my plan.

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

Dart board area ready to go. Few more things to Hang up and want to get a board behind it at some point but works for now 

[tommc23]

My home improvement is taking down the deck around my pool. It was not level and I wanted to move it so that I could make it higher for easier access to the pool. Found the deck to be worse than I thought some supports sunk in and it was built by an a$$ who didn’t know how to build things. Some boards are not salvageable due to starting to rot due to not being pressure treated. Now I’m going to have a bigger yard and no deck around my pool next year but I don’t have to worry about it falling in on itself now

[Kenny B]

1 hour ago, Lacassem said:

Dart board area ready to go. Few more things to HS g uo and want to get a board behind it at some point but works for now 

Darts... just like I putt.  

[Placasse61]

Nice dart board! can't wait to kick your "ACE"

[mynerds]

Been on a hiatus from the forum as we’ve been taking care of some things around the house and with our family. As things settle back down, I want to share some of the updates and improvements! First up, the results from refinishing the garage floor (and future golf sim location):

[tony@CIC]

2 hours ago, mynerds said:

Been on a hiatus from the forum as we’ve been taking care of some things around the house and with our family. As things settle back down, I want to share some of the updates and improvements! First up, the results from refinishing the garage floor (and future golf sim location):

Great timing! I'm in the process of stripping the old chip type floor coating in our garage that the previous owner installed improperly. It looks like he didn't etch the floor - so now I've got a worse mess stripping, cleaning and then etching the floor.

Curious as to which product you used. I know that rust oleum makes the combo epoxy /urethane with the chips ( identical to what I currently have, The other is a granite type look from HD/Behr. Is that what you used or a different product? 

[mynerds]

1 hour ago, tony@CIC said:

Curious as to which product you used.

We actually hired out after talking to a neighbor about the woes of getting it wrong. He had many experiences with hot tires peeling consumer-grade* finishes up and found a local company that makes their own product in house. They spent about 3 hours shot-blasting the floor before putting the initial material down. Then chips, a top clear coat, and 5 hours later, they were done. The stuff was so potent that the small amount of fumes that made it through the cracks in the door to the garage woke us up in the middle of the night. Absolutely unreal, but it feels like it will stand the test of time.

[tony@CIC]

8 minutes ago, mynerds said:

We actually hired out after talking to a neighbor about the woes of getting it wrong. He had many experiences with hot tires peeling commercial-grade finishes up and found a local company that makes their own product in house. They spent about 3 hours shot-blasting the floor before putting the initial material down. Then chips, a top clear coat, and 5 hours later, they were done. The stuff was so potent that the small amount of fumes that made it through the cracks in the door to the garage woke us up in the middle of the night. Absolutely unreal, but it feels like it will stand the test of time.

Darn - I was hoping you had a less expensive option. The more I read about the prep of old sealed floors the more apprehensive I get. Now I'm thinking of getting someone to grind the floor to get the old finish off as well as the concrete sealer. Then apply a coating from Behr which is low VOC. The VOC content is important because my wife suffers from migraines and solvents are one of the triggers. We only use no VOC paint inside the house. I've used epoxy before and fumes are pretty intense as you mentioned. 

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

30 minutes ago, tony@CIC said:

Darn - I was hoping you had a less expensive option. The more I read about the prep of old sealed floors the more apprehensive I get. Now I'm thinking of getting someone to grind the floor to get the old finish off as well as the concrete sealer. Then apply a coating from Behr which is low VOC. The VOC content is important because my wife suffers from migraines and solvents are one of the triggers. We only use no VOC paint inside the house. I've used epoxy before and fumes are pretty intense as you mentioned. 

I’ve sealed the concrete and painted with the behr before. Worked great. Lasted 3 years and didn’t see anything chipping. Definitly a cheaper option

[cksurfdude]

So here's a good one... We bought our house from a builder who had pretty much gutted it and redone everything .. looked nice when we first looked at it but over time I kept discovering, ahhh, shortcuts he'd taken...

Anyway one of the first improvements we made was a new boiler (oil fired, hot water baseboards) and they also re-piped everything to the indirect water heater that was sitting next to it, that the builder had put in .. in place of the old coil inside the old boiler .. all inside a corner utility room in the now-finished basement.

Well over time that water heater developed a leak in the top gasket, so we got a replacement installed.

Guy calls me to come downstairs "hey look at this" - turns out that water heater the builder had put in?

Turns out it's w-i-d-e-r than the door the builder had put in when finishing the basement! So now the old water heater tank is stuck inside there... 

..so now have to get a contractor to take the door frame, and part of the finished wall, apart .. move the old tank out and then rebuild the door and wall

[tommc23]

14 hours ago, cksurfdude said:

So here's a good one... We bought our house from a builder who had pretty much gutted it and redone everything .. looked nice when we first looked at it but over time I kept discovering, ahhh, shortcuts he'd taken...

Anyway one of the first improvements we made was a new boiler (oil fired, hot water baseboards) and they also re-piped everything to the indirect water heater that was sitting next to it, that the builder had put in .. in place of the old coil inside the old boiler .. all inside a corner utility room in the now-finished basement.

Well over time that water heater developed a leak in the top gasket, so we got a replacement installed.

Guy calls me to come downstairs "hey look at this" - turns out that water heater the builder had put in?

Turns out it's w-i-d-e-r than the door the builder had put in when finishing the basement! So now the old water heater tank is stuck inside there... 

..so now have to get a contractor to take the door frame, and part of the finished wall, apart .. move the old tank out and then rebuild the door and wall

Cut the old water heater up screw taking it apart

[Rickp]

2 hours ago, tommc23 said:

Cut the old water heater up screw taking it apart

Yup.  We had to do that with my Daughters house.  She had a leaking oil tank in the basement with no way to get it out.  We drained it and cut it in 3 pieces.  

[revkev]

I realized that I mentioned our remodel but never showed these. That’s our fully ADA bathroom. Penny goes into that chair and is rolled into the shower. There is a very subtle ramp built into the floor that goes in. Lights and sink are on motion sensors so that a disabled person can operate them. 

 

Next up will be new windows throughout the house - they’ve been ordered and are due to be installed the end of February. 
 

After that it’s new flooring for the spare room which we redid ourselves - dry wall, ceiling fans, flexible partition. That room will ultimately become a den/2nd guest room. 

[Rickp]

1 hour ago, revkev said:

I realized that I mentioned our remodel but never showed these. That’s our fully ADA bathroom. Penny goes into that chair and is rolled into the shower. There is a very subtle ramp built into the floor that goes in. Lights and sink are on motion sensors so that a disabled person can operate them. 

 

Next up will be new windows throughout the house - they’ve been ordered and are due to be installed the end of February. 
 

After that it’s new flooring for the spare room which we redid ourselves - dry wall, ceiling fans, flexible partition. That room will ultimately become a den/2nd guest room. 

Came out great!!

[revkev]

9 hours ago, Rickp said:

Came out great!!

Thanks we are very pleased with it. 

[tony@CIC]

10 hours ago, Rickp said:

Came out great!!

Looks very nice - I'm sure it'll be a blessing for Penny. 

[Rickp]

1 hour ago, revkev said:

Thanks we are very pleased with it. 

I’m sure Penny will be happy with the upgrade, great job!!

[MattF]

23 hours ago, revkev said:

I realized that I mentioned our remodel but never showed these. That’s our fully ADA bathroom. Penny goes into that chair and is rolled into the shower. There is a very subtle ramp built into the floor that goes in. Lights and sink are on motion sensors so that a disabled person can operate them. 

 

Next up will be new windows throughout the house - they’ve been ordered and are due to be installed the end of February. 
 

After that it’s new flooring for the spare room which we redid ourselves - dry wall, ceiling fans, flexible partition. That room will ultimately become a den/2nd guest room. 

Very nice mate, great upgrade for Penny.

[GolfSpy_KFT]

Tackled a big project this past weekend with the help of one of my buddies from college. Golf is going to look just a bit sweeter on this setup after all the hours and work that went into it! 

[Headhammer]

17 hours ago, Jnoble89 said:

Tackled a big project this past weekend with the help of one of my buddies from college. Golf is going to look just a bit sweeter on this setup after all the hours and work that went into it! 

Very Cool!!

[rubidius]

I've been thinking recently that I need to redo the guest room or living room. However, I realized that my cats would still ruin my furniture. I gave up a long time ago.