Moving On

We have moved to a new site. Come see us and keep the fun going!

New Blog

More Fun at Steven's

This work-weekend day was once again about completing several small projects at Steven's house. Let's start at the beginning.

Utility Room

There were three goals for the utility room.

1. Install a sticky tile floor
2. Paint the walls
3. Repair a hole in the ceiling (thanks Directv installer!)

Dave removes the cover from the dryer while Chris paints his head.

The instructions for the sticky tile recommend that you clean your floor with a TPS solution. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. If you think just mopping the floor is good enough, you will be sorely disappointed when your sticky tile starts to pop up in a few months. To prove my point, first take a look at Chris applying the solution with a sponge, then look at what he squeezed out of the sponge in the infamous 'bucket picture'. Note that the floor was swept and mopped.

After you have a clean floor, lay out the tiles, peel off the backs, and stick them down. We used a rubber roller from Home Depot on each tile to make sure we got rid of all the air bubbles and that each square inch of the tile made contact with the floor. You can also stomp on each tile, but that involves a lot of standing up and crouching back down. Do yourself a favor and buy the rubber roller.

Before and After

Ok, so the Directv guy stepped through the ceiling. At least he did it cleanly. We were able to just 'reassemble' the pieces and screw each one of them into a block of wood Dave installed in the attic. Later, we will put some joint compound over the screw holes and the seams, then paint the whole ceiling.




Kitchen

The goals for the kitchen were to paint the ceiling and install a new ceiling fan. The existing ceiling fan worked fine, but was the ugliest blue I have ever seen. It had to go.

Family Room

In the family room, we painted the inside of the fireplace and replaced the vent covers on the ceiling. This is an inexpensive upgrade you can make that really makes quite a difference, as hopefully the picture shows.





Guest Bathroom

It seems we will never finish the guest bathroom. Right Dave? We had a couple of things to do in here. First, the cabinet doors were still not behaving, so Dave installed what he calls 'tangs'. I cannot find anyone else in the world who calls them this, but it's a great name. It is much better than, 'you know, those thingies you put on cabinet doors when they won't close'. We tried two styles, one magnetic and the other 'tangy'. Dave recommends the magnetic kind.

The other guest bathroom project involved putting some joint compound around the shower where the previous tile had ripped the wall off. Once it dried, it was simply a matter of sanding it smooth and re-nailing the trim. All that's left is to paint the wall.

Hall Lighting

The hall had some pretty ugly light fixtures installed. They were just begging to be replaced with some modern recessed lighting.

This is a pretty easy job, involving removing the old light, cutting a hole in the ceiling (you get a template when you buy recessed lights), wiring up the new light, then putting the recessed trim up (you get little springs and hooks when you buy the trim).

There is a little mess made when you cut the hole, because insulation and dry-wall come tumbling down and hit the floor.

The end result is worth it though.

Finally...

I purchased a new shelf for the utility room and assembled it in the family room while the utility room was being sticky-tiled. For a brief period of time, that lucky shelf got to do something great...hold pizza for the work crew. 'Til next time!

Painting Daniel's House

This was a day filled with excitement. The work weekend crew was out in full force, along with Daniel's parents, grandparents (!), and a friend or two from our other job (the one where we get paid).

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera this day, but luckily Dave had his camera...with about an hour's worth of battery power.

And so it is that we bring you just a few snapshots of the fun we had the day we painted the outside of Daniel's house.







Oh yeah, one thing. Daniel's house is 17 million stories tall, so we had to rent some scaffolding and paint high in the sky. I did not like this at all, and stayed on levels one and two, while Dave seemed to get some kind of kick out of standing on the tippy-top, wobbly level. Ah, the folly of youth...

Smash 'Em Up's House

Well, it's our first trip to Smash 'Em Up's House, and he had several small projects in store, along with a couple of bigger projects. The small projects included lots of painting, upgrading light fixtures, reparing broken light fixtures, and installing a ceiling fan. But before we get to all that, BREAKFAST!

Tasty McDonald's Sausage, Egg, Cheese Biscuits.


Small Project #1 - Updating Light Fixtures

The only thing more boring than watching paint dry is seeing pictures of guys painting, so let's jump right into the lighting upgrades. We replaced two major out-dated light fixtures. Here are a couple of before and after pictures.






Small Project #2 - Fixing and Installing Things

We made a broken ceiling fan come to life, made a few broken lights shine, and installed a ceiling fan in the master bedroom. FUN GAME: This blog contains two cameo appearances by Chris's wife. Appearance one appears in the following set of photos. Can you find appearance two later on?

Broken...


Fixed...Chris was very shocked when we got this working :)


Pegboard...


Installed pegboard, awaiting glorious, manly tools...


New ceiling fan in master bedroom...


Big Project #1 - Building a Dishwasher Cubby

Chris bought a new dishwasher, and most dishwashers these days are designed without sides, because they're meant to be installed in a unit beside the kitchen sink. His previous dishwasher was vintage and was a standalone unit. Something had to be done.

The new dishwasher...beautiful front, ugly top and sides


Home Depot gave us some extrememly warped wood, but no bother. Here we show you how to handle this. Put a two-by-four on the ground, and put the warped wood on top of it. Have a 200 pound guy stand on the warped would to temporarily flatten it. While the wood is in this state, have another guy nail the wood to a one-by piece.


A good lookin' cubby, but one problem. Cubby should really be pushed up flush against the wall, but the baseboards and power plug are prohibiting that.


Solution part one - remove baseboard with wonder-bar.


Solution part two - drill hole in side of cubby for power cord to sneak out of. (Note: use the side that will be against the refrigerator so nobody will see it)


We thought we were done, but we discovered yet another problem. Due to the warped wood and lack of bracing, when we put the microwave on top of the cubby, the weight of the microwave caused the dishwasher door to be stuck. Daniel really came through with this brilliant solution...shims! Now, we have a fully functional cubby, just awaiting some paint (ooooh, or tile?!).


Big Project #2 - Patch a Hole in the Ceiling

What follows is a step-by-step set of instructions for properly patching a hole in the ceiling. Each step is important, but I feel that the last step is key.

Step 1: Observe and admire the previous patching effort. Honor the sacrifice of time and expense that was given, but agree that you can do better and press on.


Step Two: Remove previous patching effort with a sharp blade.


Step Three: Climb in the attic and install a healthy piece of wood above the hole. Then measure the dimensions of the hole, and cut a piece of sheet-rock to match.


Step Four: Screw the new sheet-rock into the installed wood. File down any sheetrock that is protruding past ceiling level.


Step Five: Buy a brush that matches the stippling pattern of your ceiling, and apply joint-compound over the new sheet-rock.


Step Six: Accept the FACT that no matter how hard you try, you will NEVER get the pattern just perfectly right, and people will ALWAYS be able to tell there was a hole there if they look hard enough (hint: NOBODY ever looks hard enough, except for YOU). Realize that YOU stare at the former hole much more than anybody else EVER will. If you cannot deal with the imperfection, accept the fact that the only alternative is to hire a professional that does this sort of thing 10 hours a day. It will cost you approximately $250, and it will take him about 20 minutes to do what takes you a couple of hours. Granted, when he gets done, it will be darn near perfect. In the end, you must make a decision: spend $20 and a couple of hours for a pretty good patch job, or $250 and 20 minutes being shown how unskilled you are for a perfect patch job.

Me, I'll spend the $20 and use my savings to buy pizza and beer.