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I moved into a new apartment a few months ago and the place was a dump. I knew this moving in, but the location and price were exactly what I wanted and the landlord is a pretty cool dude who's been more than happy to foot the bill on getting things fixed up, as long as I do the work. My biggest project was replacing the doors on the kitchen cabinets. The original doors were in terrible shape with bits broken off an many doors nearly falling off their hinges, so this was badly needed. Warning, terrible cell phone pictures ahead. I went from:  to:  Here's a whole gallery of the process. Next up is getting the kitchen counter replaced. As you may be able to see in those images, its a really old particle board counter that is falling apart. Water has gotten in to the material and swollen it. Its become an unhygienic mess. Sauer fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 00:14
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I like the old doors better, but maybe some nice knobs could liven the new ones up a little.
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Sep 8, 2013 02:48
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DSauer posted:Next up is getting the kitchen counter replaced. As you may be able to see in those images, its a really old particle board counter that is falling apart. Water has gotten in to the material and swollen it. Its become an unhygienic mess. Why. Why do people use particle board in moisture prone areas?
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Sep 8, 2013 02:59
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Crossposting from the woodworking thread. Carbide lathe tools. Maple handles, 1/2" steel round bar, copper ferrule, carbide cutters. If I do this again I will use aluminum square stock instead of round steel.     Chip carving knife. I need to grind the edge more. This will probably end up as a whittling knife because it's too big and I'll make another for chip carving.   
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Sep 8, 2013 03:23
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My project is to convert this: to this:  Since buying my house over a year ago, last summer, I've been saying "I want to plant a garden," but I keep lazing on it and not actually getting anything done towards that goal. So tonight I bought materials, and tomorrow I'll chop them up and start assembling and digging. The previous owners had a swing set in the back yard, but they took it with them, leaving a nice gravel pit surrounded by 12' long 6" beams laid into the ground, with a 4x6 sand box in one corner. I've been letting weeds grow in it, but tomorrow I'll chop them down and burn anything that's left. I'll keep the sandbox as pictured in the upper right corner, and put in 12" tall planter boxes as pictured, three of them 4x9, and one just under 5' square. The square one might actually get a cellar-type door on it and be storage for gardening supplies.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:21
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Finished this clock a while back...  And just yesterday I finished this one:  This one is a 4x IN-17 tube ArduiNIX build inside a wooden NES style case.  Oh and the case also holds a raspberry Pi.  Which I can use to play all the games.
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Sep 10, 2013 02:44
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Wow, that puts my nixie clock to shame! Can I ask how you did that gorgeous aluminum back-panel on the first clock?
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Sep 10, 2013 03:50
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Scottw330 posted:Wow, that puts my nixie clock to shame! Of course, I got a plate of stainless steel laser etched by a local shop here in Austin, TX. It cost about 60 bucks and they included the plate of stainless. I provided the artwork.
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Sep 10, 2013 03:59
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nonentity posted:And just yesterday I finished this one:  Dear god, I would trade my motorcycle for that. Well, not really, but I'd think about it for awhile.
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Sep 10, 2013 06:35
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DSauer posted:I moved into a new apartment a few months ago and the place was a dump. I knew this moving in, but the location and price were exactly what I wanted and the landlord is a pretty cool dude who's been more than happy to foot the bill on getting things fixed up, as long as I do the work. My biggest project was replacing the doors on the kitchen cabinets. The original doors were in terrible shape with bits broken off an many doors nearly falling off their hinges, so this was badly needed. Warning, terrible cell phone pictures ahead. I tried posting from my cracked phone... So I went through your pictures and that pos kitchen does not deserve the work you did and you are going to do. It is a lovely old apartment kitchen. But you did what I would have wanted to do and it's really great work. You are lucky to have a good landlord on this one. McBeth fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 03:04
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DSauer posted:I moved into a new apartment a few months ago and the place was a dump. I knew this moving in, but the location and price were exactly what I wanted and the landlord is a pretty cool dude who's been more than happy to foot the bill on getting things fixed up, as long as I do the work. My biggest project was replacing the doors on the kitchen cabinets. The original doors were in terrible shape with bits broken off an many doors nearly falling off their hinges, so this was badly needed. Warning, terrible cell phone pictures ahead. Personally I would have gone with white in color, but who cares. Also your landlord is getting a good deal letting you do that work. Nice job!
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Sep 16, 2013 06:01
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nonentity posted:
Ohhhh I hate you so much, you got featured on hackaday.
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Sep 18, 2013 23:21
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Golly!
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Sep 19, 2013 15:06
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 This is my back deck. It needs a new coat of Deck Restore because I can see the seams of the surface underneath (which is the roof of my kitchen). The railing needs a new coat of stain and a weatherproof seal. The shingles on the house need staining and sealing as well. It's September in the Pacific Northwest and the rain is due to start this weekend. I am posting this in hopes that it will force me to get it all done before winter comes. Edit: Today I swept the whole thing down to get it prepped and to see the extent of what needs to be done. Looks like there's a gap in the soffit too and a bird has made a home within. Super. ButWhatIf fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 19, 2013 23:27
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Making some progress on my planter beds. They're not actually going to be floating as pictured, those posts will go into the ground so that the bottom edge of the walls will be on/just in the ground.   They're coming together very nicely! I'm excited. I'm going to run an underground water line out there, and hell, maybe electricity just for kicks. Should have no trouble getting it done before winter hits, and then I'll be all ready to go come spring.
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Sep 25, 2013 01:54
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If anyone here is familiar with 2D Turn based Strategy map creation (Fire emblem especially) I'd love any input or tips on the creation of them from scratch. I've got a few rough designs already but I feel they're not living up to their potential. 
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Sep 27, 2013 03:21
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Planters are basically done, just need a ton of dirt and then I wait for spring.
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Sep 28, 2013 01:00
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what happen? they all fell on the ground and your dog disapproves of his lost hiding place
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Sep 28, 2013 01:42
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Yeah, he's all mopey now. He was really enjoying the shade while I was out there working today, and then they got too short for him.  Anyhow, as nice as it might have been to have floating beds like they appeared to be at first, the plan was always to have them on the ground. The legs were intended to be sunk into the ground as anchors so that they won't shift around or anything with the freezing/thawing. I used an auger to bore out some holes for those posts, worked great, although I probably should have thrown a little quikrete down the hole with the legs to really lock them in. Oh well!
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Sep 28, 2013 02:49
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5 truck loads of dirt later (1/2 yard per load) and I'm good to go. Got a tree, too: it's a serviceberry tree. I'd never heard of that before, but I guess they're sorta like blueberries but a little tart. Totally edible, though, and good for making stuff with. Also, if we don't pick 'em, the birds will go bonkers for them, so we shouldn't have to worry about cleaning up after the tree. And since I moved the sandbox and put that planter where it was, the tree should cast a nice dappled shade on the sandbox during mid-day. And it flowers in the spring! Apparently one of the first things to bloom. So that'll be pretty. Pretty proud of myself right now. While it wasn't a very technical project, it was a good amount of physical labor. Always feels good to finish a project like that. 
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Sep 29, 2013 00:59
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Mega post coming up: Back in April 2012 my mom decided to get serious about selling her house. For the past 7 years maintenance has been minimal, particularly in the yard. In 2008 she had roughly a dozen trees removed, opening the yard up to light. Without any landscaping, the weeds took over. I came back from college in the summer to this:   Weeds going crazy, up to 5' tall. We rented a bob cat and I did some work:   (roughly the same perspective as the first two) At this point we dropped the ball. She was hesitant to spend any more cash and wanted minimal maintenance. We planted some ivy and bamboo, but nothing worked out. Also I hosed poo poo up by cracking the septic distribution box with the bobcat. It was easy enough to glue together. I wanted to keep the glue dry while it cured, so I connected the septic tank inlet to the drain field outlet with a hose. There was enough pressure on the inlet line to knock the lid off and create a gray water fountain roughly 15' high, fertilizing all the weeds downhill. Next spring the sticker bushes were roughly 1.5" thick. From there on out we held off the weeds but never made significant jumps forward. In early 2012 she became motivated to sell her house, and committed to a larger budget. I befriended a realtor at work and things started to fall into place. April 2012 I took these "before" pics:     My realtor friend gave the following input: Take the driveway island out Flatten the front yard Cleanup the back Fix the deck New carpet and paint I started with a retaining wall:       Cleaning out the back yard:    Clearing the driveway island:      I moved the first 10 yards of dirt with a shovel. I wanted to backfill the retaining wall prior to bringing in the bobcat and provide some room for the additional backfill to be delivered without mixing with the gravel. I rented a lovely stump grinder from home depot. It broke after an hour:  We had another 20 yards of fill dirt delivered and a skid steer.     Unfortunately it rained pretty hard, making it difficult to operate on the side yard. After nearly rolling the skid steer and sliding down the hill, I call it quits. Next weekend I had 10 yards of top soil delivered and seeded the wall!   At this point we decide to hire a stump grinder to remove 11 stumps from the driveway and side yard. We found a guy with a 65hp turbo diesel grinder (home depot's grinder was 13hp). Before grinding:    After:   $1700 well spent I started looking at the deck while I was planning the next steps for the yard:  The lower deck was a lot more rotten than I had thought; proximity to the ground and accumulated tree debris make a deck's life hard. I slow down on that. We start cleaning out the inside of the house:  A 40yard dumpster, nearly full. The new lawn is looking good!  It's mid July now. We're 3 months in, and our goal is to list the house in August. I decided to flatten the yard with a skid steer and hire a landscaper to finish the lawn while I start focusing on the interior. Gravel and a tracked skid steer arrive one Saturday:    This part of the yard was too steep to safely operate the skid steer. Six hours into the day the started broke on the skid steer:  It sat for two days until the rental company repaired it. I get to work Tuesday night:  I wish I could have perfected the yard, but operating the skid steer beat the poo poo out of me. I'm 6'4" and barely fit in that machine. My elbows were chaffed from the lack of suspension and rough arm rests. Still, it's good progress. We had driveway rock delivered:   Now the landscapers start working while I focus on the deck and interior. They cleared out the perimeter:   While I assess the work ahead:     Regarding the deck, the realtor advised to tear out the lower portion rather than deal with it:        I had to dig up the septic tank to have it pumped:  Meanwhile the landscapers are making good progress:  And eventually have the lawn seeded:  Next we had the carpet removed and interior painters come in. All this time I had our piano on craigslist for $20 with no takers. The last day I had to get rid of it:  With a sawzall  The carpet is out and the painters are getting setup:  At this point I had a week long vacation scheduled so we found a handyman on craigslist. He found the deck-to-house interface had rotten away over the years:    He rebuilt it but was overall unprofessional and didn't do much for his rate. It'd now mid august and we're behind schedule. I start taking fewer pictures now, unfortunately.   We asked the handyman (who claimed to specialize in carpentry) to replace the splash board. I give it a shot but my skills and cheap table saw can't cut that precisely, so I spend $4 on tile. Meanwhile the front is looking good!    I focus on the garage doors:     Lowes sells the shittiest garage doors, FYI.  The carpenter rebuilt the CRT style TV cabinet into a shelf. And our meth head painters didn't attempt to mask the damage or anything.  The carpenter/handyman left the job without putting siding back up.  Or installing a railing. I had to built it. We're still a little ways from listing but the realtor put his sign up (probably to pressure me). It's late August and the real esate season was winding down.  I barely took any photos from here until we listed. It was primarily cleaning, removing trash and tools, and the endless assortment of finishing touches. We listed mid September and received an offer 3 days later!       It was roughly 6 months of my life, putting in between 10 and 40 hours a week on top of my full time job. My mom ended up spending $27k on materials and other labor. We're looking at $292k - the realtor said we'd be lucky to get $160k without any work. GI Joe jobs fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Sep 29, 2013 |
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Sep 29, 2013 21:10
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Awesome post, thanks for that. The numbers make it obvious, but I agree: the work done made that house happen. It looked like your typical dank, overgrown pac nw or new england state apathy house before, now it looks fantastic. Landscaping alone can do wonders for a house when you're trying to sell, it really nails the first impression, and all the other work on the house itself seals the deal once the buyers are looking around. And that deck looks fantastic now, I rather prefer it without the lower deck once there's some grass around it. And there's still a ton of deck left over. More organic and welcoming, less 80s picnic venue. Crazy about the piano, though.
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Sep 29, 2013 21:37
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In the 70s, My grandparents bought 200 acres of woodland for the extended family to camp on. There's a little log cabin and a lake so small it's surrounded by the property, and not much else but rock and swamp - except for an old homestead pasture with some decent topsoil. With permission from the folks, I've set off to start a small market garden to serve (gouge) the local summer cottagers. I've been working on an organic vegetable garden 45km away for 4 seasons now, and am beginning to feel that urge every farm grunt has to start something on their own. My boss offered to hire me part-time next year so that I can work on my land for half the week. If I start with lower maintenance crops (taters, carrots, kale, etc) that don't need constant picking (tomatoes, peas) and convince my hippie ex-coworker living down the road to help harvest on friday, I could hit two farmer's markets over the weekend. Ok, too much more explaining and I'll have to start a thread about it. Pictures! In the center is the thickest stand of wild raspberry I'd ever seen. The rest is grass and sumac on the edges. Figure I can open up an acre next season and get another two later by cutting the sumac.  Can't start anything without a cooking pit first  The grass was too long and matted for my oldass garden tractor to plough through and I still need to drop some poplar in front of the gate before I can get in with a borrowed flail mower. Lets long-game it with some plastic bale cover. By next summer, that grass will be burnt to almost nothing  Still want to plant garlic in October, so I went at the raspberry with a borrowed fancy metal blade whipper snipper and forked the canes into a big fuckoff pile to be burned or composted or ignored forever. It was so thick, the ground was grass-free and easily workable with the tiller. A shallow pass ripped out the roots for easy raking, making the second pass very deep and fluffy. Can't wait to pull all the lovely regrowth out from the garlic patch next year!!!  This thing is so dangerous, gently caress  TODO: -Plant a grip of garlic, straw mulch -Clear gate, dig out stumps -Plan seed and irrigation (gas pump from lake, low-pressure wobbler sprinklers) -Open up at least 3/4 of an acre with a real grownup tractor -Figure out the potable water situation for washing vegetables. The soil is sandy and easy to get off, so maybe I can just drive in a water tank and a 12v pump for pressure. If I actually make any goddamn money, I'll consider investing in a well -Simple movable hot houses. I'm thinking 10x10 wood A-frames with greenhouse plastic stapled on -Workspace and storage. Used shipping container? Could also insulate part of it and get a propane-powered refrigeration thingy for overnight harvest storage -COMPOST COMPOST COMPOST -1000 other things this post is too long
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Sep 30, 2013 02:06
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Yay, I'm not the only one starting a garden! Yours is a bit more substantial than mine.  If you want to crosspost, there is a gardening thread, it hasn't completely died off yet: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3471300 It sounds like you have a ton more experience than I do. I'd love to harangue you this fall, you should definitely make an appearance in the gardening thread.
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Sep 30, 2013 02:24
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Gullous posted:Awesome work Great post, amazing finished product!
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Sep 30, 2013 15:30
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Gullous posted:Next we had the carpet removed and interior painters come in. All this time I had our piano on craigslist for $20 with no takers. The last day I had to get rid of it:
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Oct 1, 2013 17:08
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If you live in a small town with limited resources, often times a little church will take one.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:10
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Bad Munki posted:If you live in a small town with limited resources, often times a little church will take one. I don't think they'll take that one.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:23
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Hahaha, well not now. Maybe for a church bonfire.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:24
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And yet Costco still has pianos on display right up front for like $2,000+ while piano warehouses go out of business like flies. I remember in the 90s when it was The Thing to have a piano in your house, and now they just collect dust. On a more on-topic note, I want to post about landscaping my backyard and ask for advice, and while I have a vegetable garden, it doesn't really fit into the gardening thread, and I don't see a general backyard project or landscaping thread. I guess I would just post it in this thread? Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 17:28
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That's what the rest of us have been doing. There's Let's Plant A Garden like you said, but it's pretty quiet and whatever, we're all here anyhow, let's see what you've got. 
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Oct 1, 2013 17:37
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Bad Munki posted:That's what the rest of us have been doing. There's Let's Plant A Garden like you said, but it's pretty quiet and whatever, we're all here anyhow, let's see what you've got.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:57
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Maybe you could try the fix it fast sticky first? I've had good luck there before with general questions.
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Oct 1, 2013 18:06
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dreesemonkey posted:Maybe you could try the fix it fast sticky first? I've had good luck there before with general questions.
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Oct 1, 2013 18:55
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Well, you could make a thread for it, too.
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Oct 1, 2013 18:58
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Rotten Red Rod posted:And yet Costco still has pianos on display right up front for like $2,000+ while piano warehouses go out of business like flies. I remember in the 90s when it was The Thing to have a piano in your house, and now they just collect dust. It costs more than that to get an old piano restored, and if you don't restore it you'll be paying a piano tuner to come out every couple of months. Pianos do not age well.
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Oct 1, 2013 19:44
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You'd think with the current metal price they'd be worth their weight in cast iron!
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Oct 2, 2013 02:39
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Rotten Red Rod posted:I went through the same thing while selling off stuff when my girlfriend's parents were moving. We posted ads for the piano for $100, $50, then free, and we finally called a piano shop. She said there's no market at all for used or vintage pianos anymore, and they actually had to PAY another company to come pick up all their old pianos just to get rid of them. So unless you have one that's like 100 years old and in perfect condition, expect to have to junk it. If you're near an Air Force fighter base squadrons traditionally burn a piano for the Battle of Britain anniversary party. We had trouble finding one last year. http://christianfighterpilot.com/blog/2009/09/16/fighter-pilot-traditions-burning-the-piano/
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Oct 2, 2013 03:46
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~Coxy posted:You'd think with the current metal price they'd be worth their weight in cast iron! Only after my project did I learn about the relative ease and profit from scraping metal. The piano alone was had to have been 200lbs in cast iron.
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Oct 4, 2013 05:46
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Awesome transformation! I can't imagine how much the renovation would have cost without all the work you put in.
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Oct 8, 2013 03:43
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