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My husband and I are 62, and we need grab bars in the shower just in case. This is the shower stall in our new house. If the handyman does a thorough job of caulking, will that keep the screw holes from leaking behind the stall? Also, take a gander at the floor covering. Ouchie. The house is old enough (1931) that I don't want to cope with whatever's underneath the '70s (at a guess) stuff. It's in fine shape, just ugly. It's a teensy room, just the shower stall. I'd like to put another layer of vinyl on top of it. However, the vinyl is textured. My Googling is divided; half of it says to use an embossing leveler and then put vinyl down, the other half says not to use embossing leveler on vinyl, because it's intended for wood or concrete. Thoughts? No, scraping it all out and laying ceramic tile is not happening. As a sweetener, here's the glass washboard the previous owners left behind. As I recall, you used glass washboards for washing your delicates; they aren't as abrasive as the metal kind.
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# ¿ Aug 1, 2021 19:49 |
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 12:50 |
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PainterofCrap posted:You could screw a layer of luan onto it, then install whatever you like. I did this to install glass tile - luan, then 1/4” Hardiebacker, mastic, tile. I don't have the tools or skills necessary to cut luan to fit this L-shaped (it doesn't show, but there's a closet) bathroom. All I want is to hide the ugly vinyl, not to put down an entire new floor+tiles sandwich.
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# ¿ Aug 1, 2021 21:28 |
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tetrapyloctomy posted:I hasn't even thought of fiber, I was thinking cat8 provided anything was pullable at all. If not, well, I get upward of 750 Mbps on MoCA 2.5 and could possibly cut out a splitter in there. If you're an internet maximalist, why aren't you pulling strings and leaving them in the wall for future upgrades?
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# ¿ Aug 4, 2021 16:06 |
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I knew a guy in 1985 who was building a new house and put AppleTalk cables throughout the house. I don't know if he left strings in place as well, but I hope so.
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# ¿ Aug 4, 2021 18:10 |
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BadSamaritan posted:That said, if you’re in an area where most houses are new construction, try to get referrals for contractors that work on older houses and know what to expect. Also be prepared for nothing to be truly square. Ball Tazeman posted:Yanked out the giant cedar bushes from the front of the house today and found this cement going around the front of the house? I want to just make this a nice garden bed, should I work to expose it all or just cover it with landscaping material, dirt and rocks like the PO had done? That cement is keeping runoff water from contacting the sills of your house; it should be sloping away from the house. You do not want dirt on top of that cement. You do your landscaping in front of it, and put in tall plants in the back to hid the foundation.
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# ¿ Aug 8, 2021 00:05 |
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If you accepted one, does it matter if more offers roll in?
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# ¿ Aug 10, 2021 03:27 |
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My selling realtor is just saying *bids must be in by Wednesday." Which leaves us in control of the decision.
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# ¿ Aug 10, 2021 04:43 |
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(tangent) I am really cranky that the author of that article didn't credit Lillian Moller Gilbreth, who invented the thing. She broke ground in a lot of ways. Pioneering woman engineer, helped invent industrial psychology, collaborated with her husband Frank in making time and motion studies a major industrial tool, applied industrial-process methods to homemaking and to living as a disabled person. And, oh, yes, she and her husband had twelve children, resulting in two memoirs (by her daughters) and at least one movie. But that's not why she's important.
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# ¿ Aug 16, 2021 18:23 |
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just another posted:My house has two fireplaces, formerly wood-burning, traditional fireplaces that were at some point converted to natural gas inserts. How unreasonable/costly would it be to convert them back to an open wood burning fireplace or a wood insert? The work triangle was explicitly designed for one housewife to be able to use the kitchen efficiently. If you're likely to have two people in the kitchen, you need a design that supports keeping them out of each other's paths: a separate baking area, a separate grilling area, whatever.
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# ¿ Aug 17, 2021 16:55 |
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Johnny Truant posted:Oh definitely not, it's a wooden fireplace.
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# ¿ Aug 17, 2021 18:03 |
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PainterofCrap posted:Smoke is not an issue with a clean, complete and intact flue and liner, whether there's a screen there or not.. There's always a little on first lighting, but the draw should begin promptly.
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# ¿ Aug 18, 2021 00:16 |
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These people built their dream house, and it shows. Oh, how it shows. https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/12773-Pine-Ave_Potter-Valley_CA_95469_M24008-44085#photo1 e: Don't miss the bathroom. They've broken incoming links, so go see photo 20 and marvel. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Aug 19, 2021 |
# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 18:56 |
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cruft posted:I think that house rules. I might even consider buying it if I had $800k and wanted to live anywhere near there.
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# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 19:32 |
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PageMaster posted:Should have wrote that blinds and plantation shutters were turned down because wife thought they made the house too dark; I may be able to find some that don't block as much? Good to know if there are issues that window films can cause though You can get absolutely glorious lace curtains. If I had a floor-to-ceiling window I would definitely own this and also this and this, as well as the Victorian/Edwardian usuals.
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# ¿ Aug 24, 2021 01:19 |
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Queen Victorian posted:This poo poo is so my jam. Right now my house is full of gross plastic blinds with oversized white slats and they are the worst. When I get around to window treatments I'm totally going whole hog Victorian. No floor to ceiling windows, but some of them are still taller than I am. You should know about Bradbury & Bradbury and Burrows Studio. Look at the pictures and dream of large houses and larger money.
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# ¿ Aug 24, 2021 03:12 |
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Motronic posted:You probably want to talk to you county ag extension about water testing.
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# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 16:51 |
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Hard to set your drink on fire without it?
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# ¿ Aug 30, 2021 04:28 |
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One of our double-pane glass windows is foggy. How do I figure out the manufacturer to see if it's under warranty? (Put in by previous owner, no records.)
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# ¿ Sep 7, 2021 01:20 |
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Ball Tazeman posted:I bought some vinyl flooring and am finally going to take on the task of getting rid of this disgusting carpet. Does anybody have suggestions for an odor or mildew proofing primer for the subfloor? Kilz is a classic for a reason.
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 19:08 |
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Seen on Reddit:quote:When my parents and I (aged 7) moved into my childhood home, we found a little vacuum in the closet with a note taped to it that said “Good luck” and that’s it. Shortly after that, we discovered that the house had a yellow jacket infestation. That vacuum, dear reader, was the yellow jacket vacuum. My most horrible memory of that time is of taking a bath and suddenly hearing a buzzing very nearby and seeing little wasp legs and heads sticking out from the bathtub overflow drain. They’d also swim up through the toilet (HOW?!?!????) and come up from the sink drains. We spent much of that first year screaming. But I came here to ask about this: quote:If you live in a single-family home you can go check the vent pipe. I've pulled a squirrel out of one, but never had bees in it before. Usually its those Maple Tree seeds that twirl like helicopters.
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# ¿ Sep 13, 2021 18:33 |
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Johnny Truant posted:Ding ding ding, that isn't a plinth block, it's just one of the circular accents that're supposed to be placed in the upper corners of doors! And the other tall piece is just a weird corner.. accent? thing that they put in random locations. No, not every doorway corner has one, in case you were wondering.
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# ¿ Sep 19, 2021 17:15 |
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toplitzin posted:My new house has an interior dryer vent.
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# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 17:36 |
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Tell me more! I have a shower room that desperately needs an external vent, but the wall is 3" thick, the exterior has both asbestos shingles and lead paint, and the space between ceiling and floor of the room above is narrow.
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# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 18:14 |
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I just had an electrician in to do some stuff in my 1931 house. It, too, has knob-and-tube pigtailed down to Romex in the crawlspace. All of the walls are beadboard nailed to redwood 4x8s (logging area). The electrician told me that replacing the rest of the wiring would be a nightmare, because there would be drilled holes through all those studs, with knobs on each side of every hole. And you can't just drill a hole through beadboard and slap on some plaster on top of it. Furthermore, the beadboard in the house is in various widths and of various ages, often in the same room. To fix it, we'd have to put wiremold on top of the walls to every socket and switch. No, thanks.
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# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 00:34 |
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spf3million posted:Anything wrong with throwing a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes on top of the dirt in our crawl space? I plan on crawling around down there to do some wiring projects over the next couple of months and it'd be nicer to be laying on cardboard than dirt. No evidence of previous water intrusion. NomNomNom posted:It'd be expensive, but you could just rerun the entire house from the crawlspace, fishing new wire up to the existing receptacles. The electrician is skeptical that these walls are fishable, given the construction. There aren't big empty vertical voids.
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# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 16:20 |
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The Wonder Weapon posted:I appreciate everyone's feedback. The area that I'll be planting trees in is now very bumpy soil covered in various twigs, dead leaves, etc. Here's what I'm thinking about. (I live in Buffalo, for what it's worth.) If you don't want plants there at all (other than the trees), then till thoroughly (rent a tiller) to get rid of the existing weed roots, and go with landscape fabric and river rocks, or landscape fabric and mulch. If you do want plants there, then weeding comes with the territory. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Sep 30, 2021 |
# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 16:57 |
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The Wonder Weapon posted:I do have a tiller in fact. I kind of thought that tilling the soil would just stir up the weed roots, but not get rid of them. Is that not true? e: To make double-sure, put up with a summer of ugliness and cover the tilled bed with either a thick layer of newspaper or garden-weight black plastic. The summer heat will kill anything underneath.
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# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 23:10 |
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Motronic posted:* actual results may vary. DO NOT TILL AFTER THIS, as you may drag up dormant weed seeds that didn't get totally smoked by solarizng.
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# ¿ Oct 1, 2021 17:36 |
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NomNomNom posted:Threw some color swatches up on the wall. I'm partial to the green but everyone else I've polled likes the grey. It's crazy how blue the grey looks on the brick (there are only two colors).
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# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 02:03 |
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NomNomNom posted:But the wife chose the grey Duel to the death using paint samples. e: yeah. I was always "Turn right, and it's third on the right. Bright blue house, you can't miss it."
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# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 16:55 |
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w00tmonger posted:Just bought a new place and want to put some legitimate effort into decorating the place and color coordinating it. Any good recommendations for where I should start? Let's assume you started with the living/eating room. Look at the furniture you already have and see if there's any of it you like. If you found a really comfortable chair on the curb, is it worth reupholstering? My own opinion is that in many cases, depending on your budget, you'll be better off buying a decades-old couch/sofa and reupholstering it than you would be buying something new at the same price. We have an armchair of my grandfather's (born early 20th century) that has been through three reupholsterings with us and is still going strong. A good couch/chair can adapt to your style over and over again. Make sure it feels comfortable, shake the chair frame and make sure it's solid. It will last longer than whatever you buy from (for instance) Wayfair.
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# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 19:35 |
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Tell me where you found those tiles, please!
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# ¿ Oct 11, 2021 04:19 |
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SpartanIvy posted:I've been on-and-off restoring a vintage Chambers stove for almost the last 2 years and finally got it moved into the kitchen today and setup. It rules and I have to brag. Unfortunately I'm too tired from moving it and getting it setup to actually cook anything on it tonight. What a beauty! That grill! That slow-cook recess! (Do you have a pot that fits it?)
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# ¿ Oct 17, 2021 19:33 |
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Man, I remember when those were super chic; the idea was prep vegetables on the right, wash stuff on the left. Anyway, a 39" farmhouse sink, a 37" you might be able to fudge depending on the opening, a 37 7/8 ditto. I don't know what your countertop/cabinet setup is like, and how much leeway you have to enlarge or diminish the opening. Go here and see what you think. 35" and above. We've had two different Moen pull-down faucets, the ones with a spring above the faucet and a pull-down head, and they are wonderful. You can fill up the tallest pot, and when you need to spray things, you get the full force of the water stream. There are many subtle variants on this design; we got ours from Costco in the mid-$300, IIRC. Worth every penny, if you've got that many.
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# ¿ Oct 24, 2021 17:59 |
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Sous Videodrome posted:To "feather your edge" means that you pressed the knife onto the wall in such a way that the very edge of your mud is imperceptibly thin and ideally doesn't need further sanding. You pressed the outside edge of the knife down harder than the inside edge. Being able to do this is a skill that you just won't have on your first drywall job. That's fine. Just do your best when applying it and plan on sanding off any seams before you prime and paint. OHHH. I always tried to feather the edge by scraping with a lighter and lighter touch, rather than by simply pressing the knife at a steep angle. Now I know.
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# ¿ Oct 25, 2021 21:31 |
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I haven't seen anybody mention that side lights on a door are a gift to would-be burglars. On the other hand, so is every other ground-floor window, so
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# ¿ Oct 29, 2021 17:52 |
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Sarah Bellum posted:We replaced some 90 year old windows in our house yesterday. The old ones were rusting and had little windows that opened but never closed properly because they had 90 years of paint on them, and most of the opaque, single-glazed panes were cracked. The frames were made from iron and securely anchored under the brick so it took 2 guys 5 hours to cut them out and replace them with these double-glazed beauties.
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# ¿ Oct 31, 2021 03:47 |
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I ordered a Bosch in August. They said it would probably be in mid-November. It isn't even on the boat yet. Welcome to shopping for appliances in TYOOL 2021.
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# ¿ Oct 31, 2021 19:36 |
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We've had two Bosches, and both of them were standard American-dishwasher sizes. I know because they fit exactly into the niche left into American cabinets. Oh, wait, this is crosstalk. NM is talking about Bosch washer/dryers, about which I know nothing.
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# ¿ Oct 31, 2021 19:56 |
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 12:50 |
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meatpimp posted:I've got family in California, near fire country, that is looking at similar insurance increases. loving gnarly.
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# ¿ Nov 2, 2021 16:07 |