Tag: DIY

The Good

Some time back my wife went into the doctor’s for a check-up and found out her cholesterol was completely out of wack. Since then she’s been on a restricted diet to fix it and since she’s the better cook, I’ve been on the same diet. We’ve been doing this for roughly 2 months now and this morning when I stepped on the scale, I was quite pleased to see not only have I already shed my “winter weight”1 but I’ve also lost about another 10 pounds.

The Bad

This winter we’ve had ~4x our normal amount of precipitation. Our soil is heavily saturated with water and we’ve been getting more rain as we move into spring. The end result is we’ve been getting water into our basement. Our basement which happens to have carpeting in it. Fortunately, the carpet was just lying down on top the concrete floor but about half the carpet has been getting soaked.

The Ugly

We never liked the carpet down there but hadn’t done anything about it; however since we’ve had so much water down there this winter. We decided we needed to get at least the wet parts of the carpet out of the basement before it got moldy had destroyed our sinuses. So this past Saturday my wife and I put on our grungiest clothes, went into the basement, chopped up the carpet and hauled it out to our garage2. It was one of dirtiest, nastiest jobs I’ve ever had to do around any house. And I’ve replaced entire toilets before, so when I say it was nasty I know what I’m talking about!

1 Every winter where I’ve weighed myself, I’ve put 5-10 pounds which I quickly shed once spring comes.
2 Just until we figure out if we can have the city take it to the dump for us, or if we have to get it over there ourselves.

New Towel Bar

Back around Thanksgiving, I hit up a sale at Home Depot and bought myself a 4 piece Ryobi One+ combo kit1. After Christmas I went back to Home Depot and picked up the Ryobi Tool Bag. The tool bag came loaded with a nice assortment of drill bits and a racheting screwdriver with a vast collection of interchangable bits (phillips, flat-head, sqare and torx). The bag was just the right size to hold my drill, flashlight and radio. Since then the tools have sat around mostly gathering dust.

Today while out doing some shopping, we found a nice set of bathroom hangers (e.g. for towels & toiletpaper) on clearance for less than $20. The set has a brushed nickel finish which we really like and installing it helped me avoid cleaning out our guest room2. The set installed very easily and I really got to try out my tools.

Things I liked:

  • The magnetic strip on the base of the drill is fantastic for holding different drill bits, screws, whatever I need.
  • The ratcheting screwdriver makes it quick and easy to install/remove screws.
  • That tool bag really holds everything I need for most home improvement projects. The way it’s designed feels like somebody at Ryobi was sitting around their house wishing they had a bag to hold all the bits they’d ever be likely to need for a screwdriver and a drill.

Things I didn’t like:

  • The keyless chuck on the drill poorly grips the bits.
  • After 10+ years of apartment living, I’m out of practing with using a drill. Especially using a drill as an electric screwdriver and so I kind of stripped a couple screwheads. Ooops.
  • The metal splinter I got in my thumb after stripping a couple of screwheads.
  • The drill is heavier than I really like.3

1 Mine was a slightly different kit as it came with a radio rather than the Corner Cat Finish Sander.
2 I’m sooo going to be in trouble when my wife reads this.
3 My version of the kit uses the NiCd batteries which contributes the vast majority of the weight of the tool. At some point I’ll buy the 18v Lithium Upgrade Kit which should solve this complaint.

I’ve been bad about posting anything here, so here’s a collection of random thoughts that have occurred to me since my last posting.

  • For several years I carried a PDA to keep track of appointments, jot down notes and to have important phone numbers/addresses handy. I started off with a Handspring Visor Platinum, later switched over to a Sonly Clie for a color screen and rechargeable battery. Eventually the Clie started giving me problems so I started leaving it at home more & more. Instead I carried around my “paper brain”, a 3×5 spiral bound notebook. It worked alright but pages kept getting ripped whenever people needed scrap paper. Over time it became a ragged shadow of its former self and needed replacement. A couple of weeks back I finally did replace it; this time I picked up a Moleskine or as I’ve taken to call it “my snobby paper brain”. The Moleskine was about 3 times as expensive as my old “paper brain” and I’ve read numerous articles online from devotees of these notebooks. Those articles had aroused my curiosity. I find the paper to be very smooth and pleasant to write upon, though I do need to find a pen/ink to use which doesn’t bleed through so much. I’ve been writing…
    • character ideas for games I’m playing
    • dreams I’ve had
    • things I need to get done
    • grocery lists

    … and little things like that. It’s stuff which if I ever developed the more interesting bits could end up here, but for the most part is too mundane to make me want to post it.

  • I used a print out of a Windows BSOD and a black robe I still have from several years ago to be the Blue Screen of Death for my office’s Halloween festivities. The costume netted me third place and a $10 Target gift card. Whee!
  • We were down about a third in the number of kids coming by the house last night for Halloween. Maybe the massive number of kids last year was them checking us out since it was our first year there. Or maybe something else happened, but I thought we gave out good candy and we were stocked up to give more this year. Heck, we had an entire bag left unopened after we stopped for the night. Ah well, it’ll make the office happy as I’ll bring all the candy to work to get rid of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s candy I like (saltwater taffy to be specific) but it’s a 5lb bag and I don’t need all those calories.

Update: I forgot to mention when I someday fill up my current Moleskine, I do plan to buy another one but next time will get the grid paper version vs the ruled paper version I have now. I think the grid will be more conducive to sketching than the lines, while still having something there to keep my written words running straight across the page.

Also I meant to talk about the new light fixture I finally got installed in our upstairs hallway. When we moved into the house, there was a floresent light in the hallway. But the bulb was never plugged into the fixture as there’s no switch for it1. So we bought a simple light fixture with a built-in switch. I got the old fixture taken down but in doing so found that the screws to hold the new fixture wouldn’t fit into the electrical box in the wall. I bought a new electrical box, but when I took out the old one I got another surprise. The old box was screwed into scraps of wood to kind of clamp the box to the drywall and as soon as I had the screws out of them… the bits of wood fell down inside the wall. *insert swearing here* Putting in the new light got put off for a while… basically until I had a chat with my father-in-law. He told me what kind of electrical box to buy and the next weekend I had the light installed.

1 Technically, there is a switch at the bottom of the stairs but turning it off kills all power to the upstairs.

New Sink & Vanity

We recently noticed that the sink in our master bathroom was leaking. I traced the link to a crack in the sink itself; so we decided to make do for a little while by using the sink downstairs. When you have to climb up & down stairs to wash your hands or brush your teeth that gets old real quick. This weekend we did the work to replace the sink. However we weren’t too keen on the idea of just replacing the pedestal sink with another one. So we splurged a bit and bought a vanity & sink kit from Home Depot. We also picked up a new faucet to go with it (the old one was hideous). Today we installed it. *ugh* Now I really understand why plumbers charge so much. It’s smelly, painful work in cramped quarters.

New Faucet

I’m really feeling it in my back and shoulders, from being tucked under the sink hooking all the pipes up. It didn’t help that this was the first sink I’ve ever installed, plus the first cabinet I’ve ever installed. Counting the extra trips back to Home Depot for items we forget (and items we didn’t realize we needed); it took us 6-7 hours to get everything hooked up. Right now we’re waiting for all the caulk to cure before we try running the water. By tomorrow night, we’ll know for sure if we did everything right. I’m fairly confident on everything except the drain pipe. So cross your fingers for us!

Incidentally, the photos attached to this post are the “after” versions. I forgot to do “before” shots and was too busy to do any “during”. Sorry. 🙁

Update 5 Dec 2006: All the caulk has cured and the sink works perfectly (no leaks). As an added bonus, it drains much better but I think that is due to the drain on the old sink not being hooked up properly.