Re: What Projects / Tasks do you have going on / to do??

[wihogfan]

Ice from ice maker that I installed in our new frig had a metallic taste-typical of a new ice maker, but taste didn't go away after 6 weeks or so, so installed an inline water filter this morning.

[RVR II]

Since my new GF arrived from Pittsburgh back on June 16, my house has been getting a new 'face lift'..
From cleaning to cooking amazing meals, we've been buying stuff needed for the transformation including a couple new area rugs, a 3 tier wire rack shelf for the kitchen, moving the old area rug from the dining room over the front utility room of the Mega Shed that's being rented from a Target coworker, and a lot more minor stuff..
It definitely has a new feel to it

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Yesterday I stapled 3 layers of that silver bubble-wrap type insulation to the backside of my attic door.  Just dropped it down and it's room temperature on the inside.  The area around the latch that I couldn't put the insulation was much hotter.  Not sure how much it will help with cooling in the summer but should make more of a difference in winter.

[wihogfan]

My inline water filter ended up being a bigger pain in the ass than I was expecting. Cheap filter I bought on Amazon leaked. Replaced it with a 5 year $30 water filter from Lowes that doesn't leak.
Ice maker water drip tube inside the freezer on the fridge also froze solid when I had the water off in between filter replacement. After I thawed it, it had sprung a leak and started leaking water into the freezer. Another trio to Lowes and a 99 cent piece of vinyl tubing fixed the leak.
Took about 2 days of ice making for the ice to lose it's off taste, but all good now.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Not much of a project but I used a curtain rod that was in my house when I moved in and built a bottle rocket launcher.  Worked great keeping all the sticks that fell in my back yard.

Launched them for an hour and barely made a dent in the 2 boxes I bought (144 in each box), so yeah, I bought way too many.  Wanted some that whistled and some that didn't, but both boxes whistle.



Also filled a big pot with sand to put the fountains and roman candles in.

(well, that's strange, never had an image rotate like that before, if you right click and choose view it looks normal, weird)

[RVR II]

Discovered a Yellow Jacket nest in a storage bin on my back deck this morning..
Took my GF to the airport and was pondering how to get rid of it. Stopped by my parent's place after leaving the airport and they had a hat with netting, a Tyvek body suit and 2 large cans of hornet spray
Got home and decked myself up in the suit including shoes and socks, as well as rubber gloves. Had a spray can in my left hand and my electric bug zapping racket in the other and went to war..
After a good 20-30 minutes, I knocked out a large percentage of the colony as it swarmed around me, enough to drag the storage bin to an open area and dump everything out to wipe out the nest.
It had been under construction for at least 2 years when a lot of my late wife's gazebo accessories were put in there.
Just a few stragglers flying around where the bin used to be that will scatter eventually though I will keep an eye on the area in the event they try to construct another nest

[RVR II]

Discovered a Yellow Jacket nest in a storage bin on my back deck this morning..
Took my GF to the airport and was pondering how to get rid of it. Stopped by my parent's place after leaving the airport and they had a hat with netting, a Tyvek body suit and 2 large cans of hornet spray
Got home and decked myself up in the suit including shoes and socks, as well as rubber gloves. Had a spray can in my left hand and my electric bug zapping racket in the other and went to war..
After a good 20-30 minutes, I knocked out a large percentage of the colony as it swarmed around me, enough to drag the storage bin to an open area and dump everything out to wipe out the nest.
It had been under construction for at least 2 years when a lot of my late wife's gazebo accessories were put in there.
Just a few stragglers flying around where the bin used to be that will scatter eventually though I will keep an eye on the area in the event they try to construct another nest

A bit of a long winded video but I got it done
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/rXtH5ffPC7M" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/rXtH5ffPC7M</a>

[wihogfan]

Only skimmed the video due to the length, but good job protecting yourself. So glad we don't have yellow jackets or hornets up here in Wisconsin.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Web server at work died, it was very old, spent the entire day building a new one and moving files over, luckily the old drives were not working when under load but none of the data on them seemed to be corrupted, so I was able to transfer everything.  Now all my pictures are back working again...

[wihogfan]

Had a list of a lot of minor projects I wanted to complete this weekend- repairing some furniture and a couple of loose boards on the fences and some broken concrete on the driveway, putting up a couple of hooks outside for the wife to hang flowers, killing some weeds, etc. But took the dogs to the park yesterday and it started raining- dogs didn't care about the rain, so we stayed after it started- old shoes I was wearing were worn and I ended up slipping and falling-think I bruised a couple of ribs- doesn't hurt to breath, so likely not broken or cracked, but hurts to move and had to sleep on my back last night and still very painful.
All I accomplished today was taking the dogs to the park again, putting back up a towel rack that had fallen and making a couple of batches of beer (which resulted in me lifting more weight than I probably should have lifted).
Thinking tomorrow is going to be a day of sitting on the couch and recovering like I probably should have done today.   

[RVR II]

After 7 years I finally got insulation installed under my Mega Shed yesterday
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/VhaLrScHCRs" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/VhaLrScHCRs</a>

[RVR II]

On my way to Shelby, NC to pick up 5 vinyl replacement windows for my house.
Found the size I need; 32x62 white, double hung, with argon gas for $139 each which is a steal! They knocked off $50 for a Veteran discount and tax wiped out most of that for a grand total of $688 for all 5
Next will be the process of installing them as well as putting insulation in the walls from the outside and replacing any rotten wood in the process..
That won't happen for a while yet but will happen sometime soon

[Imrahil]

This summer I've already updated some closet shelves (removed contact paper and painted, added face trim to the shelves so they don't have nasty unfinished mdf facing out), and build a semi-built in for my kids.

But this is my annual project week.  My wife and kids went to her family's lake house (I hate it) without me, so I have some time to work at home. 

HUGE project list; only some will get done.  In no particular order:

- I want to close up an extra doorway in my kids' room.  On one side I want to put "floating" shelves; on the other I want to build a small "mudroom" bench since it opens onto the front door. This may be beyond my abilities.  It really needs a "fake" wall put in (non-load bearing, but otherwise studs and drywall so I can attach beadboard and not have it warp).  Drywall shouldn't really need mudding and such, but it's still a PITA to get into the house. We'll see; I'd really like to at least get the wall in and do the floating shelves part.  I already did a semi-built-in set next to the boys' closet. They still need to have their room trim painted and that shelf needs to be leveled and tacked to the wall for stability, as well as having a final topcoat of paint applied.

- I'd also like to refinish my younger son's dresser to match my older son's, but that may also not be doable this time. Low-priority.

- I also have a fuckton of painting to do; ceiling in kitchen never got redone when we moved (they moved a bunch of stuff around so there are patches of mismatched paint--both color and tone--all over the ceiling).  Need to paint a bunch more trim and doors to finish off the move-in painting (just finished our second full year in the house, but literally every room in the house has been painted at this point).  I'm down to just the living room trim and the kitchen/garage door.

- I want to finish painting my classroom and move it for the schoolyear. Already done two walls.  Also resealed windows, found old storms and put them up to reduce heat/AC loss, recaulked individual windows to prevent moisture getting in, got a new projector screen and installed it.

- Would like to do a built-in pantry in the kitchen to match some cabinets that we had installed; this likewise may be beyond me right now. 

- I'd like to move our garage around to put some big shelves in a "utility room" so the crates in there can be more easily accessed (as it is now they're just stacked up and the ones on the bottom are not accessible).  I also want to get the workbench OUT of that room (it's too small to actually do projects in) and move it into the main garage, and move the deep freezer into there.  Would like to build more utility shelves too out of 2x4s.  The previous tenants drywalled and painted the garage, but they didn't prime it or use exterior paint so everything they did is flaking off disgustingly. That needs fixing.

- Need to power wash the back porch and front yard and clean out the gutters. One gutter is ripping off from the side of the house but maintenance is supposed to fix it (since it's their house).

Anyway, I'll only get a fraction of this done I'm sure.

Off to paint.

Oh, and I bought a PS4.

- Eventually I'd like to put some trim around our big living room picture window and install a chair rail on one wall in there.  So many projects...

[MartyS (Gromit)]

What I thought would be an easy job of cleaning the dust off the ceiling fan in the kitchen turned into an hour long project.

I had to fix the switch for the fan when I moved in but never looked at the blades.  When a duster did nothing I got the ladder and looked at them, each one was coated with some kind of sticky oily crud.  Tried Windex and that did nothing.  So, had to take the fan apart, pull each blade off and put it in the sink.  For each one I had to soak a sponge in dish washing detergent and scrub the hell out of the surface.  Then put it all back together.

Come to think of it, when I moved in I tried to clean the glass shades around each bulb and ended up putting them in the dishwasher because nothing I sprayed on worked.

[RVR II]

What I thought would be an easy job of cleaning the dust off the ceiling fan in the kitchen turned into an hour long project.

I had to fix the switch for the fan when I moved in but never looked at the blades.  When a duster did nothing I got the ladder and looked at them, each one was coated with some kind of sticky oily crud.  Tried Windex and that did nothing.  So, had to take the fan apart, pull each blade off and put it in the sink.  For each one I had to soak a sponge in dish washing detergent and scrub the hell out of the surface.  Then put it all back together.

Come to think of it, when I moved in I tried to clean the glass shades around each bulb and ended up putting them in the dishwasher because nothing I sprayed on worked.

Oh wow I never heard of something like that before
Could it have been grease from the fan motor or something that coated the blades and light shades