Home Improvement
All topics related to the improvement, restoration, and remodeling of your home, business, or investment property are welcome in this forum.
220 topics in this forum
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- 2 followers
- 25 replies
- 268 views
My son is looking at purchasing a home which only has 100 amp main service. The electrical service is under ground. What does it take to convert to 200 amp service? Is this an easier or harder effort because the line to the house is underground? Looking forward to reading your replies. thanks Danl Ps. If he purchases this house, there will most likely many more questions which will need to be answered. The house is a fixer upper.
Last reply by BillyJack, -
- 4 followers
- 16 replies
- 201 views
I have two non-standard size door openings in the back of my garage, one into the garage itself and one into a storage space under a stairwell. For a number of reasons re-framing the doors to accommodate a standard size is a non-starter. I did find one company which promised to custom-fit a solid core door to the garage opening; I ordered it and installed it two years ago. The other opening, however, they said that they couldn't do anything about unless I wanted to order a hollow-core interior door. I said, "No, thanks"; it would never have held up. So that one is still open. Turns out, though, that being on the north side of the home ("blue northers", winter …
Last reply by tomp, -
- 1 reply
- 108 views
Look this is not spectacular engineering or anything. Have had a few encounters with stuff getting into the fan blades. Plus a few close calls with the cats who despite the danger insist on going up there anyway. Did not find any online to order so that means garage engineering time. Took some scrap 3/4 plywood and made a frame. Cut the outside circle with my bandsaw jig then used my router to do the inside. That got the back piece made. Have several pieces of this wire shelving people toss away. Took that and cut out a circle then laid it on top of my wooden circle. Marked where the wire crossed over the frame and routed out for the wire. Once done I put a piec…
Last reply by Fred W. Hargis Jr, -
- 2 followers
- 6 replies
- 78 views
It just needs to be delivered. Scheduled for this weekend. My oldest son asked me to build him an additional base kitchen cabinet. After talking with him and his wife, they decided that it had it be portable. The final cabinet size is 24” deep x 36” wide x 36” tall. The cabinet box is made from UV white birch ply and the drawer front, door frames, end-panel frames and face frame are made from poplar wood. The door and end-panel center panels are made with MDF. The three drawers are made from ½” Baltic birch ply and have dovetail joinery. The pull-out soft close trash drawer mechanism is from Rev-A-drawer. The drawers were sprayed with 1-1/2# cut shella…
Last reply by Cal, -
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 57 views
This damage was on one of the legs. I only took off only enough so it would not effect the strength of the leg sitting on the floor.. Its much easier to glue a flat piece on rather than try to shape a piece to fit in to to missing part... But first I had to build an area for the clamps I needed to use. So as I was putting together the clamp area I made sure both sides of the missing piece was flat and the same height as what I wanted to cut off' Its the same height for the saw blade to slide on.... I always glue the piece on first then drill through the piece in to the leg for my dowels. this piece is now secured with three 5/16" dowels. Next I slid t…
Last reply by Smallpatch, -
- 3 followers
- 7 replies
- 107 views
So I've been driving myself nuts trying to figure out how I want to build my inset entertainment center and was at Goodwill where I saw a interesting entertainment center and a couple leather chairs. They wanted $200 for the leather chairs and $67 for the entertainment center. I offered $200. For all and they accepted. Next day put the chairs on Marketpkace and sold the chairs in a few hours for $200 and got the entertainment center for free.. Gets it out of the dust till I can figure out the new one...
Last reply by BillyJack, -
- 2 followers
- 6 replies
- 164 views
Dagblabbit cursed stinkin racoons had a banner year making all manner of extra progeny. The tractor supply can't keep traps in the store they are all gone when ever I go. It was every night I was cleaning up after them. So I made this from 1" square 1/8" wall steel tubing and left over PVC decking. I'm guessing it'll do the job. Stinkin' thing is about a hundred pounds of steel and pvc. They don't call me Lord Overbuild fer nuthin'.
Last reply by Cliff, -
- 1 follower
- 12 replies
- 202 views
I forward these design concepts to my son this evening. The sketches are missing some detail, but there is enough detail to make a plan. I’m waiting on my son for a decision (little does he know, his wife has already made his decision). His wife likes the cabinet which has two pull-out shelves behind a door. All of the cabinets have a trash can drawer, a large upper drawer, and locking casters. Cabinet dimensions are 36” wide by 24” deep. The cabinet will have a white varnish for a finish. Danl
Last reply by Cal, -
- 2 followers
- 12 replies
- 358 views
My son asked me to build for him an additional cabinet for his kitchen and he is wanting a butcher block countertop. We are still working out the design, but we know that the box will not exceed 40x21. I know that I can make a top for him put I was wanting to look into the options of purchasing one. I went to a low end kitchen & bath outlet today and they would sell me a 36" x 86" finger jointed top for $229. They do not sell smaller pieces. I assume it was maple. They had a stack of them and the top one was cupping. Home Depot sells a maple 25" x 60" top for $339. Grizzly Industrial has Beechwood finger jointed work bench tops. 1-3/4 x 48 x 25 se…
Last reply by Larry Buskirk, -
- 5 replies
- 193 views
Back in 2014 someone gave me a old house furnace fan assembly. At the time I made a quick sled and put in under my crawlspace. Had a timer to go off every 4 hours for 30 minutes. Works well on dealing with damp musty smell. Well the fan motor died. So I had to drag it out and decided now was good time to do some rehab work. Replaced a few pieces that as scrap were okay but since I had to drag it out for the motor, we are fixing it up. Buddy gave me a new motor he had unused so I installed that after I painted the framework. Wiring needed some cleaning up. …
Last reply by Gunny, -
- 1 follower
- 15 replies
- 280 views
As dumb as this sounds, I always struggle putting casing around a door frame. I can get perfect 45 miters, that's not the problem. But getting the verticals to line up correctly with the top horizontal piece seems to mystify me. Maybe it's a matter of me not knowing where do you start. Do you put the horizontal piece on first? In the past I've mostly just started on one side, then the top, then the other side. So how do the pros do it? I've got 2 doors to trim out in the shop and though I'd take some time to learn the proper way....even though I'm not worried about how it looks.
Last reply by Cal, -
- 13 replies
- 256 views
The goofball contractor who built my shop ordered 45/8" pre-framed doors for it....my walls are 6". Then the amish crew building it installed them without a second thought...I didn't even notice until everyone had packed up and left. Since then I've fumed about this. not that they didn't work but more because I like things to be done correctly. So I was planning to remove the doors, add a 6/916" threshold and pad out the frame to fit the walls. I'm able to find the thresholds, but the prices are ridiculous....in some cases $150 (just the threshold). Then I was perusing the Menards site and stumbled across a kit that provides the parts needed to widen the door to fit. This…
Last reply by Fred W. Hargis Jr, -
On the front of the house there is a section of gutter that gets runoff from 3 directions and it frequently cannot handle it all. Like most of the time. I've cleaned out and it didn't help. I'm thinking it's just overloaded and I just need to replace it with something larger. It appears that there are only 5" and 6" "K-gutters." Is there anything anywhere that has more capacity than the 6" one? I don't think it's possible to have more than one downspout because of the configuration. Another solution?
Last reply by Danl, -
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- 4 followers
- 27 replies
- 564 views
Since all my other projects are in the finishing and drying stage I started on demoing and remodeling a 6’ X 8’ closet which I am turning into my reloading room. The first part was to repaint and then lay the flooring. The painting will have to wait due to the situation at HD so yesterday I laid the flooring which is solid bamboo flooring. Paul
Last reply by Cal, -
- 2 followers
- 6 replies
- 202 views
One of the projects that has been on my to-do list for a couple years now. When I built the railing about 20 years ago I had made several mistakes. It looked great at the time, and even with deterioration it was pretty solid. But, rot had set in and it needed fixing. It was constructed with cypress lumber, and given the conditions has held up extremely well. But, like I said, mistakes were made. 1. Caulking - not really a painter, when I caulked all this up I caulked all the way around the joint. Well, any water that penetrated the joint had nowhere to go. Result = rot. The new rail is caulked on the top and side, not on the bottom. …
Last reply by Cal, -
- 1 follower
- 4 replies
- 129 views
An elderly neighbor has decorative stone veneer over the garage door (picture below) and 5 of the pieces have fallen off. Each rectangular piece is about 6" x 8" x 2" thick, and weighs maybe 3-4 pounds. It looks like they were mortared in place, but no idea why they fell off or if the others are secure. I'm looking for suggestions on how to re-install them. I'm thinking about a fast setting exterior epoxy. I don't see any way to clamp or brace the stones in place. I would appreciate any other ideas from our learned community. Thank you, Jim
Last reply by Michael Thuman, -
- 2 followers
- 8 replies
- 199 views
With the hot tub out of this 10x12 building I now have a finishing room. Took down the ceiling fan and installed LED shop lights so we have plenty of light, but no ventilation. No problem, I built this using storm windows because with a hot tub you don't want expensive windows. Just something to keep the elements out. So since you can remove the glass panels for cleaning I decided to remove the upper one in a corner and designed a box to go through it. The hole is just large enough for me to be able to use a 16 inch attic fan, plenty of ventilation power with that! Took me an afternoon to make the box and cut out the front and back panels. I was deliberate in usin…
Last reply by Gunny, -
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- 3 followers
- 20 replies
- 313 views
Good day folks, we are looking at Whole House Fans, our early evenings and nights are very cool outside, and we would love to get that cool air into our hot home instead of the AC. Any recommendations in brands or technology? Thanks!
Last reply by Gunny, -
- 4 followers
- 16 replies
- 1.9k views
I have a metal patio cover and when it rains or even an occasional hail storm and it makes a lot of noise. Has anyone used anything to quiet the noise down? Preston
Last reply by Piticli, -
- 13 replies
- 296 views
Not mu plans but something to do. See any flaws? Haven't looked over them yet....
Last reply by p_toad,
