Home Improvement Catch-All

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/2d3mS.jpg)

I've been seeing requests for help on home improvement projects in various threads here so I thought it was time to start a thread to ask questions about home improvement, maintenance, product recommendations or to just show off your finished projects. I have owned a home for a little over 2 years now and I am always seeking advice, often reluctantly from my father-in-law, on everything from paintbrushes to garbage disposals.

I already received some much needed advice from here, much thanks to the Goodjer community for that. Follow-up question on laminates/hardwoods though. What about dogs? We have 2 of them and often have more over at our house. Do laminates hold up better?

What about you? What needs attention in your house?

While I can't be of much help on your laminates question, I would love some advice myself.

I have a number of trees growing near and over my roof, resulting in lots of debris accumulating on my roof and in my gutters. The previous owners inserted some little chicken wire bulbs that fill the downspouts fairly well, but I don't know how effective they are. Anyone have advice on keeping my gutters relatively clear that doesn't involve a few grand worth of professional gutter guards?

Do you mind getting up a ladder every so often? I'm not sure you can have a zero maintenance option with trees over your roof. I'd see about making/getting a tool to help you out with it though, a long pole with a bit of strong wire attached to the end.

Scratched wrote:

Do you mind getting up a ladder every so often? I'm not sure you can have a zero maintenance option with trees over your roof. I'd see about making/getting a tool to help you out with it though, a long pole with a bit of strong wire attached to the end.

I've already got the ladder, a long pole with a brush attached, and a gutter scoop, and I pay for a professional cleaning every fall when the leaf-pocalypse is complete. I'm more concerned with the times between the cleanings, were stuff is falling off the trees and the rain is coming down. I'd rather not spring for gutter guards, and I've heard that the wire mesh covers pretty much clog instantly. The downspout filters seem like a good idea, but I have no way to directly evaluate how well they work.

Kraint wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Do you mind getting up a ladder every so often? I'm not sure you can have a zero maintenance option with trees over your roof. I'd see about making/getting a tool to help you out with it though, a long pole with a bit of strong wire attached to the end.

I've already got the ladder, a long pole with a brush attached, and a gutter scoop, and I pay for a professional cleaning every fall when the leaf-pocalypse is complete. I'm more concerned with the times between the cleanings, were stuff is falling off the trees and the rain is coming down. I'd rather not spring for gutter guards, and I've heard that the wire mesh covers pretty much clog instantly. The downspout filters seem like a good idea, but I have no way to directly evaluate how well they work.

I decided against gutter guards after having to clean out a gutter with them installed. Less debris will go into the gutter, but what goes in is a real pain to get out.

jonfentyler wrote:
Kraint wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Do you mind getting up a ladder every so often? I'm not sure you can have a zero maintenance option with trees over your roof. I'd see about making/getting a tool to help you out with it though, a long pole with a bit of strong wire attached to the end.

I've already got the ladder, a long pole with a brush attached, and a gutter scoop, and I pay for a professional cleaning every fall when the leaf-pocalypse is complete. I'm more concerned with the times between the cleanings, were stuff is falling off the trees and the rain is coming down. I'd rather not spring for gutter guards, and I've heard that the wire mesh covers pretty much clog instantly. The downspout filters seem like a good idea, but I have no way to directly evaluate how well they work.

I decided against gutter guards after having to clean out a gutter with them installed. Less debris will go into the gutter, but what goes in is a real pain to get out.

This. We have epic-sized trees in our neighborhood. I had the fancy gutter guards on one side of the house, and they were more trouble than they were worth. Stuff still gets through. And it's a pain to remove them, clean and then reinstall.

Get a Looj.

This is awesome. I am renovating our basement bathroom next week as a surprise for my wife I have already removed the shower that was there. Next up is to remove the old drywall behind the shower and replace it with the mold-resistant stuff and paint it, the entire bathroom, white.

Reinstallation of a new shower will wait for a nice one to go on sale and for us to get a contractor to do it for us.

I've got a few pending home improvements but I still haven't decided on how I'm going to proceed with them. I'm going to replace all of the carpet in the house with laminates. Of that I'm sure. I've done all of the hands on hardwood v laminate tests and the laminates are just a better combination of scratch resistance and expense. The part I keep going back and forth on is whether to pay to have it installed or do it myself. Paying installers basically doubles my cost. Mind you, I'm the kind of guy that when he tries to fix things around the house usually ends up breaking them twice as bad before finally getting them back into working order.

The second project is installing surround sound in the living room in our mostly open floor plan home. I've tried to run wire through the fully insulated walls before and I'm not going near that mess again. So now I'm trying to see if there are any wireless options, though I imagine those have fairly bad sound quality, the poor-mans surround sound option of a virtual surround sound bar, or just paying billions of dollars to have a professional company install something.

And the final project is trimming back two gargantuan bushes that bookend the front flower beds. Both are now about 8 feet tall and have never been cut. They're kinda crazy but I have no clue where to start. I don't even know what they are. I clear cut things, I don't generally prune and shape. Any suggestions on where I should start looking for advice on that sort of thing?

Kehama wrote:

And the final project is trimming back two gargantuan bushes that bookend the front flower beds. Both are now about 8 feet tall and have never been cut. They're kinda crazy but I have no clue where to start. I don't even know what they are. I clear cut things, I don't generally prune and shape. Any suggestions on where I should start looking for advice on that sort of thing?

My plan for things like this is to buy a large pair of hedge-trimmers/large branch cutters, put a chair about 15-20 feet from what I want to cut, bring out some alcoholic drinks for my wife to drink, and tell her to tell me where to cut.

Kehama wrote:

And the final project is trimming back two gargantuan bushes that bookend the front flower beds. Both are now about 8 feet tall and have never been cut. They're kinda crazy but I have no clue where to start. I don't even know what they are. I clear cut things, I don't generally prune and shape. Any suggestions on where I should start looking for advice on that sort of thing?

We cut down 4 bushes that were 8 feet tall when we moved into our house. We just cut them down to where we wanted them, leaving almost nothing but the base with no leaves. It took about 6 months to grow back but they are full of leaves again now and only 3 feet tall. I have pictures I can post later.

Regarding the floors...have you guys thought of using reclaimed hardwood and laying the floors yourself? My brother just finished putting floors down doing exactly that. Looks great and it was a fun weekend project with beer and friends. The catch is that he lives in Baltimore where antique/reclaimed stuff is really easy to find, and cheap.

So far, the secret (from my wife) basement bathroom renovations are going well. My wife left on Sunday at lunchish. By sunday night, I had removed the old drywall and replaced it with mold-resistant dryall, taped the corners and a couple of joints that needed taping and put 2 coats of plaster.

This morning (after 4hours of sleep) I got up, sanded down the plaster and put one coat of primer on the walls and the door.

(Side note, a giant f*** you to the previous owners who decided to glue the mirror to the wall.)

Tonight I put my first coat of white paint, and the second coat should go down tomorrow night.

Kraint wrote:

While I can't be of much help on your laminates question, I would love some advice myself.

I have a number of trees growing near and over my roof, resulting in lots of debris accumulating on my roof and in my gutters. The previous owners inserted some little chicken wire bulbs that fill the downspouts fairly well, but I don't know how effective they are. Anyone have advice on keeping my gutters relatively clear that doesn't involve a few grand worth of professional gutter guards?

I have something called GutterStuff Pro that I installed in my gutters. It is nearly 100% maintenance free and I have giant branches over my house. It is the best stuff ever and very easy to install yourself.

Edwin wrote:

Get a Looj.

Hehehehe, I think the leaves and junk dropped by my oak trees would defeat that. I'm not joking when I say I can get 2-3" of leaf accumulation on a windy, rainy day in the fall, which quickly compacts into a wet cement on my roof/gutters.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:

I have something called GutterStuff Pro that I installed in my gutters. It is nearly 100% maintenance free and I have giant branches over my house. It is the best stuff ever and very easy to install yourself.

I think I've seen that somewhere before. Do you have any issue with it getting clogged by smaller dirt/debris? I've heard of issues with the filter-type options getting plugged up, but I don't know if that is from real people or astroturf on behalf of manufacturers of other products.

Kraint wrote:

While I can't be of much help on your laminates question, I would love some advice myself.

I have a number of trees growing near and over my roof, resulting in lots of debris accumulating on my roof and in my gutters. The previous owners inserted some little chicken wire bulbs that fill the downspouts fairly well, but I don't know how effective they are. Anyone have advice on keeping my gutters relatively clear that doesn't involve a few grand worth of professional gutter guards?

Yep.

IMAGE(http://www.portable-electric-power-generators.com/images/powertools/husqvarna/HUS_3120xp_lg.jpg)

Get rid of the gutters and put a simple french drain at the drip line, unless you really need to divert the water away from your foundation.

Just finished the bathroom. Very happy with how it worked out. Bathroom is no longer an ugly pale lime green and is now a nice clean white.

The wife will be surprised when she gets back tomorrow afternoon.

mudbunny wrote:

Just finished the bathroom. Very happy with how it worked out. Bathroom is no longer an ugly pale lime green and is now a nice clean white.

The wife will be surprised when she gets back tomorrow afternoon.

Pics or it didn't happen.

We painted our bathroom green, from white.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/INE2C.jpg)

Not the bathroom, but this is the color we used. We also changed all the brass door fixtures to chrome.

Kraint wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:

I have something called GutterStuff Pro that I installed in my gutters. It is nearly 100% maintenance free and I have giant branches over my house. It is the best stuff ever and very easy to install yourself.

I think I've seen that somewhere before. Do you have any issue with it getting clogged by smaller dirt/debris? I've heard of issues with the filter-type options getting plugged up, but I don't know if that is from real people or astroturf on behalf of manufacturers of other products.

I only put it in last March or so, so I don't have a whole lot of seasons to see how it's working, but so far it is working perfectly. Plus the inspector that looked at our house prior to buying it swore by it (and he's been inspecting houses for 40 years) and said that it is the best thing out there and 110% worth the investment (it's like ~$4/ft if I remember correctly). So far I agree and have no complaints.

**edit- By law we can't hire the inspector for at least a year or two (he told us that), so it was not like he was trying to get us to hire him. In fact he told us to order the stuff online and install it myself.

Our bathroom went from green (similar to yours) to white.

Here are the pictures:

Just after putting up the new drywall and taping the joints:

IMAGE(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ToF1yoE0oD0/UDQ56xpUdQI/AAAAAAAAGj0/d8Xev36HnZ4/s513/7C559003-A00F-407D-966B-27A32892F811.JPG)

After the primer:

IMAGE(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8-3Ohj2YqJ8/UDQ5693DhkI/AAAAAAAAGj0/JOQ-SEoO35M/s513/2B485AA2-02A0-4CC2-A2F4-F6ACE84BC39E.JPG)

After the second coat of Bright White paint:

IMAGE(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LvOgyaZeaJ0/UDQ566tGuyI/AAAAAAAAGj0/VU2VKf-Nc1c/s647/2A7D3CF8-E08C-4F5A-B0E7-B3311900CCBE.JPG)

If you want to see a video, here it is.

mudbunny wrote:

Our bathroom went from green (similar to yours) to white.

Impressive! Looks like you taped around your mirror. My wife made us take down our mirrors and paint behind them. Stupid me chipped one while trying to remount it. Lesson learned. Our other mirror was custom made for the bathroom by the previous owner, complete with a mirror electrical outlet. It took 3 of us and plenty of patience to put it back into place.

jonfentyler wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

Our bathroom went from green (similar to yours) to white.

Impressive! Looks like you taped around your mirror. My wife made us take down our mirrors and paint behind them. Stupid me chipped one while trying to remount it. Lesson learned. Our other mirror was custom made for the bathroom by the previous owner, complete with a mirror electrical outlet. It took 3 of us and plenty of patience to put it back into place.

The douchewaffle who lived here before us, when they installed the mirror, glued the mirror to the wall. I would have preferred to remove it but meh, what can you do.

mudbunny wrote:

(Side note, a giant f*** you to the previous owners who decided to glue the mirror to the wall.)

The trick here is strong fishing line (preferably braided) or very thin wire. Slide it behind the mirror and and start 'sawing' at the glue pucks. LTTP, but at least you know for next time.

ELewis17 wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

(Side note, a giant f*** you to the previous owners who decided to glue the mirror to the wall.)

The trick here is strong fishing line (preferably braided) or very thin wire. Slide it behind the mirror and and start 'sawing' at the glue pucks. LTTP, but at least you know for next time. :)

Thanks, I'll remember that for the next time. Also, the need to get this done by tomorrow morning meant that once i saw that it wasn't coming off easily, I said screw it and taped it.

And now, back to The Doctor. (Season 1, Episode 7)

Edwin wrote:

Get a Looj.

Ha! My brother-in-law helped design the Looj.

Woah. Now I want gutters specifically so I can get a gutter-bot.

Hey i need new faucets for my place, what are the differences between them all? Something about ceramic discs? All i know is i want single post brushed nickel, but other than that no requirements.