Large Scale Central

House Projects are Contagious, Apparently

Other Hobbies
#1

I mentioned over on Devon’s thread concerning his current house project (Stupid House ) that in preparation of my son’s wedding that will take place at our home in May of '25, Herself has given me a laundry list of projects she wants completed prior to the wedding.

First up is replacing the decking on our 20+ year old deck. The current decking is treated 2x6’s that have not lasted as advertised. This time I’m installing Trex.

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My intention was to just remove the decking and replace any joists that needed it. Yeah, that lasted about 30 seconds. Little man, you know, that little voice that sits on your shoulder and usually waits until you screw up before opening his mouth, spoke up and said “you’re a bigger dumb a$$ than I thought if you put that kind of money on 20+ year old joists” and as usual he was correct. So, the old joists left and new ones installed.

Before:

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After:

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Did I mention this was just the start. There’s only 1,300 sq.ft. left to do plus railings :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Next up, new granite countertops. I think Devon has been sending Herself subliminal messages :rofl: When we built our house we installed formica countertops simply to save a few dollars. They have held up well and served their purpose. We have a large island in the middle of our kitchen and about 15 years ago, Herself convinced me to change it to granite. She found a beautiful green & grey piece of rock in Atlanta. In the photo below, you can see the island and the formica.

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For the remainder of the countertops she wanted something that would allow the island to be the focal point vs fighting it. So, back to Atlanta where she found a chalky white with grey marbling rock that she liked. It was installed this past Friday.

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Along with a new stove and sink

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And no, it wasn’t as simple as it seems in the photos. The new sink was deeper and is an undermount style so the drain for the disposal was about 7 inches lower than the previous one :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: :rage: So yep, you guessed it, time to start tearing out the wall behind the sink.

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That was Saturday’s project, but it’s done. Now on to finishing the deck.

#2

I better not show my wife these threads… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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#3

Threads like this make me feel grateful for my near total lack of talent in this department!

#4

The deck looks nice. And i love the counter tops. I understand your dilemma on the sink. Yours looks the same as mine. And yes its deeper than my old one and under mounted. I don’t have a disposal and thankfully mine still fit with the drain but it was close. It did require new P Trap and down pipe but that is minor and was pretty much expected. But I can see where with a disposal it would have played heck. I would have been doing as you are. It was close to that as is.

Nice job

#5

There is a blessing and a curse in having this so called talent. It certainly saves a tremendous amount of money when you can do this stuff yourself. But the older I get (and the harder it is to get up and down off my knees) the more I find myself just paying to have it done. Sanity has a price. But on big projects it does pay off to have the ability, and more important the tools, to do these jobs.

#6

I don’t envy the plumbing aspect of your project. I try to avoid plumbing work on my 1950’s house with cast iron and galvanized pipes. I am about to embark on a major DYI bathroom remodel down to the studs and replacing a tub with a shower, new sink and toilet. This will require changing the tub drain, removing the fill and the old mixing valve replacing it with a new one. I’ll make a decision on if I DYI, or call in a plumber once I have all the pipe exposed. The mixer was replaced by a plumber 20 years ago, so it might be copper.

I need to wait for my helper to finish recovering from shoulder replacement and the weather to be warm enough to use our travel trailer for a shower and toilet during demo. Probably get started sometime in May.

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#7

I have a bunch of house projects as well. In no particular order:

Finish stone veneer near pellet stove.
Seal newly paved driveway.
Cobblestones along driveway.
Replace two basement doors.
Repair/replace side and rear yard fence.

And then there’s a couple for the RV:

Add second LiFePo4 battery.
Install rear track bar.
Pre-installation setup for solar.

That should keep me busy.

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#8

Thats on deck after the kitchen. Fortunately I have two bathrooms so one can be done leisurely and we can use the other one. But we are going to the studs also.

#9

I’m going to try and leave the toilet in place as long as I can. The kitchen sink is close by. There will be plenty of work to do to prep the shower area to accept the direct-to-studs enclosure.

We have a “toilet room” in the basement that no one knows where the waste goes. It’s vented into the soil stack at the ceiling, but no idea where the black goes. We stopped using it when running the washing machine (on the same drain I assume) caused it to back up. We were told 35 years ago when we rented the house that we should only flush liquids. Today the toilet is still there with water shut off and the room has become storage. And to stop the back-ups we drain the washer out the window!

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#10

My sister-in-law and former brother-in-law have a similiar issues. Washer is not draining into the city sewer plumbing. Our only guess is it either just pumps into a french drain in the yard or is dumping into the old septic tank if it had one which we think it did. The house is two stories but the sewer in the street must be shallow because all the plumbing from upstairs is eye level where it leaves the foundation. Nothing in the basement could be drained to it without being pumped up. So we think when the sewer came through and it was not deep enough the previous owner just plumbed everything upstairs to the sewer and left the downstairs plumbing which is only the washer to drain out to the tank or at the very least the old drain field. All speculation. She has since put in a pump for the washer that lifts it into the proper sewer line so it is no longer an issue.

#11

We have septic systems here, no city sewer. It was common in the 40’s and 50’s to drain a septic tank into a dry well. That might be what is going on here. When dry wells were outlawed lots of folks just eliminated the above ground evidence (clean out). There is one spot in a concrete walk at the side of the house where there is a round crack in the sidewalk. I’m not going to investigate! The rest of the house is properly plumbed to a soil stack that runs into a fairly modern 1000 gallon concrete tank. The fields were replaced in the mid 90’s. while we were renting, a few years before we bought the house.

#12

Well to join the fun… kind of we need to redo the Formica countertops with quartz or granite , depending on what tickles da Boss’s fancy, and we might replace the sink ,it’s a top mount but can also be remounted under the new stuff. And house needs painting and the eaves need sanding , don’t think I want to do that myself, but might rent a sprayer and attack the house

#13

We ended up replacing all our fascia trim last summer with our roof project along with all the exposed plywood under the eaves… And that turned into a “hey let’s paint the house” project after the roof was done. Now we just need new gutters as the old ones were built into the roof.

#14

I like a nice home and we have one, but I always try to keep my wife up to date what she likes done around the home, yes it does let me build my RR and it’s a good trade-off for both of us.

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