Home Improvement Today?

There are a lot of studies and different opinions on how to insulate crawl spaces. Ventilation and determining if it is a conditioned space or not. Also depends on geographical location.

For my old house, I decided that since I had leaky uninsulated air ducts, with a small return, that I could just consider the space conditioned. So I did a vapor barrier that went all the way up the foundation wall. The house had some significant moisture related issues prior to doing this and never did again. I actually had some problems of split floor joists after that when things dried out.

 

What brand tank did you get? I'm building a house in a couple years and am researching septic systems.

 

Pro tip on those boxes, if you run the screws on the wings all the way in then back out BEFORE putting the box in the wall they work much easier.

 

Those suckers are stiff. Sometimes you gotta loosen them a bit before you tighten. Just do it before you put it in the wall like @thelate1 said.

 

Oh don't even start on angry trips to the big box store. That could be an entire thread, How many trips does it take you to do a project? For me the average is 4. One to get the stuff I need, two to get the rest of the stuff, three to get replacements for the stuff I screwed up, four to return all the extra stuff I bought.

 

That's why when the cashier says "Did you find everything you're looking for?" I just say "Probably not"

 

I say the same thing when any of the workers ask if they can help me with any questions. They are clueless. So I just say “I doubt it”.

 

https://youtu.be/IEhHEOIYgMY

 

Ack, got it from the owner of the supply store, got like $500 off, didn’t even notice the brand. I can go and check if you would really like.....

 

Replaced some 1980’s mini blinds with Gila window film in the garage, SO MUCH MORE LIGHT COMING IN!

 

Sold it! Turned out far, far better than I'd expected. Some house flipper called and said he'd have his contractor come down and remove the kitchen. I was "yeah right, this guy got to be a clown, but whatever, I want it gone." After a little bit of back and forth on the price, he pays me and 10 minutes later his contractor shows up, and the guy is awesome. I'll be giving him a call if I ever sub out a project.

So, here's the trick to re-splitting granite or quartz counters. Loosen one side while keeping the other untouched. Then gently lift the loosened side and, according to this contractor, it will break the seam bond 9 times out of 10.
Don't those cabinets look like they're made out of graham crackers? Had about the same strength as graham crackers too. Shitty cheap ass contractor stuff.


Now it's time to put the new kitchen in:

Before -

During


Still working on after -

 

Porch lights wired and mounted today.

 

We’re moved in but we still have projects to do and stuff to find it’s “home”, we hung this above the fireplace tonight, seems like a fitting spot for it.

 

Great painting. Used to have the same one!

 

Thanks! I absolutely love Kinkades work, this one was a birthday present from my parents.
You must have fine taste.

 

You sir are too kind...

 

New home has pre-wired CAT5 to the bedrooms and living room. Any suggestions as to what to buy to expand my number of plugs in the living room? Everything is online these days and didn’t want to jam up the WiFi by connecting things wirelessly.

I’m assuming the cable folks will connect the router in the centralized box and will probably need some sort of WiFi extender or could I connect a second router downstairs and make that a “switch” for the extra slots?

Pic for reference of centralized box (I’ll be cleaning that dusty mess up once I get my house stuff delivered today)

 

Do you want/need more plugs in the wall or just more plugs in a certain location?
Adding more plugs in the wall would be easy, running the wire via the attic is the “difficult” part.
Adding more plugs in a central location is stupid easy, get a network switch (this is what I have

$26 NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS208) - Desktop, Ethernet Splitter, Silent Operation, Plug-and-Play

Link) and run a cable from the wall to the switch, connect power to the switch, and then connect any devices (up to 7, for this particular switch) that you want to have network access, and make sure that the other end (network closet end) is connected to your router.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

Edit: I wouldn’t assume that the cable folks will connect the router to the network closet, they will likely do whatever is easiest for them unless you have a super cool installer and talk to him/her about setting it up with the pre-wired setup before they start the installation.

Edit #2: you could use a switch to run additional cables through the wall throughout the living room, either by having the switch in the living room with cables going back into the wall to drop elsewhere, or (if code allows) run an outlet in the attic, crimp a new end onto one of the existing cables that drop into the wall and use that as your source to provide Ethernet to additional plugs. Or you could run the switch in the attic and only have 1 new run going back to the panel for the router to connect to and have your other (new) drops start from the switch.