DIY home improvements ITT

[Hayes21890]

This is going better than expected. I like seeing everyones updates and pictures.
I will bee doing some work to my retaining wall this summer. The previous owner has one going on the side of the driveway that goes around the side of my house and the french style drain in there has a couple holes in the piping and it is washing away a bunch of the dirt that is behind the wall. So now that it is warm, I will be fixing that sooner rather than later!

Also, I hung up 2 new light fixtures in the living room and one in the laundry room this past weekend. The laundry room, you can kind of see a few of the other things we are doing to that room. My fiance hang-dries some of her clothes so we put a ladder up hanging from the ceiling to keep **** out of the way. We also put a shelf in there to put some stuff on as well. It is actually coming along nicely. I will try and get a few more pictures of it later!

[Shoester]

Lee's Summit

I'm in Pleasant Hill, neighbor.

[JoshSP1985]

Master bath progression:

This is how it looked when we moved in


Cleaned up best we could from a decorating level to hold us over for a while


Gutted


Full Remodel, I did all the work except sweating in the new shower valve body and hanging the glass shower door (factory installer)



Total Work for the Bathroom.

Knocked out the lowered ceiling above shower to raise to full height
New cabinetry
All new fixtures/accessories
Ripped out old plastic shower floor and installed a Tile-Redi floor system
shimmed out shower walls to correct for shoddy construction
full tile shower
full tile floor
full drywall replacement (I won't ever do this again not worth the cost when experts can do it flawlessly for pretty low cost)
paint
replaced trim work
relocated vent fan to in front of shower (it's retarded that they install these above toilets) moisture removal is the #1 goal
Installed timer switch for the vent fan so you can run it for a bit after you leave etc
new toilet/seat

[JoshSP1985]

Nursery Work:
New carpet
replaced trim work (was walnut colored)
Painted walls
Painted window, ordered new white hardware/screen (not installed yet as of picture)
Installed white bypass closet doors (not pictured)
New white register
New white door/trim not pictured (installer hung the new door)
New Fan

[Hayes21890]

That bathroom and nursery turned out awesome guys. So far for my house, the bathrooms are good for what we like. For now. We are doing a bunch of little $100 fixes such as light fixtures and that stuff. My brother has his own lawncare business so he has the yard on lock. We will be doing some work around the front of the house this weekend, weather permitting.
My next project that I need to tackle is my gate on the side of the house. It is not holding up well. I think I will need to take down one entire side of the gate, and re-do the hinges to get everything level again.
If any of you guys has done a gate and have some pictures, please post it! It is a wooden fence/gate and I do believe we just need to get new hinges for it.

[JoshSP1985]

Yea I replaced every switch/power receptical in my entire house they were all the nasty almond color that looks like a smoker lived there.

[Hayes21890]

Not too much to update right now. Just hung a new mirror in our hallway and did a few other little things around the house.
I did get a new deck box for the back patio to put all our bags or charcoal and grilling stuff in. $129 from Lowe's. It is a 124 gallon box and looks great!

[JoshSP1985]

Not too much to update right now. Just hung a new mirror in our hallway and did a few other little things around the house.
I did get a new deck box for the back patio to put all our bags or charcoal and grilling stuff in. $129 from Lowe's. It is a 124 gallon box and looks great!

Damn that's big. Pic?

[Hayes21890]

Damn that's big. Pic?

Currently have it full now. Have a retractable awning so I have the crank in the deck box, the cushions for the chairs and a few more things.

Now that it is warm, we have been doing a lot of grilling outside. So, since seating was limited, we went and bought a patio set. 5 piece set for $399.99 and it is actually comfy. Link is below

http://www.biglots.com/p/c/outdoor-t...p-dining-table

[JoshSP1985]

In case you guys are interested to see,
I went all out and bought 5 gallons of Exterior Stain
Behr Premium Semi-Transparent Stain and Protectant, Color: Chocolate

I stained the staircase and the back deck this past weekend with the 3 days of hot and dry weather.
Before:

After:

Nice **** man that is a big improvement

[vik66]

Not really much, but I thought i would contribute anyway. Just recently bought the house. I dont have the time/expertise to do what i would like. Really want to build a small deck in my backyard. I will post pics later to see if anyone can provide me some advice.

Before



After

[JoshSP1985]

Those pavers or whatever you call them make a huge difference, pricey little ****s though.

[lincolnmkv]

Looks great. I don't know why but I have been afraid to do tile work, thinking that it's going to look obvious that it was an amateur job. Did you find it easy to do?

[JoshSP1985]

Looks great. I don't know why but I have been afraid to do tile work, thinking that it's going to look obvious that it was an amateur job. Did you find it easy to do?

Floors are easy, walls are tricky. The walls would have been a lot easier with smaller tiles. You can see some imperfections inside the shower but part of it was one of the concrete boards was warped some and I didn't realize it until the rest was hung and I had started tiling so the tiles up high on the back of the shower are a little wonky.

[Hayes21890]

Some good looking landscaping going on! I got lucky on that end, my brother has his own lawncare business so he makes my yard look great. Starting to work on a few more natural areas in my back yard, will post pics when that comes along. Also, my lot, for whatever reason, does not have a single tree on it. Trying to decide what tree I want to put infront of my house. I am thinking something about 15-25 feet tall, and about 15 feet in peak bloom diameter.

[phillypino215]

love this thread. now got to find some balls to actually do stuff...

[Hayes21890]

love this thread. now got to find some balls to actually do stuff...

That was/is the hard part for me. If you are doing landscape stuff, don't worry about messing that up, you can always make it better. Only thing I would be hesitant to do now is any kind of demo work on the inside.

[JoshSP1985]

Some good looking landscaping going on! I got lucky on that end, my brother has his own lawncare business so he makes my yard look great. Starting to work on a few more natural areas in my back yard, will post pics when that comes along. Also, my lot, for whatever reason, does not have a single tree on it. Trying to decide what tree I want to put infront of my house. I am thinking something about 15-25 feet tall, and about 15 feet in peak bloom diameter.

Might check out dogwoods they don't grow too big and grow pretty slowly. Nice white blooms in the spring etc and they're cheap.

[JoshSP1985]

That was/is the hard part for me. If you are doing landscape stuff, don't worry about messing that up, you can always make it better. Only thing I would be hesitant to do now is any kind of demo work on the inside.

Yep, just do planning ahead of time to make sure you have an idea of costs. You don't want to rip down a room in your house and then realize you don't have the funds to put it back together. Also everything is more expensive than you would think at first glance =)

[Hayes21890]

Might check out dogwoods they don't grow too big and grow pretty slowly. Nice white blooms in the spring etc and they're cheap.

I have looked at dogwoods, Japanese Maples, and a few different Cherry Blossoms. Still undecided!

Yep, just do planning ahead of time to make sure you have an idea of costs. You don't want to rip down a room in your house and then realize you don't have the funds to put it back together. Also everything is more expensive than you would think at first glance =)

I know that's right.

[Hayes21890]

New update time...

Our back patio started out very dull, we recently bought a new patio set from Big Lots. Next, the concrete was not able to get clean by pressure washing so we decided we were going to paint the patio. We went to Lowe's and got 7 gallons of this...
http://www.lowes.com/pd_458354-90-49...-Oleum|Restore

They have about 20 different colors that we could choose from so we went with a color called "Dune". I was very happy with the color. To lay the application, you need to clean the surface, whether it is wood or concrete, and let it dry. Since I had recently pressure washed the patio, I decided to just hose off the other bits of dust, rocks, and what ever else has accumulated on there. The paint itself is about 20X thicker than regular wall paint. You use a special roller to give it a good texture. Very happy with the outcome...

Before...


After...


If you have any questions about this product, please let me know! The reviews on youtube varied from horrible to amazing. I figured not many people would do a video of a good product so most of them were people complaining. So hopefully this sticks well and does not cause any problems!

[JoshSP1985]

Looks good tempted to do my wood deck/walkway with that stuff it's starting to get bad it wasn't in good shape to begin with when we bought the house.

[pbmang]

We had a pipe burst in our house over the winter. Ended up ripping a nice sized hole in the wall to replace the pipe. I've never done drywall, but figured this would be a good time to learn.

This was after we ripped up the old carpet/pad, pulled up the base boards, and started cutting out the drywall. Basically, there was about 14 inches of dry wall all the way around the perimteter that needed to be removed/replaced, plus the area of the wall we used to access the broken pipe. It's not the greatest picture, but gives an idea of where we started:



After new laminate put down, new drywall, baseboards and painting:





My wife and I use that room as an office for our business, it is working out much nicer now. Plus, with the laminate, our office chairs call roll all over. It's pretty awesome.


The flooring went down pretty easily, so I also started on a couple small bedrooms we have upstairs. Just finished up one this weekend. Pulled the carpet, repainted and installed new laminate. We managed to buy this house at the peak of the real estate bubble, so right now we are working on turning it into a nice rental. This laminate really makes it look nicer than it did, and seems to be fairly easy to replace. Not to mention, it's pretty cheap.

Hopefully we will be out of it in the next year or two.

[0p3rator]

This is going better than expected. I like seeing everyones updates and pictures.
I will bee doing some work to my retaining wall this summer. The previous owner has one going on the side of the driveway that goes around the side of my house and the french style drain in there has a couple holes in the piping and it is washing away a bunch of the dirt that is behind the wall. So now that it is warm, I will be fixing that sooner rather than later!

Also, I hung up 2 new light fixtures in the living room and one in the laundry room this past weekend. The laundry room, you can kind of see a few of the other things we are doing to that room. My fiance hang-dries some of her clothes so we put a ladder up hanging from the ceiling to keep **** out of the way. We also put a shelf in there to put some stuff on as well. It is actually coming along nicely. I will try and get a few more pictures of it later!

lol, is that your marriage date? My bday is 5/16

[Hayes21890]

Looks good tempted to do my wood deck/walkway with that stuff it's starting to get bad it wasn't in good shape to begin with when we bought the house.

From what I have read, get more than you know you will use. If it starts to chip or peel off or anything in the future, just brush that one spot. Also, the colors they show in the store, it always turns out a little lighter so take that into consideration as well!

We had a pipe burst in our house over the winter. Ended up ripping a nice sized hole in the wall to replace the pipe. I've never done drywall, but figured this would be a good time to learn.

This was after we ripped up the old carpet/pad, pulled up the base boards, and started cutting out the drywall. Basically, there was about 14 inches of dry wall all the way around the perimteter that needed to be removed/replaced, plus the area of the wall we used to access the broken pipe. It's not the greatest picture, but gives an idea of where we started:
After new laminate put down, new drywall, baseboards and painting:

My wife and I use that room as an office for our business, it is working out much nicer now. Plus, with the laminate, our office chairs call roll all over. It's pretty awesome.


The flooring went down pretty easily, so I also started on a couple small bedrooms we have upstairs. Just finished up one this weekend. Pulled the carpet, repainted and installed new laminate. We managed to buy this house at the peak of the real estate bubble, so right now we are working on turning it into a nice rental. This laminate really makes it look nicer than it did, and seems to be fairly easy to replace. Not to mention, it's pretty cheap.

Hopefully we will be out of it in the next year or two.

That looks great! Was it as hard as you thought it would be going into it? Or was it easier? Any help from a friend who knows what he was doing or just on your own research?

I am always wanting to learn more about how to do small things around the house, because who wants to pay someone $150 to do something you can learn on your own in a very short time (hand a new fan or light fixture). I would love to tackle new projects but time and money, of course, are holding us back!

The lady wants to do an "accent" wall in our dining room that consist of stone in the center of the wall and that same wall, be a different color than the rest. Any of you guys have anything like that in your house?

[Hayes21890]

lol, is that your marriage date? My bday is 5/16

Haha, yeah man. 5/16/15 is the big day.
I just realized how ****ty that light looks in that room from this picture. It actually looks great and gives off a great amount of light. We have some bright white lights in it so it does not give off an incandescent look.

[midniteOG]

Age: 24
Owns home
Mirin'
See's location: North Carolina

Still mirin

Lol coincidence much, age 24, nc, owns condo.....


But great idea OP! Im in the process of researching "reclaimed" wood and brick for a few walls... Ive made some small improvements such as paint, tile, etc. however i did manage to build a pallet table and wine rack

[bobsapp]

I need to fix a big hole in the wall. How can i do it?

[Trinity1216]

Excellent thread! Subbing to it. LBM and I bought a 1890 Farmhouse that we are renovating. Subbing to post some pics later on

[WrathOfTheBeard]

Really mirin the work in this thread. This is me whenever I try and tackle a project