Category: Home improvement

Posted in Home improvement, Life

Some sad-looking sod finds a home

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I needed 25 square feet of sod to patch a place in the backyard where we had a sandbox for the grandkids when they were younger. The sandbox hadn’t gotten much action in the past year, so I tore it out, spread out the sand where the yard needed some leveling, and tossed out the wood from the box and lid.

I was certain that our Home Depot got a delivery of sod every Saturday morning, so I had no doubt I could pick up some nice pieces of grass. I was so wrong.

When I arrived, there were hardly any pieces under the big “Sod” sign. A woman driving a red Jeep Gladiator was picking through some pieces, rejecting most and having a Home Depot guy put some in her truck.

I carefully surveyed the scene. I saw enough sod for my project. I only needed twelve pieces, so I went to the cashier for my purchase. I said, “I thought you got new sod on Saturdays.”

He replied, “No, the truck comes every Tuesday and Thursday.”

“No problem. I saw enough out there. I need twelve pieces.” He rung up my sale and I pulled my van around to the pile of picked over sod.

The remaining sod was a little yellow around the edges, a bit dry, and broken apart. But I found twelve acceptable pieces to load up. When I got to the last piece, another man stepped up, looked at me and said, “That’s all there is?”

I said, “Yep. I just need one more piece, and the rest is yours.” He shook his head as he looked over the pile of dirt and pieces of grass. “I suggested, “You might want to try Lowes.”

He said, “I was just there. I guess I’ll have to come back.”

Back home, I carried my below average sod through the gate into the back yard and covered up the sandbox footprint. I watered it well and said, “Good luck.”

Much to my delight, thunderstorms drenched our neighborhood the past two afternoons. Nothing waters the yard better than rain from above. I have a good feeling about that below average sod. Just wait until the sun hits it and it starts to grow. It will feel right at home.

Posted in Home improvement

Another shelf bites the dust

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Just so you know, these are not my shelves.

“What in the world was that?” The crashing sound came from the garage. It almost sounded like someone crashed into the garage door. But the overhead door was open. Maybe the neighbor across the street was working on something in his garage. No, it didn’t look like he was home.

When I stepped into the garage, I saw stuff all over the floor. A shelf had come down off the wall above my workbench, scattering boxes of nails and screws across the floor, dumping out another box of household batteries, and leaving the light, eero (wifi repeater), and echo hanging from wires. And the worst – the plastic box with all my fountain pen ink bottles.

Fortunately, that last box was still closed up. But a bottle had broken open, covering everything in blue ink. I fished out some ink cartridges and converters, and then threw the whole thing away. I couldn’t even tell which bottle of red, green, blue, or black was which.

After I got some better hollow wall anchors at the hardware store, I reattached the shelf and decided to put all the organizer boxes of nails, screws, nuts and washers in a workbench drawer. Lighter things like a can of WD-40, picture hanging hardware, the box of batteries, and some extension cords were fine up on the shelf.

I hadn’t planned on it, but this was a good chance to declutter my workbench area. It’s interesting how stuff accumulates in places around the house. Unless you intentionally declutter, stuff will take over your living spaces. I gathered up various screws, wrappers, rags, packets of seeds, receipts, dog toys and leaches, tools, pens and pencils which accumulated there. Since we enter the house through the garage, this surface is the catchall spot for just about everything.

Clutter happens. Decluttering is intentional. Sometimes I remember. Other times a shelf falls off the wall to remind me.

Posted in Home improvement

Tear it down and start over

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Did they put the pool in first? I’ve never seen that before.”

“And look, there’s an AC air handler and a paver driveway.”

“Wait a minute. this is where that house was. You know, the one torn up by the tornado.”

I went back through my dog walking photos and found these crazy pics from last fall, when a tornado spun off from some strong thunderstorms last fall. No one was in the yellow house when the twister tore the roof off. It sat there roofless for six months before anything happened.

And then suddenly, one day, it was gone. At a time where lots are cleared and new homes go up every week, this is an unusual sight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a block home demolished in preparation for new construction. I’ll bet it’s expensive to demo a home, remove the debris, and start over. There was one house around the block that was destroyed in a fire. But they rebuilt it after stripping it down to the block and foundation. Construction is supposed to withstand 150 mph hurricane winds. Clearly you don’t want to mess with a tornado.

I didn’t see any permits, so I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I suppose you would feel secure living in the next house built here. After all, what are the odds of the same home in Florida being hit by a second tornado?

Posted in Home improvement

Those shingles are going to get real heavy real soon

Posted on by William Douthwaite

A house up the street is finally getting a new roof. That’s not unusual. I think most of the houses near me (including mine) have gotten a new roof in the past three years.

What did catch my eye was the pile of shingles in the driveway. Typically a big truck with a big arm pulls into the driveway and lifts piles of shingles onto the ridge line of the house. Once in a while roofers will have a ladder lift that raises two or three bundles to the workers up on the roof.

But all these guys had was a ladder against the side of the house. From what I could tell they were going to carry each fifty-pound bundle up the old fashioned way, one at a time. That’s got to be at least sixty times up and down the ladder. That’s a lot of work just getting the shingles up there.

Most of the roofing work is done by companies who bring in a crew of four to five, able to get the whole thing done in a day and a half. From what I could tell, there were only a couple of guys working this job. All the guys and gals who do roofs are tough and hard workers. Plus it’s the time of the year where it gets pretty hot up there in the middle of the day.

I’ve only ever worked on one roof. We put a second layer of shingles on the church in Connecticut about thirty-five years ago. We didn’t have a compressor and nail guns, just hammers and roofing nails. It took a whole day, but we got it done. Bonus prize: no one fell off the roof.

I wonder how many years the average worker is up there on roofs? I don’t see many older people up there. After a while, I’ll bet younger workers take the place of the more experienced roofers whose backs and knees just can’t take it any more. I searched on the average length of a roofing career, and got mixed answers. Some said no sane person would do it for more than six months. Others have done it for thirty years or more.

I don’t go up on my roof unless I absolutely have to, usually to sweep pine needles that accumulate in certain places. I do a lot better working on the ground.

Posted in DIY, Home improvement

The real never-ending story: home upkeep

Posted on by William Douthwaite

We recently stayed in an Airbnb condo just outside of Dallas, Texas. It weighed in at just under one thousand square feet, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a well-equipped kitchen, and a really comfortable living room. It was part of a four-plex that this owner had remodeled with nice wood-inspired flooring, new appliances, and a nice deck out back.

As one who does a lot of my own home upkeep, I immediately noticed that all the rocker-style light switches worked, but were incorrectly installed. Some pushed in too far. A few were upside down. Others were crooked. A couple were beginning to crack.

On top of that, a number of the wall outlets were upside down, too. This is easy to spot because the ground is at the top rather than the bottom of each plug outlet. Not a big deal until we moved a nightlight/scented wax plug-in. Upside down, it left a little puddle of wax. Not cool.

Every time I walked in and switched on a light, I thought, “If I had my tools, I could fix this.” I would never start working on someone’s house unless I had broken something. But it would be tempting.

In the master bedroom, the ceiling fan was blowing upwards rather than down. This is great in the winter when you want to circulate hot air down in the room. But not so much once the weather turns warm and you want to feel some breeze. No problem. I stood up on the bed and searched around for the switch that changes the fan direction. No switch.

I saw the remote control on the wall and thought, “Oh, there must be a way to change the direction with that.” I jumped down and fiddled with that for a while. No luck. I looked up the remote online. There was supposed to be a little button on the back to change the fan direction. Nope. Maybe it’s under this little sticker. Nice try. But no button. I gave up on that project.

I always notice these little things. I figure, if you’re going to spend the time and money to remodel a place, you might as well do it or get it done right. The new floors and baseboards were all nicely replaced. The walls were professionally textured and painted. The appliances, fixtures, furniture, and decor was all nicely put together. Why not finish the job?

I’m going to quit now because there is always something in my own home that needs to be cleaned, touched up, straightened, or replaced. Home upkeep is the real never ending story.

Posted in Home improvement

This dishwasher has a mind of its own

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Dee-do-do-deedle-dee.

What was that? Is that the dishwasher? That’s the dishwasher start up tune. I didn’t start the dishwasher. In fact, it’s empty right now. It’s starting up all on it’s own?

I checked the display, and it was ready to go, but only a rinse cycle. Strange. Just one of those things, I guess. I hit the power button. Do-dee-do-dee-do-do. If you have a Samsung appliance, you’ll recognize the tune.

But it wasn’t just one of those things. I heard the music about once a day. Sometimes in the morning. Or the afternoon. Even after I went to sleep at night.

Oh, boy. I know what that means. I’ll bet I need to replace the control board in the door. Aw, man. I did that about two years ago. But it was under warranty. Now it’s not.

I can do it. I watched the guy. It took him about five minutes to take out the screws, plug in a new board, and put it all back together. I can do that.

But it doesn’t malfunction all the time. Only once in a while. It never starts on it own. But it thinks about it. Sometimes auto-cycle. Other times, “normal.” Sometimes a 15 minute rinse.

One of these days, our appliances will be sentient. They will think on their own and start up independently. Other than producing dirty dishes, we (humans) will be unnecessary.

I know, scary. But I think this all started when I began using a one-, two-, or three-hour start up delay. Why not let the dishwasher do his/her thing while you’re sleeping? Lol, because they don’t want to up at night either. And they let you know.

I cleaned out some filters and turned the power on and off, and everything seems to work just fine. For now.

We picked the suite of appliances for our remodeled kitchen because we liked the look. Next time around, we may look to those manufacturers who mainly make kitchen applicances rather than TVs.

Posted in Home improvement

A little joy: no more drips

Posted on by William Douthwaite

It sneaks up on you. It gradually takes more effort, more finesse, a stronger touch. But you barely notice it. Until one day you think, “I’ve got to fix this thing.”

I’m talking about the kitchen faucet. Ours is five years old. I installed it when we redid all our floors and kitchen cabinets. It’s a single handled, burnished nickel beauty with a three-function built-in sprayer. (Who knew the description of a plumbing fixture could sound so sensual?)

About a year ago, I noticed an occasional drip after washing a dish or filling a pot with water. Not a problem. I just pushed the handle up an extra millimeter to stop the drip. In time, it took an extra nudge with a twist to get the drip to stop. I heard the words, “Do we need to get a new faucet?”

No. A cartridge inside the handle, probably made of plastic, had worn enough to let a few drops of water through the turned off faucet. It wouldn’t be hard to replace it. The thing is, there are hundreds of different parts to fix faucets at the big orange home improvement store. Which one did I need?

I couldn’t remember the brand of faucet I purchased five years ago. I came up empty-handed when I looked through accounts and emails to find a record of what I bought. I was going to have to take the handle off, take the part with me and find the right replacement at the store.

After turning off the water, removing the handle, and unscrewing the faucet, the cartridge came right out. I took it to the store and easily found the exact same part.

The hard part was cleaning out all the mineral deposits before I put it back together. Vinegar took care of most of it. A little CLR (calcium, lime, rust) remover handled the rest. I popped in the new cartridge, screwed everything back together, turned on the water. There were no leaks, so I reattached the handle and congratulated myself on a job well done.

The next day, I marveled at how well the handle worked. Who knew I would get so much joy from a faucet that moved smoothly and easily? Life is filled with little joys like this. Embrace those moments.

Posted in Home improvement

Spelunking at Home Depot

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I finally had enough of a weekend free to put up the backsplash in our kitchen. It was neither a huge nor complicated job, and I had done some floor tile before, but never tackled a backsplash.

My wife had helped me pick out the tile which was more like a mosaic of rough stones. I got to Home Depot, found the tile, and started to count them out. I needed twenty-three pieces, but only found thirteen on the shelf. Come one, there must be more back there. It was on the very bottom shelf, so I stooped down and peered into the abyss. Was that another box back there? I couldn’t quite see. I lit up my phone light and shined it in, and yes, it was another box of that tile!

OK, now I have to get it out of there. Surely I can find someone to help me. I looked up and down several aisles and of course, saw no one in an orange apron. I guess I’m going to have to do this myself.

I got down on my stomach and crawled into the space between two other stacks of tile. Not much room to spare. Thank you paleo and CrossFit for helping me shave off a couple of pounds. I got all the way in up to my waist and got a hold of the box. It was a whole box of ten tiles, still wrapped in plastic, exactly the number I needed! As I wriggled out, I wondered how many had walked by wondering what I was doing. I expected a tap on the leg and the question, “Do you need some help?” But as I extracted myself, I was still the only living soul in the aisle.

Mission accomplished. Backsplash done. Not bad for my first time.