Homeowners STOP

[bustr]

When I was younger I worked in many trades. So it's simpler for me to remodel my kitchen, put in a new bathroom, rebuild the roof on the back porch, install new hotwater heaters, run wiring and plumbing, all those things I did in the trades. But you don't make alot of money, so now I work for a Bank.

But what gets my goat is I may start hiring a professional helper instead of my O'l lady if she gives me one more bellybutton chewing because I didn't say please or ask her real nice to pass me the hammer.

Or instead of just supporting the end of the peice of wood I'm sawing, shes guiding the wood for me under the skillsaw right over my fingers from here better vantage point 6 feet away. Then when I yell at her she gets pissed because I yelled. No matter that I nearly lost my fingers.

Then there's the arguments over how much fun I'm having being the carpenter getting to be creative and doing the design and doing the real building while she's stuck fetching, holding, carrying, being TOLD to hand me something and the cleanup. And then the pissing match responce when I ask her if she knows how to do any of the parts that make up a full remodeling job in our kitchen. Because I care about her I'm supposed to support her while she learns to do them with $5k of new cabinets, a few thousands in trim and other materials.

I let her do the floor plan for the cabinets and order them. She has an art degree from North Eastern U and beleives she has a great sense of design. She didn't tell me she readjusted the floor plan at the store to try and make the sink line up with a window. This was behind my back after I spent an hour showing her why it wouldn't. You know that experience gained by actually having worked in the trades.

Four months later when I'm installing the cabinets I discover I have a 9 inch gap where I had worked out the floor plan not to have one. It took me 7 days to remanufacture the base cabinets to fit my original layout and the O'l lady now goes "wow until I actually saw them in place it looked like I could make the sink line up with the window. Honey I guess you were right after all."

Oh and I let her use the nail gun while I was holding up bead board paneling. She pulls the trigger and goes wow this fun. Suddenly she picks up speed, pow,pow,pow,pow,pow and places it on my hand, and 30 seconds later its all my fault for yelling at her..................Or when she got mad I wasen't letting her do the demolition on the back proch roof with me. I had her hauling the debree to the truck..cleenup....so I hand her the wreking bar and hammer.....she drops a rafter on my head....and it was all my falt because I yelled at her when I could see straight again.

Anything else my O'l lady rocks the world. I just can't take it being all my fault anymore, so I think I'll hire a contractor helper next time....

[Lizard3]

High Horse, meet Dred. Dred meet High Horse.

Wondered if ya'll had been properly introduced...

[SOB]

Home improvement ain't that hard if you take your time and can follow instructions.  My best friend has been slowly re-doing his house from top to bottom, as time allows, and it looks pretty damned good.  Hardwood floors refinished, basement is getting remodelled, with new walls / wiring / some plumbing / drywall / flooring, etc.  It looks pretty damned good so far, and a hell of a lot cheaper than having a contractor come in an do it.

Sure, there are some people who could **** up at driving a nail into a 2X4, but they generally know who they are.  Sometimes their cheapness just gets the better of them.  Besides, when someone does screw something up, don't you end up with more money in your pocket for the time it takes to get them back to square one?

[midnight Target]

I know my limitations..

New water heater.. no problem.
New sink and fixtures... no problem.
Electrical repairs.. so far.. no problem.

build a brick wall... no way in hell I'm gonna even try.
trim the 50' palm tree in front... pros only... with insurance!

[Jackal1]

LMAO@bustr. I have to get out the windex for the monitor again.
Made my day. I can relate.
I read it to The Beast.....errr I mean my loving wife. She said "that sounds familiar". lol

[Sikboy]

Eh, it's fun. But dear lord it takes FOREVER.

I'm totally anal retentive though...

And I can totally see three "interesting" mistakes (or, points of learning as I like to think of them lol).

Anyhow, I asked my Barber the other day: "Say, do you think I need a haircut"?

-Sik

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by midnight Target

Electrical repairs.. so far.. no problem.
 

Lol, that's where I draw the line!

I'll **** up anything that might "look like ****" but when it comes to "burn the house down"... not so much

-Sik

[DREDIOCK]

LOL bustr. been there and know the feeling.
and isnt it always amazing how their great ideas usually turn into your headaches?

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Lizard3
High Horse, meet Dred. Dred meet High Horse.

Wondered if ya'll had been properly introduced...

LMAO no. Its called experience.
Its called running into 1 wall to many that looks more like waves on a stormy ocean then it does a straight smooth wall.

Or dealing with patched holes that look like someone applied spackle with a high pressure fire hose.
Or wiring that was wired, backwards.
Or trying to install sheetrock  where the wiring was run over the outside of the studs instead of through them eventhough the holes were already drilled for wires. And then running into the same thing on a garage ceiling were everything that is supposed to be installed AFTER the ceiling was sheetrocked was done before and done wrong at that.

Or people who decided to use crown molding for their chair rail.

Or running into plumbing that looks like something out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon.

Or Wallpaper that was hung over unsized walls

Its called running into that sort of thing over and over and over and over again and finally one time too many.
and thus the reason for this thread

Maybe I am on a high horse.
But its kinda hard not to feel superior when I keep running into so much that is inferior.

There is no substitute for hands on experiance and no amount of "how to" books or watching Bob Villa on TV will make up for it

[Sikboy]

Dred, you would have a stroke if you saw my "family room"  

It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and it makes me sad that I own it.

We think that it used to be a Garage, but someone, other than yourself, turned it into a standard room. There are a few spots on the ceiling that look like it has eczema... I'm not sure what was there, or what they used to patch it with but man it's just wrong. The trim looks like it was cut by one-eyed beavers, and each wall has at least one spot where it looks like a roofing nail has been painted over. I don't know what that's about.

There is a bathroom attached. We affectionately refer to it as the "spider bathroom" The thing is, well.. they didn't finish the wall that seperates the bathroom from the main room. I'm not sure if there was some kind of reason for this, but between the top of the wall, and the celing (with some eczema!) there's about 6 inches of air. It's AWESOME if you want everyone to hear you piss.

When we moved in, there as this nasty carpet that was laid down. It didn't run the entire length of the room though. On the far side of the room, there was about one foot where there was no carpet, and instead there was pealing-up linoleum roll. When we pulled up the Carpet, it seemed to have been stapled down with an MG-151/staple- total random spray pattern.

So, when I think about this room, I can totally understand why you've posted this. It's probably the same way I feel about people who write their own wills with the aid of some "write your own will"  software.

-Sik

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by SOB
Home improvement ain't that hard if you take your time and can follow instructions.  My best friend has been slowly re-doing his house from top to bottom, as time allows, and it looks pretty damned good.  Hardwood floors refinished, basement is getting remodelled, with new walls / wiring / some plumbing / drywall / flooring, etc.  It looks pretty damned good so far, and a hell of a lot cheaper than having a contractor come in an do it.

Sure, there are some people who could **** up at driving a nail into a 2X4, but they generally know who they are.  Sometimes their cheapness just gets the better of them.  Besides, when someone does screw something up, don't you end up with more money in your pocket for the time it takes to get them back to square one?

Yes and no. the Effort/reward ratio isnt the same as it would be if you just did it from the start.
  Plus on some jobs you get the added aggravation of having to get rid of the stuff you had to tear out.
Also there are cases like one I had recently where the homeowner just wanted me to make due with what was there and try to make the best of it. Which in turn leads to a completed job that doesn't leave the kind of quality work I am accustomed to doing?

During the busy months I'll even turn down such jobs for any price. May be his house but its my reputation and livelihood.

In the slow winter months like now sometimes you have to make due with what you can get and bite the bullet. But still out of self pride you try to make it look as good as humanly possible which in turn leads to more time you initially didn't plan on so your not making the per hour/day money you normally would.

This added effort can often impress the homeowner and lead to more work by way of referral down the road but sometimes it doesn't.
Either way you still end up working more hours for less money.

Yes a Homeowner can do a good job himself if he takes his time and follows instructions. Problem is many start that way most dont finish that way.

After a day or so the job gets old for them and they get bored take the attitude of "screw it. Lets just get it done" And they start taking shortcuts which often leads to a less then professional looking or in some cases functioning or outright dangerous job.

[Nash]

I dunno man...

Those big things in basements with all the pipes coming out of them scare the bejesious outta me.

If something were to break on them, I'd use the same method I use on the big thing on the floor above the basement that has the 4 circles on top....

Pick up the phone and order in.

[Dune]

All depends on what it is.  Some things I can do.  Some things I could do with instructions.  Some things I won't even try.

[Mini D]

My wife bought our house before we were married... so I absolve myself of all responsibility.  But... I will admit that I tend not to fix things here out of disgust.  I am coming around though and will have this place actually looking respectable some time in the next 2 years.

As I go, I find that the do-it-yourselfers that worked on this house for the last 60 years have had one thing in common: they were complete idiots.

Oven exhausts:  When you decide to remove an oven exhaust, you must think this through.  The average man would remove the piping and patch up the holes with plywood and then shingles or fiberglass (ours is on a 5 degree slope... so it's fiberglass).  The rocket scientist that lived here before us had a better solution.  Instead of removing the pipe and plugging the holes, you could just cut the pipe off about 1 foot above the roof line and then bash the sides of the pipe in until you partially closed the hole off about 6 inches above the roofline.  Since you still have a hole in the top of the pipe that's only partially covered, you'd need to put a sheet of fiberglass over it... a single sheet... to cover a pipe that's sticking up.  As you realize that a flat sheet of fiberglass is not going to sit flat on the roof, you should make certain that the inevitable gap is pointing up the slop of the roof so that it can catch any water that might be flowing that way.

Electrical outlets:  When cutting holes in sheetrock for electrical outlets, you can mark where to cut by placing the outlet face plate on the sheetrock and then outlining around it.

Moulding:  Why use one board when multiple boards will do the job.  A 48" 1x6 is much too expensive when 3 scrap pieces will do.  Also, there is no need to actually cut a 45 degree angle on BOTH boards when making a 90.  You can cut the 45 in one and a 90 in the other and then fill the gap with putty.

Sheetrock:  Highly over rated.  Press board works much better in most situations.

Studs:  You can actually nail 18 3' 2x4s together to make one 4 1/2" thick stud.

Tongue and groove: Not just for subflooring anymore!  Placing tongue and groove beneath the covering of the walls (be it sheetrock or the aforementioned press board) makes them stronger.  Placing it on both sides of the wall makes it even doubly stronger.

Firestops:  So THATS what those boards between the studs were supposed to be for.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Sikboy
Dred, you would have a stroke if you saw my "family room"  

So, when I think about this room, I can totally understand why you've posted this. It's probably the same way I feel about people who write their own wills with the aid of some "write your own will"  software.

-Sik

Exactly.

Gee you didnt happen to just have it fixed and painted did you?
sounds like a job I just finished.

Naa that guy is a car dealer.

That "eczema" you see is either a really bad spackle job, Dirt and dust that has been painted over without cleaning first or wallpaper paste that wasnt fully cleaned off and primed.
If its scaling in areas with bits of paint flaking off its probably wallpaper paste.
Any time you remove wallpaper and plan on painting the walls you have to remove all or as much of the remaining paste as humany possible and prime with a fast dry oil based primer before you paint.

reason being if you dont. and you dont get ALL the paste off. about a month later the paste will decide to lift and will look like scales on the wall.
With the oil based primer if its going to scale at all it usually does within the first 24 hours but typically it wont unles you left alot of paste there.

BTW for anyone removing wallpaper. Dont waste your money on BIN Paper remover.
If it wont come off with hot water it wont come off with Bin either. and if it comes off easy with BIN it will come off just as easy with hot water.
You can however try adding some vinegar to the water. the acidity in the vinegar will help loosen the paste.
Also Good old fabric softener works too though Im not quite sure why. and your wife will love how soft it makes your hands. And you wont smell like a salad

If even after using these tricks it doesnt come off easy. Plan on being there for a while.

Oh and count on making a mess, there is no neat way to do it that is also not VERY time consuming

If its gritty its probably dirt that was painted over or the roller had dirt in it and left it on the walls/ceiling.

Or could be the result of a bad plaster/spackling job that was never smoothed out or sanded right.

the rest of the stuff is obvious what they did wrong.