Home Ownership And You!

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  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    Oversized pantry @ half size of kitchen when we built the home. Coming in real handy right about now.
    Yes, the LEDs are nice at 3000K warm-light. The 6000K day-light ones will blind you.
    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • steveinaz
    steveinaz Posts: 19,521
    Nice!
    Source: Bluesound Node 2i - Preamp/DAC: Benchmark DAC2 DX - Amp: Parasound Halo A21 - Speakers: MartinLogan Motion 60XTi - Shop Rig: Yamaha A-S501 Integrated - Shop Spkrs: Elac Debut 2.0 B5.2
  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    edited April 2020
    Was doing some work to my 5Bs and wifey said I had another "more important" issue to fix. Dryer Tstat spilled its guts due to blocked filter housing.... lucky I had a spare from when I changed the element awhile back

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    I'll have to procure a vent stack clean out tool asap.

    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • Kex
    Kex Posts: 4,892
    xschop wrote: »
    Yes, the LEDs are nice at 3000K warm-light. The 6000K day-light ones will blind you.
    Personally, I find even 3,000 kelvin too clinical on full power (without a dimmer). 2,700k is perfection IMO, if you like that warm incandescent glow, even in a kitchen.
    Alea jacta est!
  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    Kex wrote: »
    xschop wrote: »
    Yes, the LEDs are nice at 3000K warm-light. The 6000K day-light ones will blind you.
    Personally, I find even 3,000 kelvin too clinical on full power (without a dimmer). 2,700k is perfection IMO, if you like that warm incandescent glow, even in a kitchen.

    Fortunately, the full 3000k is soaked/balanced by the dark brown granite and matching tile my wife chose. If it were alabaster, then yes 3000k would be too bright.
    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    edited April 2020
    Testing...

    Hmmm. I posted couple hours ago about my garage door spring swap and the message said my post was being reviewed.

    Lol. Nothing political about that...

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    Post edited by xschop on
    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    About an hour and a half job. Spring needs 1/4 turns counted 31 times for a 7 ft door....

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    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    Last Honey-do for awhile....
    Amazon doesn't consider garage door springs a necessity item I suppose. One of my vehicles has been held hostage the last 10 days....

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    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    Last Honey-do for awhile....
    Amazon doesn't consider garage door springs a necessity item I suppose. One of my vehicles has been held hostage the last 10 days....

    wknek7ibpe9z.jpg
    8bb4zz0uyydl.jpg
    uwqexk6i1fo7.jpg

    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    So, had other plans for the weekend but Mother Nature had a better idea.

    Last week we had some pretty heavy wind storms pass through. With all the rain we've had, it's been pretty rough on trees and I had 3 blow down. Two were old, dead, rotten ones that snapped at the stumps and are buried in other stands out by the road. I'll get to them later, they aren't in the way or anything right now and hard to get to. I'm waiting for a battery powered Milwaukee pole saw to show up because the other trees are just a bit too far for extension cords.

    The third one was in the middle of the yard. It's not the one that I was hoping would have fallen down but thankfully it wasn't that big. Still took about 6 hours to get it all cut up and removed. Not exactly finishing the attic stair panels or getting doors upstairs painted and hung on matching hardware but, what can you do?

    So this is March 30th
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    That stump sticking up there, that was a massive old maple that died due to ants. I cut it down in the Spring of 2019 when the kids were playing out by it and despite it having leaf buds on it, the wind blew a 15 foot chunk down and it landed about 20 feet from where the kids were playing. That signed it's death warrant and we pulled it down. That stump was 21 inches across at the narrow top. It's all rotten now, I'll get to that in a minute.

    Anyway, the tree came down, the previous owner had nailed an electrical box to it and while I had disconnected it a while ago, there was wire strung through the trees that I needed a ladder to get to. So it came down with the tree. The other branch was part of another tree that fell in the lake and I had drug there the day before this tree fell. Cut that up too.

    So I grabbed the electric pole saw and the big hoss chain saw and bucked the tree where it was laying. I piled the branches in my ever growing brush pile. I cut the stump of the tree as close as I could get it to the ground, it's going to have to get dug out or a stump grinder will need to be used on it. I cut up what was left of the other stump that was laying on the ground and cut back yet another stump that fell over a couple of years ago. I had left it because it was still green and very hard to cut through. Now that both old stumps were totally dead and somewhat rotten, I was able to get through them easier.

    Then, I repeatedly backed the lawn tractor into the rotten stump of the old maple tree until it collapsed. I left it there because it's full of ants and I don't need to be covered in ants. So I'll leave it there until the ants decide there's a better place to be or something goes and eats them all. The section that is left is still solid. I have a couple other stumps I wanted to take out too but I was just gassed by this point. That last stump picture was taken at about 5pm and I had run the lawn mower around shredding what was left of the twigs and rotten wood to clean it all up. I'll go out there again in a little bit, fire up the chainsaw again and cut the rest of that stump down and go get the other two I didn't get to yesterday.

    The picture of the lake was just the end of the day when I was walking up to the house and I thought it was a pretty day so i took a picture. The very last picture was the steak dinner I made 'cause I was flippin' hungry.

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    And yeah, I know, lawn's gotta get mowed. Was supposed to do that yesterday too but tree fun instead. Was gonna leave it until today but it's raining just enough to make that difficult. So I'll leave it. It will give the new grass I over seeded a chance to get better rooted before I hack it down with the spinning blades of death.
    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • polrbehr
    polrbehr Posts: 2,825
    That spread is unreal! And you got it at a nice price. I got my place for a song too, but I basically bought a house that happened to be sitting on 1/3 acre. You bought some seriously nice property, and as they say, you can't renovate location, you got that in spades.

    Now get back to work :cold_sweat:, when you finish I'll give ya directions to my yard. :o
    So, are you willing to put forth a little effort or are you happy sitting in your skeptical poo pile?


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  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    OK, so, after cutting down the rest of the stumps, I decided to get the rest of the dirt moved from the slab.

    Oh, didn't I tell you? There's a slab of concrete between the two garages that was behind the outhouse I tore down. You couldn't tell because it was buried under 3 inches of dirt and tree roots.

    So this was where the outhouse was. I'll tell that story another time. 'Cause that pile of insulation in the lower right corner is a whole pile of WTF all by itself.

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    This picture shows the chain hooked up to it right before I ripped it down with the Lightning. But you can see the space behind it between the two buildings. It was severely overgrown, I had whacked all the garbage down last fall in preparation for the outhouse removal. The more clear spot farthest away had a steel shed on it that the previous owner ripped down and didn't replace. Probably because he had to so he could get the block wall of the garage that was coming down fixed.

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    So I had this mess of stuff and thought that I should clear the cement pad back in the corner, see if I could replace the shed that was removed. This is what I started with.

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    I had started scraping up near the edge of the far corner thinking I'd just find the edge of the pad along the rear but I got to the edge of the shed space and the pad kept going. WTF?

    So I came back to where the outhouse was and started jabbing a pointed piece of rebar in the ground to see where the pad ended at the other end. *thock* *thock* *thock* *thock* *TINK* *thock* *thock* *TINK*

    What the...?!?!?!?!

    *thock* *thock* *thock* *thock* *TINK* *thock* *TINK* *thock* *TINK* *TINK*

    SONOFA....

    So I got the shovel and started scraping along the edge of the *TINK* line.

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    It's hard to see in the pictures but, I found the edges of the slab. So I started scraping and found that there was a 3-4 inch thick mat of roots and dirt. Because of how it sloped from one end of the slab to the other, I don't think this was intentionally buried. I think it was just lazy buried from someone not cleaning off runoff from the garden full of lilac bushes in front of the outhouse.

    So I got to work because there were drainage problems here causing seepage into the big garage.

    It was EXTREMELY hard and I couldn't use an ax or any kind of saw because the slab below would have destroyed them.

    So I fired up old Grumplestiltskin which is a 5 HP tiller I picked up used for about $120 because "it wasn't running right" and the kid had no inclination to find the manual online and figure it out. A couple hours, a tune up and a new governor spring later and it runs just fine and grumbles through pretty much anything including bushes. I mean, you fire it up, point it at a small to medium sized bush, pull the clutch lever and just let it dig in and it comes out the other side with a nasty root clog but no more bush!

    Anyhoo, Grumplestiltskin got to work and just ripped that root mat up with prejudice.

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    But that was crazy hard work and I got the pile mostly gone and then it started raining on me. So I put what was left into a pile and left it until I could get back to it.

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    Even with the pile there, you can see the absurdity that I had to deal with.

    The notched area is where the outhouse was. I'm seriously considering digging it out and prepping it for a concrete pour of my own to square the slab off into something useful and maybe replacing the shed to store the more awkward yard machinery items taking up space in the garage. That and garden implements. There also looks like there was a foundation for a pole barn there at one point too as two of the footings there seems to be still there. One left jutting up and covered in moss, the other capped with asphalt.

    Anyway, I finished digging up the slab today except for the one spot by the decorative block work. That's a pile of loamy sand that was intentionally dumped there and, again, has roots all through it. The gray barrel is full of construction sand. Has to get dug out before I can move it 'cause it weighs probably 400 pounds. It's crazy humid today and sweating doesn't work so after only about 2-3 hours of that, I was done. I'll get the loamy sand and barrel out of there another day. For now, this is what it looks like. Will have to wait for the dirt to dry out and see what I can scrape/sweep up but pretty sure it's going to have to get power washed. But I have to fix the junk at the back of the slab because the run off gets jammed up there. Also, there's conduit with the main power feed for the big garage buried somewhere there and I don't need to be hitting it with a tiller or anything.

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    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    polrbehr wrote: »
    That spread is unreal! And you got it at a nice price. I got my place for a song too, but I basically bought a house that happened to be sitting on 1/3 acre. You bought some seriously nice property, and as they say, you can't renovate location, you got that in spades.

    Now get back to work :cold_sweat:, when you finish I'll give ya directions to my yard. :o

    Gee! Thanks!
    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • pitdogg2
    pitdogg2 Posts: 24,481
    edited May 2020
    Looky there a smoker pad :D
    Post edited by pitdogg2 on
  • aprazer402
    aprazer402 Posts: 3,087
    Very nice piece of property John. You're not one to shy away from work. How deep is the lake? Any fish in it? You may need one of these for four acres. Or maybe your plans are to leave it natural? Some areas have restrictions on clearing land. Very nice.
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  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    I have a wood chipper already
    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • brettw22
    brettw22 Posts: 7,621
    Good job but eff ALL of that sheet.........holy hell.........
    comment comment comment comment. bitchy.
  • mrloren
    mrloren Posts: 2,454
    Nice land, you're doing it justice by fixing it up.

    I see CPT 1/2 A$$ must have a lot of relatives. Coworker had a small leak that has turned into a $100k full gut and remodel. They opened the wall to fix the leak and found 16AWG CCA in the wall for wiring and some PVC for water. Previous owner screwed him good, poor guy has been living in a hotel for since January.

    We can't buy garage door springs in CA. Needs to be installed and inspected.
    When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
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  • xschop
    xschop Posts: 4,636
    I skipped past everything (good job and hard work btw) until I saw the beer and steaks....
    Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    When we moved in, the first thing I did was redo the kids rooms. They were dumpy and in disrepair. So I went about repainting and getting new carpet and window treatments installed where necessary.

    However, in my girl's room, the ceiling was especially trashy. There was old wallpaper over the ceiling that had been painted over and never stabilized. So it created a problem for another story.

    Attic access is in my girl's room, though. No big deal. However, as you can see in the first two pictures here, the attic stairs did not close properly. Not only did they not close properly but the trim would move with the ladder that would wiggle as well.

    Well, these two aren't that great but, there are more.

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    So because of the location of the folding ladder, that entire wall was basically unusable. It also used to be the closet for the room but some genius thought that wasted space in the bathroom was preferable to a closet. So they closed it off. I'm suspecting this was Captain Halfassery. Anyway.

    As you can see in these pictures, the ladder, when folded up, would recess itself about an inch and a half into the ceiling. The reason why? When it was installed, whomever installed it did not frame out the hole. So the tension springs would twist the end of the frame up and pull the door panel with it. Why? Because, they just cut a hole in the plaster and screwed the ladder's 1x3 frame in between the joist work. There was a total of 5 screws holding it up.

    Janky as hell.

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    So the first thing I did when I was ready to do this was, I got a new ladder. A telescoping aluminum one from Werner. It takes up 1/3rd the space in her room than previously and needs a smaller opening.

    BUT!

    I have utility stuff in the attic. There's an AC unit up there as well as a ventilation fan. So if I closed up that hole and used the smaller opening for the attic ladder, I wouldn't be able to get any work done there or equipment in and out.

    So I built a new ladder frame with an idea.

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    You can see a rectangle and two panels in that picture. The rectangle was the new opening frame for the pretty part. The panels were a filler panel and a door panel. It would be secured to the 100 year old joist work with new header framing bucking at the front and back of the hole in the form of new 2x8's.

    The reason it's so long is because I was able to build a filler panel that is removable. That allows me to pull it out for getting big things in and out of the attic, like the 25 year old AC system that has to be replaced soon.

    So I built the new frame to fit the hole.

    Then, I had built a 2x3 frame on the back of the filler panel and stuck that inside the new frame and clamped it to the workbench. Then I drilled 6 holes, two on each of 3 sides, and mounted 5/16ths t-nuts in those holes. Then I ran 5/16ths bolts through to the T-nuts and bolted the filler panel in with those T-nuts and bolts. Then I took an extra piece of 1x4 from building the new frame and made a false divider panel that would look like it was part of the frame.

    So then I installed and leveled the new frame and secured it to the hole I framed out. A bunch of 2.5 inch screws and some shims 'cause 100 year old house framing and it was in. Then, the real test. I slid my filler panel in. Surprisingly, the bolt holes all line up properly and I was able to bolt it in to place. It fit well!

    Then I measured the hole left over and cut a panel for the door to fill the rest in. That needed some modification that I will explain later.

    So here's the pictures of it.

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    Now, I used heavy bolts for the filler panel because there was a couple times in my exhaustion in doing this that I almost fell through that hole when the old ladder was still up there. I thought to myself "Self, that could be dangerous. You should address that." So I did. Because of those hefty bolts, a full grown man can fall on that filler panel and it may give, but likely not, but it will not collapse and drop you 8-9 feet on the floor below in an awkward and life-threatening position.

    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • polrbehr
    polrbehr Posts: 2,825
    Wow! That whole project must have taken you, what, at least an hour and a half, right?

    Seriously though, that's some damn fine craftsmanship, John.
    So, are you willing to put forth a little effort or are you happy sitting in your skeptical poo pile?


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  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    Sooooo...just spent 4 days huffing paint.

    I don't have before pictures. Well, I do, I just haven't dug them up yet. They are on an external drive somewhere and I haven't dug it up yet.

    Anyhoo. There's stories here. A few of them, short though, thankfully.

    So 2nd floor of the house, I have 5 doors plus two bi-folds. The bi-folds are in the master bedroom, one is for a walk-in closet (has another story all it's own) and the other is for the small-ish bathroom. Yes, some jackwagon put bi-folds on a bathroom. I'm replacing them with solid doors to match the other doors upstairs but I have to remove the bi-folds and cut new hinge pockets and latch pockets on the frames then measure, trim and cut hinge pockets, door knob and latch holes. Then test fit the doors. Then I get to paint them. Then I get to hang them. So those two I didn't get to, they will likely be their own 3-4 day weekend all by themselves.

    The doors on all these rooms? Only one door shut right and it was cut way too short. I'm not even sure why. But that door had another chunk of door grafted on to the bottom and then riveted in place. Not only was that done but the fake grain pattern wasn't even lined up. They were all the cheapest MDF doors one could find at Lowe's so this was easily Captain Halfassery, especially since a couple frames had severe issues and they went unaddressed with new doors cut crooked to fit the screwed up frames.

    So, I was going to get new doors and reframe the holes myself. I asked my dad for his help and he was just bitching about how much work it was. Like I asked him to do it for me or something. All I wanted was experienced hands that I didn't have to tell what to do all the time. 'Cause anyone who has to tackle a huge project and have to do huge project 101 for the help knows how frustrating and slow things go when your help is not only uninterested but comes up with "great ideas" all the time to take short cuts and they get mad at you when you look at them incredulously like "Why would you even think that? Can't you see what's going on here?" Then they demand to get taken seriously when they clearly lack the experience to see just how short-sighted their "great ideas" are. Then you get to spend 20 minutes arguing about it while you have to explain to them why their great idea is a bad idea. Then you're just an arsehole know-it-all and they're butthurt.

    My dad decided he was going to get the doors installed by someone himself. Fine, whatever. They're pre-hung anyway. Big whoop. But when we pulled the old doors, we found that some doors were missing header plates, thankfully not on load bearing walls but at least now I know why a couple doors have cracks in the wallboard over them and they like to vibrate.

    So the doors got installed, took a couple days due to the problems we ran in to with insufficient framing and stuff I had to do to get doorways square or the pre-hung doors would get drawn out of alignment when secured in the doorways. But, I didn't have hardware when the doors were installed because the decision maker didn't like any of my ideas but didn't have any of her own. Finally decided on oil-rubbed bronze and white porcelain to go with what would be traditional but fancy for a house from the early 20th century.

    After the doors were installed, though, it took almost 2 weeks to get the hardware in and that was her first lesson in lead times because I could have easily had the hardware when the doors were installed but we took over 2 months to reach a decision. So I held doors shut with masking tape and door stops until the door knobs showed up. The matching hinges didn't come in until almost 2 months later than the door knobs. Thankfully, the doors had hinges since they were pre-hung. It was fun.

    The door knob hardware finally came in and in early December I installed it all. Was supposed to arrive for Thanksgiving weekend but delays in shipping due to diseases in the Asia made them late (same for the hinges, especially since production got delayed because the factory was shut down). They showed up the Monday after Thanksgiving. After I installed the door knobs, I found that a couple doors were not exactly latching right. This wasn't noticeable before the hardware was in place because there was nothing keeping the doors latched in place. They were tight and wanted to spring open. So I decided to check some things out and started removing one hinge, testing closure and so on until I found the problems.

    A couple doors are not hung straight. The framed holes are plumb and square but the doors are cocked in the holes. One door is racked from side to side, the other is racked front to back. The 2nd door, it's hard to show pictures of. The first door is this one.

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    You'll have to zoom in but you can see that the gap on the right narrows at the top and widens at the bottom on the right side and opposite on the left. The door likes to spring open because the gap is so narrow that the it's actually hitting the jamb on the bottom left. Additionally, the latch was barely catching because of the gap difference.

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    Sorry for the other doors being in the way but you can see the gap being very tight at the bottom left.

    The problem? The hinge pocket on the jamb is cut too deep. Since it was done at the factory, this is on the door company. I thought that the door was hung crooked but it's not. Plumb, square, couldn't get it straighter if I tried. The real problem is that typically, to fix this, you do what's called a "dutchman" where you score and chisel out a larger section of the door jamb where the hinge pocket is that's deeper than the hinge pocket, effectively removing the hinge pocket. Then you glue and nail in a new piece of wood and cut a new hinge pocket in place. This is not an insignificant amount of work. Especially since the hole depth is less than 1/16th of an inch deeper than the other two pockets. But that small bit, when stretched over the height of the door, translates into a 1/4 inch gap difference from top to bottom. So it's not good. Especially since the doors are MDF. The excess tension will eventually cause the MDF layers to separate and the hinge to extract itself from the door catastrophically.

    Needless to say, I experimented with some door shims to see. As you can see in this picture, the shims are behind the hinge plate and that has solved the alignment issue.

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    Now I'm trying to decide on if I should just cut a shim for it and leave it that way or if I should dutchman this and do all that work. Thankfully, I did some tests with a solid piece of 2x4 and that fancy pants Delta miter saw I got. It is entirely capable of cutting a sliver of 2x4 off that is less than a sixteenth of an inch.

    Before anyone says anything as well, I did make sure all the hinges were mounted the same way and if you put the barrel end plate on the opposite side of the other two hinges orientations, it can cause this kind of issue. Typically, though, you end up with a door that likes to close itself partially due to such shenanigans. But when tolerances are this tight, it can also cause the door to impact the door jamb and want to spring back open.
    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • nooshinjohn
    nooshinjohn Posts: 25,034
    scubalab wrote: »
    Jstas wrote: »
    At least the doors look ok.

    Nah...

    They look GREAT. Step back, take a break and admire your work. Makes it all worth it. I feel your pain with the hinge issues. I made shims (in the shape of the hinge cutouts) to resolve misaligned/deeper hinge pocket cuts, and they did the trick! Keep up the great work. I really enjoy reading about your projects.

    We had a similarly busy weekend with ongoing house projects. Finally put a tile countertop, LED lights, and reading lights on a built-in bookshelf/window-seat unit I made in our living room 7 or 8 years ago. Was a ton of work, but when finished, we had a sense of accomplishment checking another project off the list. Still need to adjust the bottom cabinet doors on the left (why they are not on), caulk some joints, put the header trim piece on, and install knobs on all the cabinet doors, but those are easy.

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    I love Ikea cabinets. They make remodeling so much easier. :p;)
    The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2300 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon 680d DSD

    “When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
  • scubalab
    scubalab Posts: 3,101
    John - We've been very satisfied with a lot of Ikea's stuff. Yeah, some is, well, not the greatest, but most everything we've gotten from them has been rock solid. Cost-effective on a budget, and honestly these cabinets, have held up better than cabinets we paid 2-3 times as much for. And, sometimes the assembly goes smoothly, so the remodeling isn't too time-consuming... ;)

    Sorry for temporarily hijacking John's home improvement thread. I really like the oil-rubbed bronze hardware and porcelain doorknobs - very complimentary to the door style!
  • nooshinjohn
    nooshinjohn Posts: 25,034
    scubalab wrote: »
    John - We've been very satisfied with a lot of Ikea's stuff. Yeah, some is, well, not the greatest, but most everything we've gotten from them has been rock solid. Cost-effective on a budget, and honestly these cabinets, have held up better than cabinets we paid 2-3 times as much for. And, sometimes the assembly goes smoothly, so the remodeling isn't too time-consuming... ;)

    Sorry for temporarily hijacking John's home improvement thread. I really like the oil-rubbed bronze hardware and porcelain doorknobs - very complimentary to the door style!

    Those are Ikea???? I was being sarcastic and trying to be funny. I did not know.
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  • Kex
    Kex Posts: 4,892
    I didn’t know they were IKEA either, @nooshinjohn.

    Looks great! Very stylish nook, beautiful molding and trim, love the color scheme.
    Alea jacta est!
  • scubalab
    scubalab Posts: 3,101
    Eh, I'm not trying to hide anything. :p I'm also not too brand-conscious if the price is right AND the quality exceeds the price point. We've gotten a few things from Ikea - mainly some toy storage bins and those cabinets. I'm telling you, the cabinets are great compared to some other 'name brand' (and more expensive) cabinets we installed elsewhere! And the toy storage bins were made of solid (yes, NOT MDF) wood. They were strong enough to park a truck on!

    I'll even admit that I have a few tools purchased from Harbor Freight. :s For stuff that I know I'll use regularly as long as I'm able, yes, I do invest in better quality (mainly DeWalt, Milwaukee, Grizzly), but if it's something I know I won't use regularly, I will buy cheap. He11, I've got a $49 tile wet saw that my dad got for me 17 years ago to install tile in our kitchen thinking we'd be happy if it got us through just that project. We put in over 600 S.F. or porcelain tile on that project. Since then, I bet I or friends/family have put in over 3000 S.F. of all sorts of tile over it's life. The darn thing just does what it does. Is it as nice as a bridge saw? No. But I can't complain since It was purchased for LESS than a rental! Just used it again this past weekend to cut the glass tile for the counter top in that picture.

    My dad also bought a hardwood floor nailer from HF about 10 years ago when he put Brazilian Cherry hardwood in his first floor. Since then, my one brother used it to do over 2000 S.F. of the same hardwood in his house, and my other brother used it to do about 600 S.F. of hardwood in his living & dining rooms. I then used it to put about 900 - 1000 S.F. of Bamboo hardwood flooring in our second floor (flooring in the picture above). Again, it cost less than renting one for a weekend, and has performed flawlessly for multiple projects over the years. My only problem with HF is the fact that everything they carry comes from China. But, what doesn't anymore?

    And, thanks for the compliments on the LR 'nook'. Wife is happy and, well, we all know that's most important!