I’m always impressed when people try fancy or complicated baking projects as much as I am by home improvement. Our kids have gotten into cooking and baking in a big way. One gorgeous result last year was a galaxy mirror glazed birthday cake. I do not have the patience any longer but am glad to enjoy what others produce.
Dh & I used to do a lot of remodeling projects, but I can’t manage that any more. We built closets in two old houses in which the bedrooms had no closets, tiled bathrooms, tiled a large Florida room, refreshed a kitchen with new counters and backsplash, put up grasscloth wallpaper, painted numerous rooms, built stadium seating platforms in a media room, built a low stone wall, etc. Now I mainly supervise and kibbitz.
I am a shadow of my former DIY self. We (H & I) used to do sooooo much. About the only thing we do now is pull out our checkbook and that’s only for really, really important things.
Past achievements of which I feel a great deal of pride:
The cedar deck at our previous home. I designed it myself and we built it together.
The rustic southwest tile floor I installed in the kitchen, mudroom, and stairs/landing to back door. We gutted the kitchen in our 1924 house and hired out most of the work. But I did the design and cabinet lay-out and I tiled the backsplash and floor. It looks fantastic & is sooo functional.
As the years have gone by, I’ve done less and less AND I’ve become one of those people who does not finish renovation projects. There are a LOT of things in this house that I’ll probably never get around to finishing. 85% done is now the gold standard.
It doesn’t help that the economically depressed community we live in was hit hard by the housing crash in 2008. With all the foreclosures and short sales, the community has changed even more, and not for the better. Our house continues to be underwater in large part because the comparables the realtor pulls up are, like, the cost of an expensive car. Unbelievable. So, that has taken some wind out of our sails re: fixing up the house.
I have some wood windows that will need re-varnishing this summer and that’s about all I’ll do. If I can keep up with the wildly overgrown yard, that will be a huge achievement.
@TiggerDad - I plan on building more than one fountain; this is meant as an experiment so I can learn how to get it right for the next one. One of my goals is to build it as inexpensively as possible, using free or salvaged items to the extent possible.
I started with three 12" x 12" x 25" tall teak planter boxes DW had managed to get for free. These planters were basically “factory seconds” with many obvious defects, such as spit wood, unstable bases, etc. I went to work with my power tools and cut them down into four boxes of progressively decreasing heights, and attached them together into a 2’ x 2’ structure with the damaged surfaces on the internal, hidden sides of the structure.
So now I’m working on the plumbing. I bought a $20 submersible pump from Harbor Freight (half Home Depot’s price) and the fittings to attach a hose. For the reservoirs for each level I bought $3 plastic automotive oil changing pans from Walmart.
Today I’ll experiment with installing the pump, fittings, hose, and reservoirs. Once I’m sure the water is circulating correctly I’ll go to work on final finishes, which will make or break the project.
The other day, we had an unexpected dump of snow. I quickly realized that, instead of the shade canopy on top of my recently completed pergola, I’d have to place it under the pergola ceiling to make it retractable. Otherwise, the $125 canopy is only going to be good for a few seasons.
So off I went to a nearby Lowes and got myself a 50 ft of plastic coated steel cable, a turnbuckle, wire rope clips and 4 eye bolts. A 16-pack stainless steel 2 1/2" carabiners that I ordered from Amazon came in just one day (excellent quality at a great price). In spite of the cold, dreary and drizzling rainy day I woke up to this morning, I just couldn’t wait to have fun with the project, so off I went out with my rain jacket on and, a couple hours later, voila, the retractable shade! My hands were freezing even with the gloves on, but a hot cup of coffee afterward took good care of that.
Since retirement a few years ago we have attacked various projects. Followed a video of how to fix our ice maker dispenser after ordering the part (still working), repaired all nicked cabinets with stain and finish from the cabinet company, repaired a drywall patch with a kit from target (so cool), painted wall repairs with mixed paint, repaired stucco on the house (left over), and used aquaphalt to repair our asphalt driveway. The last one was quite interesting.
Currently working on programming a battery powered timer to use on a gravity rain (for water retention) barrel system to water the greenhouse.
^ I found that ordering it from ace hardware was by far the least expensive way to go with no cost for shipping and their price. It is very, very heavy. We scooted it in the garage and scooted it down the driveway. Use on a warm day. Easy learning curve.
Our very first DIY project in the very first house we owned… a microwave hood above the stove. We read the electrical code and figured out that this dang thing would need to have its own dedicated circuit. Let me tell you… fishing for wires in walls should be an Olympic sport. ? Inspired by that success, we added recessed lights in the kitchen, fenced in the yard, terraced the yard, dug up and fiberglassed a pond, built a kiddie playground, landscaped everything… yay us.
My projects have been making curtains for bedrooms, quilts for the kids and some pillowcases. H is handy and repairs and maintains our home as needed. We haven’t done any of these more involved, extensive projects.
I’m in the middle of painting my kitchen cabinets. I did the lowers a few years ago, but life (and laziness?) got in the way of finishing. I finished the uppers on one wall by the stove a few months ago, removed an old range hood, moved the wiring to the cabinet above and installed a plug, then installed an over-range microwave. The only help I had was my brother lifting and holding the microwave while I attached the bolts.
I took a few days off to make this a longer holiday weekend and removed the cabinet doors (8) from the other side. I got them all sanded and prepped and have primer on some of them. My goal was to get the outside work (sanding) done before the Texas summer makes it miserable. I was almost too late!
My most ambitious DIY project was tiling a bathroom floor last fall. I love the result.
My next DIY project is our master bedroom shower. Instead of replacing the whole shower, I’m planning on re-tiling the shower wall and applying epoxy resin on the shower floor. I’ve had a good success applying epoxy resin with my previous bathroom and kitchen countertop renovation projects, so I thought why not on the shower floor?
Just make sure the epoxy you use is sanded so the floor is not slippery. Also, it will not save your shower if the shower floor is leaky or about to fail.
Before we moved here, we were transferred frequently - about every two years. We’ve owned 9 houses, one at a time, of course. Seven were brand new, so we did all the landscaping ourselves, including six or seven wooden decks, a couple of pergolas, finished a basement, put up several fences, added bookcases with lots of trim, etc. We took a lot of pride in making everything we could. My favorite was a multi-level deck surrounded by raised planting beds and with a sliding top for the sandbox. In the two that weren’t brand new we did extensive updating and repairs.
We bought our first house the year This Old House debuted on PBS. Coincidence? Probably not.?
I grew up on This Old House. Remember the early shows where projects were small and the homeowners helped? The fashionable orange counters were, um, unique. I still watch but the high budget gut rehabs are far from my world. They’ve gone back to their roots a bit with the small projects and repairs on Ask TOH.
I do nearly everything around my 100+ year old house myself. This means a garage full of fun tools and a lot of projects in various phases. The list is being worked on as we contemplate selling within the next few years. I know this sounds familiar to many people.here.
No sanded epoxy, just shower mat. This particular shower is small, so just having a mat will suffice. It will be a fun project, but for now my wife’s more interested in my making more raised garden beds, so that’s what’s going to preoccupy me for next couple weeks.
I like going to Home Depot, but am not a DIY-er. I just admire all the stuff that people with actual talent can use to make their things. Plus, I love the smell. Home Depot smells very positive and happy to me, if that makes sense.
