Gophers? Use a Rodenator! 
A roofing co came out and said that our ugly cedar shake roof is good for another 10 years with proper maintenance. The guy looked at the shakes and confirmed that they were old growth cedar. Must have been very expensive to install! I am happy because Mr. B is so enamored with the Tesla roof he abandoned any urgent metal roof plansā¦ Glad the expense can wait. 
Since when do home interior door hinges not have removable pins? I donāt want to unscrew the hinge from the frame to take the door off, I want to remove the pin. Who decided I canāt? [/rant]
Maybe this is for the random questions thread.
My new doors all have pins. Thatās weird.
Iāve seen two kinds of hinge that donāt have removable pins:
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really old hardware, where instead of having āfingersā that interleave, the top half and bottom half are separate pieces, and the top half sits on top of the bottom half, and is held in place by a small cylinder that sticks up. For these type of hinges, you just lift up the entire door to remove the top half from the bottom half. These are called āsplitā or ālift-offā hinges.
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on modern hardware, hinges that are designed for ābackwardsā doors, that is, doors where the exposed part of the hinge is on the same side as the exterior. These hinges make it impossible to get through a locked door by removing the hinge pins.
For your interior doors, when you stand on the āoutsideā of the door, does the door open in or out?
If you donāt care about the security aspect, just replace the hinges with normal ones.
Canāt find what used to be ānormalā ones. Ace, Home Depot, Lowes - all have captive pins.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-1-2-in-x-5-8-in-Satin-Nickel-Radius-Door-Hinge-20824/205338344
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-1-2-in-Satin-Brass-Square-Corner-Door-Hinge-20814/205338343
My local HD has huge quantities in stock.
Go pick one up and pull the pin
Iāve never come across a hinge where you could just pull the pin out by hand. Every pin Iāve ever removed has required a screwdriver and hammer to get the removal started, because the pins all have a serrated ring around the top to ālockā them into the top flange and prevent them from coming out.
Once you get them started, you can generally work them out by hand, although not always, depending whether the door or wall has warped or shifted.
Ohā¦ our final project on House1. Swap all quality brass door hinges and knobs/handles for satin nickel ones. Why? Because the buyers like to see ānewā (meaning trendy). They will get what they bargain for, just not the quality of yesteryear. We will also be getting rid of some modernistic door handles and hinges in House2 because they look like they belong in a gulag.
Iām up to (trying to) custom mix to find my cream. I was in SW today, for another project, and every white on the cards has obvious brown, grey, or green undertones.
I do have a back-up first color coat in mind. Actually, two. Doesnt advance me one bit, as Iād still need to choose one.
I may have said I was indulging this ocd-ish thing, thought Iād enjoy it, in its own odd way. But Iām not as young as I used to be and itās exhausting. And getting boring.
Just saw this thread so Iāll shoot off the issue Iāve been thinking about lately.
My wife HATES carpet, so a few years ago I changed the main floor to laminated wood. Now, she wants me to do the same for our basement and especially the upper floor where our master bedroom is. I have no problem doing all these myself as Iāve already done it and did a good job of it. The only problem is the stairs to the basement and to the upper floor. Iāve looked at some YouTube videos but none explained what to do with the side of the stairs thatās carpeted. Do you think itās okay to hire someone to do the laminated floors just for the stairs while I do the rest of the house?
@TiggerDad - Are you talking about the tread risers?
If itās the risers you have two choices: paint them, or glue the laminate to them.
After you pull the carpeting, you will probably find plywood risers. You can get a finish quality board, nail it on, and paint it (white is the color Iāve most often seen). Or you can glue laminate to the risers. Depending on what kind of overhang there is from the tread, you might have to put in a filler board to bring the riser out flush with the nose of the tread.
As for hiring someone to do the stairs - stairs are by far the hardest part of putting down laminate flooring. DS is buying a new house, and they wanted the builders to rip out the carpeting on the second floor and put in laminate. Probably about 600 sq ft plus one set of stairs.
They wanted $5K to flooring on the second floor, and $3K just for the stairs. Holy smokesā¦ $3K! They decided to keep the carpeted stairs. Itās safer and quieter, too. So you might think about keeping the stairs carpeted.
One other thing about laminate stairs - typically there is some sort of nose or cap piece that fits over the front of the tread, to make a nice transition to the riser. IME, because these parts are raised and typically thinner than the rest of the flooring, and because this is where people put all their weight, these parts can wear/break/crack/split much faster than the rest of the flooring, and that winds up looking pretty bad.
There has to be some other color added to the white to make it not-white. So thereās always going to be an overtone of some sort. Which color of overtone do you want?
@TiggerDad - when you did the laminate on your main floor, did you pop off the moldings and reinstall so the flooring goes under the molding, or did you put quarter-round everywhere to cover the gaps?
I may have a big flooring project in my future and Iām trying to decide which way is the best way to go.
@notrichenough - Thank you for your response. Yes, the tread risers is what I was talking about from your description. I understood your described methods in dealing with that. But if the cost of hiring someone to do the stairs costs that much, I guess Iāll have to do them myself. The stair carpets will have to come out since theyāre pretty dirty. I guess another option, instead of laminated woods, is to recarpet just the stairs? But then I wonder how much itād cost to hire someone to recarpet the stairs. Probably not as much as doing the laminated woods?
@TiggerDad - you should get some estimates for the stairs, one data point does not make a trend.
Another option, depending on how closely you need the stairs to match the rest of the flooring, would be to get actual stair treads in whatever wood is closest to your flooring (a quick search at HD shows red oak, white oak, maple, hickory, cherry, pine, I bet a real flooring store has others), stain them as close as possible to your flooring, and then polyurethane them. Then you avoid all the wear issues with the nose.
Or maybe the flooring manufacturer has a better solution for the treads.
Personally I like the painted white risers, otherwise I think itās too much wood. Plus using white risers would help mask any color differences between the stairs and the floor.
Well you could clean themā¦ if they are not too worn they might still look good.
With stairs, they have laminate that is designed to fit over the tread, it fits over the rounded part of the tread (the buillnose) and covers the flat portion of the tread, so that at Home Depot. There are also wood equivalents to that I saw at HM, fits over the same way. For the riser portion, instead of using laminate you could either paint them or you could potentially put up wood planking (usually tongue and groove) and stain it to match the color of what you put on the tread. The stairs in my house have stained treads and the risers are painted wood, and it looks fine.
Thank you to you both. Off to Home Depot!
Notrichenough, the issue is the ochre in the color recipe. Common design thing right now, greiges and green casts. Just let me vent or Iāll twist your brain, lol. Its my Sisyphean thing for this summer and if all I can do is give in, I will.
For now, that is. 