Spring / Summer Projects Thread (non-game related)

Better late than never:




Got pretty much all the firewood moved in so that next time it snows hopefully it'll be a bit easier to have dry wood for the fireplace.

They whole thing was built with leftover lumber from when I redid some fence parts in my backyards so the most it cost me was a box of screws and some other leftovers I had. The shingles were and extra bundle from when I had my roof done. Nothing amazing, but it does the job.

Looks like im going to attempt to do the laminate flooring this coming weekend. How long did it take you to finish that dining room floor? blakeb8111

HDRchampion said:

Looks like im going to attempt to do the laminate flooring this coming weekend. How long did it take you to finish that dining room floor? blakeb8111

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I did it over one weekend. On Saturday I ripped up the existing carpet, insulation, nails and staples. And there was one spot in the sub floor that made a little noise so I popped a couple of screws in it and I picked up the flooring Saturday night. Did the entire install on Sunday with no help other than my 7 and 3 year old handing me planks of flooring when they wanted to help. If you need any help or tips let me know.

Replaced the broken crappy stereo and speakers in my Frontier this weekend.

Finally got rid of the nasty carpet this weekend. It actually wasn't too difficult, next time though im using Filthyrear's mom knee pads.

Before








After








Still not done, i need to wait a week for the the transition molding to arrive to put to the kitchen/living room.

Nice job, HDR. How do you like the flooring? I thought it was good value and the install was a breeze.

Yup it looks great but the only thing about laminate flooring is the stigma for being cheap & value of the home. I'll probably do bamboo or hardwood for my other house when i have to change carpets on those. Overall im pretty happy with it, felt great i was able to do this.

I feel the same about it. Here's the other floor I had done. I've never installed tile before and this room is pretty big (495 sq ft) so I didn't want to make this my first project. This porcelain tile is $2/sq ft. I purchased the tile and grout and the contractor provided the cement and cement board. His services cost $2800. He recommended using power grout, its maintenance free but costs more up front. We painted and added the crown molding right before the floor was installed. This floor is really nice and replaced another carpet which I couldn't wait to get rid of. Here's a couple of pics.

That's killer right there! I really like the gray! Looks like straight out of a magazine!

blakeb8111 said:

I feel the same about it. Here's the other floor I had done. I've never installed tile before and this room is pretty big (495 sq ft) so I didn't want to make this my first project. This porcelain tile is $2/sq ft. I purchased the tile and grout and the contractor provided the cement and cement board. His services cost $2800. He recommended using power grout, its maintenance free but costs more up front. We painted and added the crown molding right before the floor was installed. This floor is really nice and replaced another carpet which I couldn't wait to get rid of. Here's a couple of pics.View attachment 42529
View attachment 42525View attachment 42526View attachment 42527View attachment 42528

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Looks great. No hazing or anything. On a separate note that size tile looks great when it's down but it takes forever to install it.

Got motivated and got a couple small house projects knocked out in the last month. Well knocked out to about 90%. Still need to go get some fresh paint and do some touch up.

First, a filler 6" spice cabinet. We have always had this small gap with just a 6" counter top between the stove and the fridge. There was never anything underneath, and it was only mounted with a couple screws in shelf brackets and wasn't very secure, so we would only put small bowls of salt and pepper on it. So I bought a pull out filler cabinet. Only problem is that it is meant to screw to adjacent base cabinets. So I had to build a little frame for it to sit in. Then I had to secure that bitch to the wall. It isn't going anywhere now. Trying to decide if I want to do any fancy router work (would have to borrow a router) on the face panel or just paint it to match the other cabinets and call it done. Total cost for everything was probably around 175 bucks.

Spice cabinet



Next is a whole house fan. Time will tell how valuable this is, but it was 200 bucks for the fan, plus maybe 50 in other materials. And I am hoping it will give our 30 year old A/C unit enough of an assist to bring down our summer bills just a little bit. Eventually we'll have to replace the A/C and furnace, but I'm kind of holding out for at least one of them to crap out before spending the money, kinda painful to replace two units for several thousand bucks when they both still work (as inefficient as they are). The picture of switch plate is before wiring for the fan is pulled which should be done this weekend. Have to do a little fill and paint touch up, damaged the drywall a little more than intended trying to remove the old single gang work box. Swapped out the on/off toggle that came with the fan for the automatic timer.

Fan shutter into attic.



Fan controls

Spring isn't coming, but project ideas are piling up, so we went at it last weekend:

Rails and shelves of a built-in i'm making to house board-games.


One of the walls for the treehouse project - found a nice vinyl window and reclaimed it for this wall:


And a couple fun projects:

Wife and I are expanding our garden since it was so successful last year. We haven't decided what all we want to plant besides tomatoes. We've got two garden kits this year and will hopefully plant this weekend.

radiantsvgun said:

Wife and I are expanding our garden since it was so successful last year. We haven't decided what all we want to plant besides tomatoes. We've got two garden kits this year and will hopefully plant this weekend.

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Cucumbers are SUPER easy, and really fun. They grow vertical, so very minimal space is needed. Cukes are really versatile too, my wife makes breads, I use them as water-flavor enhancer, pickling is really easy (and fun), and they also help thicken out spaghetti sauce since they are a tame flavor that absorbs other flavors well.

I know Im a n00b but I figured I would share.

I love doing house projects, basically remodeled my whole house recently we bought it last sept. except for the kitchen (will happen this summer)

I'm an Electrician by trade.

Just finished my garage,:



Built a little cat enclosure to put the litter box outside


A pulley controlled bike lift setup to keep mine and the old lady's bikes out of the way


Stuff like new windows and doors:


also re-wired the house, and set up attic for storage




Game room is still under construction




I am building a new stand for my 20" PVM, used to have my 13" on it



But yeah cool idea for a thread. You guys have an awesome forum, stoked to be here.

Edit: I was going to do spoiler tags to cut down the length, but not sure how

mjmjr25 said:

Spring isn't coming, but project ideas are piling up, so we went at it last weekend:

Rails and shelves of a built-in i'm making to house board-games.

Spoiler:

One of the walls for the treehouse project - found a nice vinyl window and reclaimed it for this wall:

Spoiler:

And a couple fun projects:

Spoiler:

Put up a Slack-Line for the kids - it may not look it, but it's a 50' run. The orange line is a safety line while they learn to balance.

A couple old (1930's) National cash registers i've begun restoration on:

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Dude I love your property. So jealous of the wooded area and especially the fact that it snows.

Space is hard to come by around these parts, and wooded areas in residential places (other than parks etc.) basically don't exist. We have a 7000 sq ft lot at its rather large for our area.

Forgot about this thread. Anyway, my fam and I did this last summer.



Before even the mudpit, our backyard was just full of river rocks and no steps from the main deck; just a sheer drop to the bottom.

Kinda sad about this though, because we're planning on selling this place and moving this summer. We did spend most of last summer out on this new deck and enjoying barbecues and wading pool/sprinkler time.

So yeah, this summer project is getting my house prepped for sale and also get stuff packed up and moved to my in-law's place.

I built a raised bed for my wife a couple weeks ago and we've already started getting stuff ready to go in there. Kind of reworking the whole area to be easier to garden from this summer.

I also need to add a new sprinkler to my system and that's halfway done, thankfully the 5th zone isn't really used for much. The other thing I really want to set up is a rain barrel so we can use rainwater to help the garden.

mjmjr25 said:

Cucumbers are SUPER easy, and really fun. They grow vertical, so very minimal space is needed. Cukes are really versatile too, my wife makes breads, I use them as water-flavor enhancer, pickling is really easy (and fun), and they also help thicken out spaghetti sauce since they are a tame flavor that absorbs other flavors well.

Click to expand...

We did cukes last year but they got out of hand. They really took over everything. We are going to do them again this year as the in laws are going to help make pickles.

Went to Food Depot (I live in the country) and got some bags of potting soil. 10 bags at $1.80:


Going to clean out the garden from last year and picked up another one of the square beds off amazon for $20.


Also made a fire pit- the bricks were $.98 at home depot. 3 rows with each row having 15 blocks.

My Wife wanted another garden bed this year. Previous years I made them out of pallets and plastic 55 gallon drums, but this year I had fancy landscaping timbers I got from my Brother who was throwing them out when he bought his new house. He asked me to take them to the dump and I said I would just take them home...that crazy guy.

Finished up the garden finally. So far we have one bed dedicated to tomatoes, one dedicated to peppers (chili, ghost, 2 bell), and one that is a mix (3 cucumbers, 1 tabasco pepper, and one habanero).

Looking good! Plenty of sunlight it seems in that area. That is one of our problems as our property is heavily wooded. We're still getting frost most nights, so won't put our garden in for a few weeks yet.

We'll definitely do more jalapenos this year - we finished our last jar last night, so clearly we didn't make quite enough. We haven't done any of the spicier peppers than those, but I wouldn't mind trying a couple types.

Spring project to get the kids excited to play outside this summer. Took me a few days and that twirly slide was a pain but well worth it.

Very cool - nice job; kids will love it for sure.

They would not even let me finish building it...

But it is already their favorite toy.