It’s good to let go of the anger quickly, rather than let it fester over time. 
I have until 1 pm to get the new exhaust fan installed. This is going to look clunky as hell, due to how crappily the previous fan was put in.
I just barely got the fan installed in time. Thankfully the contractor was running late. I put the last screw in about five minutes before he showed up.
Dear gods, does it look kludgy. But I should be able to fix it up a little now that I have the time, and without a deadline hanging over my head.
And it looks like the gas company is going to replace my furnace. Which will be nice. We’ve gotten down to about 40 F the past two nights. My little space heater can warm up the bedroom, but for the main spaces of the house it might as well not be there at all.
Glad I declined the free Nest with our attic insulation we got installed. Well, technically they couldn’t put it in because I have no hot wire running to my thermostat so it wouldn’t power up. But seeing your post Keep reinforces my decision to not go with it so that makes me a happy camper.
This weekend’s projects are a new light in a closet and redesigning the drain line for the humidifier and furnace. Whee.
Oh, now I see why I’ve been having so many problems getting the drywall to line up on the walls evenly. The edges where it is cut at the factory are rounded so the paper can glued around those edges. That makes it 10mm thick at that point while the rest of it is 15mm thick. In some places, I had to put an edge I’ve cut against the factory edge and I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t at the same distance from the wood on both sides.
I feel a little better about how I’m doing, but where the wall sheets meet the ceiling still looks pretty bad.
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That’s so that you can get a good amount of mud between 2 factory edges which are butted up against one another.
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The sheets are against each other whenever possible. I haven’t been leaving a gap like what’s in the picture. Given the number of times I’d put a full-size sheet up and there was only about a half inch of the stud still showing, meaning that it was not 16" on center from the previous one, I don’t think I could.
I think what I may do is stop after I get the kitchen finished and then have someone come in to take an initial look at it. If they say it’s salvagable, I’ll continue on with the laundry and garage. If not, it’s that much less to rip back down.
I got the first shelf up in the kitchen. I wanted it to be very sturdy, without interfering with a lot of rest of the clutter (appliances, countertops, etc.). It will have to be redone when I replace the paneling, but I’m okay with that.
I’ll post pictures tomorrow, if I remember to install the photo-editing software (to scale them down).
I feel your pain, bud. When they decided to build this place, I think they took 16" to be an average. Not all of this FUBAR is the work of the last two owners.
No house is accurate or square. It’ll never happen. There’s too many of 1/8" off here and there and it all adds up at the end to being a foot off or a room not being square or level. You also run into problems with the studs and drywall. The drywall should end dead center (or pretty close) to the stud. This is so you can nail in another sheet on the other side since both panels need to rest on the stud. But if you’re going from a corner, you might start odd and it effects it farther down the line. Either way, future you will probably curse past you at some point for doing something but fsck that guy. He’s living in the future. So do what you have to to get the job done.
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Heh. Reminds me of when my brother in law & I were putting down hardwood in my old house. He’s laying out the first course of boards, checking everything so carefully, then scratching his head because it’s not lining up.
Then he remembered the room was built 80 years prior and it’s a damn miracle that it’s as close to square as it is.
At least that room was fairly level. The dining room had a 3" drop from one corner to the opposite one.
I would use drywall screws and not nails, you can get a bit that will countersink them.
You can also shave bits off here and there, hammer it flat, and generally beat the carp out of drywall. You just pay the price when you mud and sand.
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Oh Christ. Replacing the bathroom sink because the old one was attached using a mixture of silicone and hope. Chasing the hot water pipe into some boxing under the bath and my hand comes across something that feels furry. I freeze, my blood runs cold, what the hell could be under the bath that’s cold and dry and furry?
It’s an old dog toy, obviously. How it got under the bath is beyond me, but it’s been there at least a decade.
Still haven’t got the new sink installed though, I need to borrow a jigsaw since “standard fit” is now a euphemism for “hahaha screw you”.
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+1 for screws and not nails. My reference above is just a general term and I use screws for any drywall project. You should always have drywall screws around. I use them for everything including replacement screws for electrical boxes (did this last week). Damn those things are handy.
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Yes, handy… but NOT replacements for everything.
Example: They have quite low shear strength. Build shelves with them, load the shelves heavily… pile of lumber!
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I had a few of them, and the heads of the screws broke off just screwing them in to anchor the skirting on my house.
Anybody got a time machine so I can go back to the 1950s and slap the people who built my house?
Ever since I bought it, the bathtub has had a problem where about 85% of the water would go up to the shower head when I opened that valve all the way. The rest still goes to the spout for the bathtub.
I finally decided to replace the valves today and that didn’t fix it. After looking carefully, I determine it’s something inside the rough-in valve body itself. Fortunately, I say to myself, I still haven’t put the drywall back up on the other side of that wall. I’ll just walk around to the kitchen and see what it will take to replace that unit.
What do I see when I get there? A 2x6 with a notch cut out of it that fits around part of the valve body. Obviously, when they were getting ready to put in the bathtub, they cut the notch into the stud on the bathtub side so the valve body could fit into it. I had seen this before because the drywall’s been removed for over a year now, but that quirk wasn’t important before. Never mind the fact that the valves weren’t centered for the bathtub.
I’m not certain if that actually can be removed without cutting off the right-hand side of the unit because the notch is only big enough for the pipe. Once it’s out, sure, I can widen the notch to slip the new valve body through it. Or if I get a hacksaw, I might be able to make the cut once I have the valve body disconnected from the pipes and there might be enough wiggle room to fit the hacksaw blade in place.
For those who are curious, it’s something like one of these valve units, except I think the pipes connecting to it are a larger size. That’s the only one of that style Pfister makes now, but 70 years ago?
This is something I can’t do myself because I don’t want to risk damaging the valve body or the pipes connecting to it and then finding out the new unit won’t fit because the connectors are a different size. It would be just my luck that I couldn’t put it back together. I guess I better start talking to plumbers to see if they can do this for me.
Oh, and by the way, if anyone is looking for plumbing parts, Faucet.com and FaucetDirect.com are the same company even though the toll-free numbers are different. Exact same price and exact same quantities in stock on several items. I had to dig through the site, but found the street address is the same for both companies. The parent company, Build.com, seems to be fairly respectable, but why do they need to have two websites that look different under different domain names if they’re just going to sell the same things?
Me first. My place is a 1958.
Apparently back then the concept that, sixty years later, someone might want to remodel the house was a completely alien concept.
But, no I wouldn’t go back. I look terrible in black and white.
I think that’s pretty common. I’m not a remodeling historian, but I’ve seen those in houses built in the 1930’s.
As to sizing: they should all be standard copper sizes: probably 1/2" sweat-in. You could do the torch work in there, but if it’s too confined, sweat in stubs to the new valve, then use compression couplers to connect to the existing pipe.
Like this, but you don’t HAVE to have that length:
1/2 in. Copper Compression x Compression Repair Coupling
This 2x6 with the notch… horizontal or vertical? I’m wondering if you could pull it out while you work, using jack studs if it’s a vertical, or putting replacements high and low if horizontal.
The 2x6 is a vertical stud. It may have to come out anyway for the plumbers to do their work. A replacement could probably be put in so it’s sitting just to the left of this unit and do just as good with load bearing for that wall. It actually might do better because from what I remember when talking with the building department for other work I’m doing, technically that notch means I have about a 2x3 at that position, strength-wise.
Yeah, pretty much. And being part of the tub and shower, it’s absorbed a bit of moisture. And moisture in darkness breeds mildew (even if you can’t see it).