What do carpet removal, tree trimming, cable management, furnace room clean out, bidet removal, thermostat upgrading, and behind the fridge cleaning have in common? They all consumed my first week of home improvement, and I learned something from all of them.
Sat, July 13th Maria and I signed the hundred plus papers to our lending agreement and officially become home owners.
Putting the massive decision to take out a mortgage aside, I’ve now become a “home owner” and being as I am, have delved deep into home improvement.
It’s a world of man vs. property and I love it. While the overwhelm of projects is insane, and I can’t help but to list, chart, and capture every change I want to make as I walk by them with Evernote on my iPhone, it’s been incredibly satisfying to make changes. [it’s 9 days later and I’m finally controlling myself not to fall into bed around 1-2am from exhaustion but pick something manageable before heading back to my online business and fitness goals]
The home we purchased is by no means a “fixer upper” as in walls need to come down, but it needs a lot of elbow grease, and there are a lot of changes to make. I plan to chronicle them here on the personal side of my blog.
These are the first 7 projects, a smattering of smaller matters, and pictures. There are many, many more.
I’ll post pictures, followed by what I learned if anything, and tool reviews that you [the internet, and my friends] can put to good use in your endeavors.
Carpet Removal
Nothing too surprising here in terms of work, sucks the floor had some issues, we’re going to put new carpet down.
Fairly heavy amount of work for a 16×24 room. The only tools used were a Leatherman Multi-tool for the pliers to pull up the staples, a hammer, a flat head screwdriver to pop up the tack strip around the wall, and sand paper for when I was attempting to buff out the floor before I realized that wasn’t really an option.
I learned that you have to not only think about ripping the carpet up, but rolling it, and then cutting it into trash bag friendly sizes if you plan to dispose of it through your towns trash pickup service. Check the schedule first.
Tree Trimming
The front yard tree has clearly not been maintained in years, it’s branches are extremely low hanging and growing over the power and internet lines, they need to be cut back.
I used a pruning tool [Corona Prunning Saw] which sawed through 6-7 inch branches with ease to get ride of most of the branches, but lack of planning or purchasing a ladder stopped me short from anything higher than about 8 feet.
*Plan for height, I need a ladder.
Cable Management
A small common task when setting up your TV, media center, or office space. I opted this time around to get everything up off the floor, and used industrial strength velcro [apparently the word “Velcro” is it’s own brand] to mount the power strips, cable modem, and HD antenna. I find this beautiful.
Furnace Room Cleaning
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clean right
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scariest room in the house
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clean left
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dirty right
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dirty left
It might seem odd or one of the last things to do when moving into a home, but this particular furnace room, or “utility” room as many call it had dry leaves everywhere, tons of left over junk from the previous owner, and was in a general state of disarray. The fact that leaves were there posed a hazard, as there’s a constant gas flame in this room. The leave presumably came in the window, when a vent which is now sealed was open.
Shop vac, broom, dustpan used for cleanup.
Treasures found: House appliance manuals, an old clock, a shelving unit that could be repainted as a later project.
Bidet Removal
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bidet removal
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new seat attachement
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pass through
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intake valve
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finished product
Doesn’t everyone want a bidet in their house!! Not really, we didn’t at least.
The former owners must have been European, or liked saving money on their toiled paper, regardless I set out to buy a new seat, install it and remove the bidet.
The task luckily proved simple. The after market, attached bidet was mounted between the seat and the toilet, and a passthrough was screwed into the tanks intake pipe. I used the intake pipe valve to shut off the water, flushed the toiled just to clear out any water [not sure if that did anything] and then unscrewed the bidet pass through and reconnected it the main intake tube.
I used the aforementioned Leatherman Multi-tool and a well reviewed vice grip for grabbing the toilet seat bolts that needed to be turned to remove, and a ratcheting screwdriver that I’ve already used about 50 times this week.
Thermostat Upgrade [Nest]
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mounted
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on
I heard the Nest thermostat saves money, and looks awesome. I’ve been following it for a while and thought since it’s well reviewed and saves money, the sooner I buy it the better.
The installation process was much simpler than I thought. Turn power off to be safe. Remove the cover of your existing thermostat, label the wires, remove the old thermostat completely, attached the first layer [or “plate”] of the Nest to the wires and mount it with included bracket, then literally just push in the second layer with the nice display. Turn the power back on. Done.
When you power back up you are guided through configuration with an ultra slick interface that you interact with by clicking the entire Nest in like a button and turning the dial left or right.
The only tools needed here were pliers [I used the multi-tool] and a screwdriver, which was my ratcheting megapro screwdriver.
Behind the Refrigerator Cleanup
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before
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after [note the outlet and hole]
This task seems mundane, but was important for me because I found a bag of candy that must have been feeding mice for weeks, so cleaning it out was a big win AND while doing that, I was able to inspect why the refrigerator sticks so far out in my kitchen.
It became clear the previous owners were too lazy to cut a new sized hole in the wall, and the outlet which is the box type outside of the wall, lines up with the covered coil on the back of the fridge. Why are these two facts important? If the hole is made larger, by cutting a few inches higher, and the box outlet moved into a cabinet, or even just over to not line up with the fridge coil, I’ll gain back about 7-8 inches. I can then push back the fridge to be drastically more flush with the cabinets, which is a HUGE win.
I walked the refrigerator out with my hands, and then used a Dyson vacuum to clean behind, it was, as you can see, a gross site to behold!!
That’s all I’ve managed to capture so far, many more to come, onto other house and business projects!