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Official Pit Home Improvement/DIY thread

I'm going to be such a DIY noob when I finally close on my house and get going in there. The room in the basement with the furnace and water heater currently just has a curtain in the doorway. I want to have better protection in the door so my cat cannot get in, but the doorway is not a standard size. I figured I could get Home Depot or whatever to cut a solid core door to size for me (I've read they will make a couple cuts for free?). Mentioned this to my inspector yesterday and he told me I will need to have airflow into the room, so I'd need to put a vent or register of some sort in the door. Who knew doors were so complicated. Then I'll need to figure out hinges and how to latch the door shut... yeesh.

Accordion doors too ugly? They're easy to adapt to odd widths.
 
You bamboo guys - I was looking at http://www.lumberliquidators.com/ll/c/Qing-Spyder-Strand-Bamboo-Morning-Star-PRBAMSTY/10006035
and wondering if the reported hardness of the floor gave your nailer any trouble. What were you running for a compressor/nailer?
installed mine with just a finish nailer using 1 1/2" nails at 80psi, shot at a 45 degree angle and had no problems. I've got the dark bamboo and unless your heart is set on it, I'd suggest going with a lighter version. It shows dirt horribly, and is impossible to keep clean with an inside pet. In 10 years or so we'll probably sand it down and restain it lighter.
 
installed mine with just a finish nailer using 1 1/2" nails at 80psi, shot at a 45 degree angle and had no problems. I've got the dark bamboo and unless your heart is set on it, I'd suggest going with a lighter version. It shows dirt horribly, and is impossible to keep clean with an inside pet. In 10 years or so we'll probably sand it down and restain it lighter.

i don't know that i've heard of this process w/ bamboo. does it take the sanding as well as any other hard wood?
 
i will say, of all home improvements you could make on your own, hanging a door is one of the more complicated/frustrating things.

boo. this is one of the only things i want/need to do to my house! that and paint. i got a lotttt of painting to do.
 
actually speaking of painting, i need opinions on what color to paint my kitchen/living room area. it's not totally open, but it's like a flowing area so they both have to be the same color. currently, the entire thing is a light green. i don't mind the color, but it really doesn't go with anything i have. i have the following:
- grey couch
- tiffany blue accents (lamps, pillows, art etc)
- black and white accent chairs
- pale yellow accents (secondary accents on lamps/pillows/art)

contemplating adding in a few light green accents to try to pull the color in, but i'm wondering if it might be too much. i'm also contemplating moving the black/white chairs to a different room and getting something new (doing this with my black/white rug too).

fwiw i def don't want blank white/beige/tan walls.
 
there's just very little room for error with doors. it's not impossible, but it would probably not be what i'd recommend someone do for their very first DIY project.

that said, an interior door isn't as terrible, and if you're replacing a door (just the door) it's not terrible... but still.
 
actually speaking of painting, i need opinions on what color to paint my kitchen/living room area. it's not totally open, but it's like a flowing area so they both have to be the same color. currently, the entire thing is a light green. i don't mind the color, but it really doesn't go with anything i have. i have the following:
- grey couch
- tiffany blue accents (lamps, pillows, art etc)
- black and white accent chairs
- pale yellow accents (secondary accents on lamps/pillows/art)

contemplating adding in a few light green accents to try to pull the color in, but i'm wondering if it might be too much. i'm also contemplating moving the black/white chairs to a different room and getting something new (doing this with my black/white rug too).

fwiw i def don't want blank white/beige/tan walls.

how dark is your couch? i'd find a grey in its color family but maybe a few shades lighter. ties things together without being overwhelmingly matchy.
 
how dark is your couch? i'd find a grey in its color family but maybe a few shades lighter. ties things together without being overwhelmingly matchy.

ooh, second the grey idea. i painted my living room/hallway (i have a very open floorplan, it all kind of flows together) in a grey, and it has been BY FAR my favorite of all of the colors in my house. it's such a great neutral. very classic and doesn't compete with anything.
 
Accordion doors too ugly? They're easy to adapt to odd widths.

not too ugly, that was actually my first thought. I found a place online that makes custom sizes but it seems it would be like $300 which seems too high for a door roughly 36.5 x 75". But I do now know that I will need ventilation, so it would need to be louvers or whatever, which is fine too (but not the kind of door I found online when I was previously searching). All I need is for it to be functional.
 
there's just very little room for error with doors. it's not impossible, but it would probably not be what i'd recommend someone do for their very first DIY project.

that said, an interior door isn't as terrible, and if you're replacing a door (just the door) it's not terrible... but still.

adding a storm door so it's exterior. i'll probably just pay lowes to come install it for me if it's really hard.

ooh, second the grey idea. i painted my living room/hallway (i have a very open floorplan, it all kind of flows together) in a grey, and it has been BY FAR my favorite of all of the colors in my house. it's such a great neutral. very classic and doesn't compete with anything.

grey was my first thought too but i was scared it might be overwhelming. then again, i wasn't overwhelmed with the light green so grey is probably easy peasy in comparison! actually thinking back on it, in order for it to "flow" it'll have to cover the living room, kitchen, stairwell, and upstairs hallway. since grey's a neutral, maybe i'll go with that!
 
If you want a normal door lbe, couldn't you put a vent in the wall beside the door (if that exists)?

I assume you mean me - yes I could cut a vent into the wall but if I'm already chopping into a door, it seems I might as well put it there instead of cutting up the wall.
 
I love my house but the walls were all white. I did a slate blue color in the living room and master (Breezeway at Lowes in Valspar), a lite gray in the kitchen and hall since they connect (Gravity at Lowes in Valspar), a tan in the other two bedrooms (Pecan at Lowes in Valdpar), and a dark taupe with some gray tones for the bathrooms (Smoked Oyster). The colors look good together.
 
i don't know that i've heard of this process w/ bamboo. does it take the sanding as well as any other hard wood?

Since I had to special order it, I've got a room's worth of extra flooring. I've sanded down one of the pieces to get through the stain to bare wood and it looks great. I havent tried staining it a lighter color yet though.

there's just very little room for error with doors. it's not impossible, but it would probably not be what i'd recommend someone do for their very first DIY project.

I'll agree with this. There's a lot of room for adjustment with shims on the door, which is great if you know what you're doing. If not, you can very easily get it slightly out of kilter and then the door wont close. I speak from experience, womp womp.

I assume you mean me - yes I could cut a vent into the wall but if I'm already chopping into a door, it seems I might as well put it there instead of cutting up the wall.
I keep picturing something like this RTQ, is this what you are going for?




We painted our entire house strictly with paint from Sherwin Williams. Compared to the paints from Lowes and HD, they didn't smell nearly as strong, were quicker to dry and were roughly the same price. We painted the living room and dining room a color called Intellectual Gray, and we love it.
 
Like TSY, we also used Sherwin Williams paint for the interior of the house (the "Historic Colors of Charleston" palette to be specific).
 
Stuff I've done around the LK homestead:


7) Attempted, with nearly catastrophic results, to replace the torsion springs on the garage door yesterday. Not realizing how much tension they were under, a bolt came flying out while I was loosening it and shot 20 feet across the garage and dented the drywall. Very lucky it wasn't my head. Professionals are coming to do it today.

Weren't you a physics major or minor? You're too smart to do something stupid like that. Yikes. Scary business
 
I liked the Valspar at Lowes. I used their Valspar Ultra which didn't have as much primer as the signature since the walls were white. Odor wasn't bad and dried pretty quickly. Didn't even think about Sherwin Williams. I'm color blind so my sister helped me pick out colors and was afraid to try to go somewhere else once I found what I wanted. Also, Lowe's was running a sale here and I bought it all at once saving about $50 from regular price for 7 gallons.

The blue I used
080047978678lg.jpg


The beige/tan
042397046520lg.jpg


The gray
042397029288lg.jpg


The taupe
042397033919lg.jpg
 
tsy - something like that door would certainly work, though I doubt I could find one just the right size for my odd doorway. I was more thinking just cutting a hole into the middle of the door and putting a register vent thingie in there:

!BpgBuCwBmk~$%28KGrHqEOKjcEulrObE4UBLrqrVyOmQ~~_35.JPG
 
How hard and how expensive would it be to install crown molding? I'd like to do this for the whole house at some point. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with a living room, eat-in kitchen, and hallway. The house was built in 2000 and has settled some so there are some nails popping through the finish coat on the ceilings. Crown molding would look good and hid all that.
 
i have constructed multiple stone patios and walkways over the years at two houses - I like working with stone. I put in a sweet circular rock garden with a fountain two years ago. I am a sucky carpenter so I tend to let pros do interior renovations, although I think I painted and repainted almost every room in my old house and have repainted half the rooms in the new house. Have replaced several faucets, recently repaired a faulty shower valve, etc. I want to put crown molding in my master bedroom but the aforementioned sucky carpentry skills are stopping me.
 
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