What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

General conversations about BMW E28s and the people who own them.
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

Refinished the kitchen cabinets this week. My wife was out of town for a few days visiting one of her brothers, it's a somewhat dramatic family, so I decided it was time.

They weren't real bad, good stuff, oak, but 20 years old now and a little dull. Some cleaning, sanding and ~2 coats of lacquer and it's a nice change. Bright, clear, shinny, not dull and gray. I just brushed them, spraying would have been better but that's not always a realistic option. It's like the difference between a car that hasn't been washed in a week or two and one freshly washed and waxed. :D Looks good, I'm smiling. :D

Lacquer. It's a love/hate thing. Nothing IMO looks as good as lacquer. It holds up reasonably well. But off the wall on VOCs and I probably should have been wearing a respirator. Dries so fast it's hard to use, but dries fast so you can recoat and reinstall quick. I'm really surprised it's still legal here in Calif.
e28Sean
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by e28Sean »

I just finished installing two new cameras. I now have video coverage of every ground level point of entry.
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

e28Sean wrote:I just finished installing two new cameras. I now have video coverage of every ground level point of entry.
I've thought about putting cameras up but not really for security. The layout of the house and street means you can barely see any of it even if you go up to the front door. I'd like to see what's going on sometimes.
e28Sean
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by e28Sean »

Mike W. wrote:I've thought about putting cameras up but not really for security. The layout of the house and street means you can barely see any of it even if you go up to the front door. I'd like to see what's going on sometimes.
For me, it's about both security and just being able to keep an eye on the place when I'm out of town.
glowell222
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by glowell222 »

New dryer, new mower, new sump pump, and refurbished the fire pit.
cek
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by cek »

My Control4 dealer/installer got our outdoor sound system working. ZMOG, I had no idea underground subwoofers were a thing, nor how great they sounded.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn_t9pqF5AM ... _copy_link

They also put some finishing touches on the racks in the equipment room including LED backlighting. Heh.

Image
Image

Yes, I have three racks in my raised-floor, drop-ceiling, glass fronted home equipment room. Don't you?

(In all seriousness, I'm blessed to have a job where I get to build and play with all these toys).
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

Image

:shock:
vinceg101
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by vinceg101 »

Mike W. wrote:
:shock:
I saw all that going in. You should see the miles of cable behind all those racks.

:shock: indeed.


[It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on, but Charlie's is the coolest I've seen. I think I need to buy him a HAL-9000 interface panel to make it complete.
I think this is totally fitting, too bad it might not be as poignant as it would have been 6 months ago: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/10/1710 ... -bay-doors]
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

vinceg101 wrote:It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on...
Really? What all do they run? From what I can see the right panel might be stereo, er music, but on a computer level how much can you need/use? Oh sure, a bunch of tera if you have a large video collection, but you don't need all that much hardware to run a bunch of hard drives. I guess it shows what I know. Or perhaps more what I don't know. :cry:
vinceg101
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by vinceg101 »

Mike W. wrote:
vinceg101 wrote:It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on...
Really? What all do they run? From what I can see the right panel might be stereo, er music, but on a computer level how much can you need/use? Oh sure, a bunch of tera if you have a large video collection, but you don't need all that much hardware to run a bunch of hard drives. I guess it shows what I know. Or perhaps more what I don't know. :cry:
You would be surprised. Once you start wiring up every room with multiple sources of audio, video, and in Charlie's case: smart home interface the hardware and wiring requirements start to stack up. Throw in a home theater, security interface, telephones, smoke & fire detection and remote off-site controls and yeah, your equipment closet starts looking like Charlie's.
Or this one from one of our recent projects; this was just A/V and doesn't include the theater which is a stand-alone system:
Image
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

vinceg101 wrote:
Mike W. wrote:
vinceg101 wrote:It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on...
Really? What all do they run? From what I can see the right panel might be stereo, er music, but on a computer level how much can you need/use? Oh sure, a bunch of tera if you have a large video collection, but you don't need all that much hardware to run a bunch of hard drives. I guess it shows what I know. Or perhaps more what I don't know. :cry:
You would be surprised. Once you start wiring up every room with multiple sources of audio, video, and in Charlie's case: smart home interface the hardware and wiring requirements start to stack up. Throw in a home theater, security interface, telephones, smoke & fire detection and remote off-site controls and yeah, your equipment closet starts looking like Charlie's.
Or this one from one of our recent projects; this was just A/V and doesn't include the theater which is a stand-alone system:
Interesting, the wiring I would expect, miles and miles of it. But I would have expected less hardware to run it. :dunno:
vinceg101
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by vinceg101 »

Mike W. wrote:
vinceg101 wrote:
Mike W. wrote:
vinceg101 wrote:It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on...
Really? What all do they run? From what I can see the right panel might be stereo, er music, but on a computer level how much can you need/use? Oh sure, a bunch of tera if you have a large video collection, but you don't need all that much hardware to run a bunch of hard drives. I guess it shows what I know. Or perhaps more what I don't know. :cry:
You would be surprised. Once you start wiring up every room with multiple sources of audio, video, and in Charlie's case: smart home interface the hardware and wiring requirements start to stack up. Throw in a home theater, security interface, telephones, smoke & fire detection and remote off-site controls and yeah, your equipment closet starts looking like Charlie's.
Or this one from one of our recent projects; this was just A/V and doesn't include the theater which is a stand-alone system:
Interesting, the wiring I would expect, miles and miles of it. But I would have expected less hardware to run it. :dunno:
In the case of my photo, all that was client driven since he is a major music industry player and had some very specific, high powered requirements. Most of what you see in that photo is the equipment to high end audio & video to run the entire house with the ability to control multiple sources room by room/space by space as well as on the fly from mobile devices. The client uses his 1937 15,000 s.f. mansion for business and entertaining a lot so the concept was that guests and artists could easily port music & video to the house system in whatever room or space they were in (including service rooms like the Kitchen, baths, staff offices, exterior patios, etc.). Also the system has the ability to run and port different multiple media streams to almost every room/space simultaneously. When he entertains with over 100 people who are spread out over the house (as well as residents upstairs), each room and space is like a different party depending on who is in it at that time. There are docking stations for iPods and iPads, WAP's, local speaker connections, TV's (large & small) pretty much everywhere; all hidden of course. In some of the specific rooms (his Office, the main Bar, Den) the in-wall hidden speakers will make you cry.

Budget was not an issue. (Obviously).
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

Back down to earth after the most recent subthread.

Walked into the upstairs bathroom a few days ago. And went squish-squish. :cry: Not a good feeling. Sparing some of the details, the toilet tank was cracked. Right from the flush handle hole on down to the bottom. No abuse, it just cracked. We'll see if the cheapie replacement from Home Depot works out ok. :dunno: I sure hope so, I hate working on toilets. :evil:
davintosh
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by davintosh »

The switched light bulb in my garage quit working last week. Replacing the bulb didn't remedy the problem; turned out that the 70 year old light fixture was the cause of the problem, so I yanked that out and replaced it with a light fixture box extension ring & plate with a duplex outlet; into that I plugged the cord for the shop light fixture I've used forever with the pull string. I also replaced the old flourescent tubes with a pair of Feit Electric 4-foot LED plug & play tubes. Dang but that worked out well. Far brighter than the old fluorescents, and instant-on full light no matter how cold it is! The LED tubes came from Costco; a 2-pack was about $13. Fantastic deal.

Oh, and last week the doors we ordered finally arrived and got installed. The doors work great, but I've got a beef with the guy who measured for them, and with the guy who installed them. They made a big show of measuring to make sure they got the right size and all, but the frames on the new doors were a good 1 1/2" shorter than what came out. So there was this gaping hole above the brick mould that they filled with a piece of aluminum and a fair bit of silicone caulk. Plus when the back door was installed, he broke up a piece of siding pretty badly, then tacked it together with more of the clear silicone caulk. Dang. I thought going with this outfit would be a good idea because I've had trouble installing exterior doors before; now I wish I would've just done it myself.

And to top it off, the windows set in the doors have double-panes with the plastic strips that simulate "lites" in the windows; the doors are finished in a deep burgundy, but the strips are white. White. When we ordered the doors, the photo samples that we were shown were all white, and I didn't think to ask about the color of those strips. Now that they're in, they just stand out like sore thumbs to me. Less than satisfied customer here...
foamy
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by foamy »

spent most of the day taking electrical boxes apart trying to find the break in the wire for the upstairs lights. gotta love old wiring that falls apart when its touched. was a nightmare.
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

davintosh wrote: Dang. I thought going with this outfit would be a good idea because I've had trouble installing exterior doors before; now I wish I would've just done it myself.
I got into buildings occupationally, but same thing. I got into cars first because I couldn't afford to pay someone to work on it, then I continued because I kind of enjoyed it, and now I don't trust anyone to do the kind of work I do!
krhodes1
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by krhodes1 »

Just finished another big renovation in my place in Florida. New floors, and as a consequence, new bathrooms. When the bathrooms were tiled last, they tiled AROUND the toilets and vanities. So to do the new tile, it all had to come out. It was nasty 1980's crap anyway, so no great loss. Other than having to do both bathrooms pretty much at the same time. So new tile throughout the kitchen, dining room, living room and hall and both bathrooms, and new carpet in the two bedrooms. And then the fun part, as I did the bathrooms myself. I couldn't find any vanities I liked, so I started with IKEA kitchen cabinets and cut them down to the right size. Vessel sinks so I could have two full height drawers in each for storage. New toilets - and it was a HUGE PITA to get non-chair height toilets in SW FL (too many old people). Was a fun project, but thankfully I had a friend's empty house I could stay at while the floors were being done and until I got one new toilet installed.

Also thankfully - it's only a 750sq/ft house - turns out I have REALLY expensive taste in tile... :shock:

For now, I did not have the shower stall in the master bath or the tub surround in the hall bath re-tiled. That is next year's project. Need to let the wallet recover a tad.

I have pics on my Flickr account - along with various car pics and model railroad crap:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/10764510@N05/
Mike W.
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Mike W. »

The gutter/yard drain wasn't draining well lately, and we have had some rain so far this year for a change. I tried shoving a hose in, but only got about 7 feet, so out comes the shovel. At first I thought it was just lazy installation resulting in a collapsed drain line due to big rocks on top, but once I got it out the real culprit emerged, an old tennis ball. :facepalm: Oh well, parts were cheap and my labor doesn't count.

Image
Tiit
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Tiit »

gadget73
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by gadget73 »

wrote checks.

My house is a hodgepodge of stuff built by morons. The house itself was built in the mid 50s. It attaches behind a single story structure that was originally a store and an outboard motor shop for the marina that used to be across the street. On the side is a crappy 1 car garage. The garage was covered in ugly brown stucco in bad condition, the house is sided in nice aluminum siding that happens to be a fugly yellow. We decided to have the ugly stucco sided with grey siding, and the house will be painted to match.

Enter the check.

The front wall of the garage is about 12' wide, the door is narrow to the point where I can just barely squeeze a Chevy S10 through it without losing a mirror. Above the door, the stucco had a bulge, which I always thought was just the bad stucco work. Not so. The header above the garage door is four 10' 2x8 beams. Three of these are rotted, and the remaining one has a nice dip in it. The blocks above the "header" are sagging, and the bulge in the stucco is because the blocks are basically trying to cave in. The fix is going to require tearing the front wall off the garage and rebuilding it with proper lintels.
Bonsaibacker
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Bonsaibacker »

That is SLICK!
Beemernut
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Beemernut »

Put a vanity plate on it
tn535i
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by tn535i »

I rarely follow some of the discussion outside of techtalk but I should as there is some really interesting stuff here. And as I would expect some of you into the old BMW's are also capable of some fantastic work. Impressive.

So I will share my latest project I am finally wrapping up which was a bathroom renovation. It needed absolutely everything gutted and redone and I am a bit ashamed to admit how long it has been in the works. It's a small bathroom since it's and old (1930's) house but we squeezed in everything we wanted. I just finished (this week) putting in glass shower door and surround made to my drawings by a great shop and nice people in Nashville. I think they thought I might be a little crazy to attempt it myself but I'm happy (wife is also) with the results. It's more or less her bath in the morning and now I literally just have a bit more caulk to apply in a spot or two to be done.

Image

The marble subway and floor is a little wet yet since I was the first to use this the other day and took the pictures afterwards to show a friend at work.

Image

The vanity is from locally sourced Tennessee walnut from a great place in town but all the fabrication done by me in my basement shop. Custom size as nothing we could find would fit the small space we have. A local guy made the top for me to my drawing again. This has actually been in place for quite a long time and same for the storage cabinet I made to the right that hides behind the door when it is open.
a
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by a »

That is one nice job on the vanity. I have a replacement down stairs waiting for the faucets and stuff. Yesterday, I re-installed a casement sash that needed a stile. I filled the hole with the screen wrapped in a poly drop cloth folded 4 times
Last edited by a on Jan 11, 2019 8:10 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Tiit
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Re: What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

Post by Tiit »

tn535i wrote:
Image
nice looking cabinet. well done.
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