Home Projects

It's kind of a silly idea for a thread but I thought it'd be fun to share what kind of projects folks might be working on at home - or planning on working on.    That could include remodeling, furniture making, gardening, decorating, shelving, etc.

What got me thinking about this is my idea for a TV stand...  We just moved into a new place and have most of our furniture and whatnot in place.  It's a funky layout which is somewhat restrictive with regards to what goes where and thus our TV has no place to go...  Veronika doesn't want it front-and-center anyways - even if we did have a spot to put it.  So I came up with I think a really great idea.   I have a small shelf for movies that fits in the corner of the room, next to our sofa.  I'm trying to come up with a design that would be a movie-shelf on one side and have the TV (40" flatscreen) mounted on the back.  The whole shelf would be on wheels so when we wanted to watch a flick, just wheel it around to the middle of the room and voila!  Then wheel it back and the TV is totally hidden against the wall behind my movies.  What I don't know is if I should buy a pre-existing shelf or cabinet or something and try to modify it OR if I should build it from scratch.  I have near zilch experience with woodworking but I know how to hammer a nail and chop wood with a saw.  Any thoughts?  What are you working on?

I've been doing plumbing jobs, fixing toilets and leaking taps. Next I need to work on the shower and reseal.

I'm just wondering, for Kerrick, what you'll do with all the cables inherent to a TV. (Or perhaps I'm out of date in the TV sphere and the average number of cables and accessories has gone down.) You're going to have to find a way to keep them from straining and whatnot. I'd suggest you make plans on graph paper or whatnot, if you haven't already. Also, varnishing it to something like the rest of your furniture should help it fit in. Just my few cents, although I don't actually really have experience with home projects

This weekend we ripping up our carpet in our living room and installing wood laminate flooring

Driven wrote:I'm just wondering, for Kerrick, what you'll do with all the cables inherent to a TV. (Or perhaps I'm out of date in the TV sphere and the average number of cables and accessories has gone down.) You're going to have to find a way to keep them from straining and whatnot. I'd suggest you make plans on graph paper or whatnot, if you haven't already. Also, varnishing it to something like the rest of your furniture should help it fit in. Just my few cents, although I don't actually really have experience with home projects

Good questions.    I think we have cable TV at our place (there's a cable hanging out of the wall...) but we only ever use our TV rarely for movies or the extremely occasional video game haha.  What I had in mind was to have my Playstation 3 wired up to the TV and both units' power cables would go to a power strip or something that I would probably leave not plugged in until we're ready to watch something.  So it'd just be one plug that would need to be attached once we want to turn it on.

Also, I do 3D mechanical design for a living so I might just stay late one evening and draft up some plans in SolidWorks haha.

We have two Boxer dogs in the house with hardwood floors, and they can get pretty rowdy at times. I'm going to put a fence in the back yard so that I can take them out there to run off some of that energy more frequently whenever I'm short on time and can't get them onto the trails in the woods for a few days. I also need to put some fresh paint on our front porch. We painted literally everything inside this winter, including the garage. I'm so tired of painting, but fortunately what's left won't take long. I recently built a bench for my gym, I was pressing off of blocks lying on the floor previously. Next project for that is a new platform for deadlifts and cleans.

Well I feel bad for a new family on my street.... Looks like they have 5 kids. They moved into a house on my street that has been empty for over 3 years. I asked the man across the street about it and he said the man who lived there died about 3 years ago and the wife moved away and just left the house. The family who moved in bought it "blind" without looking at it from an ad online for $20,000 (homes sell in my area for 75-120,000). The only image of the house was a front picture and was listed as "fast sale, as is". 

Here is the first reason I feel bad for them... We judged them (not just my family but the others as well as "dopeheads"). Who am I to judge?

The next reason I feel bad for them is they up and moved from Minnesota to Florida and the roof of the house has fallen in. So much so that there is no electricity and the power company will not restore power because it isn't safe. So they have been here for a week and have NO power. It is starting to get in the 80's here and if they don't get power soon they are in for a HUGE shock when they have to deal with the Florida heat. They have a teenage boy who has been working on the roof trying to repair but I get the feeling they know nothing about what they are doing. It's a complete disaster. You can't see the fallen roof from the outside but my neighbor across the street has seen it and says it is terrible, not to mention police has run off squatters from the house more than once and the inside has been vandalized pretty bad.

Here is what I have noticed about the family- Kids range from maybe 5-16 years old. They seem happy and play in the front yard all day. The girls and the mother all wear long dresses/skirts. I told my wife they looked Apolisitic or Menonnite. I'm not really sure. All I know is I feel really bad for them coming into this unknown situation and when July gets here the heat in this area is pretty unbearable without AC. Now I assume they will have power by then but I don't understand why someone would up and move that far away without investigating it a little more. I don't think the dad works because the van is always there. On top of that the jobs here are lousy. Mostly low wage tourist type jobs. 

So, as for home projects, they have their hands full. At this time all I can do is offer my prayers to them.

You can befriend them!

New Creation wrote:You can befriend them!

Yes, and I will when I have the free time to walk over there and say hello.

I bought my first power tool the other day (Milwaukee 18V drill + impact driver combo).  I am starting to feel like a real man!  I used it last night to drill some holes to route cables for my speakers and such.  I'm excited to be able to listen to music on my better speakers instead of these little USB powered ones I bought in Barcelona haha.

I've been working on the kitchen this year. I've taken all the cabinets apart, sanded and repainted them, then replaced all the hardware. I also cut out a cabinet and reworked the ductwork and electrical to install an over the range microwave oven. This weekend, I will be removing a wall to join the kitchen and dining room. That only leaves the countertops, backslpash and floors. Hopefully, before too long, I will have a fully remodeled kitchen.

I literally just saw this thread, and was all interested in Kerrick's TV Stand and just realized it happened 2 months ago 


So how did that turn out? 

Well we FINALLY started actually working on it last weekend!  Life and general busyness/laziness got in the way but we designed it fully (minus some minor trim and aesthetic options), bought materials, cut the major pieces, and have put our first layer of primer on them.  Next step is to find some paint.  We’re hoping for a deep blue blue/grey.  We’ll paint the pieces individually then assemble and touch-up any more spots.  I’ll post pictures once it’s a bit more complete. 

We made some decent progress on the TV stand this weekend.  We painted most all of the parts that needed painting.  I still need to do a second coat on the back faces of the parts though.  This Thursday we’re planning on finishing painting and then Friday we’ll begin assembly!  Fun fun.

Made some more good progress yesterday!  Here's what it's looking like so far.  The paint turned out a bit different than we were expecting, but I think it looks alright.  The casters are on now and the bulk of the piece is finished.  This evening I'm going to put a second coat of stain on the shelves and touch-up some of the blue.  It should only take my dad and I one more evening after this to get the shelves in and TV mounted.

And FINISHED!

Here it is in its "normal" state, with the shelves facing outward.  We've got all of our movies and Playstation games, plus some random knick-knacks.


And here it is in TV-mode!  Great success. 

Having dinner in front of the old TV (the American way) I see.   
The cabinet looks good.

Dude couldnt have turned out better!

Gonna keep something like this in mind for when Im out on my own!

Ikea would be proud.

Next job for me is some paint repair on the car. It got some bat droppings on it which ate away the paint to the metal.

I'm nervous about doing a good job.

Haha thanks guys!

Erasmus, what kind of car is it?  Do you have a sprayer or will you be doing just small touch-ups with a brush?  I've painted a car once and it came out alright but far from great.  How will you match the color/fading of the paint?

My car is a maroon Subaru liberty wagon. There are a few small spots, but I will probably spray rather than use a brush as once I start sanding I'm sure these small spots will grow bigger.

I need to use rust converter first then will use a Primer Filler for now.

Yes the big issue will be color matching. It is mainly the roof affected so I can live with the difference. Professionals have told me they would have to spray the whole roof.

Gotcha.  Yeah to do it "right" you've gotta paint the whole panel and fade it which is a lot of work.  Since it's the roof, I think you've got the right approach.  Still a hassle though!  I hope it comes out alright.  I suppose that even if you botch the job yourself, you'll only be out a little paint and can always get it done professionally later.

It flips around? Cool! Great job.

Kerrick wrote:Gotcha.  Yeah to do it "right" you've gotta paint the whole panel and fade it which is a lot of work.  Since it's the roof, I think you've got the right approach.  Still a hassle though!  I hope it comes out alright.  I suppose that even if you botch the job yourself, you'll only be out a little paint and can always get it done professionally later.

Exactly, although I'll be a little embarrassed.

Sadly, our TV cabinet fell over during our move to Idaho and the TV broke.  At some point we'll probably get a new TV and make a rev 2 cabinet...

In the meantime, I have a small collection of a few patches and pins that I'm not currently doing anything with.  I was thinking it'd look cool to get some black fabric and hang it on the wall with the patches and pins pinned to it.  I was considering just cutting up an old t-shirt but my wife thinks that cotton would be too stretchy and just deform/curl on the edges, etc.  She's probably right.  Any recommendations?  I'd probably get some sort of wooden dowel(s) for the top edge and maybe bottom edge too.