The leaves didn't have a fighting chance...

One of my neighbors had a leaf shredder that she wasn't using... well, simply because she doesn't have any big trees. I, on the other hand, have a very large maple tree so she gave it to me and it's great! It's a fun fall yardwork toy. It's basically a plastic tub with a weedwacker inside of it that pulverizes the leaves like so:

My tree decided to drop the rest of its leaves this week. Many of the leaves fell into my next door neighbor's yard, which she bagged and then I snagged to turn into compost with the leaf shredder. I have a triple compost bin, so I may as well use it... I expanded the bin again since this post. Today, I shredded the 5 bags from my neighbor and the leaves that had accumulated on my deck. Despite looking like a really fast process above... it still took a while because I had to stop the shredding regularly in order to clear out twigs or to replace the trimmer line. I ended up bagging the leaves in my yard to shred later because I wanted to give the motor a break after an hour of use. Not only will I be shredding those leaves later, but my other next door neighbor's maple hasn't dropped many of its leaves yet. I'll be using the shredder a lot this fall.

this shredder

not this shredder

I will need to make sure I wear a face mask in the future to help keep the allergens down. I've been more sneezy than normal after all the leaf dust that got kicked up during that shredding process. It's worth it though to keep the leaves from blowing everywhere now and to have great soil next spring.

future compost

Just call me Urkel

One of the tips I saw for installing casing was to draw a line along the door frame about 3/16ths of an inch from the edge as a guide for where to secure each piece of casing.
I stopped by the hardware store on my way home from work last week to pick up a compass to help with that task. Right next to it was a pocket rule that I figured I could use to set the compass to the correct width.
It wasn't until a few days later that I realized I bought the nerdiest things possible from a hardware store. The only other thing I got was a wall plate to protect the bathroom from the door knob. The old door knob had already put a little dent in the wall. "Did I do that?"

Rust is my enemy, WD-40 and my Dremel are my friends.

I thought that replacing my toilet seat was going to be simple. Remove some bolts, remove the seat, clean the toilet, put on new seat, add the bolts. Yeah.... that's not the case when the bolts are extremely rusted! Adding WD-40 helped with one of the bolts, but even so, my arms were extremely sore from trying to get the first bolt off. Look at how gross it was. A tip from my younger brother that I learned after I replaced the seat: the product PB Blaster would have done the job a lot easier and it can be found at auto stores near the WD-40. I'll have to get some of that if I have other problems with rust.

The second bolt was somewhat stripped and I was unable to get it to budge from the plastic nut underneath the toilet. I was frustrated and tired and unwilling to go through a tougher version of what I had just endured with the first one. I put a drill bit in my dremel in order to break the nut away from the rusted bolt. Drilling on either side and using needle-nose pliers let me remove it entirely and much easier!

Installing the new toilet seat was simple. The great things about it are that it matches the toilet (the old one was not quite white) and, at my mom's recommendation, I got a quiet-close seat. Recommendation, I got it from Bed Bath and Beyond with a 20% off coupon, so it was cheaper than had I bought it at a hardware store.

This is not in slow-motion.
Gravity-resistance = Quiet-close

Helping out with hardwood flooring

Old flooring

My guest blogger, Steve, posted about installing hardwood floors in his house last year. He's been tackling the stairway and preparing other rooms for hardwood installation. He solicited my help to install the flooring in one of his upstairs rooms.We worked for about 4 hours and got about 2/3rds done in the small room. It's tough work wielding a mallet and hammer.

I learned some key things about installing hardwood. (1) When placing a board closest to any wall, use spacers to keep about 1/2 inch of space. (2) You have to face-nail the first board in place and use a nail punch to create space for filling in with wood filler. The other boards can be nailed in along the side at an angle so the nail is hidden.
(3) In order to get the boards tight to each other before nailing or stapling into place, remnant of flooring and a rubber mallet are used to knock the board being placed as close as possible to the secure boards. (4) The air compressor powered flooring stapler makes things go much more quickly, but that's not an option until four or so rows of flooring are laid due to the size of the stapler (and same goes for the last few rows, but we didn't get to that when I was there). Basically, once the board is placed tight against the secure ones, the flooring stapler is lined up along the edge and hit with a heavy duty mallet to send a staple at the correct angle into the side of the board so it's hidden by the next board. Besides it just looks cool...

Completed  new flooring.
I helped with the right side (not that it really matters)

AND Steve's new floors also look cool! Another example of hard work paying off.

I'm going to be pressure washing EVERYTHING!

I splurged this week by buying a heavy-duty, gas-powered pressure washer! It came today and I immediately started to put it together. It's pretty awesome and I haven't even used it yet. I have a feeling my water bill will be high next quarter, but I'll try to conserve as much as possible. If anyone has lessons-learned about power washing that they'd like to share before I start to use mine please leave comments.

check out this bad boy!

Railing going up

I put the rest of the screws in the deck boards like I had planned and drained the battery of one drill halfway through the process. Luckily I had borrowed an extra corded one to complete the job. [Have I mentioned how much my friends rock? Maybe just a few times.] It wasn't quite dark when I finished that, so I decided to go ahead and tackle the railing. I knew I shouldn't need to cut the railing at all for the long side (18ft vs 12ft), so I started there. That involved putting up 3 of the pre-constructed railings. I started at the end closest to the house and lined up the bottom part of the railing with the edge of the 4x4 post. Then I needed to adjust the top part of the 4x4 to match. I only have 2 hands so I wedged my trusty ply-board scraps between the picket and the post.  I would put a screw into the railing part of the way and used my feet to push it flush with the 4x4. Since I had secured the bottom, I used my body weight to lean against the railing when I screwed in the top. On the other side of this railing, the top 2x4 wasn't completely straight and I couldn't just push it flush so I grabbed my vise anyway and fixed that problem. I have a new-found love for my vise, which was a hand-me-down gift.

Anyway today is my day off and I have a little time to get up the last 2 railings, so I'm going to go for it. Hopefully that will result in a new blog post today or tomorrow!

One tool? or TOOLS?

I needed to get a 3/4 inch wrench to tighten up the bolts for the railing posts on my deck. I had some options... One wrench for $11 or 11 wrenches for $20! [Note: The set was on sale. Same brand. Same shiny 3/4 inch wrench. Same "lifetime commitment" (as the advertisement above them claimed... I should have taken a picture of the ad)].

This? ($10)

Or these? ($20)

Needless to say, I have a lot more wrenches.

The Derecho had mercy on me... deck building continues

After a crazy storm on Friday I was one of the lucky ones to have power on Saturday morning. I was grateful for the power mainly so deck work could continue... although having AC was nice. Three of my friends came over before it got terribly hot on Saturday. We spent about three hours placing the center beam (which involved a lot of measuring and calculations) and setting three fence posts. We made sure the posts were straight and level with my new favorite tool - a post leveler:

We came up with some clever ways to keep the posts level while the concrete we poured around them set.

I spent some time this evening attaching joist hangers and filling in the holes. Here's the progress and the slowly diminishing fill dirt hill

p.s. I made a falafel bar for lunch on Saturday including jalapeño-cilantro sauce, roasted red pepper hummus, cucumber-dill yogurt, tomatoes and cucumber in balsamic, and pita.

2 ft of concrete

I began digging holes for my deck footers soon after getting my permit. Fortunately, only one of my footers conflicted with the posts of the old chain link fence. Unfortunately, one footer conflicted with a post. That post was set in two feet of concrete!!!
I started to dig around it and realized at one foot deep that it wasn't moving at all. My coworker lent me his heavy concrete breaking tool.

It's pretty awesome, but would have taken me forever to do. Steve, however, dominated that concrete! Here's what's left:

And not only did he do that, but he hauled it out of the hole on his own and then dug the hole to 28+inches deep and 22"x22" square. Twelve more holes and I'll be ready for 1st inspection! Well, I have one other pretty much completed and some others partially done, but a lot of digging still left to do.
This deck will not be going anywhere when it's built on that much concrete. And it's going to be awesome!

Slow Bathroom Remodel: Pulling faucets

I have ordered a new showerhead and faucets for my bathtub... and thus, the slow bathroom remodel continues. In an effort to find out the current set-up of the faucet, I tried to remove the old handles. Since nothing is easy in my house, I couldn't just remove the cover and the screw. No, I had to get a Faucet Puller. This corkscrew like tool is helpful when the old handles are corroded to the water connection.

Not a torture device

despite its looks

It took a little maneuvering to get the puller situated correctly. I held the two "arms" in place so that they stayed behind the handle while I turned the screw part... and the handle just popped off. Earlier, I had tried pulling on the handle itself, but it was more likely to pull the whole pipe unit instead of only the handle. It was definitely worth the $10 I spent on it.

Now, I just wait until my new faucet comes and I have a free day to work on it.

and this sucker will be gone forever

Spreading the grout... with help from the younger bro!

   This is not the proper method for spreading grout, but it is actually a good way to get the grout ready to spread with the grout float. We had a pretty good method where my younger brother would spread the grout out and I would use my finger to smooth it in the grooves. He was a little too quick though. I'll need to go back over some spots that dried before I could smooth them well enough. A little work with the dremel or some fine sand paper should do the trick. It's looking much better though.

My tips are:

1. Smooth the grout with your finger because only using a damp sponge method isn't as good. You'll need a bowl to wet your finger so that it smooths the grout instead of removes it.
2. Use a damp sponge to clean up the tiles 20-30 minutes after the grout has set.
3. Do one section at a time (spreading and smoothing) mixing the grout frequently to keep it soft and taking breaks b/c the hands get pruney/wrinkly really quickly.
4. Cheesecloth is great for taking off the haze. Wipe the surface with it a couple hours after letting the grout dry. And wear a mask b/c it's dusty.

I'm sure to have more pictures and tips by the time I'm done with this project, but I really needed the break and wanted to share this silly picture.