Over the weekend we had the first real cold front come in from the north and since currently we do not have a house to our north we felt the brunt of the front’s cold wind. I remember thinking that it would be nice if the people building next door would build the other two story house that our builder offers so that it could shield us from those cold north winds. I stopped by the sales office on Sunday and they told me that indeed they are building that two story house. Wishes do come true.

Now all we need is a neighbor in the lot that is south of us and our section of our block will be completed. There is still both sides of the street around the corner from us that has about 20 lots that hopefully by the end of next year will be finished up. It looks like DR. Horton is still selling anywhere from 2-4 houses a month in our neighbor hood so I would think that is a pretty good estimate. We will see.

The first part of the video shows how to reset a hinge by filling the screw holes and re-drilling and remounting the hinge. I had seen this done before so this was not new news to me. The second part of the video (about 3 minutes in) was a little more interesting. In that part he bends the section of the hinge that the pin goes through in order to reduce the gab in a pair of double doors.

The second tip is so simple but I had never thought of doing that before. My youngest son’s door sometimes swells so I think I can use the second method to give it a little more breathing room. I will need to try that out this weekend.

Here is the link to the video – How to Fine Tune Door Hinges

Anyway, to try to return some sanity to my wife I set out a couple of weeks ago and bought the wood and had it cut to build the shelves. I finally got the chance to build them this past weekend. It was a pretty easy project.

Getting Started

The basic idea of the shelves was to allow her to use some plastic tubs that we had left over from my son’s baseball team to organize the various toys and other items. I figured that the 3 middle shelves would be 10 inches high and the top and bottom ones would be about 12 inches. The shelves would also need to be 16 inches deep.

I went to Home Depot and picked up a piece of 5/8″ MDF for around $20. I had the guy cut it into 16 inch sections which gave me 6 pieces that we 16″ x 48″. This gave me enough for 4 shelves, a side support for the shelves, and one piece left over for other projects. I also bought 2 pieces of 1″ x 2″ x 8′ pine strips to mount to the wall for the shelves to sit on. The whole cost of the materials was around $30.

Routing and Painting

At home I rounded the front edges of the pieces with my router and then painted them on both sides. I also painted the pine strips as well so I would only need to do minor touchup paint in the closet (if any). Painting the materials in the garage was much easier to do then trying to paint in the closet and greatly reduced the “new paint smell” that would be locked inside. The paint also dries a whole lot quicker in the garage as well.

While the paint was drying I was finding and marking studs in the closet and my wife asked if it was to late to build some additional shelves all the way in the back right. I informed her that 5 minutes later and it would have been since the shelves that I was working on would have partially blocked that section. She kissed me and asked for 2 more shelves 2 feet deep in the back corner. I ran to Home Depot to get some wood.

Another Trip to the Store

This time around I got 3/4″ MDF since the span and depth of the shelves were greater. I had the MDF cut at 38 1/4″ and then had that halved (or so I thought) at 2 feet. After loading the cut pieces into the cart I noticed that one was wider then the other and went to the tool section to grab a tape measure. One piece was 24″ and the other was 25″. I measured the uncut piece and found out that the 3/4″ MDF is actually 49″ wide as opposed to 48″ – weird. I grabbed another couple pine strips and added them to my cart. Finally tally for this Home Depot trip - $35.

Once home I routed the edges of the MDF and my wife’s dad threw a coat of paint on the new pieces. While he painted I was back in the closet finding studs and mounting pieces of pine for the larger shelves.

Both sets of shelves went in without a hitch. It is funny that when you do work like this you discover how square some of your walls AREN’T. With the 16″ deep shelves on the left side there is almost a 1/4″ gap in the front compared to no gap in the back. Oh well, such is life. It’s a closet anyways, if someone complains about it I will just lock them in the closet until they rethink their commentary.

Conclusion

It was a cool weekend project that has brought some peace to our humble home. Total cost of the 6 shelves was right about $50 (I have 2/3 of the 3/4 MDF left) and took about 3-4 hours. The longest part was the painting but it would have been much longer if we would have tried to paint after they were in the closet.

My wife now wants some shoe racks for the kids shoes with the leftover wood. On to the next project…

Photos

Here are some additional photos of the finished project.

While there I priced out solar attic fans and the cheapest one I could find was around $250. The $250 kit came with the fan, solar panel, and everything that you needed in order to install it. The thing that I liked about this kit was that it did not utilize a battery, it just worked directly off the energy that it was collecting from the sun. The thing that I didn’t like about it was the price.

For a house my size it is recommended that I have 2 fans in order to be effective and that would come out to around $500. It would take 3 or more years to recoup the cost savings the fans would provide. That doesn’t really make it worth it. Due to this price point I am now investigating on how to make my own.

At first I though that I would need to get some sort of motor and build or buy my own fan blades. I wasn’t sure were I would get these but while working in the garage this past weekend I came up with an idea. It was a little warm so I went over to my $10 Walmart box fan to turn it on and the light bulb went on. If some how I could get a solar panel hooked up to this guy I very well could have a pretty cheap DIY solar attic fan.

To power the fan I am looking into solar panels that are currently available at Harbor Freight. They have some low-cost panels that might do the job.

I know that it is going to take some work to get the right motor and solar panels lined up so that I actually can make the motor spin but the weather is starting to get cooler so I have the winter to experiment with it.

Granted, he only stained the fence while I would have stained and protected it with Thompson’s. It was worth it to me though because I got see how he did it and that will save me time and money down the road.

The first and most significant difference between how he stained the fence and I how I did it were the tools that he used. I had used that goofy pesticide sprayer and he used an electric airless sprayer with a really long hose that connected to the 5 gallon jugs. I checked and one of these airless sprayers rents for $60 for 4 hours from Home Depot. It is well worth the money if you ask me.

The yard is quite a bit larger then the yard we had at the house that I stained the fence at but this guy finished in half of the time plus he did two coats! Granted he is a professional but having the right tools is guaranteed to get you done quicker with a better looking finish. The finish at our new house far better looking and even then the hack job I did at the other house.

My advise - Pony up and rent the airless sprayer. No matter how hard you think it is with the sprayer I guarantee it is twice as hard without it.

Happy sealing!

Technorati Tags: DIY,Fence,Water Seal,Wood Fence,Home Improvement

Here is a quick list of the projects that we are looking at in their respective categories in their preliminary order:

Outdoor Projects

• Retaining wall in the back yard
• Brink planters in the front flowerbeds and trees
• Side yard fences separating side yards from the back yard
• Trees in the backyard
• Outdoor staircase from the second story deck to the first floor
• Outdoor shed for the garden equipment

Indoor Projects

• Window Tint on the remain windows
• Paint the formal dining room, downstairs bathroom, and my office
• Install the new curved shower rod in the downstairs bathroom
• Install the plastic pads on dining room chairs and table

Garage Projects

• Wood storage area for wood used for wood working
• Storage cabinets and a counter on my wife’s side of the garage
• Cabinets on my side of the garage
• New workbenches

Woodworking Projects

• Outdoor furniture including chairs, tables, and a bar
• Dinning Room Table and Chairs (if we don’t buy them instead)
• Entertainment Center, coffee tables, and end tables for the down and upstairs family rooms
• New bedroom furniture for our room

That is the quick list off the top of my head. I joke with people saying that I have 5 years of projects on the books already. That list makes it look like ten years. Oh well, they are fun things that will make out house nicer, more energy efficient, and more comfortable place to live. It is our 20 year house after all.

I am starting on the outdoor furniture this weekend and will update on how that comes along.

Technorati Tags: DIY,Home Projects,Outdoor Projects,Landscaping,Woodworking,Home Improvement

As a recap here is the price fluctuation up to March of 2008 for similar houses to the 1991 built, 1439sqft, 3bdrm, 2.5 bath house that I had.

• 5/2001 - bought house for $178,000
• 5/2003 - Sold house for $252,000
• 2/2007 - similar houses (same floor plan) peak at $440,000
• 3/2008 - Similar house selling for $249,000

Today I checked the same houses, same neighborhood and they are now at $199,000. Sadly if someone bought one of these houses 3 months ago it is has already lost $50,000 in equity.

Sad, very sad.

Technorati Tags: California Housing Market,Housing Market,Housing Market Crash,Mortage Bailout

Anyway, our new house has a whole lot more windows especially in the front of the house. These windows get direct sunlight in the afternoon which is usually the hottest part of the day. Both of air conditioning units would pretty much be constantly on just to maintain the temperature in the house. My youngest son and daughter’s windows also faced the front of the house and their rooms would get pretty hot in the afternoon as well.

To date I have installed the tint on all of the front facing windows except the window in my office. Even as I was putting the tint up I could feel the temperate change even though the windows were not in the direct sunlight at the time. Due to the tint being metal based it actually reflects heat in general and not just heat that comes from direct sunlight.

The implications of this are far reaching since your windows are the cause of most of your heat and cooling that escape from your house. I am speculating that the tint will also to help keep heat in the house during the winter as well which will have additional energy savings.

My estimate is that my $150 investment in tinting my front windows could pay for itself within the next 3-4 months in reducing my electricity bill. My bill for the last month was $309 so we will see what happens as the temperature goes up over the next few months. If my bill doesn’t go up I will be happy but I am fully expecting it to go down. According to Gila (the brand of tint I bought) my estimates may be a little high but we will see. You can check out their savings page here - Gila Window Tint.

I’ll keep you posted with my savings.

Technorati Tags: Window Tint, Going Green, Home Improvement, Gila Window Tint, Home Window Tint

During the week my wife and father-in-law installed drywall over the 2 walls that had exposed insulation (The walls came unfinished). I have to say that they did a much better job then I would have done and am thankful that I did not have to do it. As great as the drywall looked we still needed some shelves to effectively take advantage of the space.

The idea was to have one shelf about a foot from the top of the roof for smaller items, another shelf a little further down from there, and are large shelf that would be a little bit wider that would act like a counter. After some measuring I decided to do the shelves 8′ long and to make the two higher shelves 1′ wide and the bottom shelf 2′ wide. The reason for this was that I could buy a single piece of plywood that was 4′ x 8′ and have it cut into 3 different pieces that would use the entire piece of plywood and not have any scrap left over.

From there I got Qty 4 - 2′ x 4′ x 8′ pieces of would that would be the front & back, middle cross sections, and legs of the frame for the bottom counter. The idea was to build a frame that was 2′ x 8′ with 2 cross sections 32" from either end. This would give the plywood plenty of support. At each corner and the two middle cross sections I would have them attach to the frame at 90 degrees for the legs. I would attached the back to studs in the wall for rear support.

I had the plywood cut at Home Depot because they do it for free and it is a whole lot easier for them to do it. At home I cut the pieces for the frame and then started to cut the pieces for the legs and realized that I had estimated the legs to be 2" which in realty was two short to practically be used as a counter.

I quickly measure the height of the board that was sitting on a pair of saw horses which measured 30" so I decided that would be my new height. The only problem was that I had only bought 1 piece of wood for the legs and it was not 12′ long (I knew I should have picked up an extra 2′ x4′). I quickly went to the scrap wood pile I have and dug out 2 pieces of wood that would give me the proper length I needed. After cutting the legs I took all of the unassembled pieces of wood up to the attic.

Note: You may be wondering why I did not assemble the pieces before I went to the attic. The reason is that the door to the attic is in my daughters closet and is at a 90 degree angle to the door to her closet. If I had assembled it down stairs it would have been difficult to get it into the area. It was hard enough to get the two 2′ x 4′ x 8’s in there, adding another 2′ in depth would have made that much more difficult.

Once everything was in the attic I installed the top shelf first and then worked my way down. This was almost a perfect plan except for the fact that I had bought some indoor/outdoor pre-cut carpets for the floor and didn’t put those in first. I ended up putting them in after the shelves and counter which wasn’t too difficult but it would have been easier if I would have down that first.

The whole project took about 3hrs from start to finish and ended up costing $87. The carpet itself was $32 so the shelves only ended up being around $55 which is pretty cheap.

After the installation of the shelves my wife took the rest of the day to organize all of our stuff on our new shelves. I really did not think all of the stuff would fit but she did a great job with even some space left over. We still have a lot of room left in the rafters for other stuff we want to archive.

The project was fun and has inspired me to build out some cabinets and shelves in the garage now. I am just in the beginning stages of planning but that is probably on of the next big projects that I do.

Technorati Tags: Home Improvement,Attic,Storage Area,Shelves,Shelving,Wood Working

My drop off in posting was directly related to how busy I became both at work and at home with both house at the same time. At work I got the equivalent of a promotion (I say equivalent because I got the responsibly but not necessarily the title or the money, but both should be coming) so that kept me busy during the day which when I had free time I would blog. With the two houses it was a combination of getting loans done, getting the new house ready to move into, and getting the older house ready for someone else to move into.

So here I am, sitting on my back porch of my new house with the majority of the move-in projects done. This is actually the first time that I have sat out on our second story porch and got to enjoy it. It is nice to be able to sit here with my laptop and type away and watch people walk back and forth to the little neighborhood park we have that is a block away.

The kids are in their individual rooms enjoying their own personal space. My mother and father-in-law were downstairs outside for a while but then retired indoors downstairs to watch TV in the downstairs family room. They eventually retired to their room that is also down stairs.

The house is really nice and has a great setup. Everyone has their own space and can get away to do whatever they need to do uninterrupted. The upstairs is where my wife and I reside with the kids. They all have their space and we have ours. We have our own family room upstairs and in the laundry/utility room we have added a little fridge and microwave so it doubles as a mini kitchen.

I feel so much more at peace in this house then I ever did in the other house. Don’t get me wrong, the other house is great but it just didn’t fit for us the way this one does. Here everything just falls into place and is comfortable.

Anyway, enough of the heartfelt commentary for right now. I will get down into the nitty gritty of everything that has been done at both houses in the days and weeks to come. There is a lot so expect to see plenty of posts.