What "man jobs" have you done today?

I spent an hour yesterday afternoon digging over my rose garden. I'm amazed just how much experience improves time doing this. I did as much in one hour yesterday as I did in four when I first got the house.

Also, have finally given up trying to repair the dishwasher following one scald, one electric shock (kids distracting me, forgot to turn it off) and numerous cuts. I think it may well be cursed.
 
We had a TV wall unit built last week. So yesterday's jobs:

  • Painted the unit and gloss skirting
  • Mounted the TV on a swivel bracket (i underestimated this job, as it took close to 2 hours)
  • Fitted a SKY Q box holder to the wall mounted behind the TV.
  • Installed Philips HUE lighting strips.

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Winning, i'd been considering what to use to build a desk. Kept switching from Reclaimed Scaffold Boards, to PAR Redwood, to new scaffoldboards, to Live Edge timber slabs.

Went to see a mechanic about something and noticed a pile of scaffolding boards round the back. He told me to help myself so got what i need. They're fairly battered but for free, i can at least make something in a few hours that's usable before commiting to something better.

Anything will be better than this!

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Martynt74 said:
Winning, i'd been considering what to use to build a desk. Kept switching from Reclaimed Scaffold Boards, to PAR Redwood, to new scaffoldboards, to Live Edge timber slabs.

Went to see a mechanic about something and noticed a pile of scaffolding boards round the back. He told me to help myself so got what i need. They're fairly battered but for free, i can at least make something in a few hours that's usable before commiting to something better.

Anything will be better than this!

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Guys - read his full post before you look at the photo :D

(Up until your last sentence I thought this was what you had built - I was thinking of constructive ways to comment :p:p:p)
 
Martynt74 said:
Haha yeah that was a quick botch to see if it was actually worthwhile having a desk rather than sitting on the sofa.
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I'm in totally the same circumstances. Also feels daft given I've struggled the last 9 months - hence why I have acquired the dressing table and done an overhaul :p Total game changer. Sorry to work for all the lost productivity over the last 12 months :D
 
Today I decided to cut back some ivy that's grown over one wall and is spreading like crazy. A quick 10 minute job turned into a 90 minute nightmare of bramble scratches.

I have now achieved about 7% garden clearance.

If you're ever tempted by a house with a big garden: don't.
 
theone8181 said:
When we had some I moved a ton into the back garden, tbh I'd have paid for a bigger crane to lift them over the house:D.
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We have no rear/side access to our garden. You have to go through the garage, up a step into the kitchen, left into the dining room the left again and down a step to get outside. I have stupidly moved everything though the house (all by myself) using Trugs or just carrying it as I couldn't even really fit a wheel barrow through due to all the steps and twists and turns. Since buying our house and doing 2 patios , a deck and doing a bit of landscaping I have removed 4 builders bags of gravel, 3 builders bags of soil, 2 builders bags of rubble/concrete and about 200 bricks from the wall of an old pond. I have had to bring in about 80 paving slabs, 2 builders bags of sub base, 2 builders bag of sharp sand, cement, deck boards and joists for a 5x3m deck and some sleepers for a raised bed. I now have a stiff back and a large collection of Trugs with broken handles! There is nothing more soul destroying than having a trug's handle come off while you are walking through your kitchen carrying loads of rubble and getting it everywhere, very few of the handles broke when I was outside! On the plus side I now only have a shed to remove and re-build which already has a concrete base under it, so the bulk of the back breaking work is done.

Useful tip for saving on skips: Facebook market place. All but the 2 bags of rubble I removed were collecting from my drive by people who wanted them on facebook. Even the 200 bricks were taken by someone to be re-used in there garden (not sure what for). All the soil and gravel generated a huge amount of interest, even surplus paving slabs (some damaged) I had left over and some that were stashed behind things in the garden were snapped up in no time at all. The slabs are useful to go under sheds and decks as a base. Annoyingly I gave away all my spare paving before needing some to sit my deck on, this wasn't a problem as I got some off facebook for free!

Dave
 
Martynt74 said:
Winning, i'd been considering what to use to build a desk. Kept switching from Reclaimed Scaffold Boards, to PAR Redwood, to new scaffoldboards, to Live Edge timber slabs.

Went to see a mechanic about something and noticed a pile of scaffolding boards round the back. He told me to help myself so got what i need. They're fairly battered but for free, i can at least make something in a few hours that's usable before commiting to something better.
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Get the boards inside for as long as possible to acclimatise, they are quite prone to twisting and warping as they dry out. Also as they are used, bear in mind they will have loads of embeded grit and dirt that will knacker up planer blades. That said, they should make a decent top and they cost my favourite price for wood - Free!

Dave
 
divuk83 said:
Useful tip for saving on skips: Facebook market place. All but the 2 bags of rubble I removed were collecting from my drive by people who wanted them on facebook. Even the 200 bricks were taken by someone to be re-used in there garden (not sure what for). All the soil and gravel generated a huge amount of interest, even surplus paving slabs (some damaged) I had left over and some that were stashed behind things in the garden were snapped up in no time at all. The slabs are useful to go under sheds and decks as a base. Annoyingly I gave away all my spare paving before needing some to sit my deck on, this wasn't a problem as I got some off facebook for free!

Dave
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I agree, Facebook is superb. People will take any old rubbish and it's so much easier than a tip run!

Also good point on getting them dry. Luckily it's not meant to rain for a few days so might give them a scrub and try and sneak them into the house, should be easy to lay them flat too if i get them cut into 4ft lengths. Might have to scrub some grit off them though first!
 
Also as a post for something i've actually done.

We ripped up the old artificial grass as there was more real grass growing through it then fake grass! The previous owners had done a poor job and not used a membrane underneath and there were quite a few dips. Although to be fair it was 12 years old.

We took it p in November and covered the area in plastic sheet as we couldn't get hold of anything and the weather wasn't favourable. It's been like this ever since!

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I took the plastic up and picked up all the bits of leaves/grass that was in the sub base. Draining the water was a pain as i didn't want to just tip the water and leaves etc down onto the base below so had to use a cup to scoop it all up!
I'd removed the top 2" layer of sand from the previous install as i planned to re-do it with granite dust.

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It then got dark, but i was worried i didn't have enough dust and didn't want to have to wait till tonight to find out, so went out with my headtorch to get it down and see how much i was missing. Action shot!

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And done, seems it's mostly covered. I need a few more bags to cover the last few bits and am sure some bits will compress down when i get the hand tamper on it and finish leveling.

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This isn't a job for when you're having regular visits to the physio for back pain!

Just need to finish this bit tonight and then fit some wood for the long edge to the left as that bit was all rotten and i ripped it out, we've also moved the border slightly so i have the fun of digging out compressed sub base without destroying too much of it either side!

Then hopefully getting the grass down and nailing it will be the easy part.
 
Martynt74 said:
Also as a post for something i've actually done.

We ripped up the old artificial grass as there was more real grass growing through it then fake grass! The previous owners had done a poor job and not used a membrane underneath and there were quite a few dips. Although to be fair it was 12 years old.

We took it p in November and covered the area in plastic sheet as we couldn't get hold of anything and the weather wasn't favourable. It's been like this ever since!


I took the plastic up and picked up all the bits of leaves/grass that was in the sub base. Draining the water was a pain as i didn't want to just tip the water and leaves etc down onto the base below so had to use a cup to scoop it all up!
I'd removed the top 2" layer of sand from the previous install as i planned to re-do it with granite dust.

rU0Hlue.png


It then got dark, but i was worried i didn't have enough dust and didn't want to have to wait till tonight to find out, so went out with my headtorch to get it down and see how much i was missing. Action shot!




This isn't a job for when you're having regular visits to the physio for back pain!

Just need to finish this bit tonight and then fit some wood for the long edge to the left as that bit was all rotten and i ripped it out, we've also moved the border slightly so i have the fun of digging out compressed sub base without destroying too much of it either side!

Then hopefully getting the grass down and nailing it will be the easy part.
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I legitimately thought you had a cannon in your back garden!
 
  • Broke the washing machine
  • Swore at the washing machine
  • Swore some more while fixing the washing machine
  • Fixed the washing machine

Only needed to swap the door hinge as one of the lugs the door swings from broke. When removing the door hinge the 'thud' from the backing plate falling inside the machine told me that the cost-cutting accountant/engineer at Hotpoint was deserving of some verbal abuse for not making it captive. Turned a 5 minute job into over an hour :mad:
 
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