Home Improvement

Kiroy said:

Ironically, if you’re in a blue state adu’s are a lot easier / cheaper because libs think it’s super green living so they’re waiving most the permitting and fees, letting people dig their own septic and shit. It’s comical, people with property in CA and WA (prob oregon too) are creating new little airier mobile home parks with adus + airbnb country living experience and printing money. I’m aware of a person near me who has three on their property and has them fully booked all summer and they’re only on a few acres.

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I live in LA. The local municipalities generally don't want ADUs and have been overridden by the state and forced to accept expedited permitting and pre-approved structural plans. I started to think about putting one above my garage in advance of my in-laws moving in, but we got fucked because the breezeway between the house and our garage renders it technically detached and subject to a total height limit that precludes a second story.

It's less about green living and more about increasing the density of housing so that it's not so godawful expensive. I'm actually sympathetic to that point. Everyone complains about price but no one is willing to let their neighbors expand their house footprint.

Anyone found any good videos on interior wood staining? Instead of paying the contractor to do it, I figure I could at least "try" my hand at it instead of immediately giving it over to him. I want to do a dark stain on a flight of stair tread's with a white riser. Ill have to find a stain that is dark like the rest of the wood floor, but I dont know how Ill be able to get the sheen to match? I also ripped out all the old doors since they were beaten all to fuck by the past owners. I replaced them with standard hollow core primed doors, but I dont know if Ill be able to stain them?.. Ive heard of people making a fake stain look good, but...?

This is all a side project. As the main project thats really taking its sweet fucking time is the Septic Tank replacement, and the need for a new leach field or w/e. Im not that versed in plumbing in big projects like that, so Im kind of just being whatever about it.

Daidraco said:

Anyone found any good videos on interior wood staining? Instead of paying the contractor to do it, I figure I could at least "try" my hand at it instead of immediately giving it over to him. I want to do a dark stain on a flight of stair tread's with a white riser. Ill have to find a stain that is dark like the rest of the wood floor, but I dont know how Ill be able to get the sheen to match? I also ripped out all the old doors since they were beaten all to fuck by the past owners. I replaced them with standard hollow core primed doors, but I dont know if Ill be able to stain them?.. Ive heard of people making a fake stain look good, but...?

This is all a side project. As the main project thats really taking its sweet fucking time is the Septic Tank replacement, and the need for a new leach field or w/e. Im not that versed in plumbing in big projects like that, so Im kind of just being whatever about it.

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This sounds like what you are describing. This guy does some high end woodworking in England and a few of his videos have hit over 1 mil. I bookmarked the channel due to a couple veneer videos.

To get the gloss/stain right, you should be able to either buy locally or order online a few small lengths of the same type of wood that is on your stairs, then stain and finish sample pieces to compare to your hardwood floor.

I timestamped to the stain part, but the video shows the whole staircase renovation.

BrutulTM said:

There are people here who can give better advice than I can but I will say get a piece of wood that is the same as your stair treads and put the actual stain on the actual wood to find out what the color will be. It might be totally different from what's shown on the can and I do mean totally different.

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Really your best bet trying to match something is to get some scraps of the same material and do some trial and error.

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I'm going through this trying to replace a threshold piece between my hallway and recently-renovated bathroom. I took the new bare wood and the old threshold to a local paint store and they did a stain match. Even working with the owner with 30 years experience it still took 10 tries and a half hour of experimenting for him to get a pretty good match. Stains are tricky.

BrutulTM said:

There are people here who can give better advice than I can but I will say get a piece of wood that is the same as your stair treads and put the actual stain on the actual wood to find out what the color will be. It might be totally different from what's shown on the can and I do mean totally different.

If you want a solid color like the ones in the video above you probably want to use pre-stain. I chose not to use pre-stain on my trim because I wanted to see the grain and knots but if you want them to be uniform you probably want to use it.

The "sheen" won't be determined by the stain but by what finish you put over it. People use polyurethane, oils, lacquer, shellac, etc. Probably for stairs I would use many coats of polyurethane for the toughness aspect, but even then you can choose between satin, semi-gloss, or glossy and the number of coats you apply will make a difference in the appearance as well as the toughness. I'm pretty fond of Minwax Polycrylic but YMMV.

Really your best bet trying to match something is to get some scraps of the same material and do some trial and error.

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Aren't there are specialty finishes for floors (high traffic) that cost more monies? I think Rubio monocoat (matte) was originally a floor finish, and as such, has a high price tag (it's also very popular on YouTube, so that probably adds to the price too).

Burns said:

Aren't there are specialty finishes for floors (high traffic) that cost more monies? I think Rubio monocoat (matte) was originally a floor finish, and as such, has a high price tag (it's also very popular on YouTube, so that probably adds to the price too).

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Thats the brand that I kept seeing anytime I looked something up.

Im torn on trying to remove the treads themselves so I can paint the risers and stain the treads without any overlap - but that comes with a whole litany of questions like how do I get them off without fucking up the treads, and then, after theyre stained, how do I reattach them without fucking up the treads. Allows me to sand them evenly, too. The other question is, that guy took latex caulk for the corners, which.. I guess thats ok looking? But I'm thinking a nice bright white small sized shoe molding would look better with a tapered end at the bull nose of the tread attached in the corners. But that video does make it "look" a lot easier than I was thinking if I just decide to do it his way (which I may.)

Now how I get the wood grain textures and similar into a hollow core doors prime is the next mystery.

Daidraco said:

Thats the brand that I kept seeing anytime I looked something up.

Im torn on trying to remove the treads themselves so I can paint the risers and stain the treads without any overlap - but that comes with a whole litany of questions like how do I get them off without fucking up the treads, and then, after theyre stained, how do I reattach them without fucking up the treads. Allows me to sand them evenly, too. The other question is, that guy took latex caulk for the corners, which.. I guess thats ok looking? But I'm thinking a nice bright white small sized shoe molding would look better with a tapered end at the bull nose of the tread attached in the corners. But that video does make it "look" a lot easier than I was thinking if I just decide to do it his way (which I may.)

Now how I get the wood grain textures and similar into a hollow core doors prime is the next mystery.

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Taking the stairs apart and trying to use the same wood as you ripped up sounds rather difficult.

In the video from the guy in England, I would assume that the 1 coat of primer on the risers was enough to stop the stain overpaint from causing an issue, but you could put a second coat of primer after staining and masking up the stairs. If you were going to do a second coat of primer, it would mean extra tape work, as you would need to pull the tape that is touching the paint after every coat (while the paint is wet), but you could leave the bulk of the tape that is covering the stairs, if you layer it right. While I don't have any experience masking stairs like that, I've never had an issue with the good blue masking tape, that he had with the old tan stuff, even after letting it sit for days on an object.

It never hurts to just keep searching for YouTube videos on various renovations though. You might eventually find some techniques that fits exactly what you have in mind.

As for the doors, you can try to paint on wood textures, but afaik, hollow core doors are for painting only. [Edit: I guess you could try veneering the doors, maybe (HERE is an idea of prices of good veneer).] Here is a video on painting woodgrain patterns from Woodworking with Wes, who does mostly cabinetry videos:

Lanx said:

i am having no luck w/ home stores this month

i notice a really big gap (vertically) from the asphalt road in my culdesac to my driveway (probably cuz i drove my civic, and yea... the fender does have a lower lip kit on it, but thats only b/c my front fender is trash and the lip kit hides it!).
none of my neighbors have a gap, just a nice smooth ramp, imo it's probably also b/c my house is also where the water in the culdesac drains (the storm grate is right next to my driveway)

so i probably have more asphalt erosion than most.

so i thought, just buy a bucket of asphalt right?

wtf, the next bucket is 23$ or i drive to nashville for this.

so i guess i'll try lowes

why is it a week later? is it actually in the store? (this is the same store that "lost" 415 fire bricks)

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I have a 1970s asphalt driveway with shell for underlay… so… yeah

smooth or trowel patch is one of 3 … well 4… parts of an asphalt drive if your not getting out the industrial burning asphalt paver thing that they use to make them and roads etc.

underlay, rocks or in my case shell -

the next is the “pebble” looking stuff, this big bag of asphalt pebbles and tar. This is for big holes or cracks. Pour it in then stamp it down with a stamper.

then you use what you got posted, trowel or smooth patch, it fills in and levels all the pebbles- then you should seal it with the normal sealant stuff that you should be doing… well I am in Florida so twice a year, the big 5 gal things of “airport grade” asphalt sealant.

patch in that order and it will be nearly like the “real” thing in terms of life and look

and yes water kills asphalt diff if from below or poorly sealed topcoats.

stupid driveway…

If your using Trowel patch / smooth patch for over 1" its going to crack bad as it drys and your going to use like a ton of it- and its going to be soft and not last- and also flush away with water or break under drive load.

Base layer, anything thicker than 1-2" and anything wider than 3-4" = https://www.lowes.com/pd/QPR-50-lb-Asphalt-Patch/3656652



will end up like this:





THEN you use what you bought: https://www.lowes.com/pd/BLACK-JACK-Speed-Patch-10-lb-Asphalt-Patch/3027299





Then you seal it with the normal type asphalt sealer: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Super-Seal-4-75-Gal-NEW-DRIVE-3-Driveway-Filler-Sealer/1002864440





If you do not care about it being bumpy - you can skip the trowl patch step, that really is just to smooth it out or for crack filling.

Also- if you look at big parking lots and see black stripes all wiggled around here and there - that is crack filler that is heated up, its another option just for cracks: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Crack-Stix...nt-Blacktop-Joint-and-Crack-Filler/1002595794




as I said, I have a 50 year old asphalt driveway that I am too cheap to replace - I have grown out of need in repairing and up-keeping this thing.

If anyone currently has an asphalt drive, the best thing to do to keep it alive is to have it trimmed with concrete on the sides - most of the wear is on the edges, even just grass roots will invade and start breaking up the sides - let alone if there is ever drive traffic over the edges. It is kinda like how they put concrete edges for pavers.. this is not standard on residential asphalt however and would be an additional cost on install - but will make your asphalt last a lot longer. That- and do the seal coat yearly regardless of need - esp if your in FL, GA, AL, TX etc.

I use squeegee to spread vs brush - that is all about texture on the seal finish. If you have a nice new asphalt thats super smooth and your re-sealing, use a brush so you get some texture to the seal coat and its not slick. If not- I say squeegee.

Oh look, they got a both one!