Home Improvement

Oblio_sl said:

That looks awesome, it even has it's own Deli!

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lol. Endless rotisserie chickens. The gift that keeps on giving!

joeboo_sl said:

3-day weekend coming up, I'm going to be putting together this monstrosity from Costco:

If you never hear from me again, you know what happened...

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Wo how much did it cost? Might get that for my girls

It was *only* $999. That initially sounds nuts to spend on a playset but if you do some research, playsets of that size and quality are $1500+ at most places. It's actually a really good deal for a 2-story playset

And it has a 10 year warranty on the wood, against rot, insects etc. It's prestained cedar, should last a long damn time

I priced out building one myself and the lumber alone was going to run me $600 or so, so this coming pre-cut to size and with directions and all the hardware was a no-bbrainer

Plus it's good for your kids. If you don't pay them a wage, they can put down "intern" on their first job resume.

Well, I tell you billy. I could give you five bucks to wash my car. Or I could give you a leg up in life.

Bros, the test cement countertops I did were a lot of work, but the end result is just awesome. Smooth like glass, stained (tried a few colours) perfectly evenly, satin finish. Scalding hot pots make no mark, dropping bottles on them made no mark, heck, I even hit it with a hammer, no mark. I'm going cement for my countertops, and we're moving on it this summer, I think. It really is exactly the countertop I wanted.

I love it when plans work.

Oh god, what have I gotten myself into.

After 2 days, I'm about halfway done. About 16 hours in so far.

The biggest delay was that after day 1, I determined that this thing NEEDS a perfectly level base, and my yard was just too slanted to put this together and have it not be wobbly as fuck. So, went to Home Depot this morning and bought a bunch of treated lumber 2x6's and some plywood and built a platform for the playhouse to sit on. Dug the platform into the ground on one end to offset the ~6" slope from one end of the set to the other, and that basically took from 9am to about 2pm. Started building a bit again at 2 and stopped at 5. So went 10-6 Friday, and 9-5 Saturday, and I'm about 50% done. The entire lower level is finished, just have the 2nd level to build. So 16 hours total, only about 10-11 of it spent on the playset itself.

Looks like I have a project for next weekend as well...fuck

Most of the reviews I read said it took a good 15-ish hours with 2 dedicated people, and my wife hasn't been able to help much, she just has to keep the kiddo out of my hair, so flying solo this thing is going to probably take me a good 20 hours of work on the playset itself, which isn't too terrible for not having a 2nd person to help much at all.

Just went to the hardware store to replace a couple of window screens damaged years ago and somehow walked out with $300 in landscape timbers + rebar + sander for my raised garden beds.

I should be banned from Home Depot/Lowe's every spring.

Joeboo I was taking a picture of that thing at Costco a couple weeks ago and all the dads flocked to me and everyone started exchanging stories about how miserable it was to put that thing together and they all told me not to buy it.

Xarpolis_sl said:

Olebass, what's the best method for cleaning out black mold?

I had an issue winter of '13-14 with black mold in my attic. I rented a fogger from home depot and that seemed to do the job to kill it off. However, we never really cleaned the wood or anything after fogging.
The reason it happened was my 2 upstairs bathrooms used to vent freely into the attic. We also had a ridge vent previously, that I had filled in once I added a gable fan.

So in the spring of last year, I ran new ductwork in my attic that vented these 2 bathrooms out of the house. It worked great. Anyway, the mold came back this past winter. I can only assume that it's because the other mold that we just fogged was never cleaned up beyond that.

So, what do you think I should do?

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I know this a little bit older post so you might have already taken care of it. If not you might have to resurface the affected framing. That will entail some light sanding (either wire brush or orbital sander). You would just have to give a couple of passes over with like a 60 grit paper. You are basically just taking less than a 1/16 of inch off. Most mold on framing is only on the surface. Make sure you vacuum the area. If you have a sander that hooks up to a vacuum that is even better, but still make sure the area is clean of the dust that will contain mold spores. Ultimately you would use a negative air machine to clean and filter the air but you don't have that option, so just clean up the best you can. Find a sanitizer, like Sporicidan, or something comparable. Do not use bleach. You can use Kilz to encapsulate the plywood. Make sure that the attic is venting properly. That will take care of the problem. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours since you aren't doing the major prep and containing that a mold remediation company would do but since this sounds like a small job it won't be a problem. Any questions or concerns, I work for a major water/fire damage restoration company, let me know.

Eyashusa_sl said:

Joeboo I was taking a picture of that thing at Costco a couple weeks ago and all the dads flocked to me and everyone started exchanging stories about how miserable it was to put that thing together and they all told me not to buy it.

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So did you end up doing it anyway?

No. It's way too big anyways. We are looking for something smaller.

Last year at a kids birthday party I was informed about these "non-difficult" kids outdoors play sets. Guy told me it took him 2 days to put together some small playhouse. All the pieces were identified with black ink stamps. Most of the playhouse was green. The green was added after the black identification ink.

Good times. Think of it like an Epic Quest.

A long time ago, I decided I would build a playset for my daughter. It wasn't as elaborate as the Costco one, but I did use large timbers and included two swings, a small "fort" you accessed by a wooden ladder and a slide for an exit. It was very impressive with concrete footings and since I built on a slope, the swings were very high on one end and the slide was very long.

I bought two long 2x6s, attached two shorter lengths for the "L" and dadoed a groove on one side of each to capture a plywood board which formed the slide. Then I went to a sheet metal place and had them make a piece of stainless that would clad the plywood and make one long smooth surface. After I attached the slide to my play structure, I waxed it.

It was gorgeous shining in the sun and the light reflecting from the stainless steel blinded me from the fact that I knew nothing about the geometry of a slide. It was so smooth and fast. I never realized that the ell at the bottom of a slide was actually a gentle radius and not the simple 45 degree angle I designed but I learned a lot on my first ride. Bruised tailbones are painful.

Jilariz_sl said:

Last year at a kids birthday party I was informed about these "non-difficult" kids outdoors play sets. Guy told me it took him 2 days to put together some small playhouse. All the pieces were identified with black ink stamps. Most of the playhouse was green. The green was added after the black identification ink.

Good times. Think of it like an Epic Quest.

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Yeah mine is supposed to have every piece of lumber stamped with an identifying number on the end.

I sorted all the lumber by what step it is needed in, you should see the size of the "unidentified" lumber pile, with stamps that are either rubbed off, or illegible. It's the biggest pile of lumber by FAR. Definitely makes things interesting. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle where several pieces have no graphic on them, you just have to figure out where they fit by the shape.

My first and last playset adventure was in 2008 when I was hired to assemble one. As a person who builds houses and remodels them for a living I laughed at the prospect of assembling premade kits. I figured a good hard day at most, including digging it into level ground.
19 hours labor later I vowed to never touch such trickery again. It was like a $2000 2 story with deck and tunnel over the swing kit. My first sign of danger should have been the manual which was thick as a book and had in big letters on front 2 people needed for assemble 20-30 hours assembly.

The worst part is that between all the screws and bolts, they have like six different goddamn heads on them, I'm changing bits CONSTANTLY, Eben with two drills. Theres like 2 different sized philips heads, a hex head screw, an allen wrench head screw, a flathead screw and two different sized bolts, 1/2" and 3/8" heads. Often 1 step requires multiple bit switches. Sucks.

Build it out of cardboard....or maybe not.

Dad In Hot Water for Building Cool Fort for Kids

Well, it's finally done. Took a total of 3 days(22-ish hours) to complete, with sporadic help from wife/parents.




That sucked, never doing that again.

That 2nd story floor is about 4.5 ft off the ground, and the top peak of the roof is a little over 10 feet up. That swingset beam is about 7' off the ground, for reference.

That little bastard better enjoy it!

Seriously, though, looks good. There will be much fun had in that thing.