The Home Improvement Thread

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

If no concerns of future leaks (ie: repair/replace/seal off shower head), maybe you could poke a few super small holes to drain, but also get an air mover to dry it out ASAP to reduce sagging and limit/slow mold growth. Don't need a drill, just a pin. It should be soft. Then use killz or other spray options to try and get the color to revert. Don't cut it out if possible. Worst case a few hundred dollar gamble didn't pay off.

Like Wormius, I too had huge patches after replacing poly B. After the headache of many options to remove popcorn ceiling but seemingly few options to redo it for a reasonable price/inconvenience, I legit went with, "#### it. No one looks up if the color sorta matches. Texture doesn't really matter."

A reasonable post poly B texture repair doesn't make sense for me due to how messy and inconvenient it'll be, difficulty to match and price of repair. It'll make more sense to redo all the texture on the ceiling in the future in a reno.

Thanks. I would agree with you. My wife would not. I think doing the whole room is the only option. Whether we can do it up to a line separating the kitchen and living room or the whole kitchen as well is now the question.

I also think we are past the point of pin pricks. The drywall is actuall sagging so I think we are going to cut out a hole and let it dry while I wait for estimates.

[Wormius]

This is one of nightmares. We had a little leak from our upstairs bidet and it didn’t take long before you heard dripping in the basement through the ceiling and out of a vent. Fortunately it didn’t cause any damage and a some diluted bleach fixed the discolouration pretty well. I still have bad dreams about water damage.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Yup, I have had minor scares twice, once from our laundry room that required a minor repair and some bleaching, and once from the bathtub that didn't require a repair. Fortunately, those ceiling repairs aren't as bad as they used to be - the first guy I talked to was like "well we can patch it but it'll be obvious, better off redoing the whole room". I'm like... no. Second guy was more optimistic and you can't tell anything ever happened even if you tried.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by kevman

Yeah textured ceilings are popular because they're cheap for builders to do. A proper smooth finished ceiling is more expensive. Textured ceilings hide crappy dry wall work.

Texture ceilings also provide minor echo / high frequency noise reduction.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Yup, I have had minor scares twice, once from our laundry room that required a minor repair and some bleaching, and once from the bathtub that didn't require a repair. Fortunately, those ceiling repairs aren't as bad as they used to be - the first guy I talked to was like "well we can patch it but it'll be obvious, better off redoing the whole room". I'm like... no. Second guy was more optimistic and you can't tell anything ever happened even if you tried.

Picture of your entire ceiling, and we can play the Reddit chive chopper spotter game.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Wormius

This is one of nightmares. We had a little leak from our upstairs bidet and it didn’t take long before you heard dripping in the basement through the ceiling and out of a vent. Fortunately it didn’t cause any damage and a some diluted bleach fixed the discolouration pretty well. I still have bad dreams about water damage.

Not sure what alarm system you have, but we have Ring. I have water sensors in every sink cabinet, beside every toilet, in front of the dishwasher, beside the fridge and under the hot water tank. One time a kid dropped an ice cube beside the fridge and as it melted my phone blew up with water warnings. Water leaks are such a nightmare. I hope I'm covered, but probably not. Water - erm - finds a way.

[Bill Bumface]

I would personally stay away from Ring (even though I have a Ring system). They've been nerfing features like crazy on the free plans, and cozying up to US law enforcement via Flock.

This bigger problem, that style of water detector opens the door to a slight slope sending the water away from the sensor and a leak going undetected.

I'd go with Eve, especially if you're into HomeKit stuff. The lasso lets you get much higher certainty of detecting a leak before it finds a path around your water sensor and down to the next floor of your house:

https://www.evehome.com/en/eve-water-guard

The other great part, no batteries. It plugs into an outlet.

[DoubleF]

Stretch ceiling seems like an interesting option, but I feel like i would want to redo all my ceiling lights to make sure it doesn't look too strange.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I'm looking at building some built-in shelving and wondering about getting materials that will work. The spot behind the two grey chairs here under the bulkhead is 15" deep and 10 feet across. So ideally, I would want 1"x15"x10' boards to use as shelves (and just cut 4" off the end to fit inside the 2 inch thick frame I build for it).

Is there an easy way to get custom width boards? I see 12" and 16" wide stuff, but apparently 15" isn't a common width which isn't too surprising.

[Fuzz]

Yes, it's called a saw.


Note the actual width (nominal) of a 16" wide board is 15 and 1/4".

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

That is very useful information... I thought it was 15 and 3/4.

Yeah I do have a bandsaw, it's just a pain to cut a bunch of 10 foot boards lengthwise. Ah well.

[Fuzz]

Ya, table saw is what you want for that. Or a circular saw, and you can build a quick jig to cut straight.


Also worth putting a flat board edge against the wall to get an idea how bumped out the drywall joints are. Over a 10 foot board, it may be enough to need to be dealt with. I assume you measured 15" at the corner, and that can be bumped out a bit by mud, such that most of the wall may actually be 15 1/4".

[DoubleF]

AI search as IKEA Sektion floor to ceiling cabinet systems are around 15.35" deep (15 7/20 is an odd depth, not sure if the variation is due to the door or whatever).

Could a Sektion inside cabinet base floor to ceiling with custom outer doors (if you don't like the IKEA look) work? There's pull out drawer options, cabinet drawer options and even open shelf options that could be implemented in a straight forward manner.

That's a big space though so that's a #### ton of Sektion inserts. IDK if IKEA would be much different in price than getting someone to build custom shelving system. It might be a lot easier and straight forward as a DIY though.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I think the Ikea stuff does work, and I do plan to use it for my mudroom storage system, but it's MDF (not very strong) and you can't paint it, and I want to paint these shelves to match my trim. It also comes out cheaper with real wood in terms of material costs, obviously it takes longer to build and paint stuff yourself than building IKEA furniture but shelves aren't that difficult.

[opendoor]

See if you can buy it from somewhere that'll rip it to width for you. Some hardwood suppliers have milling services, though I don't know of any in Vancouver offhand (Westwind Hardwood in Victoria is great for that, but not really viable given the freight costs). Or even somewhere like Windsor Plywood could probably rip it if they stock what you're after.

Failing that, the cheapest/simplest way is to get the straightest 10' board you can find and clamp it to your workpiece as a guide. Then run a circular saw along it to make your cut. You just need to figure out the offset between the blade and the edge of the saw so you know where to clamp the guide.

The cut won't be perfect or anything, but you can throw some blue masking tape over the cut line which will help prevent chip out. And if you're painting it, you can always clean up any issues with filler.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by opendoor

See if you can buy it from somewhere that'll rip it to width for you. Some hardwood suppliers have milling services, though I don't know of any in Vancouver offhand (Westwind Hardwood in Victoria is great for that, but not really viable given the freight costs). Or even somewhere like Windsor Plywood could probably rip it if they stock what you're after.

Failing that, the cheapest/simplest way is to get the straightest 10' board you can find and clamp it to your workpiece as a guide. Then run a circular saw along it to make your cut. You just need to figure out the offset between the blade and the edge of the saw so you know where to clamp the guide.

The cut won't be perfect or anything, but you can throw some blue masking tape over the cut line which will help prevent chip out. And if you're painting it, you can always clean up any issues with filler.

I was looking into the milling services and the hardware stores disclose they aren't aiming to do it to cabinetry level of accuracy.

I was going to recommend maybe looking into a company that does some millwork service, and that basically is just all the custom cabinetry businesses. I was going to recommend either getting those custom cabinetry businesses to price out the shelves and/or asking those custom cabinetry businesses to quote a bunch of planks of wood that have been cut and milled to the desired dimensions and then CHL could then just assemble as he would an IKEA cabinet/shelf?

[Wormius]

I wish more furniture accounted for baseboard.

[Geraldsh]

Also note 10’ is too long a span to be unsupported, it will sag no matter how light the load.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Oh yeah there will be vertical dividers across all the shelves too.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I was looking into the milling services and the hardware stores disclose they aren't aiming to do it to cabinetry level of accuracy.

For this kind of thing, consistency matters more than accuracy. Home Depot and places like can't guarantee that if you ask them for a 250mm x 500mm rectangle that they'll end up at that exact size. But the rip cuts would presumably just be a single setting for all the boards, so basically anyone can make those all be close enough to one another. If they end up 14 15/16" instead of 15", I'd assume it's not a huge deal. If it's solid wood, it's likely going to expand and contract by more than 1/16th of an inch anyway.

I was going to recommend maybe looking into a company that does some millwork service, and that basically is just all the custom cabinetry businesses. I was going to recommend either getting those custom cabinetry businesses to price out the shelves and/or asking those custom cabinetry businesses to quote a bunch of planks of wood that have been cut and milled to the desired dimensions and then CHL could then just assemble as he would an IKEA cabinet/shelf?

A shop would probably do that, but it could get a lot more expensive than getting the retailer to do the cutting. Definitely an option worth considering though; sometimes shops are willing to do quick jobs for not a lot of money.

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Oh yeah there will be vertical dividers across all the shelves too.

If the shelves are solid wood, make sure you allow for a bit of wood movement given the 15" width and the coastal climate. Vertical supports are fine as long as they're done properly to allow for movement, but you want to avoid constraining it in a frame too tightly. Not an issue with sheet goods, and not a concern along the board's length, but a 15" wide solid board can shift enough that it causes issues with splitting or warping if it's not allowed to expand and contract.