I knew I would most likely need to replace another sprinkler head at some point considering we now own a home with a sprinkler system, I just didn’t expect that to happen so quickly. Apparently, a sprinkler head cannot survive a battle with a lawn mower. Who knew? This is the second sprinkler head that I have replaced, and as I had hoped, this one went much more smoothly than the first. These are rotor head sprinklers that I am replacing with Rain Bird 3500 series heads. This time around the full replacement was much easier, including the edge alignment for the desired watering area. The one thing I am worried about is that this particular sprinkler still does not sit low enough in the lawn to be missed by the lawn mower. As such, at some point I may need to dig this back out and attempt to lower the line. This wasn’t the only project I undertook today though. I also patched the last of the holes in the garage, this one being over the back door. It was directly above the door frame and left the header beam visible. Because this is an outside wall I also added some insulation to the existing insulation as it was not full to the width of the hole. This insulation is probably less than the ideal amount for an exterior wall, but considering it was just for the garage and this hole has been there since we purchased the house, I figure it is fine and some more is better than what was there. I’m very proud of myself for all the work I have accomplished and learned how to do, while I do not consider myself a handyman by any stretch of the imagination, I still feel good knowing there are some things I can do.

Today was a productive day for house work. Due to yesterday’s long travel hours back from the west coast, my manager told me to take today off. So after getting some needed extra sleep I began work on a couple of projects. The first was my first attempt at replacing a sprinkler head on my own. The actual work of digging out the failing head and physically replacing it with the new one was rather simple. The part I struggled with was properly aligning the left and right edges of the watering area along with the height and distance of the spray. I previously had a head replaced by someone else who ran a side business performing this work and he made it seem a lot simpler than I found it to be. However, after some struggling and a bit of googling I was able to get it configured properly. If I ever need to do another one, which seems likely all things considered, hopefully this experience will make it a little easier.  The second project is something that I am getting good at, that being patching holes within the garage. This particular one was a bit tricky because it was located above the cabinets above the sink to the left of the house door. Additionally there is a wire conduit that runs directly over the area that needed to be patched. I was able to loosen the conduit enough to get the patch piece in place though, and then put everything back in its original location. I now only have one hole left to patch and that is over the back door. I’m getting good at this….

Today I circled back to the sink in the garage, and am happy to report that I had better luck this time around. I have purchased a new faucet that also came with a new hose and sprayer and installed that into the garage. While it was a simple project, it was not without its issues. The first issue I had, was with the installation of the new water shut off valves that I purchased to install inline under the sink. The issue (and really every issue with this project) revolved around getting the fittings tightly connected. Even with Teflon tape it seemed like no matter how tight I got the connections it just wasn’t tight enough.  The reason for this is the water connection that I was installing everything into. The pipe is just a free-floating copper pipe that connects to the larger water pipe in the basement and then runs out to the garage. As such the pipe being able to move around fairly freely and not having any backing bolts made it difficult to tighten the fittings as much as needed. Eventually, however, I persevered and was able to tighten the fittings securely enough that they no longer leaked. This was not the end though, for when I turned the sink on to test the water I discovered that I had swapped the hot and cold connections; so now the hot was on the right and the cold was on the left. It was a simple fix that required me to swap the flex hose from each faucet to the opposite source pipe. This of course reintroduced the issue of getting these fittings properly tightened again though, it was a little easier the second time but that may be due to expectation though. Regardless, the sink is now fully functional without any leaks anywhere in the assembly, and the shut off valves work as expected! Oh, and I also labeled the pipes to better indicate which is hot and which is cold for any future needs.  

Today, once again with Zack’s help, we made a few more repairs to the shop. These will hopefully be the last repairs that are needed to this building for a long time. These repairs were found to be necessary after our work last fall on beginning to prime and seal the shop in preparation for an eventual full repainting of the shop. During the process of priming and sealing we decided that the south-west wall was so weathered that it first needed to be stripped and then primed and sealed. During the stripping process we found one section of paneling above the trim board that, during the scraping away of the paint, also showed multiple layers of the panel to be rotted. So many layers in fact, that once the scrapping was complete there was only a single layer of the pressed board panel left. In order to ensure this section in particular made it through the winter, we coated it with silicone caulk and primer. Today, that entire section was replaced along with the trim boards on both sides of the shop and another small patch on the south-west side from a previously covered small hole. This entire process today only took a couple of hours, unlike last year’s project. Now all that remains is to finish priming the shop, which should go a little faster as the rest of the shop isn’t bad enough to require being stripped, and then repaint the entire building. Once again, a huge thanks to Zack for all the help!

Today I patched the second hole in the garage that leads into the basement. This hole was sealed better than the first and I believe this is because there was nothing to simply press against the hole. The board that was covering this hole (which I identified as an old cutting board) was screwed flush to the wall and behind it was a piece of mesh screen, presumably meant to assist with keeping out rodents. This was a nice precautionary measure that was not present on the first hole. This patch went quicker than the first for a couple of reasons; first, there was no sink to move out-of-the-way, and second, I was able to apply the lessons learned from the first patch. I am very pleased with myself for being able to take care of some things around the house on my own, and I am very happy that I continue to learn new skills. There are a couple more issues I need to address in regards to patches in the garage, but these two were by far the most pressing and I am happy they are completed.

We have a sink in the garage that has come in very handy from time to time, particularly after doing any type of yard work as I can wash my hands out there before going into the house. However, this sink has also always had a slight problem, it leaks from the faucet. Today I attempted to fix that problem along with patching a hole that has been in the wall next to this sink since we purchased the house. The hole was an interesting issue as it was clearly something the previous owner had cut into the wall to access the basement. It had been poorly covered with a loose board that was held in place by pressure from the sink cabinet. Once I got the sink moved out I was able to successfully patch the hole. The sink faucet is a different story… Once I got the old faucet removed and replaced with the spare that I found it turned out the spare also leaks. If the faucet is turned off there is no problem, it just means I will need to get a new faucet and revisit this project a second time. I think when that happens I will also look to add water shut-off valves that will only be for this sink, as opposed to the current configuration which turns off water to the basement utility sink and the washer in addition to this sink. I learned a good bit over the few hours that I worked on this project and I am looking forward to putting that knowledge to use when I patch the second hole in the garage (yes, they made two!) that is near a hose spigot that also needs work. Oh the joys of home-ownership.

One of the main selling points of this house, for me anyway, was the secondary structure. That structure is an additional 1 ½ car detached garage in the backyard. From what we were told from the previous owner, this building was her late husband’s workshop; he had lots of woodworking equipment out there. As such we have continued to reference this building as “the shop,” and for me the added space was exactly what I wanted in order to ensure that the main garage attached to the house could be used for our cars. The shop is where the motorcycle stays along with all the lawn care tools, snow blower, etc., and is a real valuable feature of the house to me. That being said, we have known from the beginning that this building needed some small repair work. The external paneling on the back wall had a small hole right below an external piece of duct. It looks like at some point he may have had a wood stove inside the shop and this was the exhaust vent. It appeared that the steam released from this pipe has caused some accelerated weathering and water damage to the paneling. So yesterday, with a lot of help from Zack, we replaced this back panel… and then some. I began removing the panel before he arrived in the morning and my anxiety quickly rose to heights previously unknown. The trigger for this was when I pulled off the first panel and the wall stud came out with it! After Zack arrived and we continued the removal of bad paneling and more and more of the interior studs came out, we realized this was going to be a larger project. Thankfully Zack stayed calm throughout all of this and took it in stride, his broader experience and deeper skill set really made this project possible. We were able to salvage the internal drywall to reuse, but that was about it. Everything on the inside of the wall was rotted and falling apart. I have a sneaking suspicion that the previous owner (or perhaps her kids) knew this wall was failing and simply put up new drywall inside to hide it. With the exception of about a two feet, the entire back wall was removed. At one point the roof was being held up by my 3 ton car jack on cement blocks with a 2×4 propped on the jack saddle. I have framed a wall before, but never while the roof was hanging over my head with basically no support. We determined the main cause of the failure was the rotting of the bottom plate. This caused the roof to sag by about 3 inches (something we didn’t notice until attempting to put the new studs in) and allowing for the studs to pull out as well. We replaced the bottom plate with some Trex 2×4’s that were left in the shop, so we have little concern about that particular piece ever rotting again. The top plate remained and was solid, which aided in using the jack to hold up the roof, but did make it a little tougher to place the new studs and bottom plate. So the project that started out as just replacing a couple of panels with an estimated time of 3 hours, turned into the complete rebuilding of the back wall and taking 17 hours. When all was said and done we replaced approximately 10 feet of a 12 foot wall. I learned a lot from this experience and from Zack in particular. I’m very lucky that he has the knowledge and skills that he does, as there is no way I would have been able to do this on my own. Now we need to start stripping and sealing the rest of the walls in preparation to paint the structure, as it is long overdue for that as well.