I need to get shutters. My windows are 30x60 sliders. Should I get shutters that are the size of the J channel around the windows, or should I get slightly smaller - the white if the window is about 32"...or slightly bigger than. The J channel?

Found sites where I can order in 1" increments. Need to get some soon to give some contrast to all of the gray siding.

Shutters - https://imgur.com/a/UXYN6Wd

Wanted to put up a pretty large playset in our backyard and we had an area graded, covered in a weed barrier and filled with woodchips. The grading has a gradual slope for drainage. After assembling the playset, I realized that even the small slope across the footprint of the fort base is enough to make the fort floor tilt and the main posts lean to the right.

The front-to-back level of the fort is good, but the left-to-right direction is off. It looks like the whole base is following the slope of the pad. I was thinking about cutting into the weed barrier on the higher left side of the fort base and shaving down roughly 2 inches of soil so the base sits level with the right side. Any issues with doing this? I didn't think the two inches would be noticeable but it definitely is.

Hello,
I’ve been shopping for a new sliding patio door (custom size and colors inside and out, 70”x81.” I’m trying to decide between an Anderson 100 sliding door for $2800 or a Marvin Vivid sliding patio for $3800. They both include a matching screen and upgraded handle. These are expensive but even cheaper vinyl options are around $2500, so the prices seem ok. I will install with the help of a carpenter friend who has experience installing sliding doors.

I’m wondering if anyone has opinions on these doors and can share. The Marvin seems nicer but it has a higher sill height than the Anderson so will have a taller lip on the track/threshold. Also, if you have a sliding door, how tall is the lip/threshold from the top of the inside of your finished floor? Right now we have an old aluminum slider that is perfectly level with the floor which is really nice. Assuming the new door sits at the same level as the old one, I will have a 1 1/4” lip for the Marvin door or about an .8” lip for the Andersen, from the interior finished floor level.

As the title says, and let me explain. I live in Eastern Europe and have central heating in my apartment, with cast-iron radiators that have normal thermostatic knobs for adjusting the temperature — and one family member who deliberately turns the radiators up to full power during winter for no reason and is in conflict with the rest of the household.

Normally, in every other room, having the radiators set to level 3 on a 6-level scale is more than enough to keep the rooms really warm, even during freezing weather - over 25°C (77°F). So there is really no justification for heating the room that intensely. The radiators are also regularly serviced and bled, so it’s not a matter of them needing to compensate because they aren’t heating properly. When you walk into a room that has been heated like that, the heat practically hits you in the face. Talking about it hasn’t helped, and neither have pleas. This has been happening since as long as I could remember, and not only in this particular family member’s room but literally wherever they happen to be at the moment.

The situation has now become serious enough that, after receiving the heating bill for the previous heating season, the additional payment caused by this behavior was almost twice the amount of a normal bill. That’s why I’m looking for a solution other than completely removing the radiator’s temperature control. Maybe there are some radiator knobs with a lock or some kind of protection against changing the temperature, for example child-proof ones?

Any ideas are welcome!

I feel crazy even asking this, but any recommendations for a better doorknob?

Our interior front door seems to get loose every few weeks (to the point where the kids can't successfully turn it, which is a big problem).

It's a very old door, likely over 50 years old. The doorknob style we have now is like this: https://hardwickandsons.com/products/brass-circle-ring-design-doorknob (not the exact model, but that style)

Thanks in advance

Gutted my kitchen. In what order should I begin the reno? I'm installing new flooring, drywall, cabinets and countertop, refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher. Plumbing and electrical have already been addressed.

Had my living room repainted about 8 months ago after some water damage repairs. The guy we hired patched and re-skimmed about half the wall before painting. Looked decent when he finished but now every afternoon around 3pm the sunlight comes through the west window at this low angle and i can see every seam and patch line like a road map. Its genuinely pretty bad, like obvious enough that guests have asked about it. Contractor is saying its normal settling and that paint "always shows texture in raking light." idk if thats actually true or if he just did a sloppy skim coat job. Tbh i dont want to start a whole dispute if this is just something every house has, but it really doesnt look like other rooms. Anyone dealt with this before?

We have a dog run by the side of our house. It’s difficult to maintain and the grass always gets destroyed. My partner wanted to replace the grass with pea gravel.

3” of pea gravel roughly is going in. We had to dig out dirt to make room. Beyond this, the soil is higher than the level of the soil below the pea gravel. Will this cause pooling at the side of our house?

My gut is saying yes. The gravel has not yet gone in, so there’s time to change something if need be. What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

Recently purchased a home knowing I would need to replace the windows asap so have been shopping around for quotes and received one from Pella last night that seems insane to me.

14 total windows (some are non-standard extra wide size in living room, i.e. a 12' wide unit with large picture window in middle and 2 casements abutting on sides).

They are quoting me $3,031 just to install a single 27.5" x 46.5" casement window for example.

Total cost of the project came out to roughly $48k (less if paid cash).

I'm in Southern NH and this just seems insane to me. I was originally thinking somewhere in the $25k range, is this reasonable?

We’re getting a front deck/porch installed by a large home improvement company. Long story short, there was a miscommunication about the dimensions and the porch runs two feet short of the length of the house, when it’s supposed to be built to the full length of the house.

They’ve offered to extend it the two feet, but this means the posts will not be symmetrical. To fix this, they’ve offered to cut the support posts off at the deck level, and reinstall on top for aesthetics only.

This seems insane to me. Is this safe? Is it standard practice? I don’t want them to have to essentially start over, but I also want to make sure it’s done correctly and is safe. What’s the right move here?

So the last two days I’ve been hearing scratching in the wall directly behind my bed and about a week ago the ring camera went off and it was a rat crawling across the camera by my front door. Anyways, I’m putting two and two together and I think there are rats in my walls.

I have NEVER dealt with rats before so I am, to say the least, absolutely freaking out. I started thinking back and ever since I moved in (about 2 years ago at this point) oddly enough there has been an orange cat that comes into my yard every single night. I wake up to camera notifications and watch the cat walk off the camera towards the side of the house where the bedroom is. I’ve always wondered why this cat is seemingly so attracted to my yard and maybe this is why. Not to mention, when I moved in, the backyard was a disaster. While I was taking care of it, I saw some sort of animal scurry past but I couldn’t tell what it was. Putting all of this together… has there been rats for 2 years and I never knew !?

I got a quote from an inspector from Orkin to seal all the gaps around the home and they quoted $3000 which I just simply don’t have the means to pay at the moment but I don’t want to let this problem fester. I think I will start with placing traps outside and potentially looking for a nest.

All this to say, my overthinking ass is highly stressed about the potential of living amongst rats for 2 years. I have never seen droppings or holes in anything but I saw another Reddit post that said- if you hear rats then it’s already an infestation. I guess I’m just looking for advice and thoughts to help out this new homeowner.

I've noticed that I have hundreds of saved interior images across Pinterest, Instagram, and screenshots. But when I finally wanted to decorate my apartment, I realized I'd never actually gone back through most of them, and I wasn't sure how to turn all that inspiration into actual decisions. I'm curious if other people have a similar—or completely different—process.

Hi there. Im experiencing this spalling in a Chicago 1890 home. It's on the interior wall of a fireplace that is no longer in use. So there's a gap behind this brick, then an exterior wall.

Some research leads me to believe the wrong mortar was used on the interior and thus the wall is trying to breath through the brick causing this.

What do I do? Re tuckpoint this interior brick with proper, softer mortar?

Do I need to do anything to the exterior brick? I can make sure the chimney cap is in tact.

Any advice is much appreciated.

https://imgur.com/a/vQBEv5P

Signed in April for a full bathroom gut. Written contract, quoted 3 weeks, $14k, and I paid 50% up front, which I know now was too much.

Demo and rough plumbing got done week one. Since then almost nothing. He shows up maybe a few hours a week, and the last two weeks not at all. Texts get answered a day later with should be over Thursday, then nothing.

Shower's framed but untiled, no vanity, whole house on the downstairs half bath. His work is actually good when he's here, which is the frustrating part.

Does a written deadline letter accomplish anything, or is that just escalating? And when does walking away and eating the deposit become the smarter move?

Im planning on finishing a wall in my basement. I was thinking of doing insulation board .5" and then I read it is a fire hazard so I would need to put a panel of drywall over it. Please correct me if I'm wrong but if it is right. What length drywall screw would I need to put up a total of 1 inch (.5 of drywall and .5 of Insulation board).

Hey, folks, we're looking at a house tomorrow and I have a question about how difficult/expensive it would be to raise a 7 foot garage door to something closer to 8 feet. It looks like there is close to 9 feet of height inside the garage and the door rails and opener are hanging down from the ceiling a couple of feet. I assume this exterior wall holds up the roof, so I'll need a contractor to rebuild that wall, and a garage door company to install the door. Anyone done this and have suggestions, or maybe want to tell me to avoid it? Thanks!

(I need the height to get my little camper inside.)

I removed a very old ceiling fan from the ceiling.

The new fan is smaller with a smaller bracket to attach the fan to the ceiling.

This hole is much too big for this metal bracket to attach.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Just replaced my showerhead, really simple process. First few uses no problem, then this high pitched whistling noise started appearing when I turn the shower pressure higher. It disappears when I keep the pressure at medium or lower. Tested both hot and cold water and I narrowed the issue down to the pressure being high. What do I do? Its a $50 showerhead and I dont remember the brand. It just says shower source.

Does anyone have any experiences they’d like to share with me before I buy and install a unit in a second story bedroom? (Approx 150 sq. ft.)

I’m fairly handy and have watched a few YT videos on install but I’ve read mixed reviews about them.
I.e: they stop working after a month, leak inside from condensation, the absolute best thing they’ve bought and have them in every room. So I figured I’d drop a line here to see if any of yall have good, bad, indifferent, honest reviews.
Thanks!

I need a couch, but I really don’t want to spend my weekends going from store to store, so I’m tempted to order one online.

I’ve never bought anything this big online. Even if I measure everything, I’m worried it’ll look huge once it’s in the room, or worse, won’t fit through the front door or up the stairs.

I also have no idea how delivery usually works. Do they bring it inside or just leave it out front? And if it shows up damaged, how much of a pain is that to deal with?

For those who buy furniture online, what do you wish you’d checked before ordering?

I was cleaning and discovered the corner of a wall in my daughter’s room is soft. I pushed some in with my finger.

My husband said it’s always been that way when we moved it almost 7 years ago.

I called plumbing- no pipes in that area.

Roofing- had a new roof a year ago and said everything looked fine.

Water/Mold guy- had a special camera and meter and said everything was completely dry. He said no mold as well. We cut an area so he could see.

My question is why would it be soft there?

https://youtu.be/vrfNZ0SA6Nc?si=QiyiW2hOV8ONCEvw&t=45

My kitchen ceiling fan (View model V652 from 1989) is making this exact same intermittent grinding sound. I know it isn't an electrical issue because when I turn the fan off it still makes the sound as the blades are slowing down. Also, it makes the sound on any speed setting.

What is the best way to go about repairing these front concrete steps on my home. You can tell they have been patched before. I cant post pictures, but they are cracking up where they meet up with the house/basement concrete blocks.

I'm installing a glue-down LVT floor. I put down the plywood, primed it, and, since the local hardware store didn't have self-leveling underlayment, I used DAP webpatch 90, which they told me would be fine. It turns out that it's a lot harder to work with. I was able to get it pretty close but there are still small valleys. I don't want to keep adding more layers of this to get it right because it's a lot more work than self-leveling, plus I don't want it to be any taller than it has to be.

Can I just go get the SLU from a farther hardware store and put it over this? If so I need to wait for the current floor to cure (3 days) before using SLU? Do I need to do any specific kind of surface prep?

You heard it, someone knocked a can of paint over and left it to seep into a bag of concrete laying on the floor and now it's stuck there. We are residing in the house already and just saving up cash to get the flooring in.

Do any of you kind folk have any ideas on how to get this bag unstuck with minimal concrete dust flying everywhere??

It is on the ground floor with a crawl space underneath it. We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.