What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

[bert poliakoff]

I worked in the garage cleaning up crap that should be boxed and labeled, It's a bit over 100 in my garage so I didn't last too long. Best part of working on the house was paying a gent to repair peeling stucco and paint the wall around the courtyard we have. That was the best for 106 weather, all I did was occasionally go out to supervise. I kept our house alive for over 40 years and at 83 am more than happy to hire it out. Big plus is I get to play in the garage

[BDKawey]

some before, during and after photos on the garage touch up. there were peg boards covering a lot of this wall, tons of holes to fill and pegboard wont be the move here so it had to come down. new lights and painted the floors and ceiling. I'd also spent countless hours when I bought the place 2 months ago powerwashing and scrubbing the floor.
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

big patch here as well as a patch we did on the ceiling, the walls are I would call a gloopy texture haha. that wasnt bad to match, the ceiling is circular stop. that texture match came out pretty good as well.
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
took a big shelf down and patched some spots and filled holes
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

and here it is pretty much all together, i need to finish painting the ceiling but the new barrina lights from amazon pop down pretty easy and are light weight, 29 of them total in the 32x32. https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Integrat ... k_detail_1
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

i also snagged a new US General 42" box, top section 2 weeks ago 15% off and then just over the weekend the bottom went on a parking lot sale so about a grand in. had to get something now that the pegboard is gone.
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

[Mike W.]

29 lights in there? Wow. Only the 20 watters, I've got 10 of the 40 watt version to go in and replace the current 2 tube florescent I've currently got. But you can't have too much light in there. Maybe dual switching, but I've never heard anyone say, jeez, it's just to bright in the garage to work on something.

[vinceg101]

29 lights in there? Wow. Only the 20 watters, I've got 10 of the 40 watt version to go in and replace the current 2 tube florescent I've currently got. But you can't have too much light in there. Maybe dual switching, but I've never heard anyone say, jeez, it's just to bright in the garage to work on something.

Dual switching for sure if it can be done easily enough. There are times you just want to walk out there and find something and don't need the intensity; and then the other times you want to do surgery. But then again, that's the upside of LED: little to no power consumption compared to even fluorescents. The only issue might be the longevity of cheap LED tube lights and their on-off cycling and cold weather performance.

I would go for a better light balance though and swap out one warmer lamp in each fixture. 6500 kelvin is intense and a bit harsh; switch out one with a 3000K or even 2800K for better color rendition and balance. It will cut down on some of the lumens (which you're not going to miss in this garage due to the low ceiling and white walls & ceiling) but it will be better on your eyes in the long run. I did this in my hangar and is a lot better for the long days in there.

Looking good and still envious.

[BDKawey]

i have 24 lights in the main section on one switch, and then theres 4 lights going the other direction above the workbench, and my sound system on another switch. I dont disagree the color is a bit intense but yeah, surgery

[gadget73]

Never been mad about more light in a garage. Mine was built with a line 8' two-tube light fixtures across the center line. Open a hood on a car and it was like working in a cave. I put some LED lights across the back wall to fix that. Whenever those 8 footers die, they will be replaced with LED, and probably more of them.

[vinceg101]

Never been mad about more light in a garage. Mine was built with a line 8' two-tube light fixtures across the center line. Open a hood on a car and it was like working in a cave. I put some LED lights across the back wall to fix that. Whenever those 8 footers die, they will be replaced with LED, and probably more of them.

Our Hangar has only (12) 8' 2-lamp fluorescents (at 13' above the floor) and for the longest time only about half the fixtures worked; needless to say it was very cave'ish in there if the doors were closed. We countered this by installing additional area and task lighting wherever we could but it still didn't solve the situation.
This past year I decided enough was enough and worked with out landlord (well the Super at least) and worked on converting all those 8 footers to LED (ripped out the ballasts and bypassed). Between the two of us we got 8' LED lamps (they did half of them at 6000K and I did the other with 2700K to balance the light).
Made a huge difference even at 13' and 2000 s.f., still not surgery suite light, but way more than adequate for general lighting. One of the best most useful improvements we did up there.


I'm working on some LED strip task lighting for the 4 post lift for getting direct working light for under the car.

If I had more time when we moved in, I would have painted all the walls gloss white (instead we had to live with that awful green wall along one whole side and in the back). Now there's too much in there to even think about it.

[Karl Grau]

and here it is pretty much all together, i need to finish painting the ceiling but the new barrina lights from amazon pop down pretty easy and are light weight, 29 of them total in the 32x32.

29 lights in there? Wow. Only the 20 watters, I've got 10 of the 40 watt version to go in and replace the current 2 tube florescent I've currently got. But you can't have too much light in there. Maybe dual switching, but I've never heard anyone say, jeez, it's just to bright in the garage to work on something.

Never been mad about more light in a garage. Mine was built with a line 8' two-tube light fixtures across the center line. Open a hood on a car and it was like working in a cave. I put some LED lights across the back wall to fix that. Whenever those 8 footers die, they will be replaced with LED, and probably more of them.

I have 30 of the Barrina LEDs from amazon. I've only put a few up but I'm very impressed with how bright they are. And I agree, it can never be too bright (especially as I get older ).






I also am going to paint the garage with the brightest white paint I can find.
I'm currently about six months behind schedule with the garage improvements but I'm getting closer. A previous owner had built a walk-in closet in the garage which prevented two cars from being able to park so it had to go right off the bat.

The closet is the white thing on the left.








Starting the demo.












I'm removing all the shelving on the right side wall except for the top row.












I had a weird room at the old place that I used as a workshop that some of you may remember.







This is going to be the workshop at the new place. It's about double the square footage and has a lot better light than the old place.

[vinceg101]

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

[Mike W.]

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

Can't really tell from here, but it looks like kind of an enclosed outdoor space. Don't know what's underneath it, and SD isn't as wet as up where I am, but if those bricks are what I think they are, they're fairly porous and will wick water up thru them so they're damp on top. Meaning I wouldn't put anything on top of them that would seal it up.

[Karl Grau]

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

Can't really tell from here, but it looks like kind of an enclosed outdoor space. Don't know what's underneath it, and SD isn't as wet as up where I am, but if those bricks are what I think they are, they're fairly porous and will wick water up thru them so they're damp on top. Meaning I wouldn't put anything on top of them that would seal it up.

Good eye Mike. I have never noticed any moisture issues even during that record rainfall we had a couple of years ago. Having said that, I'm leaning towards some type of PVC/composite interlocking tile for the floor so a little moisture shouldn't matter.

[steve345]

Finally finished redoing our deck—the old boards were in terrible shape so swapped them for new warm-brown oiled wood. It was supposed to be a two-day job but it took a week. theres always something else to fix right? Props for the garage work in that heat!
Glad you can focus on the fun stuff now :-)

[gadget73]

If Mike is going where I think he is with that, anything that prevents the bricks from breathing will eventually cause them to crumble. Not sure if a more or less solid plastic covering above them is a great idea.

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

Can't really tell from here, but it looks like kind of an enclosed outdoor space. Don't know what's underneath it, and SD isn't as wet as up where I am, but if those bricks are what I think they are, they're fairly porous and will wick water up thru them so they're damp on top. Meaning I wouldn't put anything on top of them that would seal it up.

Good eye Mike. I have never noticed any moisture issues even during that record rainfall we had a couple of years ago. Having said that, I'm leaning towards some type of PVC/composite interlocking tile for the floor so a little moisture shouldn't matter.

[Karl Grau]

anything that prevents the bricks from breathing will eventually cause them to crumble.

Why doesn't paint prevent breathing? I ask because 90% of fireplaces and houses around here with brick have paint on them with zero 'crumble'.

[gadget73]

type of paint I think. I remember looking into this a while ago, details are fuzzy but the consensus I found was that latex paint traps the water in and causes problems. It should be basically whitewash so its not fully sealed. It also depends on whether the bricks go all the way through. The last house I was in had a brick interior wall behind the wood stove, but it wasn't all the way through to the exterior. Age of all this stuff is probably related too, really old brick and cinderblock is way crappier about moisture than more modern things. The block chimney on my house had to be rebuilt and the mason told me it was because it had been painted. The downstairs entry at the Elks lodge I belong to has painted brick and its crumbling badly. Built in 1924. The downstairs bathroom is the same brick, but never painted. Those are fine, though it could stand to be re-pointed.


can probably figure out if you may have a problem by simply leaving a plastic bucket sitting on the bricks when its rainy. If you pick the bucket up and the bricks are wet underneath, its wicking up through the ground and covering things will trap moisture. If they laid plastic sheet underneath it should be fine.