Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

pulled this much crabgrass out of about 500sqft of my 25000 sqft lawn :/



This was despite putting down a super heavy pre-emergent in spring.
 
My shitty pallet turned on end that I was using to hold all my digging, hoeing and raking tools rotted out and fell apart, so I got a craftsman resin vertical shed, and had to pour a slab to install it on.

Form installed, just about to lay down plastic:
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12 80 pound bags of concrete later:
IMG_20200801_124852608_HDR.jpg

I may have to throw some self-leveler on it, but it's the first pad I ever poured, so I'm prepared for it to be crap. It's just going to be underneath a crappy little plastic shed anyhow:

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Find the nest and borax/sugar it.
Not really possible. There are three water oaks in the immediate area that are dying via rot, only one fence in the area isn't old wood. We've had our yard treated before but the ants come back after a month or two. I'm hoping to treat the plants themselves with something.
 
The prior owners of my house had one of those crappy as-seen-on-tv magentic screen doors on the front door, glued on with velcro around the door jam. They left one half of the velcro on the door jam. I took that off, but of course it left its industrial glue behind on the wood. First I tried using goo-gone cleaner, but all that did was strip the paint (it needs to be repainted anyway) and none of the glue came off. I went at it with a razor blade paint scraper which worked okay. Then sanded today with 400grit sandpaper. Feels pretty good, got most of the glue off the wood. Now to put a couple coats of primer and paint on it and it'll be good as new, especially with a proper storm door to protect the door jam.

I put one coat of paint on the garage side entrance door last year, needs another coat though.
 
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Look pretty OK. Holds almost all my yard equipment. Still need to get the shite organized a little better.

View attachment 12272

Your concrete isn't up level with the form on the front left corner. :)

Anything for rebar in there?
Here you'd throw in a layer or two of 2"x4" pattern wire fence, don't need actual steel bars. It's enough to help it move as one piece and/or at least keep a crack from turning into a split/crumble from seasonal wet/dry hot/cold.
Maybe not a problem there Idk.
 
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Your concrete isn't up level with the form on the front left corner. :)

Anything for rebar in there?
Here you'd throw in a layer or two of 2"x4" pattern wire fence, don't need actual steel bars. It's enough to help it move as one piece and/or at least keep a crack from turning into a split/crumble from seasonal wet/dry hot/cold.
Maybe not a problem there Idk.
oh hell, my "Critique". In this area it would be foolish and against code not to put down a rat wall for at least 24 inches to stop burrowing animals.
REbard-fence would be nice touch if you had some aying around, not sure it's needed for that area and low anticipated weight per sq.'.

That area is so small I can see a guy dumping in their cement and if it doesn't fill to form top oh well, just level as it sits. Piece of 2X4 and a level and all is good.
I think it looks great - a reasonable balance of time, materials and fucking around spent.
 
oh hell, my "Critique". In this area it would be foolish and against code not to put down a rat wall for at least 24 inches to stop burrowing animals.
REbard-fence would be nice touch if you had some aying around, not sure it's needed for that area and low anticipated weight per sq.'.

That area is so small I can see a guy dumping in their cement and if it doesn't fill to form top oh well, just level as it sits. Piece of 2X4 and a level and all is good.
I think it looks great - a reasonable balance of time, materials and fucking around spent.

The ground underneath heaving and moving from wet/dry, freeze/thaw, etc.

Maybe dry enough there it doesn't get saturated? Idk.
 
Your concrete isn't up level with the form on the front left corner. :)

Anything for rebar in there?
Here you'd throw in a layer or two of 2"x4" pattern wire fence, don't need actual steel bars. It's enough to help it move as one piece and/or at least keep a crack from turning into a split/crumble from seasonal wet/dry hot/cold.
Maybe not a problem there Idk.
I did a couple things, but yeah you're right, I didn't really get that corner level.

1. I did 2" wire lattice. Don't really need re-bar here, as it doesn't ever really freeze.
2. I insulated from the ground and added vapor barrier underneath.

Basically, I did everything that Bob Vila told me to do, except that the vapor control on the top blew off in the night and the thing had evaporated all the water off the top the next morning.

I used what little self-leveler I had on getting the rear corners up to snuff, and decided the fit to purpose was good enough, and laid the shed on 'er.

I'll pull the forms on Friday, and then put the lag anchors in for the shed in a month.
 
@Jehannum - is your house old-school stucco or is that more modern like Dryvit/Sto with styro underneith? Just curious - I've wrapped a few structures in the latter.
It's modern stucco, as near as I can tell. The PO didn't feel like stripping off whatever was there before, so s/he put down a polymer barrier of some kind and then stucco'd over that.
 
I did a couple things, but yeah you're right, I didn't really get that corner level.

1. I did 2" wire lattice. Don't really need re-bar here, as it doesn't ever really freeze.
2. I insulated from the ground and added vapor barrier underneath.

Basically, I did everything that Bob Vila told me to do, except that the vapor control on the top blew off in the night and the thing had evaporated all the water off the top the next morning.

I used what little self-leveler I had on getting the rear corners up to snuff, and decided the fit to purpose was good enough, and laid the shed on 'er.

I'll pull the forms on Friday, and then put the lag anchors in for the shed in a month.

It's a fine slab.

On a larger piece we'd hose it down and put the plastic back over it but I wouldn't even worry about it on something that small.
 
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I gotta pour a slab for the air conditioner at some point, but man do i suck at concrete. The finishing step is where it all falls apart for me, i can never seem to get the aggregate to sink below the surface