Yeah, totally spitballing here. Bedrooms are cheap per square foot but Master baths are expensive. Might be overstating it a bit.

LOL you’re an engineer???

FWIW awesome baby joke in that previous post - a real rare gem form you

Well, I learned why you're supposed to always use screws and wall anchors for hanging pictures on a plaster wall... Tried to pull a nail out and it took a significant chunk of plaster down with it. Not super eager to learn how to repair plaster wall right now, and the artists want a couple hundred to handle the problem. Good times.

Anyway, onto the next adventure!

In my dining room, I have a chandelier. There is one switch in the dining room that controls it.
In my yard, I have a light. The only switch that turns it on or off is just outside my back door.

If my dining room light is on, then I turn on the outdoor light, then I switch off the dining room light, the dining room light does NOT turn off. It instead gets dim.

Notes:
- It currently has LED bulbs in it.
- I don't have any data on what happened with the lights before both the chandelier and the switch in the dining room were switched, roughly when I moved into the house.
- The exterior switch has not been changed.

So ... what the heck? I guess I don't know enough to even take a guess at what's going on here. Any advice? Happy to poke around in things and take pictures if it helps.

Been working on my counter tops for my kitchen:


This is the corner counter, cut from a 20’ piece of maple and joined to form the corner. It has 4 biscuits, 3 bolts pulling it together and had six 10’ long pipe clamps holding it during glue up. I should have taken a picture of that but I always forget to take pictures. These are sanded through 320 grit and ready for finish




Here are 2 sections that have 3 coats of Waterlox finish on them. I wasn’t thrilled with what they looked like so I sanded them down a bit and will apply another coat of Waterlox




This is the kitchen so far


And here is the before:

Apologies for the double post but this seems more fun for most people anyway, given the responses others have gotten recently. As previously mentioned, we're working on a basement remodel. Right now we're at "we've decided to remove a post from the currently finished space" and still pushing ideas back and forth on what the layout for the basement should be. So, here's what the space looks like today:



- Green squares are load bearing posts. The one in A is the one we are definitely getting rid of.
- Diagram doesn't properly represent that to the left of E are two storage rooms (one is indicated by the single door on the left wall).
- Purple box at the top of E is furnace + water heater.
- Stairs are kind of junk. Too steep/etc. Likely would not be up to code if you built today.
- While scale and location of non walls aren't perfect on here, the distance between supports is ~12'.
- A, B, bathroom are the only finished spaces.
- Right wall of B currently has (cheapo) built in bookcases.

Our desires:
- C should become a guest room / office.
- The door to D (which is immediately under our current back door) should become a viable entrance to the house. Part of that is that to the right of the door as you enter we think we want to install cubbies for the mudroom vibe.
- Current laundry setup is exactly as minimal as it looks. We're planning to add storage space/cabinetry here, as well as a fridge, and likely a separate wine/beer fridge.
- Some chunk of E should become an exercise room. Likely means Peloton + bench + some room to deadlift + adjustable dumbbell thing.

Other note:
- As the stairs up to the currently unfinished attic are adjacent/on top of these stairs, but we're planning 2 or 3 years out to convert the attic, if there's a smart way to spend a bit more now to make the stairs viable in both directions now we'd be in for that.

Appreciate any advice from the professional and amateur architect crowd!

Your basement beats the hell out of Eric foreman’s basement

Oooow....Nice! Those look amazing.
Did I miss where you refinished the floors?
Love the blue cabinets as well.

thanks. Wife is the color picker, I just make it look like her vision


Re floors: You didn’t miss anything, floors were with the house when I recently bought it. I only fixed the area where the half wall was removed.

Nice johnny. I made the mistake with my butcher's block countertops to just use mineral oil and try to stay on top of them. Wrong. I'll probably have to take them all apart and refinish them in a few years. Not sure if i'll have to replace the sink/dish area completely.

That's a nice looking 66, is it Sauterne Gold? You don't see that color often. Spinner hubcaps a nice touch too.

Counters also look great - nice job!

Does it only stay dimly lit if the outdoor light is on? So, if you turn on the dining room light by itself and then turn it off, does it turn all the way off?

Suit,

Yes. That's really the most confounding part to me.

Cit,

Is there a dimmer switch that controls the dining room light? If not, what kind of switch is it? Standard single pole? Is there a nite lite on the switch?

I'm guessing since it only happens when the outdoor light is on, it means there is a missing ground wire somewhere in one of the light fixtures OR the wire that provides power to the outdoor light runs through the box that your dining room light fixture is and there is a residual power that generates just enough voltage to light the LED. If you put a regular incandescent bulb in there, it will not glow. It also isn't hurting anything by being on so dim except it is likely annoying. If it is a ground wire missing, it will be where all the ground wires are connected together behind the fixture and there isn't one pigtailed to the ground screw on the fixture itself. The light will still function properly, but can have the effect of some residual voltage.

This is what i was thinking especially if it has the new LED lights.

Possible the fixture has developed a slight short in the base and lets voltage "bleed" off the ground wire

Finally done with the sunroom. Doors finished up today and stucco completed. getting the house painted next.

Noobiest of noobs, about to buy a home. First step is getting a mortgage, how much value is there in shopping around for rates?

Planning on a $2000 payment, family grosses about $150k a year. Should be closer to $200k in 3 years. Reasonable?

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

I got 0.25% taken off of my mortgage rate by shopping around. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s like 50-100 bucks/month in savings. I tracked interest rates on bankrate.com for like 2 months, determined Thursday’s were the best day for interest rates, called the broker that my realtor suggested and asked what their rate was, she told me 4.25%. I said I could get 3.9 from some internet company but if she could go to 4%, I’d sign papers that day. The next day she sent me papers with the 4% rate.

2k/month on 150k/year income should be reasonable but a lot of factors go into it.

I’m still not sold on the waterlox that is on them. I’ll let you know how they turn out

My preapproval process has sucked because I've been self employed for a little over a year and banks want at least 2 years P&L for self employment. And I'm making double what I had been the years prior.

What's the range of "good" rates, IYO?

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

I have no idea. They fluctuate daily. It depends on a bunch of factors. Things like your credit score, the loan amount, down payment amount, where the property is, etc

Suit,

That sounds sensible but also I have a hard time understanding it, due to my lack of knowledge on the subject.

(I also didn't add: If I just turn on the outside light, but don't turn on the inside light, the inside light does NOT dimly light.)

Is there anything that is potentially dangerous?

What does missing ground wire do, and could I check that for either of these at the switches? All switches are simple single pole things, and each fixture has only one switch (that I know of) linked to it. Brief googling seems to imply that if this were the correct diagnosis, I'd literally just be looking to see if the ground wire is not connected to the socket/fixture at all?

I guess I'm more confused by the "residual power" option, too. =(

----

Thinman, johnny,

Those both look great!

thanks!

finally got my first util bill with a full month of solar.

last bill: $325
this bill: $53

How many years do you project until you're at break even?

i did some creative accounting that gets me to 5 years.