Not every project goes as well as planned. We would be happy to spend a few minutes answering your questions.
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Take a look at your kitchen countertop. I see a handyman opportunity to really make your kitchen stand out. You probably have a small backsplash against the base of your wall where your countertop meets it. Above your backsplash you likely have just the regular drywall surface painted like the surrounding walls. What if you added something jazzy from the countertop all the way to the bottom of the wall cabinets?
You can do a lot of things with a backsplash area…tile, stone, mosaic. When that boring area is dressed up with a decorative feature, it really looks pretty special.
Mosaic looks very unique. It comes on a netting that allows you to install sheets of it at a time, cutting installation time. The pieces are glued to the netting and once you prepare the wall, it’s a matter of pushing the netting onto the wall. Some of these will have spaces so you can grout the areas in between the pieces, and some are close enough where you can’t grout.
For the mosaic or tiles that are on netting, I use mastic on the wall. Follow the manufacturers suggestions, but basically you will use a notched trowel and spread the mastic on the wall. The netting gets pushed into the mastic and it sticks. You will have to measure and figure out obstacles such as electrical outlets, and cut some tiles or netting. For the outlets you can use box extenders and cover any gaps with the outlet covers.
As the weather warms up, a handyman can help you with your landscape irrigation. When it comes to sprinklers, you have choices.
If you have a lawn and are planning your irrigation needs, you can buy sprinklers that have predetermined spray patterns, such as 90-degree, 180-degree, or 360-degree. These work fine if your lawn is a rectangle. However, many lawns have different angles and curves. These traditional sprinkler heads will spray in areas where there is no grass. That is a waste of water.
By using adjustable spray pattern sprinkler heads you can direct the water where your grass is, with very little water waste. They screw into the riser just like any traditional sprinkler head.
With adjustable sprinkler heads you buy the tips separately from the sprinkler head and screw the tip on to the sprinkler. Once you screw the tip onto the sprinkler and screw the spinkler onto the riser, you can aim the water at approximately the right direction.
When you turn the water on, you can finish directing the water to the area that needs irrigation. By using your fingers, you can simply turn the top of the sprinkler tip and either open the spray pattern or make it smaller.
Many of us have door thresholds that have seen better days. In my neck of the woods, a metal threshold with an adjustable wood strip is the norm. When people come into the house that small wood strip must have a big target on it because that is where everyone steps. Dirty shoes, wet shoes, you name it and it grinds away at what was an attractive piece of wood. Over time it gets to looking like a wicked stepsister.
It’s really an easy fix to make the wood strip look nice again, but you will need to do a little prep work first. Give the strip a light sanding. Start with a medium grit sandpaper and then move to a fine grit. You don’t want to totally strip the piece down to bare wood, rather just knock off the damaged areas and get everything level again. You might see stained areas from water, so just hit it with a light sanding.
After the sanding, use a cloth and some stain. Dab the cloth into the stain and rub it onto the wood. You can go heavy or light on the stain, just be consistent with it so that the color is uniform. The wood will absorb the stain and you will get a nice rich color from the wood. This will be a normal maintenance item, but fortunately it doesn’t take long to do.
If you have brick on the exterior of your house, the chances are good that you will need a handyman to replace one that will break or crack. In many cases, the bricks are not full bricks…rather they are veneer make to look like regular bricks, although they are only about ½ inch thick and mortar onto the surface.
These look great as accent features on a house, pillar, column, or even outlining steps. Since they are thinner, they are more susceptible to an impact. Take my word for it, they just don’t stand up to a golf club.
When an object strikes them, they will crack and sometimes fall out. You won’t be able to just place another one in its place because of the dried mortar underneath it. Use a small grinder with a masonry wheel and grind out enough of the old mortar so that the replacement piece will have enough room to be mortared in and still be flush with the surrounding surface. Its better to grind out a little too much mortar than not enough. The last thing you want is for the replacement to stick out from the surrounding surface. Get the grout lines level with the existing ones and either use a striking tool to smooth them out, or let it dry a little and broom it, depending on the finish.
Yes, even a handyman has to get his gas barbeque ready for the summer season. Be forewarned though, this is a dirty, greasy job.
I usually remove the cooking grates first. These are usually cast iron and have plenty of baked on food on them. Use rubber gloves and place them into 2 heavy duty plastic lawn bags, one inside the other. I set the bags on the patio and place the grates side-by-side in the bags. Set them in the bags gently and don’t move them around once they are in, as you don’t want to tear the bags (that’s why you use 2 bags). Use heavy-duty oven cleaner and spray the surfaces of the grates and then seal the bags. Let them sit overnight.
The next morning you can remove the grates and take them to the sink for a good washing. They will look like new when you are done.
In the meantime, you can scrape the baked on food from the inside of the barbeque. Empty the drip tray at the bottom and clean out any blocked gas ports along the burners. Check to make sure that the igniter operates and if not, make sure there is no burned on food on the contacts.
If you want to dress up your barbeque, you can use barbeque paint in a spray can and give your barbeque a fresh new look.
If one of your toilet tank bolts has corroded and broken, you will likely get a leak in between the tank and the bowl. You will need new bolts and the kit will include washers and nuts.
Turn the water off to the toilet, flush it and disconnect the water supply line. You probably don’t have to disconnect the supply line, but if thinks go wrong you could kink the line, so don’t risk it. Dab any remaining water out of the tank and remove the bolts. You may have to tap on the bottom of them to get them to pop out of the holes. Once the bolts are out, scrape any remnants of the old rubber washers from the bottom of the tank.
The kit will come with a diagram for the order of washers. You want to slide a metal washer on the bolt first, and then the rubber washer. This will apply more bearing pressure against the rubber to stop any leaks. You will want to tighten the nuts enough to stop any leaks, but not so tight that you crack the porcelain. I usually push down on the tank enough to compress the spud gasket and make tightening the nuts easier. You can to this to each side of the tank until everything is tight and leak free.
Reinstall the supply line and turn the water back on. Give it a couple of flushes and check for any leaks.
If you are looking for an improvement you can do in an afternoon, why not paint an accent wall? This is nothing more that choosing a wall or two and painting it a different color, usually one that stands out from the others. There are no hard and fast rules in this…you can use your imagination and go as bold as you want.
Many new homes are painted “builder white” and need a little life in those walls. Painting is cheap and fast. I would go as far as saying painting is the biggest bang for the buck in the world of home improvement. It’s cheap, fast, and you don’t need years of experience to do it. Furthermore, if you mess something up, you can paint over it. So as long as you don’t drip paint on the floor, it’s a pretty safe way to go.
Many paint schemes today involve painting the walls one color (think coffee & cream) and the ceilings, doors, and baseboards another color (think white). This has become a very common paint combo. You don’t even need to go that far. You could paint a wall a brownish color to match your bedspread. Go crazy and paint 2 of the walls the same color. Imagine what painting 2 adjacent walls, or opposing walls would look like. It’s a custom paint job in an afternoon.
As a handyman, I get customers that ask me to do all types of things. That includes removing smoke detectors. Now why would people want to remove their smoke detectors? Because they are too high up on the ceiling and the customers don’t want to climb up there to silence a chirping smoke detector. Folks, that is just crazy. Never remove a smoke detector because it is bothersome.
As homeowners sought out vaulted ceilings, precautions had to be made in case of fire. Smoke will rise in those vaulted ceilings and so smoke detectors are placed there. Replacing batteries in a smoke detector is not difficult. You will need a ladder to reach the smoke detector. You will need a 9-volt battery for each smoke detector you will be servicing.
To get access to the battery, you may have to rotate the smoke detector to disengage it from the ceiling. You can open a small door on the back and replace it. Some smoke detectors have a small door on the underside of the detector that slides back-and-forth. You can simply move the little door, replace the battery, and close the door all without removing the smoke detector from the ceiling.
By the way, it is recommended that you change the batteries twice per year. An easy way to remember is that each time you change your clocks for daylight savings time, change the batteries in your smoke detectors.
If you are installing a dog door, once you get over the fear of cutting a hole through your wall, you will need to make sure the installation is weather tight. I prefer to use a store-bought dog door rather than a home made door, but with either one, you will need to make sure that it will keep out the elements.
I like dog doors that have two flaps, one on the exterior side of the door and one on the interior side of the door. These are held together with an extension kit that keeps the wall insulation in place and makes for a clean installation. As for being weatherproof, look at the exterior side of the dog door.
The well made doors have a means to hold the flaps in position, such as a small magnet. When the dog passes through the door, the flap will move once or twice and then come to rest just above the magnet. It is crucial to use caulking around the perimeter of the exterior side of the dog door. As rain water hits the unit, or hits the wall above the unit, the water will run down and seep into the wall opening. This is why caulking is so important. It will prevent the water from entering the wall.
I was looking at a customer’s toilet yesterday because he was complaining it was running. He said it didn’t run all the time, but when it did run it wouldn’t stop. This was a Kohler low-boy toilet, but that didn’t matter, the problem can happen with all makes and models of toilets. Although the toilet wasn’t running at that moment, he showed me the toilet and removed the lid. The problem was pretty obvious to me, but not so obvious to the customer.
When you install a new toilet flapper, you have to adjust it so that it lifts up high enough to allow enough water into the bowl, but not so high that it gets hung up on something (there are flappers that allow you to rotate a dial on the flapper for this). The chain that connects the handle to the flapper is the problem.
Once you adjust the flapper, there will be a length of chain hanging down. If the chain is long enough, it can drop in between the flapper and the flush valve (this is where the flapper rests. This creates a small gap for water to run through, and this was the case for this particular customer. To fix this, you can either trim the chain with wire cutters, or loop it back over the fastener where it connects to the handle. This is a 1 minute fix that will save lots of water.
