c/diy-and-reno

Used to paint trim with a cheap brush from the hardware store, now I spend $25 on one good angle brush

I spent years fighting with brush marks and drips on baseboards until a painter at the Benjamin Moore store in Austin told me to try a Purdy brush. Switched six months ago and the difference in control and smooth finish is night and day. Has anyone else noticed a huge jump in quality just by upgrading one tool?

I finally gave in and bought a laser level after years of using a spirit level

For like 5 years I was dead set against laser levels. Thought they were fancy toys for rich contractors. Then last month I had to hang 12 picture frames in a row at my sister's place in Phoenix and my old bubble level had me redoing every other one. Borrowed her husband's cheap $40 Bosch and got all 12 done in 20 minutes flat. Now I'm wondering what else I've been stubborn about for no good reason. Any other tools you swore off for years that turned out to be worth it?

Found a hidden leak behind my bathroom wall after ignoring a musty smell for 6 months

Turns out that faint smell in my guest bathroom was a slow drip from a loose pipe joint, and after finally cutting open the drywall in my own house in Columbus, the mold remediation cost me $1,200, so has anyone else dealt with a sneaky leak that took forever to track down?

Hot take: that weekend I tried to remodel my own bathroom was a total disaster

So last spring I decided to save some cash and redo my tiny bathroom myself. I watched like 20 YouTube videos and thought I had it figured out. But man, that Saturday when I went to tile the floor, I realized I bought way too few tiles and the ones I got were the wrong color. Then on Sunday, I tried to install the new vanity and accidentally drilled right into a pipe behind the wall. Water started spraying everywhere and I had to call my neighbor who's a plumber to come fix it. He charged me $300 just for the emergency visit. Took me two more weeks to finish everything and it still looks kinda janky around the edges. Has anyone else had a bathroom project go way worse than they expected?

Caught myself cutting drywall circles with a utility knife for years until a buddy showed me the keyhole saw trick

I was doing a ceiling patch in my basement in Pittsburgh and struggling to get the hole for a can light right. He handed me a $12 jab saw and I got it done in 30 seconds instead of 10 minutes. Anyone else waste time using the wrong tool for basic stuff like this?

That barn find from 2018 taught me to check for rot first

I drove three hours to a farm outside Boise to look at an old table someone was giving away for free. Turned out the legs were solid but the top had water damage so bad you could poke a finger through it. I spent the whole ride back thinking about how I should have asked for more pictures. Now I always make sellers send me close ups of joints and edges before I even pack my truck.

Tried using a laser level for hanging shelves after years of bubble levels

I always thought laser levels were overkill for simple home jobs. Last weekend I had to put up 6 shelves in my laundry room and the first one came out crooked with my old 24 inch level. Borrowed a neighbor's laser level and got all 6 perfectly straight in under an hour. The time I saved on measuring and redoing work was worth it alone. Has anyone else switched over from traditional levels and found it made a big difference?

My uncle swore by taping drywall with mesh tape, I finally learned why he was wrong

So I've been mudding my own drywall for years (garage, basement, small stuff) and always used paper tape because my uncle told me mesh was a gimmick. Last month I did a patch job on my living room wall and decided to try mesh just to see what happened. Yeah, that crack came right back in like 3 weeks. Paper tape on the same spot? Still holding perfect. My uncle was right all along. Has anyone else had mesh tape fail on them or did I just get a bad brand?

Found a cheap fix for squeaky stairs that actually works

Spent two weekends trying different fixes for my stairs in this 90s house - bought $40 worth of screws, tried powder, nothing stopped the squeak. Finally grabbed a tube of cheap construction adhesive and ran a bead between the tread and riser while my brother stood on each step. Anybody else got a hack they wish they'd found before wasting money on the fancy stuff?

TIL drywall dust gets into EVERYTHING if you don't seal the room right

Just finished patching three holes in my living room wall last weekend over in Phoenix. Taped off the doorway with just a sheet and some painters tape, figured it'd be fine. Nope. Two days later I'm still finding a fine layer of dust on my TV stand and in my coffee mug. Has anyone else figured out a cheap way to keep that stuff contained without buying a $200 plastic zipper door kit?

Just watched a whole wall of tile come off because my thinset was too old

I was tiling my bathroom in Austin last month and halfway through the job, a whole section just slid down the wall like butter. Turns out that bag of thinset I had sitting in the garage for 8 months had gone bad, even though it was still sealed. I had to rip out 200 dollars worth of tile and start over with fresh mix. Has anyone else had this happen with expired mortar?

Tried that old 'paint over wallpaper' trick and ended up with a nightmare

So I bought a 1920s bungalow in Cincinnati last year and thought I'd save time by painting right over the ugly floral wallpaper in the hallway. Big mistake. The paint basically reactivated the glue underneath and the whole thing started bubbling up within a week. I had to strip it all off anyway, which took like three weekends of steaming and scraping. Learned that you can't cheat old houses, they'll always find a way to get back at you. Has anyone else fallen for that shortcut and regretted it?

Always thought those self-leveling compound ads were hype until I had to fix a dip in my living room floor

My 1950s house had a good 3/8 inch dip right in front of the fireplace that made laying vinyl plank a nightmare. Picked up a bag of Henry Pro-Finish from the local hardware store last weekend and watched it smooth out perfectly on its own. It honestly felt like cheating compared to mixing up mortar or trying to sand down joists. Has anyone else been surprised by how well something like this actually works?

Hit 500 square feet of tile in a day and my crew thought I was nuts

I've been running painting jobs for years but my crew needed help on a kitchen backsplash last month. I figured I'd just lend a hand for a few hours. Turns out we laid 500 square feet of subway tile in one day between three of us. My back felt it for a week but honestly I didn't think we'd get past 300. Has anyone else pulled off a number like that on a tile job?

Showerthought: My kitchen backsplash looked so bad I redid it twice in a month

I tiled my first backsplash last summer and it looked like a drunk did it. Grout lines were all over the place, tiles weren't level. After 3 weeks I ripped it all out and started over with spacers and a level. Second attempt came out clean and straight, took me 4 hours instead of 8 cause I knew what I was doing. Anyone else have a DIY project that took two tries to get right?

Rant: Paid $200 for a 'lifetime' air compressor that died after 3 years

Accidentally flooded my basement trying a fancy pipe soldering trick

Last weekend I watched a YouTube video about using a wet rag to keep solder joints cool near plastic pipes. Thought I was being smart, tried it on a copper pipe right next to a PVC drain in my basement in Columbus. The rag slipped and water sprayed everywhere for like 5 minutes before I found the main shutoff. Ended up with about an inch of water over half the floor, had to rent a shop vac from Home Depot for $25. The worst part is the solder joint still leaked a bit and I had to call a plumber anyway to redo it properly for $150. Anyone else fall for one of those "pro tips" that just made things worse? What's your most expensive DIY screwup?

Just realized a simple trick for removing old popcorn ceiling without the mess

Wet it down with a garden sprayer and a little dish soap. Let it soak 15 minutes. Scrapes off in big sheets.

Vent: Bought a $40 laser level for a backsplash and it was a total disaster

The thing kept sliding off the wall and the line was so faint I ended up eyeballing it anyway. Anyone got a better method for keeping tiles straight?

Serious question, I just read that a standard 2x4 hasn't actually been 2 inches by 4 inches since the 1960s

Found this out in a lumber yard pamphlet in Spokane, it's actually 1.5x3.5 inches now. Do you think this is a helpful standardization or just confusing for new DIYers trying to plan builds?

Update: My tile saw died halfway through a bathroom floor in Tacoma

I was cutting 12 inch porcelain tiles when the motor just quit, so I had to finish the cuts with a cheap angle grinder and a diamond blade. It actually gave me cleaner edges on the tricky corner pieces once I got the hang of it. Has anyone else had to finish a big job with a backup tool that ended up working better?

Rant: Bought a $200 paint sprayer for my kitchen cabinets and I'm split on it

I redid my kitchen last month and decided to spray the cabinet doors instead of brushing. The sprayer itself was about $200, plus another $50 for the right paint and filters. It cut the painting time for the doors down from a whole weekend to maybe six hours total. But the cleanup was a huge pain, I wasted a bunch of paint dialing it in, and my garage is still covered in a fine mist. Did the time saved make up for the mess and cost, or should I have just rolled with a brush and been done with it?

Spent 4 hours trying to get a single drawer slide level

I was putting in new kitchen drawers and the front one just would not sit right, kept binding every time I pushed it in. Turns out the cabinet box itself was out of square by like an eighth of an inch. Has anyone else had to shim a whole drawer box because the cabinet was off?

My bathroom tile job turned into a weird science experiment

I decided to try that trick where you use dish soap in the grout mix to make it smoother. Saw it on some forum, figured why not. Mixed up a batch for my small bathroom floor, maybe 50 square feet, and added a good squirt of blue Dawn. The grout went on fine, but the next morning it looked like a mold farm. These weird, fuzzy blue spots were growing out of the lines. My wife walked in and said it looked like a petri dish from a high school lab. Turns out the soap had sugar or something in it that bacteria loved. I had to chip out all the grout, scrub the lines with bleach, and start over. Has anyone else had a home fix tip go totally wrong like that? What was your worst one?

My dad said to use a 3/4 inch spade bit for the door latch and I should have listened

I was putting in a new bedroom door and grabbed a 1 inch bit because it was closer, thinking it would be fine. The latch plate now wobbles and the door doesn't close right. What's the best fix for a hole that's too big, short of filling it and starting over?