The Home Ownership Thread

[venividivicibj]

Advice on getting rid of gophers from yard/lawn?

 

[otc]

Yeah they all come with the drain poppet. I hate those stupid things. Pain in the butt if you need to snake the trap. I just pull the rod out and cap it.

This one came with a "push to click" style stopper. Which seems like a winner to me (and is already what we have in the master) because you can just pull the whole unit out to clear hair, snake the drain, etc.

Yes you have to dip your hand into the water to empty the basin but that's fine. The mechanism is plastic and has moving pieces so probably won't last a century like a traditional plug operated by a metal rod...but it will likely still last for many years and is an inexpensive and easy part to replace.

 

[otc]

Prices can be all over the place, but I assume skim coating would be half the price of redoing all the drywall.

Probably 20-30k to redo all the drywall if you have an average four bedroom house.

Yeah...even at half that it would be a no-thank-you (and I bet it costs even more to get that skim coat done well where I live)...

Might consider it on an ad-hoc basis. If we re-do the master bathroom/closet...it is NOT getting the stupid texture. And if we have a drywaller in for that and are already modifying one bedroom wall, might as well have them skim coat the rest of the bedroom.

Or might have someone do the main living/dining/kitchen area if we're going to get a better paint job done to replace the hack-job paint that's on there...maybe in conjunction with clearing the space to do flooring work. I don't think it would be too weird to have nice flat walls in there and keep the texture in the other spaces.

FWIW, the texture DOES make patching all the holes the previous owners left behind an easy task...because the texture just looks like the entire wall is a half-completed patch job.

 

[Numbernine]

My walls are all lathe and plaster and were newly skim coated when I bought it in '96 but I have enough coats of paint on it the texture is nice.

 

[otc]

My texture is like this:

I believe you'd call it a "knockdown" texture but with fairly heavy/thick application so the flat spots are large and the "holes" are fairly spread out.

Does make patching/hiding damage easy, but I find it pretty ugly (at least with my style home/decor...maybe it would work great in New Mexico).
My prior place was built 10 years later and had the exact same texture so I think it is just a thing here. All of the outside corners are rounded too.

My preferred drywall "texture" is flat drywall that has had a few coats of paint rolled on over the years...

 

[beargonefishing]

Advice on getting rid of gophers from yard/lawn?

 

[Numbernine]

Advice on getting rid of gophers from yard/lawn?

I trap with gophinator traps I’m in the 95% range so look up the California department of agriculture on trapping I’ll try to find it and link you if not pm me I’ll give you my phone number and give you a lesson.

 

[imatlas]

Our place is 100+ year old plaster and lathe that came with a thick coat of the most hideous stucco texture on every inch of wall and ceiling, presumably for ease of patching during its 50+years of rental history.

Little by little we’ve either sheet rocked or skim coated about 80% of the place. I can vouch that getting skim coat done to the highest quality “level 5” finish is insanely expensive.

 

[Mujib]

I've gotten different explanations for "level 5," some that it refers to the smoothness of the walls and some that it refers to how straight and clean everything is.

Are your walls completely smooth, no texture?

 

[Mujib]

My texture is like this:

I believe you'd call it a "knockdown" texture but with fairly heavy/thick application so the flat spots are large and the "holes" are fairly spread out.

Does make patching/hiding damage easy, but I find it pretty ugly (at least with my style home/decor...maybe it would work great in New Mexico).
My prior place was built 10 years later and had the exact same texture so I think it is just a thing here. All of the outside corners are rounded too.

Arched doorways too?

Looks like you got the right paint on there. Sherwin Williams matte is the best finish for heavily textured walls.

 

[otc]

Arched doorways too?

Looks like you got the right paint on there. Sherwin Williams matte is the best finish for heavily textured walls.

There’s one arch between the living room and a little hall but that’s it.

It is a sherwin Williams super paint but I’m not sure about the finish. It was poorly applied though. Probably just a single heavy coat Lots of spots where you can see the prior color in the texture, spots that didn’t quite make it, things that weren’t removed before painting, etc.

But it isn’t a bad white and I certainly prefer it to what was underneath. The prior owner is an acquaintance and while clearly it was treated as a temporary home for them while they built a dream home, they at least had some good taste.

 

[double00]

Arched doorways too?

Looks like you got the right paint on there. Sherwin Williams matte is the best finish for heavily textured walls.

we went with semi gloss in our heavily textured ( orange peel ) master bedroom , it was absolutely the right choice you get subtle highlights with the shadows .

***

backyard continues to roll along . so far the new trees include Austrian pine , crepe myrtle , California bay Laurel . ordering a bunch of arborvitae . shrubs include mugo pine , mahonia and a specimen ceanothus . picking and planting the evergreen stuff first as all-season anchors .

 

[mhip]

So I'm planning on buying property overseas in a few years, most likely Italy.
For gigs, I was looking at stuff for sale in Monaco.
There was a 7 square meter "maid's room" for sale.

250,000 euros

 

[venividivicibj]

Arched doorways too?

 

[nootje]

So I'm planning on buying property overseas in a few years, most likely Italy.
For gigs, I was looking at stuff for sale in Monaco.
There was a 7 square meter "maid's room" for sale.

250,000 euros

Consider Spain over Italy. Italian property can be a bureaucratic nightmare.