Many homes come with one or, if you’re lucky, two exterior outlets. Depending on the shape and layout of your house, this may not be enough. You can pay someone to add exterior outlets but that could be pricey. Instead, here’s a simple way to add exterior outlets using components rated for outdoors.
Note that this plastic electrical box only has an opening on one side unlike others that have a open on the top and bottom. Since we don’t water to get in, we use this single hole box and install it such that the hole is at the bottom.
strip about 3 inches of the green outer jacket to expose the 3 wires (green, white, black) inside,
strip 1/2″ of the 3 wires and screw them into the appropriate terminals on the outlet.
screw the outlet into the electrical box
screw on the outlet cover
if you have an existing exterior outlet, you can simply plug the other end (male end) into that outlet. Otherwise, you can cut off the male end, drill a hole through the exterior wall where an interior outlet is and connect the wires to the interior outlet. WARNING: Turn off power to the interior outlet before doing this to avoid electrocution and a short circuit.
Secure the extension cord to the exterior of the building using the cable clamps. Or, bury the extension cord under dirt or rocks. Or, put the cord into a gray outdoor-rated PVC pipe and clamp the pipe using the gray plastic clamps.
Two exterior outlets in series
In this case, one of the electrical boxes will have two extension cords coming into it as shown in the picture below.
In this case, strip the wires again and connect them as usual. The outlet I’m using supports two wires for each black and white terminal so that was straightforward. The green (ground) terminal, however, only support one wire so I made a jumper wire, connected it to the green terminal, then connected the 3 open green wire ends to a 3-terminal Wago connector as shown below.
If you need to dig a hole to, say, plant a tree, there are a few different tools available to get the job done. Depending on the size and number of holes you need to make, here are some tools to consider.
SDS Plus Hammer
An SDS Plus rotary hammer uses an SDS Plus bit. It has 3 functions
drill
hammer drill
hammer
You can use the hammer function with an SDS spade bit to break up hard soil. I have the Bosch Bulldog xTreme which is a popular SDS Plus rotary hammer.
Next up would be a full on 1-1/8″ Hex Shank Jackhammer. This is normally used for breaking concrete. This is only a hammer. It cannot drill. For example
It comes with a 6 in. diameter x 31 in. long auger bit and offers 45 ft. lbs. of torque and fast drilling speeds up to 320 RPM.
There are different bit sizes as well as an bit extension available.
If you use an auger, or any digging method for that matter, it’s important to soak the ground with water first. You can create a small hole first and then fill it with water so the water will seep down to soften the ground you want to remove.
When using an auger, drill to your desired depth and then leave the auger in the ground until you remove the dirt that it brings to the surface. If you remove the auger right away, the dirt will fall into the hole you just made.
Also, for large holes, you’ll need to make multiple small holes. In the photo below, I made 4 holes in each corner and after making one hole, I’ll cover the hole with wood to prevent dirt from falling into them while drilling a new hole.
Once you’ve drilled 4 holes, you can use the auger or a jack hammer to break the remaining dirt and scoop it out using a shovel.
You can also rent this towable auger for $118 per day but I found it very heavy and difficult to use.
You can also rent a mini skid steer with auger attachment. They cost $300 per day from the Home Depot.
Excavator
You can also rent a mini excavator from the Home Depot for $300 per day.
Sometimes you might find a need to label your garbage cart, e.g. if you own a multi-family rental property and your tenants can’t remember which cart belongs to them. They may try to use their creative skills to label their carts themselves but the carts might come out like below which is illegible and makes the cart itself look like garbage.
You can try using a stencil and spray painting or hand painting the numbers on the cart but stencils are expensive and the results are usually not good either. Notice the blotchy edges below.
Use Google Docs to create a document with large address numbers on it. Print it on the vinyl decal sheets, ideally using a laser printer. Then, to reduce the possibility of the ink evaporating from the sun and increase waterproofness, spray a few coats of clear, glossy paint. Don’t spray thick coats at once since otherwise the clear paint will cause the ink to run. Just do multiple thin coats.
You can the just peel and stick the number on your garbage carts. In the picture below, my ink toner was low so the print results weren’t good. That went away after replacing the toner.
Drill a hole in one end of the 2×4 using a spade bit.
Insert the bolt into 2×4 and through the top hole on the farm jack and secure using a nut
Drill a hole near the bottom of the fence post using a 7/8″ spade bit and insert the threaded rod through the hole
How to Use
Tilt the farm jack and the 2×4 such that the post is in the middle. This is necessary as the post will try to pull the farm jack towards it. The 2×4 acts to prop the farm jack in place.
Put a piece of plywood under the farm jack to make a solid base so the farm jack doesn’t get pushed into the dirt
Insert one end of the chain through the hole near the bottom of the farm jack
Loop the other end of the chain around the fence post and around the threaded rod. Weaving the chain around the rod helps lock the chain in one place along the vertical length of the post.
Tie a knot using both ends of the chain
Crank the jack up until it lifts the fence post and concrete footing above the ground
Crank the lever up and down to raise the chain until the post come up out of the ground
Don’t secure the chain to the farm jack using a carabiner or other tool because those tools will just break.
Removing a wood fence post
Removing a steel fence post
Update 2024
You don’t need the 2×4. Instead, place a 4×4 piece of wood between the farm jack and the post you want to remove. Doing so will keep the jack straight and parallel to the post and prevent it from hitting the post. When placing the 4×4 wood, you may need to place it at an angle such that the end against the jack is lower than the end against the post. That way, when you crack the jack up, the wood will rotate and be pushed against the post.
Also, if the ground is soft like dirt or grass, screw the base of the jack into a 12″ x 12″ piece of wood that is 2″ or 3″ thick to prevent the jack from being pushed into the ground.
Global warming seems to be making California hotter and hotter every year and I’m in Silicon Valley where temperatures are usually moderate. Last year there was a hot streak which pushed me to the brink of buying an A/C unit but the simple, portable ones were sold out or overpriced. It’s a good thing I didn’t get one because it turns out the window units are way more efficient. So, I ended up getting this Danby 8000 BTU Window Air Conditioner (Model DAC080EB7WDB) from Costco (sale price: $159). It’s Energy Star® compliant and cools areas up to 350 sq. ft. The problem is I’m worried it’ll fall out my 2nd story window. After searching everywhere for a non-permanent A/C window support mounting bracket, I ended up going with this 2 arm, drill-less, heavy duty bracket by Alpine Hardware. The thing is, after assembling and installing it, I felt that it wasn’t as strong as I’d like it to be. It’s supposed to grab on to the window frame or wall by the left and right adjustable arms but when fully extended, the metal would bend a bit.
So, I just bought some heavy duty L brackets and screwed them into the studs and window sill and screwed in a 2×3 piece of wood for increased strength.
I then removed the left and right adjustable arms and installed the A/C mount like this.
Here’s how it looks from the outside.
Now this is super strong. Although I have permanent screwed-in L brackets and a 2×3 piece of wood (which I’ll paint to match the color of the window sill), I’m okay with that and I can still completely close the window.
Here’s a list of the minimum tools I think a DIYer would need. To keep costs low, I chose tools that had good reviews but were not necessarily brand name.
Power Tools
Since it’s cheaper to buy a bundle, I picked this bundle of 12 tools. Not all are essential like the brad nailer but since you can save $259 with this bundle, it doesn’t matter. Also, Ryobi has the most battery-powered tools which is a big plus.
The Husky organizer above is good but the latches can easily open on their own possibly causing everything to fall out. A better but much more expensive option would be to buy one or two of the Milwaukee organizers below.
We’ve all seen them. Weeds. Along your concrete driveway expansion joints. Many, if not most, people will just remove the weeds only for them to grow back as soon as it rains. So, why do weeds grow along these lines? Apparently just a little bit of dirt that makes its way into these gaps is enough to cause weeds to grow. I’ve had enough of these weeds growing every year so here’s my attempt to resolve this annoyance once and for all.
Remove Weeds
To remove weeds, you can use an oscillating tool, a small reciprocating saw, or even a utility knife or flathead screwdriver. Since I like doing things the quick and easy way, I use an angle grinder with a wire wheel.
To prevent kickback and potentially hurting yourself, stand perpendicular to the direction the wire wheel rotates.
If you need to enlarge some gaps or smoothen them out, you can use an angle grinder with a diamond blade.
Fill Gaps
Now, my driveway has gaps that are small (1/4″), medium (1/2″) and wide (3/4″ – 1″) in width and the depths range from 1/4″ to maybe 3″ deep. The small and shallow gaps are usually not a problem.
At first, I thought about filling some small gaps with Sakrete Concrete Crack Filler since the driveway is made of concrete.
Concrete Crack Filler
I tried this on a small gap and product was very easy to apply and it settles nicely producing a nice bead.
However, it turns out you shouldn’t do that because apparently those gaps – called expansion joints or control joints – are by design so filling these gaps with concrete defeats their purpose. Concrete Crack Filler is good, however, if you do have a thin, natural crack (not expansion joint) because it hardens just like concrete.
Concrete Filler and Sealant
For horizontal surfaces or slightly sloped surfaces like your driveway, use Sikaflex Self-Leveling Sealant.
Foam
Now, for some of the larger gaps, it would be too expensive and wasteful to fill them with sealant. For those, I decided to use a foam gap filler.
Apply Foam
This stuff really does expand and is pretty sticky when wet. It’s great for filling large gaps. Of course, you’ll need to trim the foam in order to apply sealant. This can be done with a utility knife, a mini reciprocating saw, or, better yet, an oscillating tool.
I cut away the foam a little bit below the surface of the concrete to allow for a layer of sealant.
Apply Sealant
At first I bought the 10 oz sealant but because I wanted to seal all joints, I got the 28 oz sealant (cheaper) and a 29 oz caulking gun. As you can see below, the sealant self levels resulting in a nice, smooth finish.
Had I gone with non self-leveling sealant like Sikaflex Construction Sealant
then the result would look like this:
You could try to smoothen it out using a taping knife by why bother. This type of sealant is better for vertical surfaces.
Now, if you don’t like the look of a gray joint, you can color your driveway with Rustoleum Epoxy or Behr Granite Grip and the entire driveway will be the same color.
Sand
You can also sprinkle sand on the sealant to prevent debris from sticking to it while it dries.
You’ve probably used wire nuts to splice electrical wires at home.
Though this works, the wires can become loose can cause a short circuit. Some electricians will wrap black electrical tape around the wire nuts but that’s messy and sticky.
You could use In-Sure wire connectors which claim to support both solid and stranded wires but removing wires can be very difficult.
A better solution is to use Wago LEVER-NUTS Splicing Connectors. These connectors support both stranded and solid wires at various gauges and they are simple to use. Just strip the wire, insert it, and clamp down on the lever. To remove wires, just open the clamps. Not sure why The Home Depot doesn’t carry these but they are available on Amazon.
And if you need a more permanent connection, these solder seal wire connectors are great. No crimping or soldering necessary. Just
Strip the wires
Insert them into the connector as shown below
Melt the solder and the transparent heat shrink with a heat gun
So, last week I renovated one of my rental properties. This included replacing an old kitchen from 1995 with a new one. Here’s an overview of the process.
1. Take a picture of and measure the old kitchen cabinets
I just drew the measurements in Photoshop. Note that the picture below is what the cabinets looked like in 2008. The remodel was done in 2021 and the cabinets were is much worse condition then.
2. Design and order new cabinets
Cabinet Prices
Cabinet prices can vary widely. Home Depot, for example, is expensive. HD Supply has cheap cabinets but they look cheap. IKEA’s cabinets are mid-priced but you have assemble them. Chinese stores have cheap cabinets that look expensive. They also come pre-assembled. But, you have to inspect each cabinet before installing them because their quality control isn’t very good.
Cabinet or Drawers
There are base cabinets that sit on the floor and wall cabinets that are on the wall. Wall cabinets are always just cabinets with a swing out door. They are more expensive if the door has a glass window in it. Base cabinets can be regular cabinets or have drawers. If they are just cabinets, then you’d have a hard time reaching for items in the back of them. If they are drawers, then you can just slide out the drawers to access anything in them. Since drawers require more material and come with sliding mechanisms, they are more expensive then drawers.
Types of Cabinets
2D / 3D Design
I ended up just buying the cabinets from a Chinese store (warehouse) called Uni Tile & Marble.
I ended up choosing solid gray color cabinets. This is because the house is a rental house and tenants somehow ruin the surface of the cabinets, I can later just easily repaint the cabinets. This is what the cabinets look like in the showroom.
Countertops
For the countertop, the one on display was off white with a random gray design.
It contrasted well with the gray cabinets and looked exotic but it was also more expensive than other countertops on offer. I decided to go with a cheaper countertop ($300 per 8 foot slab) but my tenant offered to pay the difference for the more expensive countertop so I ended up getting the more expensive one.
Quarts countertops are super heavy and require special handling and are not easy to cut. I ended up paying the store to transport and install the countertops. If you’re looking for a cheaper DIY option, you can just buy cheap laminate countertops at the Home Depot and use a simple jigsaw to cut out the sink hole.
Sinks
For the sink, I prefer the large single basin type. Even though they’re available at Chinese stores, Chinese stores then to have outdated return policies with unreasonable restocking fees (25%) so for these types of items, I buy them at the Home Depot or Lowes.
Faucet
For the faucet, I definitely prefer the type in the picture below. It makes it easier to spray and clean the entire sink or whatever else you are washing / cleaning.
3. Pick Up New Cabinets
I could have had the cabinets delivered for a ridiculous $200 fee but since I need to dispose of the old cabinets, I decided to rent a 10′ U-Haul box truck to both pick up the new cabinets and transport the old cabinets to the dump.
A 10′ box truck was big enough to lay all cabinets on the truck bed.
The house were the cabinets will be installed.
4. Demolish Old Cabinets
The old cabinets were original to the house from 1995. They were definitely low quality cabinets. They were just screwed into the wall. Some sections were large so I used a Milwaukee Monster sawzall to cut cabinets in half.
5. Dispose of Old Cabinets
Since we had the truck for 24 hours, we loaded the old cabinets and other construction debris in it
and took it to the dump where I paid $138 to dump it all.
6. Prepare Wall
After removing the kitchen cabinets, the walls needed to be patched up and painted.
First, we enlarged some of the holes in the wall by cutting with an oscillating tool. The holes were shaped like rectangles where vertical edges would be along the center of studs. This would allow us to screw drywall nails through them into the studs. Cutting drywall was easy using a small, cordless reciprocating saw.
We then patched crevices with spackling paste.
After waiting for the spackling paste to dry, I then used an orbital sander to smoothen the wall surface.
I then sprayed wall texture to try to match the texture of the existing wall. This didn’t work well as the material was often clogging up. Next time, just use an air compressor with an actual texture sprayer gun.
I then painted the ceiling Swiss Coffee.
And painted the walls Roman Plaster.
I then touched up the corners where the two colors met. Semigloss paint was used to make cleaning easier.
7. Mark Walls
After the paint dried, we marked where all the studs in the wall were using a stud finder and then marked level (horizontal) and plumb (vertical) points using a laser level.
Then, we connected the points and drew outlines for where the cabinets would go. Note that the distance between the countertop to the bottom of the wall cabinets should be 18 inches.
8. Install Cabinets
We then installed the wall cabinets first. To facilitate this, we screwed a 2×4 to the wall so we could sit the cabinets on it while we screw the cabinets into the wall. If a cabinet didn’t span 2 studs, we’d use drywall anchors.
If walls or floor are not level or flat, use shims.
9. Install Cabinet Handles
To facilitate installing the cabinet handles perfectly, we bought a plastic template / jig. It did not work for drawers, though, so for drawers, we made our own jig.
10. Install Microwave
Since the microwave goes above the range, we installed that next. This required cutting holes in the cabinet above it for bolts and the vent.
11. Install Plywood on Base Cabinets
We then cut plywood and screwed it to the base cabinets.
12. Install Sink
We then cut a hole in the plywood for the sink using a mini circular saw for the straight sides and a jig saw for the corners. Then we installed the faucet, soap dispenser, dishwasher air gap, and garbage disposer to the sink and then installed the sink. This was done before installing the countertop because the countertop would not be ready for another 2 weeks.
I just got a top mount sink that includes the faucet holes rather than an undermount sink. This simplified installation.
13. Install Crown Molding
We then installed the crown molding. This was very tricky for a couple of reasons.
depending on the shape of the top of your wall cabinets and the shape of your crown molding, there may not be enough surface area to shoot finish nails into or there may not be enough clearance to shoot nails from above
cutting miter angles can be tricky and holding the crown molding down on the miter saw the same way isn’t easy.
Cutting the crown molding
Fortunately for this project, we only needed 45 degree cuts. But, we messed up a few times at first and wasted some expensive molding. Here are some tips to cut crown molding easily and correctly each time.
Label the surface of the miter saw “TOP” to remind yourself that the top of the crown molding should be facing down and the bottom of the molding flat against the fence.
Find a way to secure 2 pieces of wood to the sides of the miter saw.
Place your crown molding against the fence and then screw a piece of plywood or wood board to the two pieces of wood on each side of the miter saw. This allow you to put the crown molding on the saw at the same angle every time ensuring perfect cuts.
Installing the crown molding
For our particular case, we decided to secure the crown molding to thin plywood using small screws. We then lifted it and let it sit on top of the wall cabinets – no further screwing or nailing necessary.
14. Install Baseboard and Trim Molding
We then cut the baseboard and trim molding to length and shot them into the cabinets using a finish nailer powered by an air compressor. The baseboard and molding were necessary to hide gaps between the cabinets and the floor and walls.
15. Install The Countertop
For the countertops, I decided to go with quartz instead of marble. Since it’s very heavy and tricky to cut and to smoothen the edges, I decided to just pay someone to install the countertops.
First, one of the 8 foot slabs was cut to go on each side of the range. I believe this was done using a diamond blade.
A thin strip of the excess material was cut to make a finished end. The strip was secured using a special epoxy glue.
The strip was then clamped down and the epoxy left to cure for a while.
The installer intentionally cut the slab and the thin strip to be longer than the final length so that after the strip was secured he could cut and trim the end where you see all the glue oozing out.
This resulted in a very clean joint. He then smoothened the end.
This is how the joint ended up looking (with some dust that would eventually be wiped off).
For the sink side, a hole was cut out.
To create rounded corners, the installer cut a bunch of lines at each corner.
And then using a flathead screwdriver, broke off the thin pieces.
And then used an angle grinder to grind away rough edges to create a smooth rounded corner.
They then glued the quartz countertop to the plywood.
And this is the end result.
Note that we also
replaced the flourescent tube light box with flat LED lights
painted the walls BEHR Roman Plaster (semigloss)
replaced the old style kitchen outlets and switches with new Decora ones including adding a dimmer for the very bright LED lights
replaced the linoleum sheet / vinyl tile flooring with LifeProof Dusk Cherry luxury vinyl planks.
Tools
This project was big enough that I ended up bringing most of my tools to the worksite.
