WNY Handyman

Auction currently at $170. Ends at 7:30PM

I occasionally view listings at a local auction site (auctionsinternational.com) and came across an auction from CIL Asset Recovery. The location is nearby (Hamburg), so I decided to have a look at the items.

Turns out there is some great stuff including a Sjoberg workbench.  If you are a woodworker, you have probably seen the high end workbenches from Sjoberg, wanted one, and then looked at the price tag and walked away. They are pricey. A relatively simple looking bench can run over $1,000. However, they are precision pieces and are priced accordingly. The vise isn’t going to be out of alignment in a month like the $50 special that you might be using.

Sjobergs workbench auction

Click on the image to view the auction.  Hurry, this ends tonight at 7pm.

Here is the exact same bench at Amazon.com for $545. Even at $545, it is a good price, but for less than $200??!!

Do you have a very small bathroom and want to make efficient use of the space?  I do.

I have a bath that is 6′ x 5′.  Obviously, this is a very small space for a 3 fixture bathroom.  However, there are some great options to squeeze all of your fixtures into this space.   One of the issues that compounds my problem is the 32″ door that swings into the bathroom space (see image below).

Bathroom door swinging in

The current layout has worked for 60+ years, but the shower was on its last legs and needed to go.  The current shower was essentially a 30″ x 30″ tin can.  It was very likely a shower from an old ship or submarine.  At 30″ square, it isn’t too accommodating to most normal sized adults.  There is a lot of clanking from flying elbows when an average size person washes their hair.  The room was too small to get a good photo of the old shower, but I did include a shot of the shower with 2 sides ripped off.  As you can see by the condition, it was clearly time for this fixture to be sent to the scrap heap.   Read more…

A number of people ask what the best method to use to track expenses during  a flip.  There are many methods, some good, some bad, and some downright ugly.

The following lists a few methods with the most complex at the top.

1. Quickbooks
   Utilize Quickbooks, categorize every expenditure, create sales accounts, link credit card and bank account for spending. Provide your Quickbooks file to your accountant at tax time.
   Relative Degree of Difficulty: 10
   Cost: 6
   There is a learning curve to Quickbooks and if you want to do things properly, there will be a number of hours put in for the initial company, vendor, account, and category setups.  I peg the cost at a 6 out of 10 due to the cost of the software.  Done properly, your accountant will thank you.
2. Hire a book keeper/accountant to do the work for you. 
   Schedule a regular meeting time during the renovation. At that time you can have receipts recorded properly by your bookkeeper while keeping your work on the project.
   Relative Degree of Difficulty: 1
   Cost: 9
   The level of difficulty on your end is minimal. Keep every receipt, provide it to your bookkeeper during your scheduled meetings, and provide fast answers when questions should arise.  You will certainly be paying a decent buck for this service, but you will probably sleep better at night knowing that you are prepared and up to date. Read more…

My wife and I had a wonderful trip planned on our 15th anniversary.  We were going to head to IKEA and purchase materials (cabinets, countertop, portable island) for our cottage kitchen.  Since the closest IKEA is a few hours away, I called ahead to be sure the items were available. Boy, am I glad that I did.  As it happens, weather and tight inventory management by IKEA, resulted in ZERO stock for the 3 primary items that we were after.

Because of this, I decided that I should build the cabinets from scratch.  After all, I am a handyman with a leaning toward finish carpentry.  I have assembled enough RTA Kitchen Cabinets to have a better understanding about the various construction techniques than most.

The cabinets that we needed weren’t going to be installed in a traditional way. I am going to use wall cabinets as a base cabinet and customize a platform to bring the counter up to the standard 36″ height.  A 30″ wall cabinet combined with a 4″ base and a 1 1/2″ countertop would get us close to our desired height.

Since the IKEA cabinets are out of stock, I decided to build the base cabinets as a traditional base cabinet would be built and simply make the depth at 12″ instead of the traditional 24″ depth of a base cabinet.  To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to making the factory built upper cabinets look proper as base cabinets. Building from scratch gives me the opportunity to play with the toe kick set back depth and my counter overhang so that the shallow cabinet doesn’t look like it wants to tip forward.

The reason we are using the shallow cabinets as the base is due to the fact that our cottage kitchen is only 6 feet across! (see picture)

Cottage Kitchen - Before

About 20 years ago, when a member of a handyman book club, I purchased a book that detailed the construction of your own cabinets.  Looks like I will be breaking out the book and finding some time this winter to build the cabinets.

I’ll post the after (or during) pictures when the time comes.

If you are looking to build your own cabinets, you might consider the following book (PS: We get a small commission from Amazon.com if you purchase the book)

For the fans of “Storage Wars” or “Auction Hunters” I bring you some information regarding some storage unit auctions in the Buffalo NY area.  Enjoy. Happy bidding!

Auction Hunters - Buffalo

Storage Units - Live Public Auction - Private Property
Nov 16, 2011  Wednesday 10:00 AM Bidder Registration Start at 9:30 AM	Please call 1-800-536-1401 x 110 for more information and questions about the auction.
	Sale held at: Colonial Mini Storage Click for directions  45 Gardenville Parkway, West Seneca, NY 14224
	DETAILS: Fleming – Unit # 391; Garbe – Unit # 227; Riverid – Unit # 435; Marinelli – Unit # 63; Willard – Unit # 385; Grant – Unit # 249; Walker – Unit # 17

Storage Units - Live Public Auction - Private Property
Nov 16, 2011  Wednesday 1:00 PM Bidder Registration Start at 12:30 PM	Please call 1-800-536-1401 x 110 for more information and questions about the auction.
	Sale held at: Lincoln Self Storage Click for directions  115 Great Arrow Ave, Buffalo, NY 14216
	DETAILS: Parks – Unit # E145; Lother – Unit # A105; Boger – H102; Ahman – Unit # D228

Lake Erie Cottage

We are about two weeks away from closing up our cottage for the season.  This is our first year with the place and the closing / opening experience should be an interesting one. Fortunately, we are about 1 hour away from the property, so an emergency trip is not a big deal.

When searching on closing/winterizing advice, I came across a couple of terrific resources and felt the need to share.  The first is from WikiHow.com and covers many aspects of a seasonal cottage and also discusses how to address a situation based on a cottage with the heat remaining on and the heat being turned off.

• WikiHow – Winterize a vacant home

Our cottage has been seasonally occupied by the same family for more than 20 years.  Needless to say, they have the winterizing process down pat.  The prior owner was kind enough to provide us with about 4 pages of notes that discuss every aspect of the closing.  In addition to that, I had him walk me through each process and videotaped the whole thing as a reference.  There is something to be said for a visual cue.  Our cottage has well water, so some of the aspects of dealing with the well pump were very specific to our system.

The next resource that I found incredibly useful is actually an iPad application from “Cottage Life” magazine.  This is the Cottage Life Q&A app.  The application isn’t just about winterizing.  It covers hundreds of questions relating to a cottage. The questions are broken into categories and should provide any new cottage owner with a nice resource to call on.

• Cottage Life Q&A iPad application

If you are winterizing your own seasonal property we would love it if you could share some of your own tips in the comment section below.