WNY Handyman

If you have done drywall work you probably understand how difficult certain areas are to reach.  Without a drywall lift (Red Line Professional 11-Foot Drywall Lift Panel Hoist Jack) the job can be difficult and dangerous.

I had a ceiling job to do so that we can move forward with other projects in this room and we didn’t want to wait on the pros to do this section. I decided to fashion a lift to make the job safe and easy.  The lift that I built was pretty straightforward and turned out to do a little more than I expected.  At first this was going to be a 2 person job. When my co-worker didn’t arrive, I decided to give the 14′ ceiling a go on my own.  Just prior to doing so, I taped my phone to a nearby ladder and turned the video on. I figured that this was going to go well, or terribly bad.  Either way, I wanted to be sure that I captured it.

I modeled the lift using Google Sketchup. Sketchup is a terrific (and free) 3d design program. It is remarkably easy to use if you have any CAD experience.  Here is a link to my Sketchup file.
DIY Drywall Lift

The material used was nothing more than 7 2×4′s and 3 hinges. I screwed the 2x’s together with 3″ drywall screws and fastened the hinges to a cleat that I then screwed to the wall (the cleat is the 7th 2×4 if you were wondering). By screwing the hinges to the cleat while on the ground it allowed me to position the entire lift at the correct height. I was then able to screw the cleat off at a few points without having to hold the whole rig up.

DIY Drywall Lift Plans

Once the piece closest to the wall was fastened to the ceiling (lift up to the 2×4 @ 48″ and swing up), I was then able to place the next piece a cleat at the base of the lift and lift/fasten. I was nervous about doing this solo since I hadn’t tested the strength of my setup. The sheets of drywall were 95 pounds each so a crash wouldn’t be without some damage below (me).

Video to follow.

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Administrator How To's diy, drywall, lift, plan

A $3 tube of adhesive caulk along with a few screws and a little elbow grease was all that was needed to repair my garage door support bracket.

Wayne Dalton garage door bracket

I have a Wayne Dalton garage door and the bracket ripped from the door yesterday morning.  Kind of surprising since the door bracket was hanging from a single screw.  I thought that I was going to be in for a hard to find part and a difficult repair.

Here is a view of the bracket. You can’t necessarily tell, but the bracket (also known as an Operator Reinforcement Bracket) has a crack just below the black bracket piece.  It was bending and that point and probably would have cracked completely with one more operation of the garage door.

I haven’t ever experienced this issue, so I did a bit of research. Immediately, I was able to come up with a replacement bracket for Wayne Dalton door for about $20.  However, that was mail order and I needed my garage door today. I figured I would give Lowe’s a shot to see if they carried a universal bracket.  They did not, however, the gentleman in the building materials department had an idea.

Flip it upside down and reattach!

Funny, but the simplest solution often passes us by when we are in the midst of a project or repair.  He was right. The only part of the bracket that saw any strain, was where the bracket attached to the garage door motor arm.  I simply created a paper template and copied the screw hole pattern on the opposite end. It was a mirror image.

To attach the bracket, I used the existing screws (4) plus the screws where the black arm bracket attaches.  The original installation utilized 2 beads of adhesive to attach. I went a bit overboard in this department and used adhesive wherever  I had surface contact. In addition to that I added screws wherever possible (why not over do it here?). After all, this door only has a 1/16″ aluminum skin along with a lightweight foam core.  There isn’t much holding power for a fastener.

Flip and Re-attach Garage Door Bracket

$3 later (I had the 1/2″ screws laying around the shop) and I have a secure door bracket once again.  Simple solution.

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Administrator How To's bracket, dalton, door, garage, opener, repair, support, wayne

When I am browsing real estate online it gets a little frustrating when the pictures are nothing but a dark room with some shapes that I can make out. We have all seen them and it usually happens when you are taking the picture while pointing at a window. I am not a photographer, so I can’t tell you how to avoid that, but I can tell you how to fix the image before you post it online.

Realtors often post pictures where nothing is clear. I would argue that they would be better off by not posting the photo rather than posting the dark depressing looking version.

Realtors, listen up… There is a simple fix and it is free. Just about any photo management and/or editing program has these simple fixes in the program. I use a free product from Google named Picasa. You simply import the picture into Picasa and double click the thumbnail of the photo. This will open up a window with a menu on the left where the first tab is “Basic Fixes”. Be sure you are on that tab. The bottom option on that menu is titled “Fill Light”. It is a simple slider. Drag it to the right and you will be amazed that it appears that you are turning on the lights. You won’t believe how well this works with virtually any photo.

When fixing a picture in this way, I like to show people the extreme difference. Take a look at the before picture below.
BEFORE

AFTER

This is the exact same file with nothing done except for the simple “Fill Light” adjustment. When you are done, “Export” your revised file for upload.

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Administrator How To's

If you aren’t an expert in stair building, you will probably find the math a bit of a challenge. part of the difficult part can be calculating the angle on the stair stringer where it meets the lower landing and the upper landing. There are some great tools out there to make the task of calculating a stair stringer or calculating the rise and run of stairs, but this calculator gives a great visual and even provides a cutting diagram for your stair stringer.

Take a look at this great tool.

stair calculator

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Administrator How To's, Interior Projects

This is not a project that I have had to do before. Thank goodness. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. Granted, I was only removing a wallpaper border, but the technique would be the same. I approached this project with steamer in hand. I assumed that it would be as difficult as seen on TV, but I hoped otherwise.

The border was a recent addition to an apartment that I had for rent. (Side note: don’t let your tenants put up borders or paint!) The new tenant asked for the border to be removed and I agreed to do the job. I am a fan of the show “Sell this House” with Roger Hazard. Roger recommended using fabric softener for the job instead of an expensive wallpaper removal solution. In fact, the fabric softener might actually work better.

Here are the steps that I needed to take. Hopefully they will work for you as well.

1. The paper that was up was a product with a vinyl face (many are). Because of this, I needed to get through the vinyl surface. I used a paper tiger to perforate the surface.
2. After the perforations were in place, I mixed 3 parts water with 1 part fabric softener. You can apply this solution to the border with a cloth or a sponge.
3. After a couple of minutes, I was able to peel the surface of the paper off (the vinyl part). At this point, it looked like the job would be difficult since the paper was still on the wall.
4. I then applied the fabric softener/water solution to the paper that remained on the wall. After a couple of minutes I started peeling with a putty knife and the paper came right off. There were a couple of areas that required a little more effort with the putty knife, but nothing too difficult. The key was simply making sure that the paper was saturated with my solution.

I had things easy since I was only removing a wallpaper border. If you are removing paper from an entire room, I would purchase a large paper tiger and use a sprayer or a paint roller to apply the fabric softener solution.

Good luck with your wallpaper stripping job. I hope that this saves someone a little time, trouble, and money.

Another how-to article on removing wallpaper

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Administrator How To's

Have you ever wanted a false ceiling beam, or a coffered ceiling? If so, here is a nice tutorial that covers the steps needed and provides you with a simple method for building a false beam.

Installing False Beams

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Administrator How To's, Interior Projects