The Home Improvement Thread

Oswego · May 25, 2020

got my fence rigged up finally. used some of my decks rotten 2x6's to animal proof the rotted bottoms. started cleaning up the beds and trimmed my rose bush about 60%. Going to separate those grass's and transplant a bunch. it only spreads when you let it go a few years like I did

cleaning out my beds I couldn't pass up the seedlings from my neighbors massive white oak & the squirrels

They have great DNA. Tree's well over 60' tall and drops wheelbarrows full of acorns on my property every year - thus the squirrel population. Just need a decade+ to get to 15' tall and a lifetime to get real big lol

Oswego · May 25, 2020

and got rid of the rest of the rotted PT wood & some of the left over Taco gas

balakay · May 26, 2020

Got a bookshelf for the mancave finally to display all the old Popular Science magazines I got from my grandpa. Unfortunately not all years are complete (one box of them got bad water damage in his attic) but I kept every issue that was in good enough shape to display and not fall apart. I have 42 issues from May 1962 to May 1969.along with some Hot Rod magazines from 1952 and 1953, a couple of Popioar Mechanics from the late 70s, and my grandpa's old Boy Scout Handbook from when he was a kid. Lower shelf has some old textvook type books he had as well. Just some stuff I thought was cool. Ordered some cool bookends so I'll be able to get them all standing up but they wont be here until Thursday.

Oswego · May 26, 2020

Thats pretty bad ass. I'd like to take a peek at the general chemistry and boy scout books.

balakay · May 26, 2020

Oswego said:
Thats pretty bad ass. I'd like to take a peek at the general chemistry and boy scout books.

I'm hoping to get some time to look through the Boy Scout Handbook this week. I'll post up some of the stuff in there. It was printed in June 1946.

Taco Loco · May 26, 2020

Germania took a big hit from Hurricane Havey, dropped them last Fall when they increased my premiums by almost 15%,
Switched to USAA, and now less than a year later, Dropping USAA insurance, Home, Auto and USAA’s 3rd party RV insurance.

Texas Farm Bureau comes out $830 cheaper (Home insured along with 60K covered insurance for my other structures; 3 car garage, Gazebo and shop) per year and they will cover the RV as well under TXFB, even though TXFB also uses Progressive for certain situations.

balakay · May 26, 2020

Taco Loco said:
Germania took a big hit from Hurricane Havey, dropped them last Fall when they increased my premiums by almost 15%,
Switched to USAA, and now less than a year later, Dropping USAA insurance, Home, Auto and USAA’s 3rd party RV insurance.

Texas Farm Bureau comes out $830 cheaper (Home insured along with 60K covered insurance for my other structures; 3 car garage, Gazebo and shop) per year and they will cover the RV as well under TXFB, even though TXFB also uses Progressive for certain situations.

I use TFB and they're by far the cheapest out there for me. @tx_shooter had some problems with them I think in the past. My experience has been good so far but I havent really had to make any claims. Only issue I had was with the agency to was using being incompetent. I now use a different person at the same office.

CowboyTaco · May 26, 2020

I'm saving over $1k/annually by not being with USAA. AllState was the cheapest for comparable coverage.

Silverback · May 26, 2020

I've been with USAA since 1988. Not the cheapest but I have never been let down by them, home or auto.

Oswego · May 26, 2020

Still some good people in this world. Few weeks ago at my moms making a materials list I run into her neighbor. He's about my age w/wife and 2 kids. Grandma comes over and watches the kids in the day and my mom likes them all. Seem like good people. We get to talking and he asks if he thinks my mom would mind him taking down her fence and replacing it w/new vinyl. My mom and I talked it over and said NP so long as he pulled the permit (my way of protecting her in her crazy town).

I figured he was all talk like so many are these days....I was wrong. Fence got replaced today and mom is so happy she called me crying lol

Now to get her to allow me to replace the other 3/4 of it. Been trying to get her over to vinyl for years just to keep the animals out because her old fence is a patch job on a patch job on a patch job they just walk right through. Think my first "mending" of that POS was when I was a teen and now it's holding together with luck and there are more screws than wood. You can see a little of it in the first pic tw the right in the back. She got so worked up today over the new brighter yard and cleaner look - thinking it might be nice to just buy the other 3/4 for her and surprise her if I can get the permit pulled w/o her knowledge.

Taco Loco · May 26, 2020

Silverback said:
I've been with USAA since 1988. Not the cheapest but I have never been let down by them, home or auto.

USAA has been aggressively changing and they are no longer a competitive insurance company and just about all the services/products are too expensive and USAA is nothing like it was 10 years ago, customer orientated, member exclusive etc...

Taco Loco · May 26, 2020

Maybe if they didn’t sponsor the National Felony League their rates would be competitive again, just saying

Silverback · May 26, 2020

Had claims in the past few years and zero issues. Not complaining.

Taco Loco · May 26, 2020

Silverback said:
Had claims in the past few years and zero issues. Not complaining.

I don’t want to contribute anymore to those claims, ok? lol

Silverback · May 26, 2020

they were not my fault!

tx_shooter · May 26, 2020

TxFB kept screwing me around when I filed a claim for my sammich maker backing into a tree. They dragged their feet pretty damn hard. I had to get aggressive with them to get their adjuster to respond to the body shop. I ended up having to email one of the VPs to get the office staff to get the adjuster to do his job.

Taco Loco · May 26, 2020

tx_shooter said:
TxFB kept screwing me around when I filed a claim for my sammich maker backing into a tree. They dragged their feet pretty damn hard. I had to get aggressive with them to get their adjuster to respond to the body shop. I ended up having to email one of the VPs to get the office staff to get the adjuster to do his job.

Do you still have them?

tx_shooter · May 26, 2020

Taco Loco said:
Do you still have them?

No; I ended up going over to Geico. I already had my motorcycle with them. I need to get my house with them too. I used them when I was in the Marine Corps and they always did me right; even when I was a dumb deployed kid and forgot to setup my payments right.

Oswego · May 27, 2020

41 day progress pic from seeding to today. Ended up backfiring and the dark new grass makes old weeds and moss look that much worse. Should of just seeded the patch w/weeds. Cut it for the first time this weekend and tonight's the last watering Ill give it. If it makes it through summer w/o issues Ill seed much more of the yard this fall w/the same stuff.