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Home stuff 🏡 Home improvements

MD Planner said:
90S Help GIF
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RTFM is never bad advice.
 
estromberg said:
RTFM is never bad advice.
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I was flipping through the manual to the oven (this one has a ton more features than what we had before: convection settings, built-in air fryer, in-oven broiler instead of way down at the bottom, etc.) so I was mainly interested to read up on those but the manual also gives tips on which rack to use for just about everything you could want to bake or roast and what types of baking sheets they recommend. I'm going to use this as an excuse to make a couple batches of cookies this weekend using shiny sheets instead of the dark ones I normally use and also try to cook multiple sheets at the same time with the convection setting and see how everything turns out. I made cookies a couple weeks ago for the first day of school so hopefully those are fresh enough in everybody's memories to serve as the control group.:einstein::rick:
 
Built a little pine corner cabinet to hide our flat screen. It's supposed to look a little more built in but the bottom of the face frame above the kick is a little too tall for that. I'm just going to live with it for now:

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WSU MUP Student said:
I was flipping through the manual to the oven (this one has a ton more features than what we had before: convection settings, built-in air fryer, in-oven broiler instead of way down at the bottom, etc.) so I was mainly interested to read up on those but the manual also gives tips on which rack to use for just about everything you could want to bake or roast and what types of baking sheets they recommend. I'm going to use this as an excuse to make a couple batches of cookies this weekend using shiny sheets instead of the dark ones I normally use and also try to cook multiple sheets at the same time with the convection setting and see how everything turns out. I made cookies a couple weeks ago for the first day of school so hopefully those are fresh enough in everybody's memories to serve as the control group.:einstein::rick:
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Austin Powers Nerd GIF
 
So one of the things I did while we were remodeling our kitchen was to set up a digital calendar by the door. It is a 32" TV connected to a raspberry pi. It loops a shared photo album for a background, the calendar is a shared calendar, and then it has some other widgets that display weather, our thermostat settings, etc. I used a website called Dakboard to set it as a concept and planned to build a more custom one using MagicMirror. After about a year, Dakboard is working well enough that I will likely just stick with it. It costs me $30 a year for the web hosting. It is one of my wife's favorite parts of the new kitchen and it is SUPER useful.

We both use iPhones, so the shared photo album is hosted in iCloud and we can both tag pictures into it, the shared calendar is also an iCloud calendar, so we can both put events into it. Our kids are 8 & 10 and we are constantly running here and there for practices and school stuff.

This photo is from when it was originally set up. I have fixed all the holes in the wall and painted the walls 3 times (2 color changes). I still need to put an outlet in the wall behind it. The house's central vac unit is in the garage behind this wall and it really needs a better location for its outlet as well, so I will run a new circuit for the vacuum and put an outlet on both sides of the wall and additionally put a vac port in the wall closer to the floor, since the wall we removed as part of the kitchen remodel had the vac port in it, so we don't have central vac on the main floor. The priority for this just got moved up as our Shark vacuum just died.

All in all, this was a great project that was pretty easy to do and since I already had an unused rpi, I have about $100 into it for the tv and wall mount.

Dakboard: https://dakboard.com/site
Magic Mirror: https://magicmirror.builders/

dakboard3.jpg
 
estromberg said:
So one of the things I did while we were remodeling our kitchen was to set up a digital calendar by the door. It is a 32" TV connected to a raspberry pi. It loops a shared photo album for a background, the calendar is a shared calendar, and then it has some other widgets that display weather, our thermostat settings, etc. I used a website called Dakboard to set it as a concept and planned to build a more custom one using MagicMirror. After about a year, Dakboard is working well enough that I will likely just stick with it. It costs me $30 a year for the web hosting. It is one of my wife's favorite parts of the new kitchen and it is SUPER useful.

We both use iPhones, so the shared photo album is hosted in iCloud and we can both tag pictures into it, the shared calendar is also an iCloud calendar, so we can both put events into it. Our kids are 8 & 10 and we are constantly running here and there for practices and school stuff.

This photo is from when it was originally set up. I have fixed all the holes in the wall and painted the walls 3 times (2 color changes). I still need to put an outlet in the wall behind it. The house's central vac unit is in the garage behind this wall and it really needs a better location for its outlet as well, so I will run a new circuit for the vacuum and put an outlet on both sides of the wall and additionally put a vac port in the wall closer to the floor, since the wall we removed as part of the kitchen remodel had the vac port in it, so we don't have central vac on the main floor. The priority for this just got moved up as our Shark vacuum just died.

All in all, this was a great project that was pretty easy to do and since I already had an unused rpi, I have about $100 into it for the tv and wall mount.

Dakboard: https://dakboard.com/site
Magic Mirror: https://magicmirror.builders/

View attachment 60849
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That is pretty awesome! If I were more handy... and more tech savvy... and actually used a calendar I'd totally put something like that up in our house.

We keep our (paper) calendar on a wall in our kitchen and if I were so inclined, I'd add some sort of widget/app into the electronic calendar that would also show recipes that we've saved to it. Ours would be in a perfect spot for that.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
That is pretty awesome! If I were more handy... and more tech savvy... and actually used a calendar I'd totally put something like that up in our house.

We keep our (paper) calendar on a wall in our kitchen and if I were so inclined, I'd add some sort of widget/app into the electronic calendar that would also show recipes that we've saved to it. Ours would be in a perfect spot for that.
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There is a magic mirror forum that details peoples builds. Some really well done set ups. Incorporating touch and all kinds of stuff, the MagicMirror package is WAY more customizable, but requires some coding.

 
estromberg said:
So one of the things I did while we were remodeling our kitchen was to set up a digital calendar by the door. It is a 32" TV connected to a raspberry pi. It loops a shared photo album for a background, the calendar is a shared calendar, and then it has some other widgets that display weather, our thermostat settings, etc. I used a website called Dakboard to set it as a concept and planned to build a more custom one using MagicMirror. After about a year, Dakboard is working well enough that I will likely just stick with it. It costs me $30 a year for the web hosting. It is one of my wife's favorite parts of the new kitchen and it is SUPER useful.

We both use iPhones, so the shared photo album is hosted in iCloud and we can both tag pictures into it, the shared calendar is also an iCloud calendar, so we can both put events into it. Our kids are 8 & 10 and we are constantly running here and there for practices and school stuff.

This photo is from when it was originally set up. I have fixed all the holes in the wall and painted the walls 3 times (2 color changes). I still need to put an outlet in the wall behind it. The house's central vac unit is in the garage behind this wall and it really needs a better location for its outlet as well, so I will run a new circuit for the vacuum and put an outlet on both sides of the wall and additionally put a vac port in the wall closer to the floor, since the wall we removed as part of the kitchen remodel had the vac port in it, so we don't have central vac on the main floor. The priority for this just got moved up as our Shark vacuum just died.

All in all, this was a great project that was pretty easy to do and since I already had an unused rpi, I have about $100 into it for the tv and wall mount.

Dakboard: https://dakboard.com/site
Magic Mirror: https://magicmirror.builders/

View attachment 60849
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Neat project. I wish I would have bought a few Raspberry Pis when you could have gotten them.
 
estromberg said:
Yeah, that's why I used an older one I had laying around. However, they are available again and the prices have come back down. They were nuts for a while there due to the chip shortages.

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I hadn't looked lately. I was looking for one 6 months ago to do some temperature monitoring in my house and the 1GB pis were in excess of $100 if you could find one. I ended up using a thin client.
 
estromberg said:
So one of the things I did while we were remodeling our kitchen was to set up a digital calendar by the door. It is a 32" TV connected to a raspberry pi. It loops a shared photo album for a background, the calendar is a shared calendar, and then it has some other widgets that display weather, our thermostat settings, etc. I used a website called Dakboard to set it as a concept and planned to build a more custom one using MagicMirror. After about a year, Dakboard is working well enough that I will likely just stick with it. It costs me $30 a year for the web hosting. It is one of my wife's favorite parts of the new kitchen and it is SUPER useful.

We both use iPhones, so the shared photo album is hosted in iCloud and we can both tag pictures into it, the shared calendar is also an iCloud calendar, so we can both put events into it. Our kids are 8 & 10 and we are constantly running here and there for practices and school stuff.

This photo is from when it was originally set up. I have fixed all the holes in the wall and painted the walls 3 times (2 color changes). I still need to put an outlet in the wall behind it. The house's central vac unit is in the garage behind this wall and it really needs a better location for its outlet as well, so I will run a new circuit for the vacuum and put an outlet on both sides of the wall and additionally put a vac port in the wall closer to the floor, since the wall we removed as part of the kitchen remodel had the vac port in it, so we don't have central vac on the main floor. The priority for this just got moved up as our Shark vacuum just died.

All in all, this was a great project that was pretty easy to do and since I already had an unused rpi, I have about $100 into it for the tv and wall mount.

Dakboard: https://dakboard.com/site
Magic Mirror: https://magicmirror.builders/

View attachment 60849
Click to expand...
We've been talking about purchasing something similar from amazon, but it has lots of limitations. I'd love to do something custom, but I'd probably never finish it.
 
I just picture my wife getting confused by stuff like she does with the sprinkler. She keeps messing with it then telling me it's not working. I have once again fixed the sprinkler timer that she turned off.
 
We had a power interruption at the house Friday. The range didn't reset when the power came back on- flashing time and such. So I called customer service and after an hour on the phone we got it working. You see, sometimes the appliances don't sync up with the mother ship, and if you try to reconnect them it just doesn't quite work...unless you install it as a dishwasher.

No really, that did it. It simply couldn't sync up with the appliance cloud network until we installed it as if it were a dishwasher. Then it connected fine and it showed up as the range it is.

Not a bug, a feature I guess.

Oh, and the guy on the tech line sounded Mexican. Like he sounded like he was wearing a sombrero while he was talking to me.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
I was flipping through the manual to the oven (this one has a ton more features than what we had before: convection settings, built-in air fryer, in-oven broiler instead of way down at the bottom, etc.) so I was mainly interested to read up on those but the manual also gives tips on which rack to use for just about everything you could want to bake or roast and what types of baking sheets they recommend. I'm going to use this as an excuse to make a couple batches of cookies this weekend using shiny sheets instead of the dark ones I normally use and also try to cook multiple sheets at the same time with the convection setting and see how everything turns out. I made cookies a couple weeks ago for the first day of school so hopefully those are fresh enough in everybody's memories to serve as the control group.:einstein::rick:
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mendelman said:
Austin Powers Nerd GIF
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I'm happy to report back that after a few batches of cookies last week and this weekend, my wife and daughters and I could find no discernable difference in the cookies made on shiny baking sheets vs the ones made on the dark sheets. However, we all agree that using the convection setting on the oven is definitely the way to go when baking cookies as they were much chewier and more evenly cooked without getting over done on the bottoms. I also liked the added bonus of being able to put multiple baking sheets in at once while using convection.

The silence of the new dishwasher continues to amaze me as well.

It is remarkable how much nicer these appliances are compared to the ones we replaced which were probably from the first half of the Clinton administration!
 
WSU MUP Student said:
I'm happy to report back that after a few batches of cookies last week and this weekend, my wife and daughters and I could find no discernable difference in the cookies made on shiny baking sheets vs the ones made on the dark sheets. However, we all agree that using the convection setting on the oven is definitely the way to go when baking cookies as they were much chewier and more evenly cooked without getting over done on the bottoms. I also liked the added bonus of being able to put multiple baking sheets in at once while using convection.

The silence of the new dishwasher continues to amaze me as well.

It is remarkable how much nicer these appliances are compared to the ones we replaced which were probably from the first half of the Clinton administration!
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Bill And Ted 80S GIF by IFC
 
My wife wants to update the upstairs guest bathroom. The problem we're having: around here, there's very few contractors that do kitchen and bathroom updates. Because there's little competition, prices are higher than what we'd pay for the same kind of work elsewhere. We got a five digit estimate from the Jacuzzi retrofit rep. Right about now, my wife should be showing the bathroom to a contractor from The County Next Door.

It's weird: our county has more than twice the population as the County Next Door, and a median home price that's two times greater. However, the County Next Door has, like, twice or three times the number of kitchen/bath/remodeling contractors as our county. Remodeling a bathroom is a step beyond my skill set, so forget about DIY.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
The silence of the new dishwasher continues to amaze me as well.
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That amazed me as well when we got ours sometime back. I couldn't hear it over the ambient noise in my house, which is a good thing. I would have to look at the lights to see that it was running. The noise and the myth that they use a large amount of water was what kept my wife from using ours on a regular basis. I tried to convince her that it used less water than hand washing; so while I was installing it, I ran it with the drain going to a five gallon bucket. It used 4.5 gallons as advertised; so now she uses it all the time.
 
We just got our first "real" (not mini) washer and dryer as well as a dishwasher from different people on FB marketplace and were celebrating the other night as the first load of clothes washed. Realizing you're turning into a couple of fuds is no fun, but seems counterbalanced by the slight glimmer of hope for a future at a 19th-century standard of living. (gif of saucy river lady with washboard/sirens turned Pete into a toad goes here)
 
Big Owl said:
That amazed me as well when we got ours sometime back. I couldn't hear it over the ambient noise in my house, which is a good thing. I would have to look at the lights to see that it was running. The noise and the myth that they use a large amount of water was what kept my wife from using ours on a regular basis. I tried to convince her that it used less water than hand washing; so while I was installing it, I ran it with the drain going to a five gallon bucket. It used 4.5 gallons as advertised; so now she uses it all the time.
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My current dishwasher is 2004 model, but somehow looks older. Some cycles sound like a waterfall and some sound like a carwash. none of them are what you would call quiet.
 
We bought new appliances as part of our kitchen remodel. All LG stuff from Home Depot. We've been happy with it. I like the dishwasher, except for one thing. I press the buttons with my ass all the time. I wish they were capacitive touch so only fingers could activate them. We use the delay feature so the dishwasher runs at 3 in the morning. We hear nothing, but it's pretty quiet anyway. We have real time pricing for electricity (I have saved about 20% over fixed cost) and electricity in the middle of the night is almost free. I run my pool pump in at night as well.
 
estromberg said:
We bought new appliances as part of our kitchen remodel. All LG stuff from Home Depot.
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My one issue with LG is that their entertainment system products don't integrate with things from other manufacturers (i.e. their TVs won't link to a Sony surround sound system, etc.). #firstworldproblems
 
I'm starting down the road of a big kitchen remodel. Full gut/rebuild floor to ceiling an all new appliances. It's overdue and why we bought a cheap house in 2008 with "good bones" but the cost estimates feel insane. Not a great time to refi either.

It's a 1961 kitchen that was a fit-up of what had been a 1947 one-car garage. It just doesn't make sense to piecemeal it.

At least at the end of it all I will finally, for the first time in my life, have a dishwasher. I hate doing dishes. I hate being the only one in my house who does dishes.
 
Thankfully, I was able to do most all of the work of our remodel. Gutted to the studs, rewired everything, some plumbing modifications (plumbing vent had to be rerouted as it was located in the soffit). I have a finish carpenter friend that hung the cabinets for me and did the cabinet trim work. The countertop place installed the countertops. Even with the labor savings, we probably into it for ~$30k.
 
Without going through hours of pintrest or something similar, does anyone know a source for door casing styles? I vaguely remember seeing some chart or illustration that had 16 to 20 different styles. I have a old house and I am redoing a room with 3 doors and each of them have a different style of door casing. I want to make all three the same. Ideally, I would match the casings in the main part of the house but some of the molding that used in the older portion would have to be custom made.
 
New toilet installed today! One of those fancy ones that sits a couple inches higher than standard. Bonus: it works! Unlike the one it replaced.
 
I need to run to the BOB to buy a new vanity for the principal bedroom en-suite. The previous one was hideous and prompted the former owner to put down a garish linoleum to hide missing tiles under the former vanity. Installing a slightly larger vanity will allow me to completely cover the missing tile and remove the linoleum exposing nice 3" white hexagon tile floor. (Yes, I'll have a WTF - RJ would be so proud!)

New blinds on order (holy mackerel are they expensive!) and waiting for my new mattress to be delivered. Almost move-in time!
 
Salmissra said:
New toilet installed today! One of those fancy ones that sits a couple inches higher than standard. Bonus: it works! Unlike the one it replaced.
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I like the chair height toilets; however, my short wife does not like them as her feet don't hit the ground. Toilets seem to be one item that everyone, at least around here skimps on. I found that buying a middle end toilet makes the install easier and they generally flush better.

Maister said:
Nah, they're overrated. You know how much money your family can save using an outhouse?
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At my first full-time gig, there were 4 homes in that jurisdiction with functioning outhouses. I was surprised when I discovered that because it was the late 90's and I thought everyone had indoor plumbing. After a few months in that jurisdiction, I was surprised it was just 4.
 
Within the last month we've had two separate leaks in the same bathroom over our dining room. It looks like my pipes have decided one by one that 80 years was enough. We're going to meet with an architect next week to figure out how we want to rearrange some walls while we start to re-plumb parts of the house.

I made the mistake of showing my wife the corrosion and deposits in the water supply line to the shower that I cut out. I think she's going to be drinking bottled water for a while.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Within the last month we've had two separate leaks in the same bathroom over our dining room. It looks like my pipes have decided one by one that 80 years was enough. We're going to meet with an architect next week to figure out how we want to rearrange some walls while we start to re-plumb parts of the house.

I made the mistake of showing my wife the corrosion and deposits in the water supply line to the shower that I cut out. I think she's going to be drinking bottled water for a while.
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1955 house likely has cast iron DWV and maybe galvanized steel supply. Those supply lines build up rust on the inside that reduces diameter a lot.
 
So most of my family room has this odd little shelf/"bump-out" going around at the bottom of the wall. From there up there is paneling on the wall.

1718039834508.png


In one corner of the room I took it down and found that space is where a previous owner ran the wiring. Judging from the type of wiring used, it was either original to when the house was built (1950s) or shortly after. In that section I replaced the wiring with modern stuff and actually have junction boxes where wires come together (the original work just had inline splices! :wow: )

So I expect that the rest of the room is wired like that, and I will rewire to modern standards.

I'm also pulling the paneling down from the upper part of the wall and plan to paint the gypsum board. On the section where I've taken it down (the tan area), looks like the gypsum board is is okay shape, needs a few touch-ups. The part to the left of that is where I took out the "bump-out" and did the rewiring, and I know there are some holes in the gypsum board that need to be fixed.
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Currently redoing our siding . . .

I was wondering about the wisdom of leaving all the contractor's tools all over our driveway the same weekend of the Community Garage Sale. But as it turns out, nobody came by to buy any of the tools or equipment.

Jim
 
We are trying to get a full kitchen tear-out and remodel done this winter. We have a contractor we like but initial estimates on cabinets from a local custom company were wayyy out of our price range.

My wife wants to take a trip down to Ikea in the next couple of weeks to look at cabinet options. Those of you who have used Ikea, what should I know? How should I prepare for an in-person trip to the store to make sure it's productive and not just overwhelming?
 
Faust_Motel said:
We are trying to get a full kitchen tear-out and remodel done this winter. We have a contractor we like but initial estimates on cabinets from a local custom company were wayyy out of our price range.

My wife wants to take a trip down to Ikea in the next couple of weeks to look at cabinet options. Those of you who have used Ikea, what should I know? How should I prepare for an in-person trip to the store to make sure it's productive and not just overwhelming?
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Take a drawing of the proposed cabinets with you and all dimensions. Write down exactly what you need & look at those items.

Then spend the next 3 hours being distracted by all the other stuff in the store and go get some meatballs for dinner.
 
When my child moved out to their first apartment last summer, it opened the primary bedroom for me. I wasn't in much of a hurry, so I eventually got everything painted/repainted, bought a new mattress (heaven!) and moved in. The en-suite bath however, was in need of a makeover. I replaced the toilet with a new, chair height elongated model, and replaced the vanity with a new one (a story in and of itself). I also decided to pull up the cheap linoleum flooring (you could see the original hex-shaped tile imprint right through the linoleum). That's when I found out why the former owner had put down the linoleum - about a dozen floor tiles were very obviously missing under the front of the vanity. I had hoped to be able to find some matching tile, but had no luck. Then I hoped to be able to harvest enough tile from under the vanity to reuse where the missing tiles were. No luck: there weren't enough whole tiles to do the job.

So, out came the tile and the mud base - a way bigger job than I wanted. This weekend I got the cement-board flooring down, successfully working around the waste pipe for the toilet and a floor vent for heating/cooling. Dry-fit is good, now need to thin-set it this week. Bought new marble tile, which should be in next weekend. Need to tile, seal, and grout, then replace the toilet and vanity.

When I bought the house, the appraiser's report said it was a good house but needed a little refreshing. That has turned into my hobby.
 
Chipped (big) on a toilet base where the bowl sits on top. Clean water was leaking, so I have that going for me, which is nice. Small blessing in disguise. This is the second shower we've had in that bathroom so the original tile doesn't match up to the current shower pan footprint. I need to replace 4-5 tiles, which I have, but need the toilet removed to complete the work.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
Chipped (big) on a toilet base where the bowl sits on top. Clean water was leaking, so I have that going for me, which is nice. Small blessing in disguise. This is the second shower we've had in that bathroom so the original tile doesn't match up to the current shower pan footprint. I need to replace 4-5 tiles, which I have, but need the toilet removed to complete the work.
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Careful around chipped/cracked ceramics in bathrooms! One of our first responders said (from experience) "If you have a cracked toilet, get rid of it- it's an artery in somebody's leg just waiting to get sliced open."
 
Gedunker said:
When my child moved out to their first apartment last summer, it opened the primary bedroom for me. I wasn't in much of a hurry, so I eventually got everything painted/repainted, bought a new mattress (heaven!) and moved in. The en-suite bath however, was in need of a makeover. I replaced the toilet with a new, chair height elongated model, and replaced the vanity with a new one (a story in and of itself). I also decided to pull up the cheap linoleum flooring (you could see the original hex-shaped tile imprint right through the linoleum). That's when I found out why the former owner had put down the linoleum - about a dozen floor tiles were very obviously missing under the front of the vanity. I had hoped to be able to find some matching tile, but had no luck. Then I hoped to be able to harvest enough tile from under the vanity to reuse where the missing tiles were. No luck: there weren't enough whole tiles to do the job.

So, out came the tile and the mud base - a way bigger job than I wanted. This weekend I got the cement-board flooring down, successfully working around the waste pipe for the toilet and a floor vent for heating/cooling. Dry-fit is good, now need to thin-set it this week. Bought new marble tile, which should be in next weekend. Need to tile, seal, and grout, then replace the toilet and vanity.

When I bought the house, the appraiser's report said it was a good house but needed a little refreshing. That has turned into my hobby.
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When my sister bought a house years ago, it had a lot of shoddily-done improvements she had to undo. In one case, there was LIVE ELECTRICAL inside the shower . . . the outlet had been covered up by shower tiles, but, with no GFI, that was a disaster waiting to happen if there had been a leak or accident. She had it fixed immediately. Not sure how it even got signed off on like that.

Jim
 
Don't think I mentioned it... actually I've been really busy at work and haven't been posting much lately. But a couple weeks ago on a Sunday, our toilets clogged. This happens about once a year and every time the plumbers have to climb onto the roof to snake it because the house was built without cleanouts that go toward the house (there is one that goes outward toward the sewer).. And every time the plumbers tell me it's because the drains under my house are old cast iron with lots of obstruction and try to get me to replace them.

Well this time we decided to go for it. They said it would take a couple of days. They started work on Tuesday a week ago and they will finish tomorrow (hopefully) ... TWELVE DAYS. All during a very busy period at work for me. Luckily I can work from home but it was very distracting and stressful trying to be there for the plumbers and get my work done, and keep our two cats and two dogs from going berserk for all the noise.

The job turned out to be much harder than they estimated. The house is on a crawl space which should make it relatively easy. But we're also built on a rock formation (basically bedrock), so any trenching they tried to do required breaking up the rock. They had to hire an excavation company to dig a hole to access the drains where they come out on the side of the house (the sewer mainline is in an easement at the back of our property). Then they had to bring them back to dig a second access hole at the front of our house (where the toilets are). And it still took them forever. All of last weekend (three days) we had no shower or toilets working in the house. We had to go to the 24 hour QuikTrip to use the bathroom.

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Inside the house job is all done now except that they have to mount the toilet in the hall bath. They would have done that today but they had to access that vent I mentioned earlier and in doing so they cut a section out of the tiled wall behind the toilet. They did a clean job cutting it out and while they said they don't repair the walls, I was able to do it by using tile mastic and gluing that entire piece (the tiles on cement backer board) back in place after putting some support structure in there to glue it to. Anyway, it was almost dinner time when I started with that so they said they would be back in the morning.

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The flashing on the roof around that vent got messed up as well and of course they don't do that either so I have a trip to Lowe's tomorrow on my agenda.

The last thing is need to fill in the access holes on the outside of the house.

It's been a *%&#ing ordeal, I'll tell ya.
 
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The house next door was doing some construction and broke a pipe, so they turned off the water. Problem is they turned ours off too, and, in doing so, broke the “curb stop” at the water box in their backyard. That means it can’t be fixed until CGID get a whole crew out which will be tomorrow.

The water utility chewed them out and said they’ll get a big bill for the repair. We are not at fault at all and will not have to pay anything. (It’ll cost them thousands but their insurance should cover it.)

They apologized but I know it wasn’t malicious in any way.

Until then, we have no water but we have lots of bottled water we can use. We will just shower tomorrow in the clubhouse and follow the “since it’s yellow let it mellow” toilet policy at home.
 
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