Just finished recaulking the bathtub. I hate the job with a passion. When we bought the house it had acrylic caulk and I'm still scraping that off 10 years later. Silicone went on well, so hopefully it will last a while.

Next on the list is to replace the guts of a toilet. It flushes ok, but takes forever to refill so double flushes are out of the question. I'm 80% confident that it's the internals and not the water supply, but only one way to find out.

I thought I was going to have to replace the steam & fart fan in a bathroom, but the fucker started working again so I've got that going for me.

In more voluntary projects, I need to finally make that desk I've been talking about for two years.

Build a new desk. I'll have to convince my father to weld the frame for it, however he wants it to be "extra tough" even if it would cost me the ability of disassembling it.

Lighting up LEGO models. There is a lot of soldering involved (I don't use manufactured lighting kits) and software development. This involves 3D printed "bricks" for the power connectors between the modules, software frameworks for connecting all modules with a central Mosquitto server over WiFi, layouts for control boards, etc.

Lots of non-LEGO work, but also loads of building - just yesterday I secured 170 plates 8x16 for the build of moon landing platforms.

I built a scrap wood ramp for the kids to jump when sledding last night because snow was predicted for today. Nothing like table sawing at midnight in the closed garage!

Survival, mostly.

But also I need to redo the kitchen, one bathroom, and fix three vacuums and a hair dryer, build a NAS, and a bunch of other shit I forgot about

Hoping to buy a house and have more projects than I have time for! By the way, angle grinders are absurdly dangerous when used even slightly non-standard. Take a look please. https://youtu.be/o-imZgxAyIE?si=yTvJ1-KddA3duOvL Angle grinder rotation speed is enormous compared to circular saws.

I have trouble cutting straight with saws too. Switching to a Japanese pull saw has helped a ton, and they can be bought online for like $20

Fixing my old 3D printer who has been stagnating sitting on the garage for a couple of years.

Fixing my Cimbali M21 coffee machine who has been stagnating sitting in a cupboard for a couple of years.

Did I say I moved 2 years ago 😁 ?

And getting my sharing protocol out there (decentralized FOSS hosting basically).

There’s a few things I started in December but it’s been too hot to keep working on them:

1. Building a small clothes shelf for our bedroom.

2. Restoring my partners childhood bookcase. It’s must pine boards screwed together, but then painted sky blue and white. I’ve torn it apart, halfway through stripping it with a heat gun and scraper. End goal to make it something actually nice. I’ll cut it down a bit and properly finish it with shellac.

And other things I’ve been gathering materials for:

3. Gate. Our verandah has two staircases into the yard. One of them doesn’t have a gate so we’re always trying to keep our 18 month old away from it. A simple gate and latch will solve it.

4. Sun protection on the verandah. Because as nice as it is to sit outside, the angle of the sun through most of the day come straight in under the roof and it’s brutal. Got some shade cloth so finally will find some way to fix this. Affix it from the gutters to the deck posts somehow I guess. Needs to be removable because half the year we get 60km/h winds.

5. Landscaping. When we moved in 4 yards ago, the place had been professionally looked after. Nice path with decorative gravel in the backyard, I’ve let turn into grass and thistle - I trim it down but I need to dig it up and re-mat it. Front yard has a shale stone walkway that has cracked up and constant weeds growing through, so I need to take those up and re-concrete under it.

6. Most of our fences need tightening, the wire has come loose from kangaroos climbing through all the time. This is a tricky one, I haven’t had to fix fences before so not sure what I need to re-tension it and get it to stay that way.

For cutting wood, my usual go-to for straight cuts is a miter/compound saw if it's a fairly short cut. If it's larger or longer but still thin (ie < 25 mm), and absolute straightness isn't required, then jig saw free-hand following guide marks. If I do need it to be straight, then jig saw with a fence guide. And finally, if it's too big or large or thick, then I'll borrow a table saw from a friend.

Some would use a cordless circular saw before trying a jig saw or table saw, but I don't own one, mostly because I can get more utility from the jig saw for weird angle cuts.