Thread for sharing cool stuff to pass the stay-at-home time:

Maybe this isn't as cool or exciting as watching trippy, mindbendy movies, but I'm finally doing some needed home improvement projects: spring landscape and container gardening, cleaning gutters, repair wood fence, replace torn screens on sliding doors, exterior and interior painting, spring cleaning, etc. I need to detail and polycoat my car too. I've got enough projects to keep me busy for several weeks.

Progress report:

Rescreened 2 sliding patio doors. Good as new. Screen cost $7.48/door. The spline roller tool to easily press the screen tightly into the grooves is cheap. I already have one. Just reuse the original rubber screen spline, unless it's become too petrified by the sun. If you replace it, take a piece of the old spline to the store to be sure you get the same diameter. Lift up bottom spring-loaded wheels to remove door, and work on it on a hard-surface floor.

Most of the gardening work is done. Tip: To stop squirrels from digging in your plant containers to bury nuts, cover the soil surface fully around and between plants with 1.5 to 2.5-inch sized river pebbles ($4.98/bag at Home Depot or Lowe's). Problem solved, permanently. Looks good too. They mad tho.



Finished rest of my back yard gardening and minor repairs to my wood privacy fence this afternoon (Thurs).

Fri 3/27: Painting my steel mesh patio furniture today. Being close to salt water, the salty fog at night and early morning causes some light rust to the extent that it has to be painted every 2-3 years, before the rust gets serious. Walmart has very tall cans of Krylon anti-rust satin black spray paint (w/ primer) for < $5. Dries well in less than an hour. Imo it's better than Rustoleum, which is expensive, very slow drying and also requires an initial primer coat on bare metal and rust. Update: Done, good as new!

Sun 3/29: Cleaned out gutters. They were jam-packed with pine straw and leaves.

Mon-Tue 3/30-31: Did some inside spring cleaning (still have more to do).

Wed-Thu 4/1-2: Trimmed overgrown purple heart ground cover plants in my front flower beds. Propagated the clippings into some pots and into both of my next door neighbors' front flower beds -- just stick the stem with joint in the ground, keep it moist for a few days and new roots will quickly sprout from the joint. Cool plant, blooms constantly, year-round here. The small heart-shaped flowers last a long time; they close at night and reopen with the next daylight exposure.



Fri-Sat 4/3-4: Inspired (by my yard work results) and helped my next door neighbor to cleanup and fixup her ugly unkempt back yard. Reset some patio pavers, remounted loose fence boards, pulled weeds, got rid of ugly junk plastic playground toys their kids never use, while she did some gardening. She's happy -- and me too, cuz now I don't have to look at the crappy mess it was when I'm out on my upstairs deck.

Sun 4/5: Painted my old aluminum bronze colored window frames that were faded, scratched and slopped with old siding paint. They look so much better now!

Mon 4/6: Fixed another friend/neighbor's toilet and fallen towel bar and falling fence. She (Dasa) has a 2nd part-time job working in a good home-cooking restaurant and brings me some yummy free food sometimes, so I wanted to do some things for her. Then, in return, her significant other took me to Lowe's in his SUV to get her some systemic insect killer to treat two of her mite-infested sago palms and to transport my new gas grill to my place (wouldn't fit in my car). I got lucky -- bought a very nice $279 stainless steel grill (customer return, hardly used) for only $100. She's also going to let me swap my white vinyl clad fiber board panel & aluminum front storm door for her all aluminum bronze-colored door, which matches my decor (window frames, light fixture & plant containers) much better. I'll probably put a fresh coat of paint on it. #CurbAppeal. Yay! My kindness was repaid nicely.

Tue 4/7: Swapped front storm doors today with my neighbor, Dasa. She's from the Czech Republic. My ex-GF, Lenka (also Czech) used to live in the Condo unit where Dasa lives. I'm replacing Dasa's bad bathroom window screen too, using scrap from my old sliding door screen. So, she made and brought me some apple strudel. Sweet lady.

Here is a link to a site with free audiobooks. I use these to try and help me sleep.
Audiobooks for the soul

Has a bunch of Stephen King audiobooks and also “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.

“The Kingkiller Chronicle” series is a good one, even though the third book hasn’t been released yet

Good stuff.

Thanks man

I'm working from home. It's amazing.

Tiger King. Just watch it.

quote:

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as the US cannot be defeated militarily

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Sounds interesting, Prevatt.

I watched 12 strong two nights ago for the first time and would recommend. (free with ads on Prime video) What are some other movies of similar genre that I should try next?

Another for Tiger King. Must watch TV.

Thanks for the link . It was very interesting